Extra Credit Podcast

1 Corinthians 10 is the apex of Paul’s long and complex argument for why certain members of the Corinthian congregation should not eat meat sacrificed to idols in the pagan temples. Unsurprisingly, at the heart of his argument about eating in temples is the Lord’s Supper. To feast at the Lord’s table is to commune with him and with your Christian neighbor. The communion between me and you and Jesu...

In 1 Corinthians 9 Paul continues his extended argument about eating meat sacrificed to idols. Paul holds up his own practices as an apostle as an example for the Corinthians to follow. He has certain rights that are his as an apostle. According to the Law and Jesus’ teachings, ministers should be financially supported in the work of ministry. But Paul renounces his right to financial support from...

After taking some time on the complicated issue of how Christianity relates to Judaism (or how the gospel relates to the Torah), we launched into 1 Corinthians 8. The new issue Paul is addressing is whether or not the Corinthian Christians are free to eat meat sacrificed to idols in the pagan temples. Surprisingly, Paul does not give a straightforward answer. Elsewhere in the New Testament the Apo...

1 Corinthians 7 presents some interesting challenges. It has been widely misunderstood throughout church history, often with terrible consequences. If not read carefully it can sound like Paul is against marriage, despises women, and sees sex as dirty and defiling. But a closer reading reveals that, far from being bossy and close-minded about sex and marriage, Paul is actually quite flexible and h...

In 1 Corinthians 6 Paul continues to address the specific problems within the Corinthian community (lawsuits and sexual immorality), but with an interesting twist. He frames their disunity in terms of eschatology. For Paul the future of the whole world (which just is the risen Christ) has already arrived ahead of time in the middle of time. Paul encourages the Corinthians to live into that future...

Before jumping into 1 Corinthians 5, this week we took some time to unpack the distinction between the heart and the conscience. The distinction is key, I think, to understanding how Paul is continuing to make judgments of the Corinthian congregation (1 Cor. 5) even after he has made the point in 1 Cor. 4 that only Christ is the final judge with the last word. (My thanks to Chris Green for helping...

Last week we discussed the “secret” to getting along with one another in church: holding all our opinions and judgments with open hands and with a kind of levity and lightness; recognizing the Lord has the Last Word on all things. This week is a kind of part two to last week. In 1 Corinthians 4:1-5 Paul teaches us the key to taking our judgmental hands off of our neighbors and ourselves. It’s a li...

Good Friday 2024 John 18:1—19:42 “Christians and Heathens” Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1944 from Tegel Prison) I. People go to God when they’re in need, Plead for help, pray for blessings and bread, For rescue from their sickness, guilt, and death. So do they all. All of them, Christians and heathens. II. People go to God when God’s in need, Find God poor, reviled, without shelter or bread, See God devou...

We often use the term “spiritual immaturity” to describe Christians who don’t know enough yet. They need to expand their knowledge of Scripture. They need their doctrine corrected. But for the Apostle Paul the mark of spiritual immaturity within a community is not a lack of theological knowledge or biblical literacy. In 1 Corinthians 3:1-5 he is clear that the primary marks of spiritual immaturity...

Last week we looked at the paradoxical nature of the gospel. This week we turn to see that the paradoxical gospel reveals the paradoxical nature of God’s very being.  The gospel is not a side project for God. The story of the gospel is God’s revealing of himself. This is who he is. The gospel is God and God is the gospel. And the God we meet in the gospel story is a God who is humble in his very b...

Paul begins his letter to the Corinthians stressing the “paradoxical” (two competing ‘glories’ alongside one another) nature of the gospel. The glory, power, and wisdom of God is found in the crucified Jesus. This is God’s wisdom. This is God’s Word. But it is foolishness to the world. Christ crucified is to be the starting point, the measuring rod, the cornerstone by which we discern the truth of...

One of the beautiful things about the Lord’s prayer, as one early church father points out, is that it can be prayed by anyone at any time in any circumstance. It’s a prayer for the poor and the wealthy. For the sick and the healthy. For the slave and the free. For the young and the old. For the spiritually immature and the spiritually mature. In other words: you never outgrow it. The Lord’s Praye...

If the Apostles’ Creed is the heart of our faith, then prayer is the heartbeat of our faith; it is the life itself. This week we look at the first two words of The Lord’s Prayer “Our Father.” These two words give us the substructure—the very foundation—of prayer. When Christ teaches us to pray “Our Father…” he is inviting us to join into the eternally ongoing relationship between him and his Fathe...

Throughout the Apostles’ Creed we are shown the value the Christian faith places on physical creation. God is the Creator of heaven and earth. Jesus is conceived in the womb of the Virgin Mary, suffers in the body, and is resurrected bodily. The Spirit is at work in the church, made up of bodies, and is the power of the resurrection of the body. The logic of Christ’s incarnation is at work at ever...

We’ve been looking at different models of the atonement over the last couple weeks. This week we finish our discussion by turning our attention to one of the most prominent ways the New Testament describes Christ’s work in reconciling the world to himself: Christus Victor . The lens of Christus Victor —Latin for Christ the victorious king—emphasizes Christ’s work in overcoming the Powers of Sin, D...

This week we take a look at the primary way the New Testament and the earliest church understood the atonement: recapitulation. The word recapitulation sounds archaic, but we often use the shortened version: “recap.” The entirety of Jesus’ life “recaps” the whole story of humanity. In solidarity with us, Jesus takes on our human nature, with all its corruptibility (sin and death), and heals it fro...

On first reading the ending of the Apostles’ Creed it can seem like the last few clauses have almost nothing to do with one another. We all have that one kitchen drawer where all the random, loose odds and ends wind up. Is that what we have at the end of the Creed? Is this the Creed’s “junk drawer?” What does “the holy catholic church” and “the forgiveness of sins” and “the resurrection of the bod...

“No other God has a church. None other would want one.” -Robert Jenson The third article of the Apostles’ Creed opens with “Holy, Holy, Holy.” We believe in the Holy Spirit, the holy catholic Church, and the communion of the saints ( sanctorum communio ). The word “catholic” in the Creed has been a stumbling block for some because of it’s association with the Roman Catholic Church. But the word “c...

We’ve centered our study of the Apostles’ Creed (and our theology) on the Second Article: Jesus Christ. To know the Father (and the Spirit) we must look to the crucified Lord. But while Jesus central to our understanding of God, the Spirit is primary. In a way, the Spirit always comes first. As Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 12:3 “…no one can say, ‘Jesus is Lord,’ except by the Holy Spirit.” In othe...

John 20:16-17 Jesus said to her, “Mary.” She turned toward him and cried out in Aramaic, “Rabboni!” (which means “Teacher”).   Jesus said, “Do not hold on to me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father. Go instead to my brothers and tell them, ‘I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.’” According to the New Testament the ascension is an essential part of the gospel pr...

In his lectures on the Apostles’ Creed Karl Barth asks the question: How in the world did Pontius Pilate end up in the Creed? “The answer might first of all be: like a dog into a nice room!” Why is it significant that Pilate is named in the Creed? What does it mean to say that God suffered? Or that God died? And why is it good news that Jesus’ life came to an end? A poem by Hans Urs von Balthasar:...

Is the virgin birth an essential part of the Christian faith? What do we mean when we say that Jesus is both fully God and fully human? Jesus is conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit but is also born to Mary. Is Mary the Mother of God? This week I try to show that if Mary is not the Mother of God, then our salvation is lost. If God did not truly pass through Mary’s womb, then He is not truly E...

Unfortunately, the microphone did not record the class last night. The audio in this post is from a theology class I taught a few months ago. It covers a few of the same themes we discussed last night; especially Jesus as the starting point for all our theology. In class we took the second article of the Creed word by word: “I believe in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord.” Jesus What is our sta...

This week we begin looking at the content of the Apostles’ Creed starting with “God the Father almighty, creator of heaven and earth.” We take each of the key words in turn. What does the Creed mean when it uses the very vague three-letter word “G-O-D”? What does it mean to call God “Father”? Is there gender in God? Is God more masculine than feminine? What does God’s “almightiness” mean? How does...

The Apostles’ Creed is the one text of the three within the ancient catechism that is not in Scripture. This brings up all kinds of questions for many modern Christians: What do we do with it? Should we give it the authority that Scripture has? Is it really necessary for the Christian life? Thank you for reading Extra Credit. This post is public so feel free to share it. In this introduction to th...