Crazy Faith Talk

In Mark's Gospel, Jesus casts out a "legion" of evil spirits from a man living in Gentile territory on the far side of the Sea of Galilee, and then he sends him back to his life, family, and community whole and well, to tell everyone what God has done for him. But... whatever happened to this unnamed man? Did he and Jesus ever cross paths again? How do we live with the open-ended nat...

In a well-known (but textually curious) story, a woman who had been caught in adultery is brought to Jesus by an angry crowd of religious leaders, asking him if he supports their plan to stone her to death. Jesus' response is strange at first--he starts writing in the dirt with his finger! What's going on in this story, and why don't we know what Jesus was writing? This is where our co...

Jesus seems clear in the Gospels that his followers are called to love their enemies and to refuse to answer evil with evil, even forbidding his disciples from using their weapons to protect him in the garden on the night of his arrest. The rest of the New Testament has a profound sense of non-violence as well. But what do we do about the accounts of violence and warfare in the Old Testament, and...

The Gospels and the rest of the New Testament speak pretty clearly about the Christian hope of resurrection from the dead, while the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament is a good deal more ambiguous. Sometimes those who die are said to be "gathered to their ancestors," or "go to the grave" or to be in "Sheol," which is depicted as a realm of the dead. Sometimes there is the im...

When New Testament writers see details from the story of Jesus as "fulfillments" of the Hebrew prophets, should we think of them as predictions? Are they meant to be clues hidden in the ancient writings of the Old Testament, or are the New Testament writers doing something different when they quote the Hebrew Scriptures to point to Jesus? And how can it make us better Bible readers to kn...

One of the most distinctive points of classic Christian theology is the notion of God as "Trinity"--God's existence as One Being in Three Persons, which is a way of saying that Jesus is fully God (as well as being human) and that the Spirit is also fully God. How have Christians read the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament in light of the Trinity, and how is that different from how our Jewish...

Sometimes in the Bible, God is described as being the special deity of one group of people--the descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. And other times, the Bible emphasizes that there is only one God over all the universe. Sometimes the biblical writers speak of God like a powerful king, and sometimes like a brokenhearted spouse; sometimes like a strong shepherd, and other times like a mother h...

Sometimes in popular religion, the assumption is made that God is "mean" in the Old Testament and "nice" in the New Testament--but is that really how the Bible works? Can we learn from the witness of the early church that deliberately resisted the temptation to separate from the scriptures and story of Israel? And can we see a consistent character of God throughout the Bible? J...

Do the books of the Bible which many people go to for their end-times theology (like Revelation, Daniel, and parts of Mark) ONLY refer to distant future events? Did they mean nothing for the hearers of their original historical contexts? Is it possible that these books spoke first to their own times and places, and then also speak a word of hope for us as well? And how might that change how we und...

When Jesus comes in glory, will his personality or character have changed? Should we fear that the Suffering Servant and Prince of Peace who lays down his life at the cross and teaches love of enemies will change tactics and become a conquering king or a violent tyrant? Why might people get that idea, and what really is our hope?

Sometimes church folk envision complicated timelines of events they believe must happen in world history in order for Jesus to come back (we explored this kind of thinking in our first episode of this series), and often those timelines involve assumptions about events pertaining to the modern nation-state of Israel. And sometimes, religious voices will take verses from the Scriptures originally ab...

We've all seen the classic poster with Uncle Sam trying to recruit soldiers for previous war efforts, with his severe look and the caption, "I want you!" But is that how God operates? Does God need our help to fight some cosmic battle in the future, or is the victory already won in Christ? And when the Bible talks about wearing the "armor of God" is that for some kind of li...

From action-packed summer blockbusters to pop culture references, people use the word "Armageddon" to talk about any cataclysmic disaster, real or imagined. But what does the word actually mean, and where does it come from? In this episode, colleagues in minister Erica, Natalie, Sarah, and Steve explore the history behind this word, the misnomer that it's about a grand future battle,...

Every so often, it seems there is a flare-up of folks worried about Jesus' coming again, or whether current events in the news could be triggering the end of the world. In this new series for Eastertide, colleagues in ministry Sarah, Erica, Natalie, and Steve will be exploring why a faithful and thoughtful end-times theology (sometimes called "eschatology") matters, and why it's...

While we often think of Mary, the mother of Jesus, around Christmas time, amid the stories of angels, shepherds, and mangers, the gospels and the book of Acts remind us that Mary was a presence throughout Jesus' ministry, that she persevered through the horror of the cross, and continued to be an important figure in the early Christian community as well. We'll consider Mary's example i...

While many think of the apostle Paul primarily as a theologian--someone who talked and wrote about what Christians believe --he also gives us a powerful example of Christian discipleship as a matter of taking the gospel seriously, and living out what we understand by faith. In this conversation, we'll explore how Paul's life story, journeys, and writing give us a glimpse of the kind of lif...

Of course, Christians would look to Jesus as part of their faith, right? But is everything Jesus did in the Gospels meant to be copied? Are there some ways in which Jesus is unique? And if two people sincerely ask, "What would Jesus do?" and they get very different answers, what do we do about it? How do we take Jesus seriously as a model of our discipleship, and also find hope in Jesus&...

In many Christian traditions, when new disciples are baptized or affirm their faith, they are explicitly asked if they will speak and act in ways that seek peace and justice for all people. That might look different for each of us, but we can learn something about this calling to work for the good of those who are suffering and speak to help end mistreatment from the story of Moses, who spoke up t...

In much of the ancient biblical world, it was taken as a given that one must show hospitality and genuine welcome to strangers who come to your door. That's visible in the early storytelling in Genesis when Abraham welcomes the three divine visitors, but it also becomes a central theme in the Torah when Israel is commanded to welcome foreigners and treat them the same as their own citizens, be...

In our previous series, we explored how God has a way throughout the Bible of calling unlikely and unexpected people to belong... but what exactly is the life we have been called into really all about? That's what discipleship is all about, and in this new series for Lent, we're going to explore several big ideas of what it looks like to be a disciple, starting with a classic description f...

The entire book of Acts traces the course of the followers of Jesus reaching across boundaries in increasingly wide circles, "beginning in Jerusalem, to Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth." The Christian community, in other words, has always been one to take seriously God's desire to call outsiders and draw all people in. We'll explore that story as it unfolds in Act...

Even though we think of them as heroes of the faith and might name church buildings after them, the disciples of Jesus were often outsiders in a number of ways. From Jesus' unlikely way of choosing his disciples rather than having them audition and prove their skills, to his inclusion of women among his followers and as witnesses of the resurrection, to his way of reaching out to outcasts like...

Even with in ancient Israelite society, God raised up people from the margins who could speak difficult truths and see with clarity what the "insiders" might not be able to recognize any longer. That was the role of the prophets, who often had to be the ones brave enough to say when the emperor was wearing no clothes, so to speak. But beyond that, the message of many of the prophets also...

When the Israelite spies preparing to take over Jericho are in danger of being found out, a resident of Jericho named Rahab helps to hide them and keep them safe from the authorities. She could have been viewed only as "the enemy" or looked down on for being a prostitute, but she ends up saving their lives and becoming an ancestor of Jesus himself, too! We'll explore more of the mean...

In the Bible, the first person to give a name to God isn't a priest or an official prophet; it's not a king or a patriarch like Abraham, either. She is an enslaved woman from north Africa, Hagar, and God provides for both her and her child, Ishmael, even when they have been cast out by Abraham and Sarah--because that's how God operates. Join us for this next conversation in our series,...