First Sunday of Lent (Cycle A)

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The Temptation of Jesus Lectionary:  22 Reading 1 -  Genesis 2:7-9; 3:1-7 Responsorial Psalm -  Psalm 51:3-4, 5-6, 12-13, 17 Reading 2 -  Romans 5:12-19 Verse - Matthew 4:4b Gospel -  Matthew 4:1-11 One does not live on bread alone. Every year, we begin our Lenten journey in the same place: the desert.   The Gospel for this Sunday places Jesus in the wilderness, fasting and praying, confronted by temptation. In that stark setting we find the pattern of our own Lenten journey: a movement away from distraction toward the heart of God, a testing that reveals what truly sustains us, and a call to conversion that reshapes our lives.  Throughout our lives, we are frequently confronted with tests … and these tests generally reveal something about ourselves: In school, we demonstrate that we have mastered an academic subject with a test  in sports, we demonstrate our level of a particular skill with a contest  In life, we demonstrate the integri...
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Review: The Transforming Word Series, Volume 4: Jesus and the Church: Reading the Gospels and Acts

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The Transforming Word Series, Volume 4: Jesus and the Church: Reading the Gospels and Acts The Transforming Word Series, Volume 4: Jesus and the Church: Reading the Gospels and Acts by Mark W. Hamilton

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Book 4 of a five (5) volume set that tries to provide some context and commentary to the Bible with this book focused on the four (4) Gospels and Acts. Like the other books in the series, each chapter stands on its own, written by different authors from the point of view a scholars in the Christian Restoration (Stone/Campbell) tradition. The first three (3) chapters provide a contextual overview of the time of Christ before diving into the first five (5) books of the New Testament. Once there, each chapter is organized the same way with material groups into: Context, Commentary, Topical Exegesis, Theological Reflections, For Further Study and Works Cited.

It is important to know that this is still a summary commentary and each section generally provides a single interpretation (often with a mention of some of the stronger alternatives). The context and overviews are extremely helpful and you get an excellent feel for how each Gospel is organized and who the target audience was, but you don’t see any in-depth treatment of how the source Greek was interpreted, so this volume would actually be a good companion to a detailed commentary that walks through the Greek instead of something that stands on its own. Still, if you are at all familiar with the text, there aren’t any surprises or controversies here and I highly recommend the entire series.

1. Jesus and the Church
2. The Gospels & Acts
3. New Testament Theology
4. Matthew
5. Mark
6. Luke
7. John
8. Acts of the Apostles

I was given this free advance reader copy (ARC) ebook at my request and have voluntarily left this review.

#JesusAndTheChurch #TheTransformingWordSeries #NetGalley.

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