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    Mary Magdalene = #NotAProstitute

    What do you get when you mix myth, legend, incorrect interpretation, and a dose of Hollywood all together? The misrepresented life story of Mary Magdalene—shaken, not stirred. For centuries Mary Magdalene’s reputation as a reformed prostitute has lived on, despite her official Roman Catholic exoneration from bad-girl status in the 1960s. Just do a simple online search for Mary Magdalene and you’ll quickly feel overwhelmed by the plethora of books and movies that portray her not only as the penitent prostitute, but also as Jesus’s secret lover, an apostle greater than John or Peter, and the poster child of gnostic literature. Yet of the thirteen times the New Testament mentions…

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    Around the Table: Why Gathering Matters

      Gathering is nothing new. All throughout sacred history, women and men have been gathering around tables to celebrate, reflect, feast, and remember. From Israel’s inception the sacrificial system ushered people into God’s presence and then around a table as they often enjoyed a meal as part of their offerings and festivals. In the book of Ruth, Boaz sat around the table with his workers, inviting an unknown Moabite woman to eat of his bread. In Psalms David celebrated God’s banquet table. And in the New Testament, Jesus gathered around tables with friends and sinners, and then he instituted his memorial supper around over the Passover meal as he and…

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    The Five Not-So-Scandalous Women in Jesus’s Genealogy

    The Gospels include two genealogies of Jesus (Luke 3:23–38 and Matthew 1:1–17). Luke’s version traces our Lord back to Adam, placing him over the family of mankind. Matthew’s list establishes Jesus as heir to the Davidic dynasty. But another key difference between the two is that Matthew’s list, unlike most such lists in the first century, includes five women. Why? Sadly, if we do a quick Google search on the females in Jesus’s genealogy, we find that many, if not most, people conclude, “To show what great sinners God incorporated into the family tree.” We see words such as “scandalous” and “immoral” that point to the past sex lives of…