[From the original version]

What future is there for a eunuch? No progeny—only endless cycles of boring chores, as worker bees in a hive, unable to make the queen fertile. However, the miracle of children and a future will come even for them, if they keep Sabbath sacred space—wombs of time, fertilized by fidelity to God’s Word.

The first Advent candle is lit, sowing a seed of light into the dark womb of night. Place yourself before the candle at the center of those places within where there is anything like despairing darkness. Resist the smugness of those beastly types with their vain feelings of power. Each of their tomorrows will become darker and darker. Take hope. It is Advent. Jesus the light longs to make your heart fertile. Will you let him?

Isaiah 56

Mondays are dedicated to the reading of the Hebrew Prophets.
In the season of Advent this year, we continue to read Isaiahl.

What are “Bible Breaths”? Learn More…

For all the Firestarters I recommend the ebook.  You will have the entire program of well over a thousand of these introductions with you on your phone or tablet. Check the menu options at the site for more information.

[From the original version]

A shrill blast pierces the silence of the descending darkness of an autumn evening. It is the shofar, the ram’s horn, summoning the people to a sobering awareness of the end times as the Jewish New Year begins in autumn.

Today the New Year for the Church begins. The voice of Jesus sounds the call for readiness, awareness, sobriety, watchfulness—in short, for prayer. The message shakes us to our roots, loosening those places within where we are bound to a world passing away.

What the shofar is to the silence, the first Advent candle is to the darkness. Enter the beauty of the darkness of this season and the way in which tiny particles of light pierce the night with an expanding joy. Jesus is coming.

Luke 21:25–36

What are “Bible Breaths”? Learn More…

Sundays are dedicated to the Gospels from the Revised Common Lectionary.
In year C, we give a special focus to the Gospel of Luke.

For all the Firestarters I recommend the ebook.  You will have the entire program of well over a thousand of these introductions with you on your phone or tablet. Check the menu options at the site for more information.

[From the original version]

The prophet Daniel and the patriarch Joseph have similar histories. Both find favor in hostile, foreign lands. Despite the intents of the enemies of Joseph—his own brothers and the wife of Joseph’s master—the Lord is with him. There will always be persons of support in our lives when we surrender our cares totally to God as did Daniel and Joseph.

Jealousy and lust both grow as vicious cancers. Absolute repentance and personal responsibility will send these cancers into remission.

Listen to the story about the beauty of holiness and the single heart of Joseph. As a perfectly clear telescope that reaches into the heavens, so does the lens of his heart open to spiritual knowledge. Does the lens of your heart need cleansing?

Genesis 39—40

Learn about Bible Breaths Learn More…

The Saturday passages follow the reading list that Jewish people use in their synagogue worship
throughout the world. They are taken from
“The Torah,” the first five books of the Bible from Genesis to Deuteronomy
that are read each year beginning with autumn.

For all the Firestarters I recommend the ebook.  You will have the entire program of well over a thousand of these introductions with you on your phone or tablet. Check the menu options at the site for more information