Jesus received from Martha that night, and he received from Mary. Both worshiped in their ways, giving the Lord a rare blessing. In their working together, supporting each other, Martha and Maryโs love and honor to Jesus was multiplied.
Leah
Broken by lifeโs traumas, calamities, and tragedies, and just when youโre at your lowest, it seemsโฆthere you go, right over the edge, and into the dumpster.
Gospel of John: Martha’s Faith
[In the Greek] Though Marthaโs voice had leaned more heavily on the final catastrophe of death itself, Mary spoke from the devastation of personal betrayal, her voice leaning on the connection of her brother, the unspoken meaning clear: you said you loved me, and he was my brother.
Gospel of John: I and the Father are One
As Jesus spoke, the men before him must have looked unsatisfied and perturbed. Jesus was giving them no new answers, his words still seemed cloaked in metaphor and veiled meanings. To be told they were not of Jesusโ sheepfold seemed at the same time ambiguous and obvious. No, they did not believe Jesus, and no, he had no jurisdiction over them.
Minor Prophets: The Book of Micah
Micah is the next prophet after Jonah, historically speaking. He spoke the words of God toward the end of the eighth century, 740-687 B.C. in the southern kingdom of Judah during the reigns of good king Jotham, evil king Ahaz, and good king Hezekiah.
Abigail
Give liberally and be ungrudging when you do so, for on this account the Lord your God will bless you in all your work and in all that you undertake.
Minor Prophets: Jonah, Megaphone of Pain
I have been in the desert when the temperature is 115 degrees and climbing, with a fierce hot wind. It takes about half an hour for these convection oven-like conditions to literally bake the skin and lungs so that a person can hardly breathe, eyes ache and a person can get dangerously dizzy and dehydrated.
Minor Prophets: Jonah, ื ึธืึทื nรขcham
When the Hebrew language speaks of God โrepenting,โ the word most often is โnacham,โ referring to inner suffering that needs to be consoled.
Gospel of John: Adulterous Woman Reprise
The scribes and Pharisees condoned and rationalized their own sin while at the same time were eager to see sin punished in other peopleโs lives, even to the death, rather than to see them forgiven and restored. Who might you and I want to see punished, instead of repent? How willing are we to let that go and pray for Jesus to restore them instead?
Minor Prophets: Jonah or Dagon?
During Jonah's time, the people of Nineveh believed in a divinity who sent messages to them by a person who rose out of the sea, as part fish and part man.

