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The Road to Transformation
“Summer Sunset, Oil Painting” by Pobytov My first awakening to the spiritual life and to the Read More
Katherine Willis Pershey | Read Psalm 16:1-6
When reading the psalms, I tend to hurry through the harsh parts. I linger on the psalmist’s intimate expressions of faith and doubt but avoid the vitriol spoken against the psalmist’s enemies. Accordingly, I often skip past the line about the maligned others who choose other gods when I read...
O God, we take refuge in you and trust that no matter what befalls us, we are yours forevermore. Amen.
Psalm 16 and Acts 2 fit together, since the latter quotes the former. Both celebrate God’s presence in human life and the powerful expression of that presence. In his Pentecost sermon Peter sees a messianic application of the psalm to the resurrection of Jesus. First Peter affirms that resurrection creates community, stressing the faith and love of Christians that arise without the experience of physical contact with Jesus. For later generations, belief and commitment are born out of the witness of others.
Read Acts 2:14a, 22-32. How should the reader (or preacher) acknowledge Peter’s troubling language of blame toward the Israelites without losing the point of the passage?
Read Psalm 16. In what way does God provide protection and refuge for you?
Read John 20:19-31. What does it mean for Jesus to bless “those who have not seen and yet have come to believe?”
Read 1 Peter 1:3-9. How do Peter’s words speak to Chris- tians who do not live with the threat of persecution?
Respond by posting a prayer.
