Exploring My Strange Bible

This episode explores a story about the appearance of the resurrected Jesus in the Gospel of Luke Ch. 24. Two disciples who spent a lot of time with Jesus are suddenly blind to his true identity; they can't recognize him! What's up with that? This beautifully told story shows how Jesus' own followers can become blind to who he really is, because of the pre-loaded assumptions about him. Truly seein...

In this teaching, we'll continue exploring the portrait of the first "church" community in Acts ch.2, specifically how they committed to sharing their resources with each other. This shows us a core habit of the church from the beginning, crossing over the boundary lines between ourselves and other people, and releasing our time and resources into their lives. Why is it so hard to share...

In this teaching we'll explore the first depiction of "the church" in Acts ch. 2. What we discover may surprise you! We see a group of people committing to each other and to Jesus so they can learn new ideas and form new habits of living and thinking together, all centered around Jesus. Being open to new ideas is not the first thing that comes to people’s minds when they think of Christi...

This episode draws together all the ideas of the previous three lectures. We explore the images of eternal death and what these images mean, and the images used by Jesus in his teachings about God’s final justice. In the second half, we talk about the images of new creation, resurrection, and eternal life. We explore what Jesus and the Apostles have to say about this. Then, we focus on the last tw...

The definitions of human life and death on pages 1-3 of the bible are based on the idea that humans can live in a state of death. The goal of God’s rescue mission is to take people out of “living death” and transfer them into a mode of “eternal life” here in the present. According to the biblical story, these are the two ways to be human being - to be among the living dead or to be among the truly...

In this message, I explore the concept of work and labor in the book of Ecclesiastes. The teacher wants to show us that it's impossible to create meaning in your life from one's vocation or career. But, this doesn’t mean that we should quit working. Rather, we must learn how to see our life's work in a larger context, helping us navigate through both success and failure. The teacher offers practic...

In the final episode we see Jonah's response when God forgives his enemies. He's hot with anger and chews God out for being to gracious. This part of the story challenges us to reconsider Jesus' teaching to love and forgive our enemies, those people in our lives who are the most difficult. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of...

Jonah goes very much against his own desires to the ancient city of Nineveh. He utters a very strange five word sermon and the people of Nineveh have a very interesting response. Also, we discuss the meaning of the biblical word “repentance” and what it does and doesn’t mean. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data...

In this episode we ponder the very strange and beautifully intricate poem that Jonah utters in the belly of the fish. This is a powerful and heavily ironic moment in the story. This poem represents a moment when one of God’s people is in crisis. Jonah discovers that his crisis is actually God’s work to bring him to the end of himself. Jonah’s experience in this story forces us to think about simil...

Jonah is ironically portrayed as God’s own prophet, but he is the only person who really refuses to listen to God. This episode explores how Jonah is “asleep at the wheel” and deaf to God and everything that God uses to communicate to him. This story invites us in to think about our own lack of perception and awareness of the ways that God might be trying to get through to us. Hosted by Simplecast...