Posts with the tag “joel-esala”

Yesterday, I was elected and installed as the Moderator of the Presbytery of Scioto Valley for 2025, and Covenant served as host church. What a blessing! After 8 years of ordained service in this Pres...  Read More

“What do you want me to do for you?” The blind man said to him, “My teacher, let me see again.” Jesus said to him, “Go; your faith has made you well.” Mark 10:51-52 Jesus and his followers come to the...  Read More

Jesus called them and said to them, “You know that among the gentiles those whom they recognize as their rulers lord it over them, and their great ones are tyrants over them. 43 But it is not so among...  Read More

Jesus good because I want something from him? In the case of this man, it seems to be the latter. He wants Jesus to ensure him that he’s on the path to the sweet by and by, and I don’t think he’s alon...  Read More

In this week’s reading, John told Jesus he tried to stop someone who had been ministering in Jesus’ name, “because he was not following us.” John is concerned with whose team gets the credit. For Jesu...  Read More

We are in the middle of Mark, which makes Jesus’ question the disciples’ midterm exam. Peter answers, “You are the Messiah.” In other words, you are more than a prophet, Jesus. You are the one who’s c...  Read More

“Why do your disciples not walk according to the tradition of the elders but eat with defiled hands?” He said to them, “Isaiah prophesied rightly about you hypocrites, as it is written, ‘This ...  Read More

“But when they saw him walking on the sea, they thought it was a ghost and cried out, for they all saw him and were terrified. But immediately he spoke to them and said, ‘Take heart, it is I; do not b...  Read More

After David dies, God comes to Solomon in a dream telling him to ask for whatever he wants. Solomon asks for wisdom. I wonder how much of religion and society’s dysfunction comes from pursuing the rel...  Read More

There is an order to our lives that we must all recognize, and we fight it to our own peril. The scriptures teach us about this order from beginning to end. Proverbs says, “Whoever sows injustice will...  Read More

Everyone knows Lord Acton’s famous quote, “Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely,” but few of us know the very next sentence in that quote, “Great men are almost always bad me...  Read More

This is the very first utterance in scripture of the word “Zion.” The story of Zion ends better than it begins, which is something we can say about the Biblical narrative as a whole. The Bible is not ...  Read More

We love David verses Goliath stories because we need to believe that hope is possible in the face of insurmountable odds. In our morally ambiguous world, it’s nice to have simple stories where good gu...  Read More

How can human beings be trusted with power? What do we do when leaders become misleaders, and our heroes turn out to be antiheroes? What do we do when we are the problem? ...  Read More