I’m guessing I’m not alone in being drawn directly to verse 5 in this Psalm, remembering that Jesus speaks these words right before breathing his last in the Gospel of Luke, and Stephen speaks them while being stoned to death in Acts (found in this week’s lection). Reading this week’s selection of Psalm 31 sets up an interesting juxtaposition between these dark and heavy moments and a fairly optimistic Psalm. Declarations of hope and confidence in God as a “rock” and a “refuge”, as one who...

We are drowning in words today. I sometimes wonder if words have ever carried less value than they do at this particular moment in history. The internet allows just about anybody to publish words publicly,[1] and most of us spend too much time scrolling through thoughtless, meaningless words from family, friends, and frenemies. It takes almost no effort to say something these days, so we “speak” without restraint or meditation. And with so much meaningless utterance in the air, we don’t tend...

We have been trying to escape this world that God has created with us in mind since the garden of Eden. In Genesis, God forms Adam from...