Events
WorshipSUNDAY MORNING WORSHIP
All are welcome to come and participate! Trinity Lutheran Church worships every Sunday with Holy Communion at 10:30 A.M. presided over by our pastor, Reverend Jodi Golden-Lund. Our service is also streamed live on our Facebook page - Trinity Lutheran Church of Porterville, CA ELCA and later uploaded to our YouTube channel https://www.facebook.com/tlcporterville All are welcome! |
Bible StudySUNDAY MORNING BIBLE STUDY
Epiphany Bible Study: The Book of Judith—Round Two (Begins January 8th) In reading any book—including any book within the Bible, or the Bible itself—there are questions about that book that we simply cannot address fruitfully until after we have finished reading the book from beginning to end. Not surprisingly, it is more frequently in re-reading a book that we see more, and even have our own “epiphanies” about its meaning and significance. With this in mind, the Sunday morning Bible study will reread the Book of Judith during the 2023 Season of Epiphany. We will retrace our steps through this little known text, written during “the gap” between Old and New Testaments, in order to better understand it’s relationship and significance to the Scripture that lies on either side of it. In our second “round” of reading the Book of Judith, we will take more time to explore the geography and the history of Israel and its neighbors during the Second Temple Period. We will also make more extensive use of “tools” for exploring a biblical text introduced and practiced in round one: 1) Follow the names, 2) Follow the numbers, 3) Excavate the places, 3) Look for repeated patterns, 4) Follow the threads, 5) Spoken words (and who speaks them) matters, 6) Every woman in the Bible matters. We will then use what we discover through background research and close reading of Judith to address some very important questions about the history, Scripture, and theology of Jews and of early Christians in the century before and century after Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection. All are welcome. If you did not participate in Round One, your “beginner’s mind” may be just what we need in order to see the new and unexpected things the “experts” are so prone to miss. All are welcome. Prior attendance is not necessary—drop in anytime. We meet every Sunday in the Fireside Room at 9:15. Instructor: Ann Marie Wagstaff |
Upcoming EventsOpening the Bible in the 21st Century—An Ongoing Midweek Bible Study
First Study: “In the Beginning…”—An Exploration of Genesis Chapters 1-11 On Tuesday, May 9th (12:30-1:45) Ann Marie Wagstaff will begin teaching a series of Bible study classes that will introduce a method of reading the Bible that takes seriously both its literary and scriptural qualities. The first class in the series will emphasize the Book Genesis as a “book of firsts”—that is, a book that lays the groundwork for interpreting both Old and New Testaments through the introduction the people, places, and themes that continue to appear, reappear, and resonate throughout Scripture. The goal is to make reading the Bible a richer and deeper experience for anyone willing to take up the challenge. This class is for people who love the Bible, people who have never opened the Bible, people who are afraid of the Bible, and people who don’t like the Bible. The class will not adopt any particular denominational or theological approach, though we will look at the variety of ways that the Church over the centuries has interpreted its Scriptures. There are only two requirements: 1) a willingness to read carefully with openness to what one finds; and 2) a willingness to listen to what others find with respect and curiosity. |