St. James Bible Study for 09 13 2026

St. James Presbyterian Church Bible Study Companion Guide
Twenty-Fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time · Year A
September 13, 2026
Scripture Focus: Psalm 114.1–8 · Exodus 14.19–31 · Exodus 15.1b–11, 20–21 · Romans 14.1–12 · Matthew 18.21–35
WHY THESE TEXTS FOR THIS SUNDAY
This week’s readings ask what freedom requires after the crossing. Exodus and the psalm celebrate deliverance; Romans and Matthew turn toward the harder work of living free without reproducing domination, judgment, or withheld mercy.
Psalm 114 imagines creation responding to liberation: sea, river, mountains, rock, and water all move before God’s presence. Freedom rearranges more than one individual life.
Exodus 14 places God’s presence before and behind Israel: the cloud protects, the sea becomes passage, and Pharaoh’s military power is destroyed. Exodus 15 turns deliverance into song, with Miriam leading the women, while the dead on the shore keep victory morally difficult.
Romans 14 asks the community to welcome across disagreement. Different practices do not give believers permission to despise or judge one another: “God has welcomed them,” and each remains accountable to God.
Matthew 18 moves from Peter’s question about forgiveness into a disturbing world of debt, servitude, imprisonment, and torture. Jesus presses beyond arithmetic: mercy received must become mercy practiced.
TOGETHER
These texts move from deliverance to the ethics of freedom. Exodus asks what it means to come out from under Pharaoh; Romans and Matthew ask what it means not to become Pharaoh to one another. Crossing the sea is followed by learning welcome, mercy, and life together.
The connection may be this: liberation is not complete when oppression loses its grip. God makes a way through the sea; freedom becomes visible in the relationships that follow.
FOR REFLECTION
·       What changes when the cloud that leads Israel moves behind them and becomes protection?
·       How do Psalm 114 and Exodus 15 hold praise together with the disturbing death of enemies?
·       Where does Romans 14 challenge our desire to judge faithful choices different from our own?
·       What does the unforgiving servant reveal about receiving mercy without being changed by it?
A PRACTICE FOR THE WEEK
Each day, practice one dimension of freedom:
·       Notice Protection: Look for a place where care, presence, or community is standing between someone vulnerable and harm.
·       Practice Welcome: Receive one person without turning difference into a reason for judgment or contempt.
·       Release a Debt: Consider one resentment, score, or grievance you keep rehearsing and ask what forgiveness might begin to loosen.
·       Remember the Crossing: Name one liberation you have experienced and ask how it is shaping the way you treat others now.
Then ask:
What kind of freedom am I learning to live after the crossing?
CLOSING PRAYER
Liberating God, make a way where fear tells us there is none. Stand before us and behind us. Teach us to welcome without contempt, forgive without keeping score, and let our relationships bear witness to the mercy that has carried us through. Amen.
© 2026 Rev. Derrick McQueen, Ph.D. All rights reserved.