Extra Credit Podcast

The Will of God Ep. 6. This week we try to think through the reasons for the anxiety that seems constituent of modern life and seeking to do the will of God. Here is the passage from Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s Ethics that we finished with: All that we have said thus far implies that we have abandoned the abstract notion, largely dominant in ethical thought, of an isolated individual who has available a...

The Will of God Ep. 5 “Whoever accuses or judges a brother or sister, accuses the law and judges the law; but if you judge the law, you are not a doer of the law but a judge.” -James 4:11 Bonhoeffer commenting on James 4 writes, Judging stands in absolute opposition to doing…There are two types of behavior with regard to the law, judging and doing; they are mutually exclusive. Those who judge unde...

The Will of God Ep. 4. This week we discuss how we can hear the voice of God. Bonhoeffer is convinced that the primary and the orienting way God speaks directly to us is through preaching. He writes: Proclamation is the specific mandate given to the church. God wants a place at which, until the end of the world, God’s word is again and again spoken, pronounced, delivered, expounded, and spread. Th...

The Will of God Ep. 3. This week we discuss knowing the will of God for our lives. God’s will is not a secret. God has revealed it and wants us to know it and do it. We discuss the difference between abstract, universal moral principles and the concrete commandment of God and we looked at the life of Bonhoeffer as an example. Here are a few quotes that cut to the quick of the class: Bonhoeffer on...

The Will of God Ep. 2. A catena on the birth of God in each person: Meister Eckhart: Here, in time, we are celebrating the eternal birth which God the Father bore and bears unceasingly in eternity, because this same birth is now born in time, in human nature. St. Augustine says, “What does it avail me that this birth is always happening, if it does not happen in me? That it should happen in me is...

The Will of God Ep. 1 Here is an excerpt from Chris Green’s Surprised by God that not only cuts to the heart of what we discussed in class, but is the genesis for all my thoughts on the matter: “In many ways, our move toward a mature grasp of the truth begins in the recognition that God is not in control of what happens in the world, and that all that we experience in this world is at best an inco...

The Joseph Story Ep. 7. In lieu of a write-up of the class I’ll leave you with a couple of quotations. The first, from St. Maximus the Confessor, which framed our discussion. The second, from Chris Green’s Sanctifying Interpretation , which was the primary source for the entire class. St. Maximus the Confessor: “In consequence, it is necessary for him who seeks God piously not to latch on to a phr...

The Joseph Story Ep. 6. Jewish scholar Yair Zakovitch says that the book of Genesis is the Table of Contents for the Bible. Everything is contained Genesis in embryonic form, it is the genetic code of the Bible. The more I study Genesis the more I’m convinced he’s right. I don’t think it’s much of an exaggeration to say that most every point Paul makes in his letters can be made on the basis of te...

The Joseph Story Ep. 5 The Roaring Lion At the end of the Joseph story the elderly patriarch Jacob gathers his sons around him to deliver last words to each of them. It is Judah (along with Joseph) that receives the most positive (and lengthiest) words. This helps us to pay closer attention to the important role that Judah plays in the Joseph narrative. He is one of the heroes of the story. Jacob’...

The Joseph Story Ep. 4 This week we take a close look at Joseph’s scheme (dissembling) that he puts his brothers through. The scheme serves the purpose of forcing the brothers to experience the suffering they caused Joseph in an “eye-for-an-eye” type justice. But it also forces them to relive their original crime, which unearths their feelings of guilt. In other words, Joseph scheme causes his bro...

The Joseph Story Ep. 3 A preliminary remark: One of the gifts of Scripture is that its stories allow us to process our deep-seated personal pain in a safe way. I can talk about my own pain a lot easier by talking about Joseph’s pain. The topic of trauma is a sensitive one, but perhaps the Joseph narrative can give us enough distance from our own circumstances—even for a moment—to think about the n...

A Sermon for Good Friday 2026 A Good Friday sermon on Psalm 22 9 Yet it was you who took me from the womb; you kept me safe on my mother’s breast. 10 On you I was cast from my birth, and since my mother bore me you have been my God. Johannes Tauler (1300-1361) on Mary at the foot of Jesus’ cross: “For if any creature could have brought comfort to our Lord as He hung upon the Cross, none would have...

The Joseph Story Ep. 2 Because of the additional “duties” that Holy Week brings, I was unable to write up an overview of this week’s class. I’m sure that with Easter Sunday on the horizon you will all find it in your hearts to forgive me. Here is the diagram of Joseph’s family tree that I drew in class: And here is the quote from Bonhoeffer: “So people called by Jesus learn that they had lived an...

The Joseph Story Ep. 1 The Jewish scholar Jon Levenson has said that the Joseph story in Genesis “is arguably the most sophisticated narrative in the Jewish or the Christian Bibles.” Chris Green writes that it is “deceptively simple” and that it becomes “more mysterious with every good re-reading.” Taking these two thoughts together we see that the sophistication of the Joseph story is the reason...

Paul pens both his letters to Timothy to encourage him to continue his struggle against the false teachers in the congregation at Ephesus. Paul planted this church years earlier. Luke records this in Acts 19—20. As Paul was leaving Ephesus he warned the church that false teachers would creep in and even arise out of their own number. There was something about the church in Ephesus that made it esp...

As we close our study of 1 & 2 Timothy we come to the most notorious lines in either book: “ 11 A woman should learn in quietness and full submission. 12 I do not permit a woman to teach or to assume authority over a man; she must be quiet” (1 Tim. 2:11-12). Of course, the typical complementarian vs. egalitarian debates center on this passage. In class I gave both a historical and a theological ar...

Suffering and Power 2 Timothy is a tender letter. It is written from a jail cell by a man who knows he is not long for this world. Paul’s heart is opened wide to Timothy throughout. The letter begins: “To my dear son, Timothy,” and concludes with: “Do your best to come quickly to me.” Paul needs his dear son by his side because most everyone else has deserted him. He’s lonely and in need… …and yet...

Last week we looked at the non-rivalrous, non-competitive posture the church is to have to the world. The church is called to be for the world not against it. In 1 Timothy 2:1—5 Paul says that there is one mediator, Jesus Christ, who died for the entire world, and it is through this mediator that the church is called to make petitions, prayers, intercession, and thanksgiving for all people . Why?...

What relationship is the church to have with the world? Many versions of Christianity assume that the church and world are locked in a metaphysical fight to the death. One will win, the other will lose. But the church is not in a competition or duel with the world. Jesus says he will build his church and the gates of hell will not prevail against it. The only competitive relationship the church ha...

Pillars That Make Shared Life Possible We are moving outward in concentric circles from the center of the church (the eucharist), to ordained ministry, to sociality within the church mediated by Christ, and now to the structures of authority within the church. Talking about power and authority is messy business. People get hurt in church—sometimes inadvertently, other times deliberately. But I’m c...

Perhaps the most famous line in either First or Second Timothy comes in 1 Timothy 2:5, “There is one God, and so there is one mediator between God and man, namely the man Jesus Christ.” We can easily see the importance of this line, but when we consider it within the context of Paul’s letter to Timothy it can be hard to see how it fits in with the rest of the argument. Yes, Christ is our mediator...

In 1 Timothy 4 Paul reminds Timothy that he was commissions into ministry “by Spirit-filled utterance [prophecy] and with the laying on of hands by the council of elders.” Again in 2 Timothy 1 Paul encourages Timothy to “fan into flame the gift of God, which is in you through the laying on of my hands .” This is the beginning of the sacramental ritual of ordination. This ritual is “sacramental” be...

Paul writes to his young protégé Timothy to “command certain people not to teach false doctrines any longer.” Paul does not ever clearly explain what these false teachers were teaching (Timothy doesn’t need him to). Throughout the two letters we primarily get little hints and insights into the situation by the way Paul talks about the effect these teachings have in the church-community. However, t...

“Sound teaching strengthens, while sick teaching weakens…sick teaching leads to sick holiness.” -Dietrich Bonhoeffer Sick Teaching, Sick Holiness Gordon Fee argues that the primary purpose of Paul’s Pastoral Epistles is not to establish church order or provide a “church manual” for church governance. Rather, Paul’s purpose in writing to Timothy is to thwart the false teachers that have gained sway...

“By the way, a prison cell like this is a good analogy for Advent; one waits, hopes, does this or that—ultimately negligible things—the door is locked and can only be opened from the outside .” -Dietrich Bonhoeffer This week we read and discussed some of Bonhoeffer’s letters from prison during the season of Advent. Bonhoeffer touches on themes of suffering, grief, loss, and restoration, and sharin...