This jam-packed service begins with a special word from our Wisconsin Conference Minister, Franz Rigert, followed by an update concerning the India Gala. In today’s message, Jesus reveals the two commands at the heart of his teaching: Love God supremely, and love others as we love ourselves. All other divine commands are simply a footnote to these two commandments. Opening Hymn: Sun…
From prison, Paul writes of his commission to speak boldly and courageously of the mystery that has been revealed to him that God is drawing all things together in Christ so that the church might participate in God’s eternal plan and be a peace-making instrument of unity and reconciliation. There is no “After the Through the Bible Zoom Chat” tonight because the…
After experiencing God’s renewed commitment to journey with wayward Israel, Moses asks to see God’s glory. God promises to reveal the divine glory, but warns that Moses cannot see the Divine Face, for such an unmediated gaze on the Divine would be lethal to Moses. God then promises to protect Moses from this direct gaze. Moses then receives a revelation of God’s…
The apostle presents his most elevated teaching concerning the church by speaking of it as a “new humanity” and a “living temple” created by God to manifest God’s will in the world. Tearing down walls and manifesting God’s peace is at the heart of achieving God’s plan to unite all things in Christ. Join us for our “After the Through the Bible”…
Days after entering into covenant with God, the people of God craft an idol while Moses is away on Mount Sinai. God threatens to destroy the people, but Moses intercedes on their behalf and God relents. This story has much to teach us about our proneness to idolatry and about what faithful and faithless leadership looks like. Opening Hymn: For the Beauty…
Christians talk a lot about “being saved” but what are we actually talking about. What is salvation? Why do we need it? And – most importantly – what is it’s purpose? What is it for? In today’s reading, Paul speaks of our desperate need for salvation, of God’s initiative by grace to bring it about, and of what it means to truly…
There is a great difference between what we can do, will do, and should do. What we “can” do reveals our freedom to choose between either good or bad options. What we “will” do expresses our ability to volitionally make decisions for ourselves. What we “should” do stems from an entirely different foundation – it has to do with an ethical guideline…
Following Paul’s explosion of worship, he prays for the churches, beginning with his “unceasing prayer” that God would grant a spirit of wisdom and revelation that the “eyes of their heart” may be enlightened by the Gospel and the great power of God behind it. Paul does not begin with prayers for healing, comfort, or blessings (as important as these are), but…
In today’s story, Jesus seeks to overcome the “confirmation bias” of his interlocutors who seek to trap him with their “gotcha question”. Confirmation bias is the tendency to take in only data that confirms a prior conviction and to discount information that does not conform to what we already believe. We are all guilty of this at times, and the danger is…
The Apostle begins this letter with a long, complex sentence (202 words long in the Greek). He begins with worship in order to give the context for all he is to say from the foundation of the “bigger picture” of God’s great plan from the foundation of the earth to bless by grace and unite all things in heaven and earth in…