Geocaching Scripture

A true Israelite in which there is no guile! Jesus sums up Nathanael within a hundred feet of meeting him. Let's look at John's fig tree imagery, Jacob references, and strange choice of detail in this exchange. We also share some mushy stories of times we've been affirmed and challenged out of nowhere by the voice of Christ through someone else. Tune in.

We begin with the shocking story of an accidental millionaire who made his gains by way of an old rug he found on the porch. Then we discuss the value of the perfume used to wash Jesus' feet, and how he turned that value toward the forgotten woman with her dripping hair. That and Rick lists his surprising collection of Civil War antiques while Josh discusses his near-worthless trove of baseball ca...

After a brief leave of absence, we are back and starting at the beginning. Old Scratch himself slithers up to our first parents and immediately starts twisting the language. From conflating God's words to using a different name for God himself, the snake puts a slippery wedge between humanity and reality. It worked, btw. That and Josh has a youth group flashback while Rick gets misunderstood.

They dropped everything and followed Him... We look at the calling of two of the disciples – sudden, strange, life-altering. Jesus seeks them out and they leave everything – livelihood, culture, relationships – and follow Him. In that culture, the rabbi never came for you – you chased him down and begged to be his disciple. For Jesus to tap these nobodies on the shoulder and ask them to join his r...

In my Father's house are many rooms. We've probably all heard this phrase, and it brings to mind to streets of gold and perhaps great-grandma in a gossamer gown. In this passage, Jesus is giving some hint at that mysterious chunk of time between our death and the final resurrection. What happens in the "beyond the blue?" Not sure exactly, but at least we can look at the clues we...

"I will make you fishers of men" – from the cinderblock church basement wall to the minivan bumper, this metaphor has been beaten lifeless in Christendom. The puns are painful, the jokes are dead in the water. But looking more closely, we find the phrase has Greco-Roman roots from way back, and possibly an Old Testament reference as well. Jesus, once again, is picking up the parlance of...

We look at Jesus' many miracles, and how he incorporated people in the process. He didn't need the earthen jars filled with water to make wine, he didn't need Peter to throw the net into the water. He could have made these things just automatically happen, but – for some reason – he wanted us involved. He invites us into participation in his work now, and he even in his "wondrous...

Oh Jerusalem! How I have longed to gather you...Jesus makes this plea to his people in his time on earth, giving them the strange image of Himself as a gathering mother hen. We look at how Jesus eventually brings this pass, how no one would have guessed, at Pentecost. This, and we talk about getting attacked by birds.

Paul was writing from prison...again. During this time, he was chained to a succession of Roman special forces guards in full armor. As he scribed away in the dark corner, he simply looked around and came up with his most famous metaphor. We talk ancient prisons, Roman correctional practices, and the fact that the armor of God included no pants.

Let's look at one of the childhood classics: Daniel looking a little nervous, circled by hungry lions showing off their teeth and rib cages. This story, and many like it, are often dismissed early on as ahistorical – the narrative resonates, but there's no history behind it. But let's look closer. Let's look at Ancient Near Eastern history and the lion hunts staged by rulers, just...

Jesus goes back to his hometown. The people have trouble with the paradigm shift of who Jesus was to Who Jesus actually is: "We've known you since small times." We talk about our own personal trouble with this paradigm shift, and how it's hard to see things from a God's eye view. That and apparently Rick wasn't very good at kickball..? 

Tell my brothers to go to Galilee. Jesus gives some very simple directions after the extremely unsimple event of the resurrection. Yet the disciples can't quite figure out how to follow. Fear? Disbelief? Disobedience? Yep, probably all those. We'll look at this extremely slow trip to Galilee in our latest episode.

Have you ever been in a really bad storm? The kind where you wonder if the house might blow away or a flood might carry you off? The disciples were in the midst of a brutal storm that night and they go to find the one guy who's supposed to be in charge – and He's taking a nap! Let's dig into this story, and the delicious details throughout and see if we can't figure out why Jesus w...

We look at the story within a story of Mark 5 – the raising of Jairus's daughter and the woman with the issue of blood. The detail that connects them is the number 12. Mark seems to draw an analogy between this woman lost to her community and this girl lost to life. "You are a daughter" – Jesus speaks these life-altering words of resurrection and restoration. Tune in.

We kick off season five with a discussion of a political slogan that sneaked into some of Paul's writing. Against the iron backdrop of the Roman Empire, Paul reminds us of the kingdom that will have no end. In his encouraging letter to the community in Thessalonica, Paul talks with them about the great final "Day of the Lord" in which no political structure will stand, and he parodie...

"Marry a prostitute..." Among the strange things that God asked prophets to do in the Old Testament, this has to be in the top three. Hosea and Gomer's bizarre marriage becomes a powerful symbol of God's love for Israel – unfaithful and unworthy as she might be. The story, again, is that our "worthiness", like Gomer's worthiness, comes from God, not from us. Therefo...

"Immeasurably more than all we can ask or imagine..." This one often gets taken out of context, and might be applied to requests for Instagram followers or the latest new TransAm (whatever your generation might be). But we look closer at the setting of this passage, which is right within a hymn of praise telling us about who God is, not what we can get from Him. We talk about the importa...

Have you ever had a nickname that stuck? Usually the best ones are those that poke us a little – a short guy called "Too Tall Jones" etc. Jesus had a special nickname for his disciples, that we translate the dullest way possible. Looking at this little moniker gives us insight into Jesus' personality – his humor and his whimsy, which often gets lost in translation. 

"Muzzle not the ox" is kind of vaguely rhetorically powerful bibley thing that people say about pastor's salaries. But what was the context really pointing to here? Why did Paul bring this up? This OT verse, and Paul's quotation of it, gets low-key half-interpreted throughout the church, and we just can't have that! It's a discussion of justice, in the end, of how you tre...

Rick tells the harrowing story of being injured on a rural farm as a kid. It took them two hours to get to the hospital from the country, and the doctor said he wouldn't be able to do much. But God had different plans. Broken glass, slashed ligaments, 36 stitches, and mix that with bizarre theology, but God's miracles still manage to come through, right in the middle of our mess. 

We look at the well-known story of the sower who sows seeds all around. Seeds fall all over – some to growth, some to loss, some to a short, dried-out life. But look at the seed taken by the "birds of the air" – what do said birds do with the seed once they eat it? This detail could point to God's enduring grace even in a harsh and dry world – the seed of the gospel distributed, comp...

We're back – from illness, from holidays, from the madness! Here is our discussion of a little bit of graffiti, a very small geocache indeed, that appeared in the margins of Hebrews 1:3 in a third century manuscript. This smidgen of script, beginning with something like "Fool and knave..." gives us some insight into an ancient discussion about theology, heresy, and the truths of fait...

A belated Christmas episode as a sinus infection had me knocked out for a while. We look at the visit of the Magi, specifically the gifts they brought. Why did they choose these gifts? Why was it important for Mary and Joseph to have these gifts in this exact moment? These are also the most expensive gifts this family had probably ever seen. We drill down into the history of these mysterious men,...

The story of Jesus healing the bleeding woman is well-known, but let's pull back and look at the context. This woman crosses Jesus' path on his way to heal a Sanhedrin official's daughter. If Jesus wanted to win friends and influence people, he would have just kept going. But he didn't, he wanted to bring in the Kingdom. We talk through this passage and the Lord's internal sens...

This week we talk through a very strange episode in which God attempts to kill Moses, Zipporah performs a hasty circumcision, there's some kind of midnight declaration, and the attack relents. So....? It's a particularly strange exchange, which makes it a fascinating geocache. Why was God tryna KILL Moses? Why was Moses's son NOT circumcised? What does "bridegroom of blood" m...