Daily Lesson for February 4, 2022

 Today’s Daily Lesson comes from Psalm 69 verses 9 and 10: 

9 I have become a stranger to my own kindred, 

an alien to my mother's children.

10 Zeal for your house has eaten me up; 

the scorn of those who scorn you has fallen upon me.

Flannery O’Connor once said, “You shall know the truth and the truth shall make you odd.”

So many I know have lost relationship with friends, and family, and loved ones over their understanding of the truth and the import of telling it.

Rarely does a week go by without me receiving a text or call from someone who has come to a point of utter estrangement.  It’s tough, and they often feel so alone — especially in these parts. It can feel like a lonesome valley. 

But it is not altogether lonesome. 

There are brothers and sisters and whole churches full of friends also to be gained (Mark 10:29). There are others out there looking to share firelight and life. 

Jesus knew the rejection too. His mother and his brothers thought he had lost his mind. His hometown tried to kill him. But painful as those things were, He couldn’t in good conscience be anyone other than who He was. 

Flannery O’Connor was right, the truth will make us odd.  

But it will also make us free. 

Ryon Price is Senior Pastor of Broadway Baptist Church in Fort Worth, Texas. 

Daily Lesson for February 3, 2022

 Today’s Daily Lesson comes from Psalm 71 verse 15:

“My mouth shall recount your mighty acts

and saving deeds all day long; 

though I cannot know the number of them.”

One of my childhood pastors John Claypool used to like to ask people, “What’s saving your life, right now?”

Our lives have been saved so many times — by books, and friends, and strange invitations, and sometimes sermons, and gracious — if also hard — words spoken by someone we trust with skin on, and unexpected and course-altering conversations out in the parking lot after lunch at Bojangles. 

I’ve been saved so many, many times. I am grateful for them all — the ones I know and the ones I had had no idea. I’ve been saved. And I’m being saved right now. 

How about you?  What’s saving you, right now?

Ryon Price is Senior Pastor of Broadway Baptist Church in Fort Worth, Texas. 

Daily Lesson for February 2, 2022

 Today’s Daily Lesson comes from Luke 2:29:

“Sovereign Lord, as you have promised, you may now dismiss your servant in peace.”

Today is the 40th day after Christmas, the day upon which Mary and Joseph were said to have come to the Temple for the Presentation of Jesus.

Old Simeon was there in the Temple, waiting for the coming of the Lord before his death. In seeing the baby Jesus, he told God he was ready to go. 

The time comes for every generation to be dismissed in peace: peace within one’s own soul, peace within the family, peace with all the earth and cosmos. It is a gift to be ready to go.

In recent days we’ve lost some mighty strong souls. And this year has been full of the passing of persons very significant to me personally. I mourn their losses, but know they were ready to go. 

I think it was my pastor Charlie Johnson who I first heard say that the church teaches us how to die. The course of study is hard and it involves lots of continuing education. But we do learn by watching.

And one day, we’ll teach as well. 

Ryon Price is Senior Pastor of Broadway Baptist Church in Fort Worth, Texas. 

 

Daily Lesson for January 30, 2022

 Today’s Daily Lesson comes from Hebrews chapter 11 verse 8:

“By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to set out for a place that he was to receive as an inheritance; and he set out, not knowing where he was going.”

Abraham did not know where he was going. 

That is something I think a lot of us can sympathize and perhaps commiserate with. We don’t necessarily know where we are going. We aren’t sure where this journey is taking us. We can’t figure out how this thing will end. 

But, by faith we keep walking. We keep choosing the best path we can decipher. And we do not give up. 

Thomas Merton had a wonderful prayer which begins like this:

“My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going. I do not see the road ahead of me. I cannot know for certain where it will end. Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think I am following your will does not mean that I am actually doing so. But I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you. And I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing.”

We hope to please God. We seek to follow God. No, we really don’t know where we’re going. 

And we probably wouldn’t believe it if we did . . .

Ryon Price is Senior Pastor of Broadway Baptist Church in Fort Worth, Texas. 

Daily Lesson for January 28, 2022

 Today’s Daily Lesson comes from John chapter 6 verses 1 through 10:

After this Jesus went to the other side of the Sea of Galilee, also called the Sea of Tiberias.*  2A large crowd kept following him, because they saw the signs that he was doing for the sick. 3Jesus went up the mountain and sat down there with his disciples. 4Now the Passover, the festival of the Jews, was near. 5When he looked up and saw a large crowd coming towards him, Jesus said to Philip, ‘Where are we to buy bread for these people to eat?’ 6He said this to test him, for he himself knew what he was going to do. 7Philip answered him, ‘Six months’ wages would not buy enough bread for each of them to get a little.’ 8One of his disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother, said to him, 9‘There is a boy here who has five barley loaves and two fish. But what are they among so many people?’ 10Jesus said, ‘Make the people sit down.’ 

St. Augustine once said that there is always enough of that which was meant to be shared. 

The boy’s lunch was meant to be shared, and we celebrate the story. 

But there is so much more that is also meant to be shared, including wealth, prosperity, healthcare, and housing. 

It is only our failure of imagination which keeps us from sharing these things. Another name for this failure of imagination is selfishness.

The faith and imagination of the little boy with the fish is an inspiration. There is enough, if we dare to share. 

My mentor’s mentor Carlyle Marney used to say that property and poverty are not antonyms, they are synonyms; and their opposite is community. 

The boy believed in community — the miracle of community. 

And how the miracle happens is always in our hands.

Ryon Price is Senior Pastor of Broadway Baptist Church in Fort Worth, Texas. 

Daily Lesson for January 27, 2022

 Today is International Holocaust Remembrance Day, and an appropriate time to think on the small ways in which we can stand up against antisemitism both big and small. 

It’s the small that is mostly within our reach day by day and week by week. 

One small thing that can be done is what we did last night in Bible study. We are studying the book of John, which often refers negatively to a group it calls “the Jews”.  Of course the person who wrote the book was also a Jew, and Jesus was a Jew, so the writer clearly wasn’t referring to all Jews everywhere. 

Making these kinds of distinctions is necessary and important for teaching. Understanding also that there are instances of anti-Judaism in the New Testament helps us to read in a more informed and less fundamentalist eye.  Very important. 

Speaking of fundamentalism.  Bill Coffin said a fundamentalist to the Bible is like a drunk to a lamppost.  He looking more for support than he is enlightenment.

Let’s be more enlightened in the way we read the Bible and teach our faith. Too much is at stake. And too many of God’s children have lost their lives at the hands of their spiritual siblings. We must #neverforget that. 

And we must stand against antisemitism in all its forms — whether it be a synagogue in Colleyville or our own sanctuary. 

Ryon Price is Senior Pastor of Broadway Baptist Church in Fort Worth, Texas. 

Daily Lesson for January 26, 2022

 Today’s Daily Lesson comes from Genesis chapter 16 verses 7 through 10, and 13:

 7 The angel of the Lord found her by a spring of water in the wilderness, the spring on the way to Shur. 8And he said, ‘Hagar, slave-girl of Sarai, where have you come from and where are you going?’ She said, ‘I am running away from my mistress Sarai.’ 9The angel of the Lord said to her, ‘Return to your mistress, and submit to her.’ 10The angel of the Lord also said to her, ‘I will so greatly multiply your offspring that they cannot be counted for multitude.’

13So she named the Lord who spoke to her, ‘You are El-roi’ for she said, ‘Have I really seen God and remained alive?”

God sees. That is what is said to Moses at the Burning Bush about the Israelites. God has seen their suffering.

I don’t know why slavery was and is allowed to exist for so long. Lincoln said something about it’s inevitable evil in second Inaugural. And I don’t know why God the seer couldn’t or wouldn’t help the slave Hagar further emancipate herself from Abraham’s and Sarah’s bondage.  

But I do know this, God saw this tired and worn out pregnant woman in the desert.  And she saw God. And the vision gave her the strength and the courage to go on living. 

And that, for now, was miracle enough for her to stay alive, and her baby to be born, and us to know that as Zora Neal Hurston said, “Their eyes were watching God,” and God’s eyes were watching them. 

Ryon Price is Senior Pastor at Broadway Baptist Church in Fort Worth, Texas.