Citizen of Heaven

Register your feedback here. Always good to hear from you! Here is more from Brent Moody and Steve Wolfgang on the topic of temples. In this segment we branch off a bit from the discussion about temples at large and our own personal bodies as temples in particular, and we lean somewhat into the idea in 1 Corinthians 3 of the local church being a temple as well. Our devotion to God and the things o...

Register your feedback here. Always good to hear from you! The temple is not just a building Solomon built 3,000 years ago. It’s one of the most important metaphors in the Bible. Here to discuss the topic are Steve Wolfgang from the Downers Grove church of Christ in suburban Chicago and Brent Moody from the Decker Prairie church of Christ in suburban Houston. Links to the good work these gentlemen...

Register your feedback here. Always good to hear from you! Maybe all this rain in Central Texas this year has got me in a good mood regarding the green stuff. In any case, this week we’ll be discussing the grass that fades, as compared to the word that doesn’t; the pros and cons of the most famous book of poetry in American history; the kids’ lingo and how I might actually understand and agree wit...

Register your feedback here. Always good to hear from you! I doubt you’ve spent much time this month thinking of reeds. My mission this week is to change all that. We’ll cover the broken reeds that Jesus tries to fix, and why; the reeds that are trying to save the world, if only the humans would let them; the reeds that help my wife and others like her make beautiful music – and maybe the occasion...

Register your feedback here. Always good to hear from you! We’ll be discussing various forms of plant life this month, and we’ll start this week with one of the most controversial ones. You’ll see what I mean. We’ll talk about how God does or does not protect His people from harm; the barriers you can put up to protect your marriage; the hedge the Pharisees built around the law and how we can avoi...

Register your feedback here. Always good to hear from you! Andy Cantrell preaches for the Northwest church of Christ in New Hope, Minnesota. Brandon Slater preaches for the Green Meadow church of Christ in in San Angelo, Texas. Links are included in the show notes. We’ve been talking growth this week. We finish by talking about the growth of our faith. Jesus clearly expected His disciples to progr...

Register your feedback here. Always good to hear from you! We’re back with more from Andy Cantrell and Brandon Slater; check the show notes for their links. Here we discuss congregational growth. We think of numerical growth as being a good thing. But is it really? Do the problems that come with growth outweigh the benefits? And are numbers really a good way of measuring the strength of a congrega...

Register your feedback here. Always good to hear from you! Andy Cantrell from Champlin, Minnesota, and Brandon Slater from San Angelo, Texas, join me this week to talk about growth – a topic near and dear to all of us. We start by talking about the first growth any of us experience – the growth of children. When children do not grow, it’s a sign of something going terribly wrong. Andy, Brandon and...

Register your feedback here. Always good to hear from you! We close out our month with the part of California that I have partaken of far more than any other – something I’m prepared to concede California does better than Texas. We’ll discuss how you can tell a good’un from a bad’un; the lessons learned while working with prunes (and no, not the one you’re hoping I’m not talking about); the place...

Register your feedback here. Always good to hear from you! I’ve been in California twice in the last 12 months. And I loved every minute of my time there. Let me tell you a few reasons why. I found what Paul said I should want more than anything in this life. I remembered how beautiful God’s world sounds when you don’t make any noise. I saw the edge of the earth and imagined what was on the other...

Register your feedback here. Always good to hear from you! It’s not all sunshine in California, unfortunately. The usually amazing weather can turn absolutely horrific. Do earthquakes represent God’s efforts to finally destroy California entirely? What do we do when a giant gap threatens to separate brethren permanently? Are natural disasters worse for Californians or for beach people? And what ki...

Register your feedback here. Always good to hear from you! This month’s tour of California starts where talk about California always starts, for better or for worse. We’ll talk about the nature of stardom and whether it’s worth the cost; our obsession with happy endings and the harsh realities that may land instead; the heroes Hollywood used to produce, how the modern-day versions measure up and w...

Register your feedback here. Always good to hear from you! Shawn Highfill and Mike Wilson have joined me for an insightful talk about California this week. We conclude our conversation by considering the abundance of blessings God shares with us in this life – and that are visible in California arguably more than any other place in the world. Links to Shawn’s work in San Jose and Mike’s work in Sa...

Register your feedback here. Always good to hear from you! Christians are prisoners of local culture. Such has always been the case. What do we do when local culture interferes with the culture Jesus is trying to build in His body? And is the problem with California culture that much different than in other places? To help us find an answer, we have Shawn Highfill from San Jose and Mike Wilson fro...

Register your feedback here. Always good to hear from you! California is now my second-favorite state. And as a birthday present to myself, we’re going to spend the whole month of September there. Here to help are Shawn Highfill from the Miller Avenue church of Christ in San Jose and his neighbor Mike Wilson from the church of Christ in Santa Clara. We start with the reason California was so low o...

Register your feedback here. Always good to hear from you! I turn 60 years old in two weeks. And I’m totally OK with it – so OK, in fact, that I want to talk about one of the greatest senior citizens in the Bible; a man who some thought was too old and stubborn to be president, and who then got elected and proved them right; the disadvantage of having older men as advisers and how it got a king ki...

Register your feedback here. Always good to hear from you! Those who know me are likely shocked that an “authority” episode has not appeared as of yet. Well, better late than never. This week we’ll talk about the authority model I’ve heard all my life and whether it deserves its reputation; a king who came up with a way to rule from a distance; an alternative to authority favored by children of al...

Register your feedback here. Always good to hear from you! OK, I’ve put this off long enough. It’s time to actually do an episode about delays. We’ll discuss Saul’s baptism and why it’s such a powerful lesson for us today; the delays in our speech patterns that may speak louder than our actual words; the delays Tracie and I faced in a place where delays are most unwelcome, and how delaying got us...

Register your feedback here. Always good to hear from you! It’s not soccer; it’s football. That’s how the world says it, and that’s the way Terry Francis, Nick Angel and I have been trying to say it. The things you say and the way you say them makes a big difference – including and particularly when you’re talking with brethren. And not always in a good way. So check your biases at the door; it’s...

Register your feedback here. Always good to hear from you! Nick Angel preaches for the Loudon church of Christ in Louden, Tennessee; Terry Francis is with the church in Chelsea, Alabama. Links to their work are in the show notes. In the second part of our World Cup conversation, we discuss the anti-American propaganda and a German named Freddy has headed up the charge of rebutting it, and how we a...

Register your feedback here. Always good to hear from you! Confession time: I did not watch the World Cup this summer. But I did keep up with it well enough to appreciate the cultural phenomenon that it is in the world and that it became here in America. To show proper respect for the game we’re trying to call “football” this week, I enlisted the help of true aficionados Terry Francis and Nick Ang...

Register your feedback here. Always good to hear from you! In a month full of drinking one thing or another, we finish with the most basic liquid of all. We’ll cover whether water can actually save you or whether it just gets you wet; whether the depths of the ocean and all the terrors therein should be enough to make you change your vocation; why I’m not as excited about rain as I usually am this...

Register your feedback here. Always good to hear from you! Wine comes up in a wide variety of contexts in the Bible. This week we’ll discuss how the most famous Bible passage about wine may not really be talking about wine at all; how choosing to leave the drunken lifestyle doesn’t always yield the results you had hoped for; how being in love is like drinking wine, both for good and for ill – and...

Register your feedback here. Always good to hear from you! We’re talking beverages this month on the podcast. Last week was coffee; this week we’re going a bit highbrow – or maybe not; we’ll have to see. We’ll discuss whether civilization is all it’s cracked up to be; whether tea is merely a beverage or an entire lifestyle; what “the tea” really is (not “tea,” mind you – “THE tea”); and whether yo...

Register your feedback here. Always good to hear from you! I hope everyone else has enjoyed this week at the coffee shop as much as I have; let’s have one last cup before we leave. To conclude the discussion, Mark Roberts and BJ Sipe discuss the willpower you have to find sometimes to walk away from something that may not be dangerous or sinful in and of itself. Links to their respective work are...