Extra Credit Podcast

The disciples approach Jesus with a request: “Lord, teach us to pray.” Dietrich Bonhoeffer, in his wonderful little book on the Psalms, says that we find the disciples request odd. Why would anyone need to be taught how to pray? Don’t we all naturally know how to do that? It’s a common assumption, but it is also a dangerous one. Why? The reason, Bonhoeffer says, is that we so easily confuse our ow...

Last week we ended by saying that Jesus redeems his mother Mary (and all creation) by relying on her. Jesus grew in wisdom and stature. God learned. He learned from his mother. Perhaps the most important thing he learned from her was how to pray. Specifically to pray like this: “Not my will, but yours be done.” This is Mary’s prayer upon receiving the news that she will conceive and give birth to...

Jesus is the healing of David and David’s story. To see the depth of wisdom in the David story we have to see David in Christ and Christ in David. A deep union. A marriage. The way Jesus heals David’s life and the life of the whole world is precisely by becoming flesh, becoming David’s son. We need to think of David the way we should think of Mary: both carry Jesus in their bodies. Think not only...

Flat readings of the David story often turn him into a sort of John Wayne character. A gunslinger, a good-bad guy that has to do what no one is willing to do in order to get the job done so that everyone lives happily ever after. The western is sort of the quintessential American myth. These are the stories we tell ourselves to understand who we are. They are told to characterize something essenti...

The David of 1 & 2 Samuel is a divided character from the beginning. Is he a little boy or is a valiant warrior? Is he pure-hearted or self-serving and ambitious? Does he do battle with the harp or with the sword? But the key through-line in the dividedness of David is this: is he a shepherd or a king? The prophet Samuel warned the Israelites against having a king like all the other nations. Samue...

Chris Green argues that Scripture is written with “pitch” or “spin.” In baseball a pitcher puts spin on the ball he throws to the batter and depending on who the batter is—how they swing, whether they are left-handed or right-handed—the same pitch will come off their bats in two totally different direction. Scripture is written with “pitch” in much the same way. Depending on whose reading it, wher...

“W hose son is this ?” (1 Sam. 17:55) Saul’s question at the end of the David/Goliath story is perhaps the key theme of the whole story of David: Whose son is David? Who exactly is this man? Is he the son of Jesse the Bethlehemite? Will he turn out to be a son to Saul? Can he possibly be the son of God? But Saul’s question should strike us as strange. Saul has not only just spoken to David before...

In 1 Corinthians 15 Paul addresses the fourth and final major issue in the Corinthian church: some of them are denying the resurrection of the body. (In Greek, literally “the rising of the corpses.”) What’s fascinating is that in all the issues he addresses in the letter this is the only time he does not directly correct their behavior. In chapter 15 he is correcting their theology. But can belief...

This week we tackle 1 Corinthians 14 which brings a couple of difficult textual problems. Foremost among them being 1 Cor. 14:34-35 Women should be silent in the churches. For they are not permitted to speak but should be subordinate, as the law also says. 35  If there is something they want to learn, let them ask their husbands at home. For it is shameful for a woman to speak in church. Then we m...

In Acts 8 Stephen comes upon an Ethiopian eunuch seated in his chariot studying Isaiah 53. Stephen asks him, “Do you understand what you are reading?” The eunuch replies, “How can I unless someone guides me ?” The eunuch’s question about the passage in Isaiah is a good one: “ Who is this about?” Not “ What is this about?” but “Who?” Isaiah 53 is a well-beloved passage that most Christians are very...

From 1 Corinthians 11 onwards Paul turns to deal with issues in the Corinthians’ public worship gatherings. In chapters 12 to 14 Paul takes up the issue of orderliness and love of neighbor in public worship. His goal throughout is pastoral . He is trying to show the Corinthians that true worship cannot be disorderly and self-centered . Worship—and use of the gifts in worship—must always be for the...

Does God see gender as a barrier to women taking certain positions of leadership in the church or in the world? It’s a nagging question for many believers today. Some think that God does see gender as a barrier; others think that he doesn’t. But many are still a little nervous that he might. 1 Corinthians 11:2-16 brings all this to the surface in one of the most controversial and difficult passage...

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...