Promises and promising

For more commentary on this week's readings, see the Reflections on the Lectionary page, which includes Avram's current Living by the Word column as well as past magazine and blog content. For full-text access to all articles, subscribe to the Century.

This week's 2 Samuel and Luke passages get me thinking about promising.

Not coerced promises. A promise to obey traffic laws in order to get a license is benignly coerced. A promise to be quiet under threat of harm is violently coerced. They're not what I'm thinking about.