Next Meeting Tuesday February 5 at 7

Hi everyone.
We will be meeting next Tuesday, February 5 at the Johnsons -- back on our every first and third Tuesday schedule.  And we'll continue our wrestling with Romans by looking especially at Romans 3: 21-31, and probably into Romans 4.  These ten verses of Romans 3 pack a lot of familiar but sometimes puzzling Christian theological language and this will be our chance to talk about what is really meant by "law" v. "faith," and how do we understand anything about who God is through the ideas expressed by "justification," "redemption" and "atonement."   And what does it mean for our understanding of how to live our lives, if we identify ourselves as followers of Jesus?  Bring your thoughts and your questions and yourselves.  And bring a friend if you like! Heidi is cooking.  See you all on Tuesday. 

Jumping into "Romans"

Hi everyone -- I'm looking forward to seeing you this Tuesday night from 7-9 at the Johnsons'.  Having had a bit of introduction last week to Paul, etc., we will continue our reading of the first 3 chapters of Romans.  If you dip in ahead of time, you'll find much there that is disturbing and may seem harsh.  Paul is contrasting what he calls "the righteousness of God" to the world that he and the early Christians lived in, dominated by imperial Rome and by the attitudes and habits of Roman culture.   To get ourselves into his context it might be interesting to think about our own time:  what are the things about the world we live in that you just know are "all wrong" .  That are not supposed to be this way.  Thinking about this may help get us closer to what Paul meant by "the gospel of God" and "the righteousness of God".   But you don't have to prepare anything -- as usual, just come.  It's always interesting!

Lindsey is cooking, if I remember correctly -- hope to see you all Tuesday!

January Meetings Jan 8 and Jan 22: Introducing Paul!

Hi everyone! Happy New Year

Because of New Year’s Day I suggested we flip to Tuesday January 8 this month, and since we have 5 Tuesdays in January it works well to just make our next meeting January 22.  After that we’ll revert to 1^st and 3^rd Tuesdays for the rest of the spring.  I’m looking forward to being with you.

We agreed that we would spend the spring with the book of Romans -- Paul’s letter to the church in Rome.  This is a challenging and beautiful book of the Bible with lots to engage, disturb, puzzle and enlighten us.  I am going to be using a guide to Romans by my VTS colleague Katherine Grieb -- The Story of Romans (Westminster John Knox Press).  It is scholarly in its approach but it is geared toward bringing Romans to a wider audience within the church and I will be using her chapters to guide my teaching. If you want to commit to a pretty in-depth study of Romans in between our sessions I do recommend her book. I’ll also have some ideas for other commentaries but mostly we’ll do what we usually do:  Bring our questions to the text, and try to sort out what we can learn from reading deeply and carefully.

At our first session I will spend some time just introducing Paul.  You might think about what you know/think/have heard about Paul/ St. Paul and the new testament.  It is the case that the letters of Paul are actually the earliest books of the New Testament, written before the gospels.  So coming to understand Paul can really help us to understand even more fully who Jesus was to his early followers, and what the gospel story means - meant for them, and means for us.

I’m looking forward to our study this spring.  Bring yourselves, your prayers and your questions and we’ll begin - As always, if you’re new and want to join us feel free to email me at kathleen.staudt@gmail.com for directions and further information.