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About Disciplines

The Upper Room Disciplines provides an opportunity to look more deeply at scripture by offering a week of devotions by a single author on a particular theme.

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Latest Disciplines Devotions

Promises Fulfilled - December 16, 2020

December 16, 2020

I love puns, especially those based on a double entendre, a word with more than one meaning (one often risqué!). These exchanges among David, Nathan, and God are based on a...

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Promises Fulfilled - December 15, 2020

December 15, 2020

At this juncture, David is a big winner: king of Israel and Judah, conqueror of the mighty Philistines, with the captured city of Jerusalem his capital. Living in “a house of...

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Promises Fulfilled - December 14, 2020

December 14, 2020

This week’s Bible readings seem haphazard: David and Nathan (not that story), blessings on Roman Christians, Gabriel’s annunciation to Mary, and Mary’s song. And the Mary stories aren’t even in chronological...

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Justice and Hope - December 13, 2020

December 13, 2020

The religious leaders ask John the same question three times. “Who are you?” They say it over and over again. It’s clear that the priests and Levites sent by Jewish rulers...

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Justice and Hope - December 12, 2020

December 12, 2020

These two verses serve as a crescendo to the verses of Isaiah we have examined earlier this week. Isaiah 61 tells of God’s mighty work among the people and the justice...

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Justice and Hope - December 11, 2020

December 11, 2020

“It was like we had been dreaming” (ceb). Sit with this phrase for a moment. We see dreams throughout the Bible, most prominently in Joseph’s interaction with Pharaoh, but they are...

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Justice and Hope - December 10, 2020

December 10, 2020

It can be easy, especially when we live in comfortable surroundings, to let the words of the prophets become disconnected from our tangible, grounded realities. That’s why this passage from Isaiah...

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Justice and Hope - December 9, 2020

December 9, 2020

Advent is a time of reflection, but it’s also a time of tensions and uncertainty. In its quiet and dark, hope and expectation for new life begin to rise. Amid this...

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Justice and Hope - December 8, 2020

December 8, 2020

Today’s passage is one of those where it can be hard to place ourselves in the mind-set of the people who first heard it. We can try our best, but it’s...

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Justice and Hope - December 7, 2020

December 7, 2020

There’s a certain kind of poetry in the repetition and simplicity of John 1 as the Gospel writer lays the groundwork for the world-bending story to follow. In today’s passage, we’re...

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