Jesus at 2AM - A Humorous, Intelligent Look at the Bible, Church History & the Life of Faith

Parables were one of Jesus's primary tools for teaching, and yet they are easily and often misunderstood. In this episode we look at the genre of parable and how it differs from other literary devices (e.g., metaphor, analogy, etc.). We then apply our interpretive skills to the so-called "Parable of the Sower" and discover layers of meaning that were not immediately obvious. In this episode I also...

Notice that Jesus never travels alone – strange behavior for a 1st century Jewish holy man/prophet. Even more… unexpected …is the crowd with whom Jesus surrounds himself.  Many are not known for their "holiness" (being sinners, drunkards and tax collectors). And a few have an even greater disqualifying element of their person   they are women ! (Oh…and don't forget later that Jesus add a very famo...

Love is hard to believe. For all our longing for love, all of our hope that love wins..., to actually trust in love when it is offered is incredibly difficult, especially when the offer comes from God. In this episode we look at Jesus's encounter with a notorious "sinner" and the lesson it offers in the breadth of God's grace, a breadth even the most learned theologians of Jesus's day could not fa...

For 2,000 years Jesus has been confounding messianic expectations - never quite looking the part of "savior." I mean, shouldn't a divinely-appointed deliverer be easily recognizable? A little radiant glory, perhaps? Or at the very least the trappings of earthly power! And what about some judgment and wrath? It's a sinful world after all, and isn't it part of God's job to be punishing evil?  At the...

Jesus is often misunderstood as teaching a moral system – a new vision of right and wrong that will be more pleasing to God. But to hear him in this way is to miss the greater point of his message. In this episode we explore Jesus's famous "Sermon on the Plain" (Luke 6) and how […]

Reminiscent of the Sermon on the Mount (in Matthew's Gospel), in this episode we arrive at Jesus's "Sermon on the Plain" in Luke.  Once again, Jesus opens with a series of "beatitudes" (blessings), that are difficult to interpret. What are we to make of Jesus's declaration that the poor and hungry are "blessed"? 

What does it look like – in practice – to love God? In this episode we look at 3 events (Luke 6:1-16) that bring into sharp relief the distinction between Jesus and  his religious opponents (in this case, the often maligned Pharisees), particularly with regard to what it means to love God. Is love ultimately […]

Jesus scandalizes his religious contemporaries by accepting an invitation to dine with Levi, a known tax collector (one who purchased the right to " collect" – read "overcharge" – the taxes of their fellow Jews). The occasion reveals a fundamental clash of values, in which Jesus declares that God has come to rescue the "righteous" […]

Jesus's miracles are never mere exhibitions of power, meant only to demonstrate his divine identity or access to power. While they do this, they are far more – they are embodiments of the Kingdom of God. In Jesus's presence, an ailing creation is made whole, broken humanity made new. In this episode we look at […]

If you've ever wondered how far the grace of God extends, the short answer is: beyond every imaginable barrier and boundary. In this episode we look at Luke 5:12-16 – a short, but dramatic, encounter between Jesus and a man afflicted with leprosy. In the ancient world, few conditions were more feared or carried greater […]

Doubt, true doubt (not the mere intellectual variety, but the deep questioning an agonized soul), is one of the most painful and most necessary aspects of the life of faith. All the great saints have been through it. From Augustine in his Confessions to St. John of the Cross's Dark Night of the Soul, the church […]

True faith doesn't happen in an instant. At least it didn't for Peter…or James or John (Jesus's innermost circle)! Honest faith is a process that unfolds over a lifetime, and contains elements of wonder, doubt, confusion, awe, more confusion, agony, guilt, healing… This up-and-down, in-and-out journey is the authentic process of transformation (sanctification), and is […]

Here we get a first, detailed look into Jesus's ministry of healing and exorcism. (Luke has mentioned such activity in the past, but finally we get are given a description of an actual event.)  In this episode, regular contributor Rev. Ian Farrell demonstrates that there is much more to Jesus's "healings" than mere demonstrations of divine power. […]

Why did Jesus provoke such rage in his religious contemporaries? And why do we still often bristle ourselves at his words? While we imagine that one who brings God's word of salvation would be warmly welcomed – at least by us! Yet history and the human condition reveal that we often "can't handle the truth" […]

Growth in love requires us to step into the unknown, to take the path of risk and dependence upon God. In this episode we look at Jesus's 40-day journey into the wilderness. It is there he faces the temptation to other, easier "loves" (what are – in reality – false loves).  And it is there […]

An enigmatic figure in his day and in ours! In this episode we examine the ministry of John the Baptist – a prophet in the style of Elijah who came preaching both warning and welcome as preparation for the coming of Jesus. In particular, we'll interpret John in light of his contemporaries and how his […]

The central question of Israel's faith in the first century boiled down to this: What must we do to provoke God to complete his project of salvation? It had been centuries since the temple – destroyed during the Babylonian invasion – had been restored, and yet the glory of God had not returned. Some attempts […]

The "annunciation" to Mary of Jesus's birth is, at one level, a very gracious encounter between God and a young girl – the divine revelation that, with Mary's permission, she will be the means through which God's messiah enters into creation. And it involves one of the great miracles of the biblical story – the pregnancy […]

Luke opens on a darkened scene. Herod, a despotic ruler installed by Rome, sits on David's throne in Jerusalem – a powerful symbol that Israel is far from where she expected to be. The first character we meet is Zechariah – an aged priest of a childless wife – coming to due his religious duty in the […]

The Apostle Luke is often regarded as an historian. His book, Acts (of the Apostles), is a highly detailed description of the events of the early church, and he describes his "gospel" as a carefully investigated "orderly account" of Jesus's life. Both are the sort of literature we find in other ancient histories. But Luke's […]

Love is the name of the game. It is the purpose behind creation, the goal of life and the greatest of all commandments.  In this episode we begin an extensive look at love in practice – love of God, self and other (indeed even of enemy) as displayed in the life of Jesus. Our guide […]

In this conclusion to our study classical Christian spiritual formation, we take all practices we have learned so far and put them together to get a picture of a typical day-in-the-life of one growing to maturity in Christ. What we discover is that the work of spiritual discipline is rarely burdensome nor heroic, and one need […]

A personal trainer for the soul? Every great athlete has a coach, every great artist a teacher, and every great saint a mentor, "confessor" or spiritual director. And while most of us are not striving for formal "sainthood," we can all benefit from some formal spiritual direction. In this episode we explore the a bit […]

Genuine hardship is an essential part of the work of maturity in the Christian life. And one of the most damaging fallacies of pop-Christianity is that experiences of distance from God, isolation and aridity are signs of regression (or as my tradition so often refers to them: "back-sliding"). One need look no further than to Jesus's […]

How do you know when God is talking? There are some people who claim to hear the voice of God constantly – in every impulse they have, every chance event or random encounter. And others who have never had an inkling of divine communication. The classical tradition says that neither of these pictures is accurate. It […]