Today we celebrate The Blessèd Virgin Mary.

As Exciting Holiness tells us Mary was a young Jewish girl living in Nazareth when a messenger from the Lord announced that she was to be the bearer of the Son of God to the world. Her response “Let it be to me according to your word” revealed her natural sense of obedience to God and her reverence for his Word, showing her worthy to be the bearer of the Word made flesh.

Mary is starting point into the Biblical, the Medieval and the Present in the links below.

• A programme made by the BBC tells the life of Mary and can be watched here
• Mary is often depicted holding baby Jesus although Jesus often looks like a man. Matthew Averett discusses in a video Why babies in medieval paintings look like ugly old men
• God gave Mary a choice on whether to bear the Son of God. Today many woman did not have a choice of how their body is used. We must hear their voices

The Book of Micah

For the week beginning 17th August our Morning Prayer Old Testament readings (shown on the lectionary) come from the Book Of Micah

As theologygrams informs Micah is a bit more than the one verse shown above and quoted often.

For more information about Book of Micah

• The University Nottingham discusses the book here and Yale University includes it within a lecture here.
• From Bethel Seminary the book’s outline is shown visually here
• Visualunit has a A brief intro to the book of Micah
• A couple of infographics from Quickview Bible Big Ideas in Micah and Hope for the Remnant

The Book of Esther

This month our Morning Prayer Old Testament readings (shown on the lectionary) come from the Book Of Esther

Information about Book of Esther

• Story of Esther is explored In 20 Words, this short animation or you can go for the full movie treatment of the story.
• The University Nottingham discusses the book here and Yale University includes it within a lecture here.
• The Jewish Feast Purim was formed out of this events as explored here and by the BBC here

Looking at this month’s bible readings: Romans

 

This month our Morning Prayer New Testament readings (shown on the lectionary) come from Paul’s Letter to the Romans

 

Information about Romans

• The book is discussed in this video here the University of Nottingham
• Infographics from the Quickview Bible show the Big Ideas and the Key Words
• Visual Unit has a number of infographics on Romans
• In this video Tom Wright gives an introduction to Romans
• Philip Harland has two podcasts which can be found here and here
• Mark Goodacre has two podcasts which can be found here