Lectionary at Lunch at Concordia Seminary, St. Louis.

You don’t get more geeky than the internet and original language bible study.  Well, I’m a geek and proud of it.  Next in my series on “Free Internet Services that Really Work” is Concordia Seminary St. Louis’ “Lectionary at Lunch.”  When I was a lowly Seminary student every Wednesday I used to sit at the feet of the Exegetical (bible study from the original languages) Professors  at lunch time and listen to them translate and explain the Old Testament (in Hebrew) and the Gospel Lesson (in Greek) for the upcoming Sunday’s readings in church.  It was a great way to prepare for when my teachers called on me to translate passages of the bible in class.

When I became a pastor I discovered that keeping up on translating the bible for preaching became very difficult.  The parish ministry has many demands on a pastor’s time.  Unfortunately, it’s very easy to let the deep study of God’s Word in the original languages slide because it is very time consuming.  The thing is, in preparing to be a pastor that kind of deep study was a daily occurrence.  I spent countless hours parsing verb, diagramming sentences, and memorizing vocabulary.  None of that time spent was useless as it has paid off in spades every time I open the texts in Hebrew and Greek.  As one of my professors said, “Reading the bible in English is like kissing your wife through cellophane.” (I think it was Gibbs).

Enter Lectionary at Lunch.  In the old days those lunch reading sessions were recorded and posted to the internet for download.  Now they are podcast and available through many different channels on the net (see list below).  They have since removed the Lunch and added the Epistle reading.

Lectionary at Lunch is no substitute for personal deep original language study of scripture but it is a great way to begin preparation for preaching.  The professors read and translate the texts from the Lutheran Service Book Three Year Lectionary and then add a few suggestions for preaching.  One of the best features is the variety of ideas and emphasis that come across as the Exegetical professors take turns in the task.

As a side benefit, a busy pastor is able to keep his hand in the original languages even when his schedule is packed.

Concordia Seminary Web Site http://www.csl.edu/Resources_AudioVideo_LectionaryatLunch.aspx

Concordia Seminary on iTunes

http://itunes.csl.edu/

Pr. Jonathan C. Watt

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First of all, the LCMS Commission on Worship has provided Word Documents for the three-year lectionary that include all of the dates and other information available.  You may find all of those available online by CLICKING HERE.

If you prefer to go “old school,” Concordia Publishing House has a really nice chart available for your use HERE.

CPH has also done a fantastic job of making the three-year lectionary available in both Google Calendar, Outlook & iCal.  Go HERE to find them.

Another wonderful resource is that Logos (makers of some of the finest bible software anywhere) has a free lectionary viewer that includes the  one year and three year lectionaries from LSB.  HERE IT IS.

Now on to the one year lectionary:

The LCMS Commission on Worship page has a number of great resources for the one-year lectionary as well.  You’ll find it HERE.

Pastor Mark Schlamann has edited the COW chart and included it with the calendar dates and put them into a nifty color coded Microsoft Excel file.  You can download it here: 09 10 one yr guide

Mr. Stan Lemon maintains a great website called Sanctus.org.  This site includes all of the one year lectionary in calendar format, plus in a Google Calendar that will work with iCal or Outlook or nearly any calendar program.  More than that, he has it setup so that it will link you to specific bible translations.  It is a great site that I highly recommend.  He also has it self so it works very well on an iPhone or any other smart phone with internet access.

Another great program that works with both the one year and three year lectionary is Leitourgia.  It is available in both Windows and Mac formats, and uses many different lectionaries.  You can download a trial copy and try it out to see if you like it.

There are numerous blogs and other sites that provide commentary and other info on the Church Year, but I think this is enough to get us started.  What do you use for the Church Year?

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