Cocktails with Beers

We chat about the Gospel of Thomas, and whether or not it can tell us anything about Jesus.  This is an ancient gospel that didn't make it into the Bible, but may have been a contemporary to the gospels that did.  That is, it likely existed side by side Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.  Even more, it likely competed with them to become the dominant view of Christianity.  Here's the thing, though.  W...

We chat about the history between Palestine and Israel.  Israel and Palestine are in another war...or rather, continue the war that began over 70 years ago.  The history of between these two peoples is complicated.  You wouldn't think that looking at the black and white versions of reality plastered all over social media.  Merry and I explore the gray zone, the no man's land of the conflict.  We s...

We chat about the Gospel of Mary, another book that didn't make it into the Bible.  The book is a wee bit weird.  It has language and symbols that are hard to understand.  And then pages are missing, so we are left to fill in a lot of blans.  But, it gives us a peak at the interesting, early centuries, religious movement we now know as Gnosticism.  More importantly, this book tells us how importan...

We chat about the Infancy Gospel of James.  What do we know about Joseph and Mary?  We know they are the parets of Jesus?  But what about their lives before all that Jesus stuff started happening?  What was Mary like as a child?  How and when did she meet Joseph?  What was Joseph like?  What's this I hear about an Immaculate Conception?  The Infancy Gospel of James tackles alot of these questions,...

We chat about a gospel account that didn't make it into the Bible, The Infancy Gospel of Thomas.  This book tells us about Jesus' childhood.  What was it like to be a God-Man discovering one's own power?  What was it like to know more than all your teachers?  What happens if you accidentally bump into the shoulder of a young Jesus?  Well...you die, that's what happens.  So what can we learn from t...

We chat about the story of Peter trying to keep Jesus from going to Jerusalem.  Everyone knows what will happen to him if he goes there.  Even Jesus knows what will happen to him.  He will be arrested, tried, and executed.  Naturally, Peter tries to stop him from going.  Jesus calls him a stumbling block, and tells him that he is thinking about human things and not divine things.  We chat about wh...

We cover a lot in this episode.  First we chat about our fall plans to participate in a charity golf tournament-- last place wins a canister of tennis balls.  By the end of September, we will be richer by one canister of tennis balls.  We then, unplanned, process the trauma of sending our eldest daughter to kindergarten.  We then get to our subject at hand--Peter confesses to Jesus that he is the...

We chat about the story of Jesus healing a Canaanite woman's daughter.  This is one of those tought stories.  Why?  She asks Jesus for a favor, and he ignores her.  The disciples ask Jesus to address her.  She keeps bugging them.  But instead of advocating for the healing she is asking for, they ask Jesus to send her away.  Then Jesus tells the disciples that he won't throw food intended for child...

The gospel of Matthew has a lot to say about Jesus.  And each thing we learn about him is even better than the last.  You could say that Matthew is the Ron Popeil of the New Testament.  We learn that Jesus is teacher.  But wait, there's more.  Jesus is a king.  But wait, there's more.  Jesus is a savior.  But wait.....!  This week, we talk about Jesus as our savior.  But what is Jesus saving us fr...

Jesus feeds over 5000 people at once.  We chat about what this story meant back then, that it was a way of saying "Jesus is our king, not you!" without really saying it.  Merry also talks about her book, The Diplomacy of Migration .  We then apply her thesis theologically to the the Biblical story to see how we can apply these lessons today in our lives and in our world.  

We chat about the parables that appear in Matthew 13.  There are seven of them put side by side.  Sunday communities rarely read them all together.  We tend to divide them over mulitiple Sundays.  And so we miss the big picture significance of them that Matthew is trying to paint.  We chat about these seven parables--why these seven together, and why do they appear where they do?  The answer could...

We chat about Jesus' parable we call The Wheat and the Weed.  A farmer plants good seed in a field.  Then that night, his enemy sows imposter seed in the same field.  The whole season, no one realizes that there are weeds among the wheat.  By the time they realize what happened, its too late, because it is nearly harvest time.  So, the reapers come and do their job.  They gather the weed and burn...

We chat about Jesus' famous parable.  You can find it in Matthew 13.  It goes by many names, the parable of the soil, the parable of the seeds, and the parable of the sower.  We also chat about how Jesus used parables, and how this story is a commentary on Isaiah.  

Paul wrote a letter to the Romans many years ago.  It was such a good letter that it made it into the Bible.  But what on earth is Paul going on about?  We give an overview of Paul's letter, his motivations for writing it, and what he sought to accomplish.  We also focus on ch. 7: 15-25 when he laments that he is not able to stop sinning.  We put these words in the context of an ancient Jewish man...

Our world is full of tough choices.  Some of these are innocuous.  Some have consequences for ourselves and other people.  Here's an example.  A few weeks ago, a Christian denomination voted to ordain women into pastoral ministry.  Then, another denomination voted to affirm their stance to not involve women in leadership.  But both point to the Bible to support their claim.  These truth claims com...

We chat about a difficult saying of Jesus.  "You think I came to bring peace. No, I came not with peace, but with a sword." What the heck? We chat about how this saying has been used by Christians, ane how some are using it today. We also discuss why we think this is something Jesus actually said. And then we change the tone of the saying. What if Jesus wasn't being aggressive, but was lamenting....

We sit with our own co-host, scholar in Chinese-American diplomatic history, and author of The Diplomacy of Migration, Dr. Meredith Oyen, to chat about the different contemporary expressions of the Church in China.  We then, well Pr. Matt, consider how the Church in China can inform how we read the Bible.  We look at Matthew 10, and we consider why the ancient Jesus movement was being persecuted b...

We chat about that one time when Jesus healed a woman and then raised a dead person on the same day.  You can read it in Matthew 9: 18-26.  Why does Matthew tell the story like this?  Why these two miracles at the same time?  What is Matthew trying to tell us about Jesus?  And what does this all mean for us today?  

We chat about one of Jesus' most famous saying.  "All y'all are the salt of the earth. And y'all are a light shining into the world."  But who is he talking about? Is it you? The answer has been right there under our noses for 2000 years. And we talk about it this week.

A new website has emerged claiming that it can write a term paper, or even a sermon, using aritificial intelligence.  We chat about the ethics of this.  Knee jerk reaction says it is clearly and distinctly wrong. But, what if a student used it as a resource?  What if the student cited the work? Or, if a pastor has a hectic week filled with visits, funerals, and the typical surprises of congregatio...

We're back after three months off to welcome a new addition to our family.  And we come back swinging.  This week we give you an update on the past three months, we chat about what pastors is and what they should do, and we chat about a textual variant in John's gospel account that questions how unified the early church was on the question of who Jesus is- Son of God, God's chosen one, or both.  

We chat about one of Jesus' parables. In it Jesus tells the story of an estate manager who was fired by the owner. He was accused of wasting the owner's money. Facing unemployment and bankruptcy, he cuts deals with the folk that owe his boss money. His boss finds out about his trickery. So what does he do? He praises him! Whhaattt! We also chat about The Taiwan Relations Act and also football.

We chat about pastors plagiarizing in the pulpit.  Another mega-church pastor has been caught doing something fishy.  He allegedly uses other people's ideas and words, doesn't cite them, and then says he doesn't have to.  So, we chat about what plagiarism looks like behind the pulpit.  We also discuss MLK's "I Have a Dream Speech," and what that event teaches us about the do's and don't's of emplo...

What does the BIble have to say about forgiving student loan debt?  There's a lot of people quoting the Bible in the wake of Biden's announcement about forgiving student loan debt.  Some say you have to repay.  Others say the Bibel says otherwise.  We chat about all that, and give our take on things.  We also chat about yet another mega-church scandal involving the alleged misbehaviors of a big na...

In the stories about Jesus, there's a lot of talk about when it is ok to heal someone. May you heal someone on the Sabbath? Why was this such a big deal? Why was Jesus so insistent on it? And what does any of this have to do with today? Along the way, we chat about visits to the dentist, names of generic cereals, and bane of social media.