Studying lectionary texts? Here are some starting places for study at ATLA this week. If you are the graduate of an accredited U.S. theological school, you may have free access to these articles through your school. Check ATLAS access options. You can find full lists of ATLAS recommended articles for this week at The Text This Week's page for this week's texts:
Epiphany 2A
January 15, 2017
- Cousar, Charles B., "John 1:29-42: Expository Article," Interpretation, 1977.
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“FROM THE GOSPEL lesson for the Second Sunday after Epiphany three amazingly appropriate themes for the specific season of the year emerge. Many denominations focus attention in January and February on the church's witness and mission in the world. The pericope offers help for such a concern. The liturgical emphasis calls attention to the revelation of Christ, for which the Fourth Gospel's account of Jesus' baptism provides a natural text. Finally, both themes—witness and epiphany—blend in the ensuing narrative which describes the call of the disciples to follow Jesus.”
Norris, Kathleen, "Living by the Word," The Christian Century, 2008.
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“As any Native American could tell you, naming ceremonies are important. They signify a new creation, in this case the church, full of those flawed people who will bear the name of Christian. Isaiah has told us: listen, pay attention. And the psalmist asks: did you ever find the strength to sing a new song when you were in the pit? Or perhaps you were standing on the banks of a muddy rivulet and discovered there the river of life. How is this possible? What has come into the world so that it can happen? It is not answers that matter here, but the invitation that we can only hope we have the grace to hear: come and se
- Henderson, Suzanne Watts, "1 Corinthians 1:3-9, Between Text & Sermon," Interpretation, 2008.
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“SELF-PROMOTION. SELF-INTEREST. SELF-MASTERY. Self-indulgence. How convenient it is, for readers of Scripture in late 2008, that these traits of first-century Corinth so closely parallel the contours of our own place and time. For just as Corinthian Christians struggled to embody a marginalized message of sacrifice in an era of aggrandizement, so too, today's church searches for an authentic voice amid the clamor of our culture's competing claims.”
- Norris, Kathleen, "Apocalypse Now," The Christian Century, 2005.
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“The word apocalypse simply means to reveal, to uncover, and if facing reality brings us despair, we need to ask why. Above all, we must reject the literalist notion that apocalyptic literature is about a future pie in the sky. It is a command to come to full attention in the here and now. And that is hard to do.”
- Seitz, Christopher, "'You are my Servant, You are the Israel in whom I will be glorified': The Servant Songs and the Effect of Literary Context in Isaiah," Calivin Theological Journal, 2004.
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The section on this text begins on page 124. “There is not time to explore all the implications of this understanding of Isaiah for a coherent biblical theology of Old and New Testament. Several things do stand out. ( 1 ) The first part of the book contains the theme of a word spoken that is not heeded but is preserved for a later day. (2) It contains the theme of royal promise, beyond the obedience of Hezekiah, foil to Ahaz, and it pushes this in an eschatological direction in Isaiah 11:1-9. (3) The latter Isaiah joins to this theme of royal exultation, obedience, and new creation, the theme of the suffering servant; the servant is the culmination of hopes associated with the prophet like Moses. (4) The servant embodies the hopes associated with Israel, and in particular with Israel vis-à-vis the nations. (5) The servant disciples take up this hope, and in the final chapters of Isaiah, suffer as the righteous servants at the hands of others within Israel who reject or dispute the "light to the nations" role as executed by the servants and the servant followers.”
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