Picturepocket's Blog

Category: teaching

  • Write Now

    Last summer, while working from home and seeing to the news, and hearing people say, “Jesus says this,” and “Jesus says that” I felt gaslit. Because the Jesus I grew up learning about in Sunday School, was not matching the Jesus that people were presenting. I go to church every single Sunday and I am…

  • Salutations 

    Last night, I watched a movie adaptation of Charlotte‘s Web with Ivy. There’s a bunch of children’s shows that I never saw because they came after I was a grown-up, but before I had kids. I have recently purchased a paperback copy of Charlotte‘s Web for Ivy who is a new reader, so of course…

  • 2 Corinthians 9: Family Style 

    In this chapter, Paul continues trying to convince the Corinthians to give to the ministry. He is raising support for believers in impoverished communities. He starts out saying that he has already bragged to the Macedonians about their generosity, and wants make sure they actually give something so he doesn’t look like a fool. He…

  • 1 Corinthians 12: Spiritual Gifts 

    Paul reminds the readers of a time before when they followed idols with mute spirits. Now, he says that no one with the Holy Spirit says “Jesus is cursed,” and no one says “Jesus is Lord” without the Holy Spirit. In other words, our faith and conviction are empowered by the Spirit.  Paul says there…

  • Acts 6: The Seven

    As the mass of believers grew, there were complaints that the Greek-speaking members within community were not being fairly served meals. There’s panic at the church potluck. The twelve decided to add seven additional members to help serve. They couldn’t let their speaking schedule be taken up with food management. Their criteria for leadership was…

  • John 16: Scattered to Save

    Jesus starts by warning his disciples that they will be pushed out of the synagogues or killed by people who think they are offering a service to God, but those people don’t know Jesus or the Father. Jesus again promises to send the Spirit of Truth, who will testify about Jesus. He likens his death…

  • John 7: Talk of the Town

    At the autumn feast, Jesus left the area of Judea to go to Galilee. Judea was the district where Jerusalem was, and Galilee was a district north of Samaria, and contained Nazareth, the town where Jesus had been raised after being born in Bethlehem and living in Egypt. Jesus’s brothers, who did not believe in…

  • John 5: Water, Walk and Works

    At the Passover, Jesus goes to Jerusalem. There is a pool of Bethseda where the sick and the disabled lay on the ground, waiting to be healed when the water is stirred up. Jesus asks a man who had been there 38 years if he wanted to be healed. The man asks for help getting…

  • John 1: Our Light in the Darkness 

    “In the beginning was the Word” starts the book of John, the fourth and final gospel account. John says that the Word was with God and was God and was life that became the light. He introduces John, Jesus’s baptizing cousin, not to be confused with John the disciple and author of this book, as…

  • Old Year, New Me

    This year has a few leftover days, so I am going to use them to catch up on all the reflecting I’ve been putting off. To be honest this year was a mixed bag. We got hit a couple of financial and social setbacks in the spring. Both relationships and circumstances left us feeling in…