Waste Not the Fragments: A Commentary for Year D (Advent)

A number of exegetical essays that have been residing here for some time, along with previously unpublished matter, all of it related to texts suggested for Advent, have just been published in the following commentary. Perhaps this Advent is the time to introduce your congregation, Bible study group, or adult Sunday school class to these rich texts, extend their scriptural foundations, and supplement their spiritual diet.

Spread the word!

Envisioning Year D related D.Min. projects

I mentioned a while back that the new D.Min. cohort is forming at Dubuque Seminary just now. I'm not leading this cohort, and project proposals for this group will be some three years off yet. Nevertheless, I can well imagine any number of D.Min. projects that would involve the implementation of Year D.

E.g., can you imagine administering Bible Content exams to a congregation before and after using Year D texts for a year of worship planning, preaching, and Bible Study? What might be the impact on biblical literacy? Can you imagine designing and administering a fresh Bible content exam that ensures or provides greater exposure to Year D texts? Or can you imagine developing the first Sunday school curriculum (whether focussed on a particular age group or intergenerational) based on Year D texts? That would be cool. Can you imagine a hymn-focussed project aimed at unearthing old hymn texts that key off these passages? My hunch is they would likely date from times when these texts were in favor and had more currency in the lingua franca of generations passed. What about coordinating a presbytery or conference-wide study of multiple congregations using Year D? Thinking ever farther afield, imagine a project that would consider the use of Year D in international congregations, something that would reflect the evident interest of users of Year D in far-flung reaches of the global church.

Who knows? Perhaps even those currently in D.Min. programs, wherever they may be, if they are searching for a project idea, may wish to consider something along these lines. 

A glimpse of the tip of the biblical literacy iceberg

This is an interesting survey from The Christian Post regarding the verses of scripture that people identify as their favorites. It's just a top ten list, so it barely scratches the surface of scripture, but it does provide a glimpse of what people find important, and not least what they find comforting, encouraging, and instructive in response to rampant manifestations of evil in the culture. No. 6, you will note, is retrieved in Year D, but does not appear in the RCL. No. 7, popular as it is, seems to fall outside the bounds of all four years.