Authors /
Thomas R. Steagald
Thomas R. Steagald is a retired pastor and the author of Shadows, Darkness and Dawn (Upper Room).
Preaching in the valley of actual death
My task at funerals is to share the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus.
Do we want division to cease? (Revelation 21:1-6a)
It often works pretty well for us.
Worth the risk (Mark 12:28-34)
What preacher does not like to gnaw a theological bone?
November 7, All Saints B (Isaiah 25:6–9)
The prophet Isaiah sings an eschatological melody.
October 31, Ordinary 31B (Ruth 1:1-18)
The story of two grieving and economically insecure women is the hinge of the entire covenant history.
I'm finally taking my first sabbatical from ministry
Here in Cambridge, England, I pray in the mornings, read St. Paul, walk in the afternoons—sometimes through soft English rains—and sip hot tea with cream.
Blogging toward Epiphany: A life and death matter
The Old Testament and gospel readings for Epiphany function as point and counterpoint. Isaiah offers a word of great comfort to those who have been so long in darkness. Impoverished as the hearers have been, honor and fortune are on their way. It's a message of rejoicing: the light that has dawned will make all who see it radiant.
Pay attention: Living in the present tense
When our United Methodist Annual Conference urged pastors to create covenant peer groups as a way to maintain connection, seven of my colleagues and I agreed to meet every other week for a few hour...
An enlarged and narrowed soul
O Lord, the house of my soul is narrow; enlarge it that thou
mayest enter in. It is ruinous, O repair it! It displeases thy sight; I...
Jesus gets mad
Years ago I read an article in Interpretation that forever
changed my understanding of this gospel passage. The writer focused on...
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All things to all people
Paul writes elsewhere that we are each given different gifts for ministry. Here he says that he, at least, does it all.
Sensing Jesus' authority
We preach these stories so often that sometimes it's the unexpected that keeps us going. It's especially apt when some new nuance blazes up into our awareness during the season of Epiphany....
The greatest of these is being right
When it comes to fierce theological debate—excommunicating, eternity-in-the-balance doctrinal warfare—neither the ecumenical councils nor those unpleasant doings in Geneva have anything on my local...
The piece of Christ
The prevailing topic of conversation at my mother's retirement home is the food: the menu, the cooks and—not least—the order in which people are served....
Let's back up
"Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you were baptized?" Paul asks the believers in Ephesus.
"Uh, what's the Holy Spirit?" they reply.
If you are Paul, what do you ask now?...
Flesh made word
"The Gospel doesn't just contain ideas worth remembering," says Henri Nouwen in Reaching O...