GRINDIT podcast

Jesus has used a child to teach his disciples about humility and along with humility...forgiveness. when children play together, there can be a little bit of a skirmish but within seconds, they are right back to playing as if nothing ever happened. Jesus tells his disciples they must forgive others and Peter thinks he has a great handle on it when he asks, "How many times do I have to forgive? Sev...

Jesus is giving an answer to a questions the disciples asked him but they aren’t getting the answer they were expecting. Jesus takes a small child and uses this child as an illustration on how his followers should be. As he is speaking, he mentions something about angels in heaven watching over the little children. Do we have guardian angels? Listen to find out, but the answer may be in the parabl...

Men have huge egos and are very competitive. It was no different with the disciples! They were men who came from all kinds of backgrounds and occupations. The three that had special privileges, Peter, James, and John were commercial fishermen who competed in the fishing business to make a living and we’ll see this play out as they follow Jesus. They want to know “Who is the greatest person in the...

The disciples couldn’t cast a demon out of a kid and Jesus tells them it is because they don’t have enough faith but some versions read, “They had doubt.” Why would they have doubt? They have been walking with Jesus for a while now and have seen him work miracle after miracle yet they continue to doubt. At the end of chapter 17, the Temple tax needs to be paid and Jesus tells Peter to go catch a f...

Jesus takes Peter, James, and John up on a mountain where they witness something amazing—the Transformation of Jesus. The word in the Greek means metamorphosis which is what we see when a caterpillar turns into a butterfly. Jesus’ face shines as bright as the sun and his clothes are a brilliant white. Peter, bless his heart, tries to interrupt what was happening but God the Father overshadows the...

Peter had just made that great proclamation, “You are the Christ, the Son of the Living God!” and yet, in the next breath Jesus is calling him Satan and telling him to get behind him! How did this happen? Why would Jesus say this? How could someone who has given their life to follow Jesus and has worked miracles themselves allow Satan to influence them? Can this happen to us today? Can people be d...

Jesus is challenged by the Pharisees and Sadducees yet again and after a mic drop moment, he gets in the boat with his disciples and heads to Philippi. While there he warns them about the leaven of the pharisees and they mistake what Jesus is saying. They think he is scolding them because they forgot to bring the bread along on the trip. So Jesus takes this opportunity to give a survey to his disc...

Something we don’t hear about to often is Jesus going into the region of Tyre and Sidon where it is heavily populated with Gentiles. Tyre and Sidon have an interesting history and two synagogues from the time Jesus was walking on the earth have been discovered there and one the best preserved Hippodromes is there to this day. Learn a lesson from the disciples here…Remember! Jesus had just fed a cr...

Jesus arrives to another region and is immediately met with a woman who was desperate but this is no ordinary woman. This woman was a Gentile so she had many things going against her. Gentiles weren’t very well liked by Jews and she was also a woman. In Jesus’ culture, women weren’t very respected, in fact they were treated much like shepherds. They weren’t even allowed to be a witness in court ye...

The Pharisees and religious leaders have heard of all these great things Jesus has done with the most recent being how he fed a ginormous crowd with two fish and five loaves of bread. He always has crowds around him and they all seem to want a miracle from him. He never disappoints so they would go back home talking about what Jesus had done for them. The Pharisees are fed up with this guy and the...

Gary Henline is the Senior Minister at First Christian Church in Maryville, TN located at 400 Court St, Maryville, TN 37803. He discovered he had stage 3 bone cancer in September 2022 and is going through treatment. He talks about how he found out he had cancer and how God is bringing him, as well as his family, through it. You will be encouraged by Gary's story!

Jesus sends his disciples to the other side of the Sea of Galilee and a storm comes up. They are out there rowing for their lives for hours while Jesus watched from the mountainside. He knew they were struggling and he allowed them to struggle! He didn’t keep them from the storm and he didn’t immediately comer to their rescue! When he did show up, he still didn’t calm the storm and his disciples d...

We know Jesus was a giver and the ultimate gift he gave was his life on the cross for our sin, but his example of giving goes way back before the cross. He was always meeting people’s needs, from his disciples to the crowds that constantly gathered around him everywhere he went. After hearing the news about the death of John the Baptizer, Jesus went off to be alone but some people heard where he w...

This chapter starts off heavy because we learn of the death of John the Baptizer. He was beheaded because he had confronted the sin of Herod Antipas and his wife, who was married to his brother. They didn’t want to hear about their sin so she came up with a plan get John killed. She threw a birthday party for her husband, invited a bunch of buddies over, probably had some alcohol flowing freely, a...

Jesus is talking to his disciples and he tells them a parable about a fishing net which had to catch their attention because some of them were commercial fishermen who used nets to catch fish for a living. He says a fisherman caught all kinds of fish in their nets and when the net was brought into the boat, the fish were separated—the good fish were kept and the worthless fish were trashed. Then h...

We continue looking at the parables Jesus used to teach the crowds so they could try and understand what it was like to follow him. In this episode of the GRINDIT Podcast, we take a look at two parables: the hidden treasure and the pearl. In both of these parables someone is searching for something. One treasure hunter has heard about a certain buried treasure in a field so he goes looking for it....

I love bread, especially when it's hot and covered in butter! In this episode we take a look at making homemade bread. I've never made it before so I borrowed a recipe from a website that has. One of the main ingredients to make bread is yeast. Without the yeast, the loaf won't be a loaf...it will be flat like a pancake, or maybe a tortilla! Jesus says the kingdom of God is like a little bit of ye...

Jesus tells the parable of the Mustard Seed. It’s such a small seed and it seems insignificant to many but it actually has many uses. But when planted in the ground, this tiny seed becomes a tall tree, roughly nine feet tall, stands out above everything in the field, and provides a place for birds to build their nests. The kingdom of God seems insignificant to many people and they don’t think anyt...

Why do followers of Jesus think it is their responsibility to be spiritual police and go around condemning the lost of their sin? They go to places where people who do not follow Christ and act just like them with megaphones and signs, even carrying their bibles and shouting scriptures as if anyone is listening. Jesus gives a parable of the wheat and weeds in Matthew 13 and he even gives us the in...

Matthew shifts his focus from the religious leaders and Pharisees to some of Jesus’ teachings. He tells us that Jesus used stories called parables. He used things that his listeners would be familiar with such as seed, soil, coins, etc. to teach them a spiritual lesson. Many people today do not read the bible for themselves because they feel as though it is too hard to understand but Jesus said if...

The Pharisees just don't seem to get it. Sparring with Jesus is not a good thing but this time they bring some help--some teachers of the law. Surely these bible thumpers can outsmart God Himself! Nope...They demand a sign to prove to them that Jesus' authority comes from God like he claims. Jesus tells them the only sign they'll get is the sign of Jonah, a prophet they'd be familiar with. He says...

Jesus heals a man who couldn’t hear nor speak. The people who saw this happen was amazed and they started to ask the question, “Could this man be the Messiah?” The simple answer is “Yes” but was it so simple? There are many who reject Jesus to this day so what’s the difference? You may say, “Well they had Jesus walking around with them so they should have known,” but it’s not that easy. They had p...

Have you ever watched a fight in a western movie? They pick a time and place for the “Showdown” and people come to watch who will have the fastest draw and win. This is what we see happening in Matthew 12 between the Pharisees and Jesus. The Pharisees have the fastest draw but Jesus wins the fight…every time! Evidently the Pharisees have some spies on Jesus and his disciples because they see them...

Jesus said John the Baptizer had haters and what he do? Nothing but live in the wilderness, preach about the kingdom of God, baptize people for the remission of sin, and lay the foundation for the Messiah, just as God had told him to do. But Jesus also had haters! Why would anybody hate a man that healed the sick, cast out demons, raise the dead, show compassion and hope to everyone that met him?!...

John the Baptizer was born with a purpose given to him by God Himself. He leaped in the womb when Mary came to visit Elizabeth; he had preached the kingdom of God and baptized hundreds of people for the forgiveness of sins; he had baptized Jesus and saw the Holy Spirit descend from heaven and land on Jesus signifying he was the One, the Messiah; John had heard the voice of God come down from heave...