The Gottesdienst Crowd

Two pastors thinking out loud about the upcoming Gospel reading. This episode is devoted to the Gospel reading for the Nineteenth Sunday after Trinity, Matthew 9:1–8.

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Two pastors thinking out loud about the upcoming Gospel reading. This episode is devoted to the Gospel reading for the Eighteenth Sunday after Trinity, Matthew 22:34–46.

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Two pastors thinking out loud about the upcoming Gospel reading. This episode is devoted to the Gospel reading for the Seventeenth Sunday after Trinity, Luke 14:1–11.

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Two pastors thinking out loud about the upcoming Gospel reading. This episode is devoted to the Gospel reading for the Sixteenth Sunday after Trinity, Luke 7:11–17.

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In this episode, Paul Schultz talks with the Rev. Dr. Adam Hensley, Associate Professor of Exegetical Theology at Concordia Seminary, St. Louis, about the deliberate ordering of the Hebrew Psalter. Hensley explains how the five books of Psalms are marked by real editorial seams (not artificial divisions) and traces the influential but flawed thesis of Gerald Wilson, who argued that the Psalter records a shift away from the Davidic covenant toward Moses and a "democratized" covenant applied to the whole people, following Israel's exile and the loss of kingship.

Hensley lays out his own thesis in response: rather than the Davidic covenant being democratized, the Mosaic covenant is "royalized." Moses appears throughout the Psalter as the one who diagnoses Israel's sin and intercedes, but never as the one who solves it. That role belongs to the idealized king, the Christ, whose intercession reconciles not only Israel but the nations to God. Drawing on Psalm 89's lament, the Davidic and Solomonic material at the end of Book Two, and the pattern of Moses references through Books Three and Four, Hensley shows how the Psalter's editors kept pointing forward to a greater son of David rather than settling for a Mosaic consolation prize. He connects this to his dissertation, published by T&T Clark as Covenant Relationships and the Editing of the Hebrew Psalter.

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Two pastors thinking out loud about the upcoming Gospel reading. This episode is devoted to the Gospel reading for the Fifteenth Sunday after Trinity, Matthew 6:24–34.

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Two pastors thinking out loud about the upcoming Gospel reading. This episode is devoted to the Gospel reading for the Twelfth Sunday after Trinity, Mark 7:31–37.

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Dr. Paul Grime looks back on the making of Lutheran Service Book, twenty years after the project began. As the executive director overseeing the hymnal's development, Grime walks through what it took to produce a single book for a synod still split between The Lutheran Hymnal and Lutheran Worship — the committee structure, the doctrinal review process, the mid-project change in commission membership under new synod leadership, and the painstaking work of testing layout and design so the final product would be usable by any congregation without a second thought.

Beyond the process, Grime reflects on what it means to do this kind of work well: learning to disagree without losing collegiality, taking time rather than rushing decisions, and remembering that a hymnal is a public confession of what the church believes and sings. He closes with an eye toward the newly reestablished Commission on Worship and the challenges facing whoever takes up the next hymnal project, given the sheer volume of hymnody and scholarship now available compared to thirty years ago.

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Two pastors thinking out loud about the upcoming Gospel reading. This episode is devoted to the Gospel reading for the Eleventh Sunday after Trinity, Luke 18:9-14.

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Two pastors thinking out loud about the upcoming Gospel reading. This episode is devoted to the Gospel reading for the Tenth Sunday after Trinity, Luke 19:41–48.

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