Introduction to scriptural expositions

The purpose of these expositions is to be of assistance to you if you are in the following situations: (1) you are responsible to preach from the Revised Common Lectionary on a weekly basis; (2) you lead a Bible study group on the Lectionary; (3) you faithfully try to read the Scriptures to prepare for Sunday worship. The expositions are meant to be suggestive rather than exhaustive, expository rather than exegetical, theologically aware rather than gramatically or philologically focused. In other words, I offer these reflections to get you started in your own study of the Scriptures. I often am able to set the readings in a larger context, to tell you in more detail than you might know what the meaning of some of the words is, to give you guidance on the flow of the text.

My plan is as follows: I would like to provide expositions of the weekly (only Sunday) Scripture readings, usually with one essay per reading. The essays, linked on the left for easy reference, are about 1000 words in length, which should allow you to work through them in five to ten minutes while, I hope, gaining some useful insight for your own study. As I write more and more of these studies my own particular style will emerge. But I can say without equivocation that I seek to follow closely the flow of the passage before us. I occasionally will relate the texts to each other for you, and sometimes I will even have more than one essay on the same text.

My publication plan is as follows. I would like to get all four passages exposited by the Saturday prior to the Monday of the week for which the readings are "due." This means, for example, that I want to finish and post my expositions of the four texts for Second Sunday in Epiphany (January 14) by Saturday January 6. In this way you will always have a week of material for your perusal before preaching/teaching day for you. This method thus will provide expositions that are fresh for all of us and attuned, I hope, not simply to the text itself but to the flow of life in our world that we all experience.

If you have any suggestions or comments you would like to send along to me, please send them to drbilllong@gmail.com. You can read about my own interests and experience in studying the Bible here. Brief and longer biographical material about me can be found by clicking the "Me" link at the top of this page. Happy studying and thinking!

Yours,

The Rev. Dr. Bill Long

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