Discerning God's Will - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Tuesday • 8/15/2023 
Tuesday of the Eleventh Week After Pentecost (Proper 14) 

This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 97; Psalm 99; Psalm 100; 2 Samuel 14:1–20; Acts 21:1–14; Mark 10:1–16 

This morning’s Canticles are: following the OT reading, Canticle 13 (“A Song of Praise,” BCP, p. 90); following the Epistle reading, Canticle 18 (“A Song to the Lamb,” Revelation 4:11; 5:9–10, 13, BCP, p. 93)  

Welcome to Daily Office Devotions, where every Monday through Friday we draw insights from that day’s Scripture readings, as given in the Book of Common Prayer. I’m Reggie Kidd, and I’m grateful to be with you. This Tuesday in the Season After Pentecost our readings come from Proper 14 of Year 1 in the Daily Office Lectionary.  

2 Samuel 14: discerning God’s will can be hard: part one. There is a fine ambiguity in the wording of 2 Samuel 13:33. The verse can be rendered as the NRSV has it: “And the heart of King David longed to go out to Absalom; for he was comforted regarding Amnon, since he was dead.” Or it can be rendered as the notes in the New Oxford Annotated Bible suggest: “The king’s spirit for marching out against Absalom was exhausted.”  

David is conflicted in his feelings for his son Absalom. The last verse of 2 Samuel 13 seems to indicate (according to the latter of the two readings above) that David’s impulse to pursue and punish Absalom for the murder of Amnon dies down after the passage of time, when David is consoled at the loss of Amnon. But, says, 2 Samuel 14:1, Absalom is still on his mind.  

Joab, David’s general-in-chief, concocts a plan to convince David to reconcile with Absalom. Should David decide to exact life-for-life, the kingdom would not be well served by the loss of both Amnon and Absalom, first and second in line for the kingship. Joab secures the services of a skilled actress. She presents herself to the king as a widow survived by two sons, one of which kills the other. People have demanded she surrender the remaining son to “the avenger of blood” (2 Samuel 13:11). To do so, however, would leave her personally desolate and her estate with no heir.  

Even though David sees through the ruse and detects Joab’s machinations, he grants the point. He realizes the need to extend mercy to Absalom. We’ll see in tomorrow’s reading that mercy goes only part of the way. There’s never a genuine reconciliation with Absalom, and more’s the pity.  

Acts 21: discerning God’s will can be hard: part two. For a year and a half, Paul has been taking up a collection from the wealthier Gentile churches in Greece and Asia Minor to take care of the impoverished Jewish church of Jerusalem. It is his earnest hope that this symbol of Gentile-Jewish unity in Christ will help all believers appreciate the extraordinary thing that God is doing to restore wholeness to the fractured human race. He understands that there is great peril for him in his undertaking. The Jerusalem church may or may not accept the gift. Non-christian Jews in Jerusalem may conspire against him. He may run afoul of Roman authorities. Thus, from Corinth, he writes to believers in Rome on the eve of the trip to deliver the collection to the church of Jerusalem: “Now I urge you, brothers and sisters, by our Lord Jesus Christ and by the love of the Spirit, to strive together with me in your prayers to God for me, that I may be rescued from those who are disobedient in Judea, and that my service for Jerusalem may prove acceptable to the saints; so that I may come to you in joy by the will of God and relax in your company” (Romans 15:30–32).   

Today’s passage narrates that trip. Paul is certain that this path is one that the Lord has laid before him. As he has already explained to the Ephesian elders, despite whatever imprisonments and punishments may lie before him, “…I do not count my life of any value to myself, if only I may finish my course and the ministry that I received from the Lord Jesus, to testify to the good news of God’s grace” (Acts 20:24). That is why he resists the well-meaning and seemingly Spirit-inspired urgings not to go to Jerusalem he encounters at two stops along his way. Sometimes, to follow God’s will you have to go against the flow.  

Mark 10: discerning God’s will can be simple (if not easy). Jesus answers a question about the permissibility of divorce, and he observes people acting dismissively toward children. God brings a man and a woman together as “one flesh” for the rest of their lives, he insists. And he sets the highest priority of care on “little children.” The Lord lays before me (and I will speak personally, because all our life situations are different) two matters in which God’s will is unambiguously clear: I am to be utterly committed to my marriage, and I am to place the highest premium on the wellbeing of the little ones to whom the kingdom of God belongs. Period. 

Collect for Proper 14: Grant to us, Lord, we pray, the spirit to think and do always those things that are right, that we, who cannot exist without you, may by you be enabled to live according to your will; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen. 

Be blessed this day, 

Reggie Kidd+ 

God’s Abundant Grace - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Monday • 8/14/2023 
Monday of the Eleventh Week After Pentecost (Proper 14)  

This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 89; 2 Samuel 13:23–39; Acts 20:17–38; Mark 9:42–50 

This morning’s Canticles are: following the OT reading, Canticle 9 (“The First Song of Isaiah,” Isaiah 12:2–6, BCP, p. 86); following the Epistle reading, Canticle 19 (“The Song of the Redeemed,” Revelation 15:3–4, BCP, p. 94) 

Welcome to Daily Office Devotions, where every Monday through Friday we explore that day’s Scripture readings, as given in the Book of Common Prayer. I’m Reggie Kidd. Thanks for joining me. This Monday in the Season After Pentecost our readings finds us in Proper 14 of Year 1 in the Daily Office Lectionary.  

During the next two weeks, 2 Samuel will describe the fulfillment of Nathan’s words to David: “the sword shall never depart from your house” (2 Samuel 12:10). Just as David had taken Bathsheba and murdered Uriah, so sexual violation and death are unleashed within his house.  

2 Samuel: when a spirit of rage and bitterness rules. Today’s reading follows the cringe-worthy account of the way Amnon, David’s firstborn son and the nation’s crown prince, craftily and deviously forces himself on his half-sister Tamar. Horribly, and entirely too predictably, no sooner are his lust and will to power violently satisfied than his emotions flip: “Then Amnon was seized with a very great loathing for her; his loathing was even greater than the lust he had felt for her” (2 Samuel 13:15). Unwilling to marry her (as called for by Exodus 22:16 and Deuteronomy 22:28–29), he commands his servant: “Rid me of this woman. … Throw her out and bolt the door behind her!” (2 Samuel 13:17 NJB)). He won’t even say her name. First, he robs her of her innocence, then of her identity.  

Though David is furious with Amnon, and though he knows it is his job as king to “administer justice and equity to all his people” (see 2 Samuel 8:15). David does nothing to address the wrong done to Tamar: “When King David heard of all these things, he became very angry, but he would not punish his son Amnon, because he loved him, for he was his firstborn” (2 Samuel 13:21). There’s no mention of love for his daughter; his sin of omission is shameful. And for two years, Absalom, who is Tamar’s full brother, silently nurses his rage against Amnon for violating his sister and leaving her desolate and shamed. His subsequent actions betray fury against his father as well.  

In today’s account, we see the beginning of Absalom’s foolhardy, faithless, and ultimately fateful design to right the wrong done to his sister and then to displace his father as king. 

Amnon, like his father David, has taken a woman he has no right to. Absalom (like his father David, who orchestrated Uriah’s death) orchestrates Amnon’s murder. He lures him to a party and has his men assassinate him. Absalom then goes into self-exile for three years in Geshur, home of his maternal grandfather Talmai. David is grieved. He’s lost his firstborn, and the kingdom has lost its heir apparent. But again, David does nothing. He eventually accepts Absalom back into Jerusalem (though he will keep him at arm’s length). “And the heart of the king went out, yearning for Absalom; for he was now consoled over the death of Amnon” (2 Samuel 13:39).  

This large-format copy of the New Testament was created at, and for, Rochester Cathedral in Rochester, England, in the first half of the twelfth century. The manuscript is an important survival, for it is one part of what is believed to be the earliest decorated Bible produced at the priory scriptorium at Rochester. Originally a five volume work, only one other volume, British Library, Royal I.C.VII., has survived. The book’s large size indicates it was designed to be read aloud, either during services or at meals. Large, fanciful initials filled with foliage, dragons, and human faces begin each section of the text, and their vibrant color and intricate designs capture the essence of Romanesque manuscript illumination. Initial “P” opening the Epistle of St. Paul to the Ephesians. 

Image: "Ephesus Archaelogical Museum, Seljuk" by hugh llewelyn is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0 

Acts: when the Spirit of God comes. What a different spirit courses through Paul’s address to the Ephesian elders! Genuine love and affection have united the apostle and this group of people among whom he has lived. He has made it clear that his message of “repentance toward God and  faith in our Lord Jesus Christ” (Acts 20:21) is about God’s free and abundant grace. He has supported himself with his own hands while he has proclaimed God’s kingdom. He has sought to model Jesus’s own teaching (and because it is a saying that doesn’t appear in any of the gospels, it is especially to be prized): “It is more blessed to give than to receive” (Acts 20:35).  

The ongoing saga of David’s dynasty shows how God’s redemptive power and Kingdom purposes work their way into human history through utterly fallen and altogether sin-wracked people. If our Sunday school heroes like David had not been so whitewashed for us through the years, perhaps we would be more patient with the frailty, flaws, foolishness, and failures in figures of more recent history. God’s Redeemer doesn’t come for people who don’t need redemption.  

At the same time, it is good to be reminded that God’s Redeemer has indeed come for people in need of redemption. God has purchased his church with the blood of his own dear Son (Acts 20:28), and has opened to us the door of repentance and faith. The church is the place where Jesus’s presence, by the Holy Spirit, makes people new. He transforms takers into givers, and he makes those who have been shamed or aggrieved into those who know themselves to be beloved and reconciled.  

Collect for Proper 14: Grant to us, Lord, we pray, the spirit to think and do always those things that are right, that we, who cannot exist without you, may by you be enabled to live according to your will; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen. 

Be blessed this day,  

Reggie Kidd+ 

Assault on Idolatry - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Friday • 8/11/2023 
Friday of the Tenth Week After Pentecost (Proper 13) 

This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 88; 2 Samuel 12:1–14; Acts 19:21–41; Mark 9:14–29 

This morning’s Canticles are: following the OT reading, Canticle 10 (“The Second Song of Isaiah,” Isaiah 55:6–11; BCP, p. 86); following the Epistle reading, Canticle 18 (“A Song to the Lamb,” Revelation 4:11; 5:9–10, 13, BCP, p. 93) 

Welcome to Daily Office Devotions, where every Monday through Friday we bring to our lives that day’s Scripture readings, as given in the Book of Common Prayer. I’m Reggie Kidd, and I’m grateful to be with you this Friday in the Season After Pentecost. We are in Proper 13 of Year 1 of the Daily Office Lectionary.  

2 Samuel: when you discover you are a monster. Through the prophet Nathan’s parable about a rich man who steals his neighbor’s favorite ewe, David realizes he is a monster. He has stolen his neighbor’s wife, and he has committed murder to cover his transgression. He confesses his sin (the content of which he captures in Psalms 51 and 32). Nathan pronounces him forgiven, but also outlines consequences he will not be able to escape.  

Mark: Jesus’s frontal assault on evil. Sin’s grip on us can be subtle and covert or it can be not subtle and overt. Many, probably most, of us keep our sinning under cover. In today’s account in Mark, however, Jesus confronts evil head on. I thank God that Jesus showed his power to confront demonic oppression directly. I thank God that he mounted the cross to conquer the “prince of the power of the air” on his own turf (as Athanasius so nicely put it). And I thank God for those in the church whom he has called and gifted even today to discern direct demonic activity in people’s lives and to call upon Jesus’s exorcizing power.  

Image: "Ephesus Archaelogical Museum, Seljuk" by hugh llewelyn is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0 

Acts: Paul’s subtle assault on idolatry. Paul’s promotion of Christ prompts pushback from those whose livelihoods depend upon the veneration of Artemis, Ephesus’s patron deity. It does not appear, however, that Paul has launched a frontal anti-Artemis campaign. His approach is more subtle. He has preached Christ, and people have made their own inferences: if Christ is lord, then Artemis can’t be. And they are right! 

I never ceased to be amazed at the profundity of the apostle Paul’s ministry strategy. Ephesians worship a rock that had supposedly fallen from heaven centuries beforehand. Ephesians named the rock “Artemis” and built a shrine to it/her that was so magnificent the structure was considered one of the “Seven Wonders of the World.” According to an A.D. 2nd century inscription, in exchange for the city’s being the nurturer (hē trophos) of this rock, Artemis had made the city “most radiant in glory” (endoxatera).*  

According to his letter to the Ephesians, Paul’s teaching, by contrast, is that Christ nurtures (ektrephein) the church, his bride, and makes her “radiant in glory” as a free gift (endoxa — Ephesians 5:27,29). And while the cheers to Artemis will go up for two hours, “Great is Artemis! Great is Artemis!” (see Acts 19:28), Paul will write to Timothy, his ministry-delegate in Ephesus, that what is “great” is something quite different: “[G]reat is the mystery of godliness” (1 Timothy 3:16a). And at the heart of Paul’s “great mystery of godliness” is not a lifeless rock, but “the one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus … who was revealed in the flesh, was vindicated in the Spirit, seen by angels, proclaimed among the nations, believed on in the world, taken up in glory” (1 Timothy 2:5; 3:16). The great mystery of godliness is Jesus, not a deaf, unfeeling rock.  

The whole thing invites a pondering of how powerfully Jesus challenges people’s basic religious assumptions and spiritual instincts — including our own. Before what lifeless and meaningless “rocks” are we inclined to prostrate ourselves? Do I seek solace in food or drink or Netflix or gambling? Do I hope for meaning in life from success in work or school or investments or politics?  

How, by contrast, does “the one mediator, the man Christ Jesus … the great mystery of godliness,” breathe life into the dead spaces in our lives?  

Be blessed this day,  

Reggie Kidd+  

*R. Oster, “Holy days in honor of Artemis,” in G. H. R. Horsley, ed., New Documents Illustrating Early Christianity, Volume 4 (MacQuarie University, 1987), No. 19, pp. 75–75.  

Jesus's Transfiguration - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Thursday • 8/10/2023 
Thursday of the Tenth Week After Pentecost (Proper 13) 

This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 83; Psalm 145; 2 Samuel 11:1–27; Acts 19:11–20; Mark 9:2–13  

This morning’s Canticles are: following the OT reading, Canticle 8 (“The Song of Moses,” Exodus 15, BCP, p. 85); following the Epistle reading, Canticle 19 (“The Song of the Redeemed,” Revelation 15:3–4, BCP, p. 94) 

Welcome to Daily Office Devotions, where every Monday through Friday we consider some aspect of that day’s Scripture readings, as given in the Book of Common Prayer. I’m Reggie Kidd, and I’m grateful to be with you. On this Thursday in the Season After Pentecost our readings come from Proper 13 of Year 1 in the Daily Office Lectionary.  

2 Samuel: David becomes a monster. The David of today’s account is hardly a “man after the Lord’s own heart” (see 1 Samuel 13:14; Acts 13:22). He’s at the height of his power. The prophet Nathan has revealed God’s promise of an everlasting dynasty. Yet David stumbles. Horribly. It is as though David intends to prove ahead of time the truth of British Lord Acton’s 1887 dictum: “Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men.”  

God has graciously given him power to shepherd His flock and to administer justice on behalf of His people. Instead, David abuses his power. He fleeces the flock by taking Bathsheba from Uriah, and he breaks Commandments Five through Ten in the process.   He’s a murder, an adulterer, a thief, and a liar—and, of course, it all begins when he covets his neighbor’s wife. David becomes a monster, and we cringe as we observe. 

Mark: Jesus’s transfiguration and its promise. The transfiguration of Jesus promises us that all that is monstrous within us will one day be vanquished. Jesus appears garbed in the glorified humanity that will be his upon his resurrection. His will be a glorified humanity which we will share as well. It was difficult for Peter to understand what was going on that day: “He did not know what to say…” (Mark 9:6).  

Later, with this very moment in mind (“we had been eyewitnesses of his majesty”—2 Peter 1:16), Peter describes the significance of his glimpse of God’s revivification of our fallen human nature. Jesus’s transfiguration had been a preview of our becoming “participants of the divine nature. For this very reason, you must make every effort to support your faith with goodness, and goodness with knowledge, and knowledge with self-control, and self-control with endurance, and endurance with godliness, and godliness with mutual affection, and mutual affection with love” (2 Peter 1:3–7).  

The wonder is this: the life of the future has taken hold of our lives right now. We will one day be entirely filled with goodness and faith and knowledge and self-control and godliness and mutual affection and love. Yet even now, from Peter’s perspective, that life has the power to work its way into the very fiber of our being. Praise be! We don’t have to surrender to being monsters.  

Image: "Paul and Thecla fresco" by David J. Lull is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0 

Acts: Paul’s battle against evil. Paul’s ministry is to declare the good news of God’s rescuing us from sin and evil and death through Christ Jesus. God attests to the truthfulness of Paul’s message by granting miraculous healings and deliverances, even by means of articles of clothing that had touched his skin (Acts 19:11–12).  

Inevitably, Paul meets resistance from “the other side.” A subtle form of resistance comes in the form of imitation—imitation by those who know to invoke the name of Jesus, but without knowing Jesus (Acts 19:13–15). Their beating at the hands of a demon-possessed man sends the imitators scurrying (Acts 19:16). It so happens that archaeological evidence shows the people of Ephesus and its environs to have been unusually attracted to phenomena that we would think of as magical and esoteric. So, when word gets out that the Jesus whom Paul preaches is not to be trifled with, there is a strong response. Many practitioners of magical arts become believers in Christ, and jettison the artifacts of their former way of life (Acts 19:17–19).  

Again and again, the Bible presses upon us God’s relentless pursuit of the human race. He will not surrender us to our worst instincts. He has come to us in his Son, with the promise to eliminate the evil in us and to transfigure us no less than he transfigured his Son, and to call us no less beloved than the Beloved himself.  

Be blessed this day,  

Reggie Kidd+ 

We Have a Merciful King - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Wednesday • 8/9/2023 
Wednesday of the Tenth Week After Pentecost (Proper 13) 

This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 119:97–120; 2 Samuel 9:1–13; Acts 19:1–10; Mark 8:34–9:1 

This morning’s Canticles are: following the OT reading, Canticle 11 (“The Third Song of Isaiah,” Isaiah 60:1-3,11a,14c,18-19, BCP, p. 87); following the Epistle reading, Canticle 16 (“The Song of Zechariah,” Luke 1:68-79, BCP, p. 92) 

Welcome to Daily Office Devotions, where every Monday through Friday we ask how God might direct our lives from that day’s Scripture readings, as given in the Book of Common Prayer. I’m Reggie Kidd, and I’m grateful to be with you. This Wednesday in the Season After Pentecost our readings come from Proper 13 of Year 1 in the Daily Office Lectionary.  

A well-meaning preacher I once knew seemed to have stalled out on one message: “Repent!” The only way to feel good about your Christian life was to feel bad. If your job wasn’t going well, you needed to repent. If you felt lonely, you needed to repent. If you weren’t sure about God’s calling on your life, you needed to repent. Honestly, going to his church was depressing.  

Acts: from gloom to joy. In Ephesus, Paul comes upon a group of twelve “disciples” stuck in the same rut. At first, Paul assumes that they are Christians, but he soon finds out they are not yet Christians. Their “discipleship” consists of dedication to the memory of John the Baptist. Paul instructs them, however, that John’s message had been one of penitent preparation only. John had ministered, Paul explains, in anticipation of something — Someone! — better: “John baptized with the baptism of repentance, telling the people to believe in the one who was to come after him, that is, in Jesus” (Acts 19:4).  

Image: The Albertype Co. (Brooklyn), Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons 

When Paul points them to the person of Jesus instead of to an experience of repentance, suddenly the Holy Spirit falls upon them, and they display extraordinary signs of the inbreaking of God’s kingdom: “…they spoke in tongues and prophesied” (Acts 19:6). Unanticipated ecstasy takes over from gloom. Excitement about the future replaces mere memorializing of the past.  

An important takeaway for us is that Paul doesn’t try to replace one kind of experience (doleful regret about themselves and the sad state of the world) with another kind of experience (joyful exuberance). Rather, he points them to Jesus. The Greek idiom Paul uses twice in Acts 19:4 is “believe into Jesus” (emphasis mine). The idea is “place your whole person, your life, your destiny, your hopes, your sense of well-being—place it all into the hands of Jesus.”  

When that entrustment happens, heaven opens, and the Spirit comes. For Jesus is sin-bearer, gift-giver, joy-bringer, hope-instiller, love-inspirer. Resting in his strong hands, we find the Spirit’s life being breathed into us and then flowing out of us: “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control” (Galatians 5:22).  

Mark: “take up your cross.” “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.  For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it” — Mark 9:34–35. The testimony of two millennia of Spirit-kissed Christ-followers is, therefore, that crosses can be taken up joyfully, martyrdoms can be endured while singing, and self-denying missions can be undertaken without regret. “The power of his resurrection” always accompanies “the fellowship of Christ’s sufferings” because through it all, Christ himself is there, for, as Paul says, he is faithful (Philippians 3:9–10).  

2 Samuel: David’s kindness to Mephibosheth. Among all the failings the Old Testament records flash a few displays of Kingdom life. King David’s deep affection for Jonathan, son of Saul, leads him to make life-long provision for Jonathan’s son Mephibosheth, who had been accidentally crippled in 2 Samuel 4:4.  

Mephibosheth becomes a lovely picture of all of us who know ourselves to be broken in some way—and nonetheless welcomed to the Table of God’s Anointed, and lovingly cared for there. Some of us live with physical or mental disabilities, some with moral struggles or besetting sins, some with fractured homes or other challenging life situations. Whatever our infirmities, in Jesus David’s greater Son, we have a King who is merciful, generous, and welcoming.  

Be blessed this day,  

Reggie Kidd+  

The Way of God - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Tuesday • 8/8/2023 
Tuesday of the Tenth Week After Pentecost (Proper 13) 

This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 78; 2 Samuel 7:18–29; Acts 18:12–28; Mark 8:22–33 

This morning’s Canticles are: following the OT reading, Canticle 13 (“A Song of Praise,” BCP, p. 90); following the Epistle reading, Canticle 18 (“A Song to the Lamb,” Revelation 4:11; 5:9–10, 13, BCP, p. 93)  

Welcome to Daily Office Devotions, where every Monday through Friday we draw insights from that day’s Scripture readings, as given in the Book of Common Prayer. I’m Reggie Kidd, and I’m grateful to be with you. This Tuesday in the Season After Pentecost our readings come from Proper 13 of Year 1 in the Daily Office Lectionary.  

Mark: “men like trees walking.” In yesterday’s Gospel reading, Jesus denounced the reformist and pietistic way of the Pharisees and the secularist and accommodationist way of the Herodians. Today, he begins to unveil his own way. Today begins the campaign to show that the way of the cross is the way of life.  

Today’s passage is the hinge on which Mark’s Gospel pivots to this theme.* Mark’s is the only gospel to tell the remarkable story of the blind man who, at Jesus’s first touch gains just enough sight to see blurred “men like trees walking,” and who thus needs a second touch from Jesus for his blindness to be completely cured and for him to “see everything clearly” (Mark 8:25).  

Image: Adapted from: Wellcome Library, London. Wellcome Images images@wellcome.ac.uk http://wellcomeimages.org Christ heals a blind man by placing clay on his eye. Stipple engraving by R.A. Artlett after J.D. Crittendon. By: John Denton Crittendonafter: Richard Austin ArtlettPublished: Copyrighted work available under Creative Commons Attribution only licence CC BY 4.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ 

The account is a brilliant setup to Peter’s confession that Jesus is indeed the Christ (Peter “sees” the truth, but only with blurred vision—Mark 8:29). Peter’s confession requires Jesus’s further explanation that the mission of the Son of Man (i.e., the Christ) is to suffer, be rejected, die, and rise again (Peter and the other disciples must “see” this truth in order to “see everything clearly”—Mark 8:31–33). Twice more in chapters nine and ten, Jesus will have to outline his messianic mission (Mark 9:30-32; 10:32–34). He will round out the entire section with the healing of blind Bartimaeus (Mark 10:46–52), a miracle that does not have to be repeated, coming as it does on the far side of the full explanation that, “For the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life a ransom for many” (Mark 10:45).  

There is good reason for the BCP’s prayer: “Mercifully grant that we, walking in the way of the cross, may find it none other than the way of life and peace” (BCP, p. 99, 220, 272, 420). Life and peace come by means of the cross, not by self-fixes, and not by system-fixes.  

Acts: learning “the way of God.” The account of Apollos, Priscilla, and Aquila in Acts shows how “the way of the cross” turns out to be “the way of life and peace.”  

Apollos, a Jewish Christian from Alexandria, is a brilliant student both of Scripture and of contemporary rhetoric (Acts 18:24). He has been well instructed in the “the things of Jesus” (18:25), meaning apparently that he is well acquainted with the life and teachings of Jesus, and with the ways that Jesus fulfills Old Testament promises about the coming of the Messiah (Acts 18:25a). Moreover, he glows with the fire of the Spirit (zeōn tō pneumati). Curiously, however, his understanding of baptism only extends to John’s baptism of preparatory repentance (Acts 18:24–25). His experience is of a piece with the fluid relationship between faith, repentance, water-baptism, and Spirit-baptism in the book of Acts. However, there appears to be something he doesn’t quite understand about the faith. 

Priscilla and Aquila nicely display “the way of the cross” by the way they minister to Apollos. 

First, when they decide to address deficiencies in his presentations in Ephesus, they do so privately not publicly. Rather than calling him out in front of everybody else, they take him aside for “more accurate” instruction (Acts 18:26).  

Second, they sense the need to augment his accurate understanding of “the things of Jesus,” the facts about Jesus’s life, ministry, and Messiahship. These facts will be powerful weapons in Apollos’s arsenal to persuade people to become Christians. But Priscilla and Aquila know that there is more to “the things of Jesus” than just getting people’s intellectual assent about those facts. Potential believers will need, and thus Apollos will need, to understand “the way of God” (Acts 18:26). Apollos needs to understand that there is a way of living that follows from those facts.  

Apollos receives the Ephesian church’s blessing to cross the Aegean Sea to minister in Achaia (Greece), in the city of Corinth (Acts 18:27). There he is greatly helpful. Yet, as we will see in a few weeks when we read 1 Corinthians (Propers 19–24), misunderstandings emerge in Corinth. Having lived among the Corinthians themselves, Priscilla and Aquila understand the Corinthians’ susceptibility to impressive rhetoric and powerful spiritual display. They want Apollos to understand that “the way of God” is the way of humility and service.  

Apollos is an excellent example of the way that many of us must learn that our strengths can also be our weaknesses. Our strengths must be diligently and relentlessly yoked to Christ and his cross. Paul tells the Corinthians not to pit him and Apollos against each other: “I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth” (1 Corinthians 3:6). The “way of God” is not about taking pride in who baptized you, or about how hyper-intellectual your faith is, or about how super-spiritual your experience of God is. The “way of God” is the way of the cross.  

Be blessed this day,  

Reggie Kidd+ 

*Slightly altered here, this and the following two paragraphs appeared in the DDD for Wednesday of this year’s Week 4 of Epiphany.  

The Bread of Life - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Monday • 8/7/2023 
Monday of the Tenth Week After Pentecost (Proper 13) • Year One 

This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 80; 2 Samuel 7:1–17; Acts 18:–11; Mark 8:11–21 

This morning’s Canticles are: following the OT reading, Canticle 9 (“The First Song of Isaiah,” Isaiah 12:2–6, BCP, p. 86); following the Epistle reading, Canticle 19 (“The Song of the Redeemed,” Revelation 15:3–4, BCP, p. 94) 

Welcome to Daily Office Devotions, where every Monday through Friday we explore that day’s Scripture readings, as given in the Book of Common Prayer. I’m Reggie Kidd. Thanks for joining me. This Monday in the Season After Pentecost our readings finds us in Proper 13 of Year 1 in the Daily Office Lectionary.  

There are so many ways we can put our relationship with God on the wrong footing. Mercifully, the Lord is not content to let us get away with it.  

Image: "Doh, I knew I forgot something!" by THX0477 is licensed under CC BY 2.0 

2 Samuel: getting straight on who is the gift-giver. After God allowed him to have a fine cedar house, David wished to return the favor. Commentators suggest David would thereby make himself God’s benefactor rather than vice versa. At first, the prophet Nathan affirms David’s plan. But the Lord intervenes. He tells Nathan to inform David that he’s not the person to build God a “house.” Instead, God will do that “house” building. In God’s ongoing and relentless grace, David will build, not a physical building, but a royal house: a dynasty, a lineage that will always rule. 

What Yahweh will do for David is infinitely greater than anything David could do for Yahweh! “Thus says the Lord of Hosts, ‘I took you from the pasture, from following the sheep to be prince over my people Israel’” (2 Samuel 7:8). The leaders of Israel  acknowledged David as their shepherd: “The  Lord  said to you: It is you who shall be shepherd of my people Israel, you who shall be ruler over Israel” (2 Samuel 5:2). And Yahweh will do extraordinary things for his people through the shepherd-kings who follow David. He will plant them in their homeland, free them from evildoers, grant rest from their enemies, take up residence among them, and provide perpetuity to David’s line (2 Samuel 7:10–17).  

David is to understand — and it’s an invaluable lesson for you and me — that God’s gifts to us far outweigh our gifts to him.  

Mark: don’t try to replace God’s gift. God’s preeminent gift, we find in the New Testament, is David’s greater Son. Jesus comes as the Good Shepherd (John 10). In Mark’s gospel, Jesus has shown himself to be that great Davidic shepherd-king. With compassion for “sheep without a shepherd” he has taught them (Mark 6:34). And by means of the feeding of the 5,000 and the 4,000, he has shown himself to be the ultimate shepherd who finds green pastures and sets a banquet for his flock (Mark 6:30–44; 8:1–9; see Psalm 23). King Jesus is simultaneously Good Shepherd and Bread from Heaven.  

Believing that Jesus is heaven’s gift and God’s provision for the deepest needs of our life is not an easy thing. Despite just witnessing these two powerful miracles in Mark, and despite listening to the accompanying extensive teaching in John, Jesus’s disciples still don’t get it. On a boat journey recounted for us in today’s reading, the disciples panic to realize they have forgotten to make adequate provision for themselves. They’ve only brought one loaf of bread.  

Jesus sees a teaching opportunity: “Watch out—beware of the yeast of the Pharisees and the yeast of Herod” (Mark 8:15). Jesus and Jesus alone is Bread of Life. On the one hand, Jesus warns those in the boat with him against a graceless piety like that of the Pharisees — those who attempt to climb a stairway to heaven by stiff-necked rule-keeping. On the other hand, Jesus warns his disciples against a secular worldliness like that of the Herodians — those who make peace with the earthly powers-that-be and live as lavish a life as possible.  

I pray we may look past the allures of anything else, whether the pride of hyper-spirituality or the sloth of materialism, and graciously receive God’s gift of himself in his Son. May we feed richly on the Bread of Life.  

Be blessed this day,  

Reggie Kidd+ 

David's Elevation - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Friday • 8/4/2023 
Friday of the Ninth Week After Pentecost (Proper 12) 

This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 69; 2 Samuel 5:1–12; Acts 17:1–15; Mark 7:24–37 

This morning’s Canticles are: following the OT reading, Canticle 10 (“The Second Song of Isaiah,” Isaiah 55:6–11; BCP, p. 86); following the Epistle reading, Canticle 18 (“A Song to the Lamb,” Revelation 4:11; 5:9–10, 13, BCP, p. 93) 

Welcome to Daily Office Devotions, where every Monday through Friday we bring to our lives that day’s Scripture readings, as given in the Book of Common Prayer. I’m Reggie Kidd, and I’m grateful to be with you this Friday in the Season After Pentecost. We are in Proper 12 of Year 1 of the Daily Office Lectionary.  

2 Samuel and David’s elevation. At this his third anointing David (finally) becomes king over God’s united people. Samuel first anointed him in promise (1 Samuel 16). Judah anointed him as king in the south (2 Samuel 2). Now “all the tribes of Israel (the northern tribes) came to David … and said, … ‘The Lord said to you: It is you who shall be shepherd of my people Israel, you who shall be ruler over Israel’” (2 Samuel 5:1–2). The leaders of the northern tribes make a covenant with David, “and they anointed David king over Israel” (2 Samuel 5:3).  

Image: "King David Statue-4" by zeevveez is licensed under CC BY 2.0  

The next few chapters of 2 Samuel recount the measures by which David secures his reign. David wins Jerusalem as capital and center of worship (2 Samuel 5:6–6:23). Yahweh promises an everlasting dynasty (2 Samuel 7). And David suppresses attacks by Edom, Moab, Ammon, Philistia, Amalek, and Zobah (2 Samuel 8–10).  

It’s been a long and winding road, as Paul McCartney might have put it: from shepherding on the family homestead, to receiving Samuel’s promissory anointing, to taking out Goliath, to singing to soothe Saul’s soul, to bonding with Jonathan, to running from Saul, to receiving Judah’s anointing, to lamenting Saul’s demise, and now to being anointed by Israel as king over a united nation. David’s life takes on the cruciform shape the New Testament describes for the Lord’s anointed, his Messiah: “…it was necessary for the Messiah to suffer and to rise from the dead” (Acts 17:3; and see also Luke 24:26; 1 Peter 1:11).  

Today’s Psalm 69, “A psalm of David,” is a reminder of just how aware David himself was of the way Yahweh had called him to this pattern of life. This psalm is also a reminder to us of how David sang and worshiped and prayed his way through it all — and how, in worship, the Lord gave him glimpses of the greater Son who would follow (see verse 23, below)!  

1 Save me, O God, * 
for the waters have risen up to my neck. 
2 I am sinking in deep mire, * 
and there is no firm ground for my feet. 
3 I have come into deep waters, * 
and the torrent washes over me. 

13 Those who sit at the gate murmur against me, * 
and the drunkards make songs about me. 
14 But as for me, this is my prayer to you, * 
at the time you have set, O Lord: 
15 “In your great mercy, O God, * 
answer me with your unfailing help. 
16 Save me from the mire; do not let me sink; * 
let me be rescued from those who hate me 
and out of the deep waters….” 

23 They gave me gall to eat, * 
and when I was thirsty, they gave me vinegar to drink. 

31 As for me, I am afflicted and in pain; * 
your help, O God, will lift me up on high. 
32 I will praise the Name of God in song; * 
I will proclaim his greatness with thanksgiving. 
33 This will please the Lord more than an offering of oxen, * 
more than bullocks with horns and hoofs. 
34 The afflicted shall see and be glad; * 
you who seek God, your heart shall live. 
35 For the Lord listens to the needy, * 
and his prisoners he does not despise. 
36 Let the heavens and the earth praise him, * 
the seas and all that moves in them; 
37 For God will save Zion and rebuild the cities of Judah; * 
they shall live there and have it in possession. 
38 The children of his servants will inherit it, * 
and those who love his Name will dwell therein. 

Each of us is offered our share in “the fellowship of his sufferings,” in promise of “the power of his resurrection” (Philippians 3:10). The privilege, in a word, is to join David in being formed in the likeness of his greater Son, and in singing, praying, and worshiping our way through it all.   

Be blessed this day, 

Reggie Kidd+ 

Holy and Unholy - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Thursday • 8/3/2023 
Thursday of the Ninth Week After Pentecost (Proper 12) 

This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 70; Psalm 71; 2 Samuel 4:1–12; Acts 16:25–40; Mark 7:1–23 

This morning’s Canticles are: following the OT reading, Canticle 8 (“The Song of Moses,” Exodus 15, BCP, p. 85); following the Epistle reading, Canticle 19 (“The Song of the Redeemed,” Revelation 15:3–4, BCP, p. 94) 

Welcome to Daily Office Devotions, where every Monday through Friday we consider some aspect of that day’s Scripture readings, as given in the Book of Common Prayer. I’m Reggie Kidd, and I’m grateful to be with you. On this Thursday in the Season After Pentecost our readings come from Proper 12 of Year 1 in the Daily Office Lectionary.  

“For it is from within, from the human heart, that evil intentions come: fornication, theft, murder, adultery, avarice, wickedness, deceit, licentiousness, envy, slander, pride, folly. All these evil things come from within, and they defile a person” (Mark 7:21–23).  

Image: Justmee3001, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons 

Jesus’s opponents—the scribes and the Pharisees—can be too easily dismissed, I think, as fools and dullards. When it comes to their scruples about cleanliness at mealtime, well, perhaps it took the late 19th and early 20th century discovery of the germ-origin of many diseases to make us appreciative enough of the importance of hygiene. Hand washing and food preparation do help people avoid disease, and even death. 

Nonetheless, Jesus isn’t talking about physical hygiene, is he? He’s talking about a different sort of hygiene. A hygiene of the heart. Waste from food that comes into us simply exits as excrement. As Jesus notes: “…it enters, not the heart but the stomach, and goes out into the sewer” (Mark 7:19). What should concern us, he contends, is the filth that comes out of unclean hearts: “It is what comes out of a person that defiles” (Mark 7:20). Jesus finds it especially loathsome that we have the capacity to cover irreligion and unrighteousness with a veneer of religiosity and righteousness: “Sorry, Mom and Dad, we pledged so much to the church that we can’t help you make ends meet” (Mark 7:11, paraphrased, of course).  

Part of the gap between us and the contemporaries whom Jesus critiques is that they, at least, distinguish between clean and unclean, between holy and unholy. At least they recognize the categories. At least they are trying. For various reasons, we don’t get it. Some of what separates us from that world is the rank secularism and disenchantment of life that modernity has brought with it. Aided and abetted, I would contend, by a hyper-Protestant, anti-sacramental insistence that “all things, not just some things, are holy.” The result is that we’ve encouraged a mindset that says playing golf or soccer on Sunday is as good as going to church; “bagels and coffee” at Starbucks is as sacred as “wafers and wine” in the assembly. If everything is holy, eventually nothing is holy. If there’s a difference between Jesus’s world and ours, that’s it. And people in that world were closer to the truth than we are.  

Where Jesus’s contemporaries get it wrong is that the difference between holy and unholy isn’t “out there” — in food, or things, or people. The difference is within us. Our hearts manufacture excrement which we spew on everybody and everything around us. Or … our hearts produce what the apostle Paul describes as the fruit of the Holy Spirit: “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control” (Galatians 5:22b–23a). And those are the things — and they are holy — that come out of us onto everything and everyone whose lives we touch.  

There are probably worthy observations to be made from the ignoble examples of Ishbaal’s assassins, his lieutenants Rechab and Baanah (2 Samuel 4:5–12). And worthwhile observations as well from the noble example of the Philippian jailer whose question, “What must I do to be saved?” opens up to him a world he never could have imagined.  

But this morning, I can’t get past this astounding challenge from Jesus to look within: just what is it that flows out from the depths of my being?  

Collect for Proper 12. O God, the protector of all who trust in you, without whom nothing is strong, nothing is holy: Increase and multiply upon us your mercy; that, with you as our ruler and guide, we may so pass through things temporal, that we lose not the things eternal; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen. 

Be blessed this day, 

Reggie Kidd+ 

Lord of Creation - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Wednesday • 8/2/2023 
Wednesday of the Ninth Week After Pentecost (Proper 12) 

This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 72; 2 Samuel 3:22–39; Acts 16:16–24; Mark 6:47–56 

This morning’s Canticles are: following the OT reading, Canticle 11 (“The Third Song of Isaiah,” Isaiah 60:1-3,11a,14c,18-19, BCP, p. 87); following the Epistle reading, Canticle 16 (“The Song of Zechariah,” Luke 1:68-79, BCP, p. 92) 

Welcome to Daily Office Devotions, where every Monday through Friday we ask how God might direct our lives from that day’s Scripture readings, as given in the Book of Common Prayer. I’m Reggie Kidd, and I’m grateful to be with you. This Wednesday in the Season After Pentecost our readings come from Proper 12 of Year 1 in the Daily Office Lectionary.  

2 Samuel: David is a complex figure. The Bible is unflinching in narrating David’s flaws, but its estimation of him is that he is “a man after God’s own heart” (1 Samuel 13:14). His abiding passion is to promote love for Yahweh, a theme that courses through his psalms: “I love you, O Yahweh, my strength” (Psalm 18:1). And love for Yahweh is his guiding political philosophy as well. That love explains why, whether by sword or diplomacy, he is determined to bring all twelve tribes of the children of Jacob into a united kingdom. Beyond the unification of the kingdom, that love is why, as we shall see in coming days, he will aim to consolidate God’s people’s worship in the city of God.  

Because the commander Abner defects from the deceased Saul’s army, David sees the potential for ending civil war, for uniting the northern tribes (loyal to Saul) and the southern tribes (loyal to David). Sadly, Joab, David’s chief general, doesn’t share that objective. Joab assassinates Abner. This act, he believes, accomplishes two things. He avenges his brother’s death in battle at Abner’s hands (2 Samuel 2:18–23), and he eliminates a rival for power within David’s inner circle. 

Bemoaning Abner’s death, even to the point of composing a lament for him (2 Samuel 3:33–34), David makes clear he had trusted and depended on Abner. In a bold, if unwise, political stroke, David retains Joab as general-in-chief. Nevertheless, David invokes a divine curse against him: “The Lord pay back the one who does wickedly in accordance with his wickedness!” (2 Samuel 3:39b). And on his deathbed, David will warn Solomon, his son and successor, that he would do well to dispose of Joab (which Solomon does—see 2 Kings 2).  

Mark: Jesus’s mastery. When David’s greater son, Jesus, comes on the scene, he demonstrates his own mastery over forces that overwhelm and engulf us. Walking on the water, he shows he is Lord of creation — and more, that he is with us in the storm of life so that we need not “be afraid.” In a most intriguing side note, Mark says the disciples’ astonishment at all this is due to the fact that “they did not understand the loaves, but their hearts were hardened” (Mark 6:51–52). If I may offer a considered opinion: I believe that this remark is Mark’s way of referencing the teaching that Jesus had offered about his being “the Bread of Life” that John’s Gospel had narrated following that day’s miracle of the Feeding of the 5,000 (compare Mark 6:30–44 with John 6:1–71). It is assumed by some students of the New Testament that John fabricated this explanatory material and put it into Jesus’s mouth long, long after the events. In my view, Mark’s “they did not understand the loaves” makes better sense as a comment on the disciples’ initial failure to grasp Jesus’s “Bread of Life” discourse.  

Acts: release from captivity. And when David’s greater Son rises from the dead, he commissions servants like Paul to go to the nations: “to open their eyes so that they may turn from darkness to light and from the power of Satan to God, so that they may receive forgiveness of sins and a place among those who are sanctified by faith in me” (Acts 26:18). In Philippi, Paul’s gospel about the crucified and risen Jesus releases a young girl from the dual bondage of Satanic possession and predatory exploitation of her “gift” of divination at the hands of her owners. As a result, the girl’s owners have Paul and Silas flogged and thrown into prison. Tomorrow we will see how ineffective those measures are against the power of Jesus to release people from all kinds of captivity—including jail.  

God himself has stepped into the ambiguity and confusion of our lives. He has used complex and fallen people in service of designs larger than themselves. He comes to comfort the disheartened, and those near to being drowned in the storms of life. He sets free the used and abused. I pray that each of us can learn to trust him and to follow him.  

Be blessed this day,  

Reggie Kidd+ 

Gospel-Bearers - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Tuesday • 8/1/2023 
Tuesday of the Ninth Week After Pentecost (Proper 12) 

This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 61; Psalm 62; 2 Samuel 3:6–21; Acts 16:6–15; Mark 6:30–46 

This morning’s Canticles are: following the OT reading, Canticle 13 (“A Song of Praise,” BCP, p. 90); following the Epistle reading, Canticle 18 (“A Song to the Lamb,” Revelation 4:11; 5:9–10, 13, BCP, p. 93)  

Welcome to Daily Office Devotions, where every Monday through Friday we draw insights from that day’s Scripture readings, as given in the Book of Common Prayer. I’m Reggie Kidd, and I’m grateful to be with you. This Tuesday in the Season After Pentecost our readings come from Proper 12 of Year 1 in the Daily Office Lectionary.  

2 Samuel. There are not nice, neat Sunday school applications to be drawn from today’s passage in 2 Samuel. It’s a world of civil war, concubinage, broken promises, busted up marriages. Unworthy motives and less than honorable means toward a worthy goal: the establishment of a united kingdom under Yahweh’s anointed.  

It’s important to remember that the Bible isn’t always being prescriptive (telling us what we ought to do). A passage like this one is more descriptive (telling us what happened). The Bible is realistic about the fallenness of the creatures through whom God is working his plan. To my mind, it’s part of what gives the Bible the ring of truth. Some actions are recorded not to inspire emulation, but to evoke from us, “Lord, have mercy. Give us grace to see your hand at work in the world around us, because bringing good out of evil is what you do. Praise be.” 

In the wake of King Saul’s death, war breaks out between the house of Saul and the house of David. Abner, Saul’s former general, offers to go over to David’s side after Saul’s son Ishbaal accuses Abner of “going in” to Saul’s concubine. (Apparently, Ishbaal suspects Abner of making his own play to become Saul’s successor.) David accepts the offer under the condition that Abner bring him Michal, Saul’s daughter whom Saul had betrothed to David but had given instead to a different husband. Weeping, Michal’s husband, Paltiel, accompanies Michal and Abner until he is told to go home. 

Today’s passage ends with the solidification of the pact between Abner and David, chiefly marked by Abner’s promise that he will convince all the generals from Israel (the northern tribes) to join David, thus uniting all Judah and Israel under David, just as Samuel had predicted.  

Image: San Jose, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons 

Mark. Thankfully, among the things the Bible describes are the unique acts by which God invades his fallen world to bring redemption and rescue. All four gospels celebrate one of those redemptive acts: the feeding of the 5,000. Here, anticipating the offering of himself in the Eucharistic feast, Jesus “takes … blesses … breaks … and gives” the bread and the fish (Mark 6:41). By God’s grace, what should feed only a handful of people nourishes a multitude. God comes to replace scarcity with plenty, and hunger with satisfaction.  

Acts. As though to illustrate the dynamic of multiplication that Jesus’s Eucharistic act enacts, today’s reading in Acts shows breakthroughs in the gospel’s progress — the invasion of light into darkness.  

Unwilling to force God’s hand (the Spirit has said “No” to their attempts to evangelize western and northern Asia Minor [“Asia” and “Bithynia”]), Paul and his itinerary wait in Troas on the western shore of Asia Minor. (It may be noted that Troas is the site of ancient Troy, the staging area for the Persian king Cyrus’s attempt to invade Greece and Europe centuries earlier.)  

Paul has a nighttime vision of a man from across the Aegean Sea: “Come over to Macedonia (northern Greece) and help us” (Acts 16:9). Paul and his group decide that the Lord is calling them to take the gospel to Greece. The long-lasting effects of this incursion of God’s tiny army of evangelists from Asia to Europe will prove to be far more significant than Cyrus’s failed invasion. Europe will be forever changed by this boatload of gospel-bearers.  

(Incidentally, for the first time, the narrator of Acts (Luke) includes himself in the account: “…we immediately tried to cross over to Macedonia, being convinced that God had called us to proclaim the good news to them” — Acts 16:10-17; and see also, 20:5-15; 21:1-18; 27:1–28:16). Most commentators think this is a significant note. Some suggest the man from Macedonia was Luke himself, and that he himself came over to Troas from Greece and appeared before Paul that night. Alternatively, the “vision” may have been a true “vision.” The Greek Luke may have already been a part of the traveling band, and who now begins to write himself into the story as the gospel begins its foray into his homeland.)  

In Philippi, the first named convert is a woman named Lydia, a merchant in expensive purple cloth. The Lord opens her heart to believe (one of several notes indicating Luke’s understanding that faith itself is God’s gift — see Acts 16:14; and also 13:48; 18:27). She becomes host and patron to Paul and his company. These are profound breakthroughs for the gospel — reminiscent of the multiplication of the loaves and fishes — from Asia to Europe, with the anchoring of ministry in the home of a woman.  

Collect for Proper 12. O God, the protector of all who trust in you, without whom nothing is strong, nothing is holy: Increase and multiply upon us your mercy; that, with you as our ruler and guide, we may so pass through things temporal, that we lose not the things eternal; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen. 

Be blessed this day, 

Reggie Kidd+