Sabbath School From Home

How does responsible financial planning fit with "building treasure in heaven"? A tension seems to exist between being a good and responsible steward of our resources (money, time) and being wholeheartedly generous and self-sacrificing. We launch from an interesting passage in 1 Timothy 5 that describes our first responsibility as being to care for family - in fact "those who won’t care for their...

"Helping the poor is not just an option." We resonate with this sentence from the Sabbath School lesson, and explore the famous parable of sheep and goats. The Christian call to live generously towards the poor is easy to acknowledge in principle, but in practice there are a few ways it can get hard to optimise.

How do we "lay up Treasure in Heaven"? There seem to be a variety of ways to think of this concept, and we notice a few that don't work so well for us. The contrast in Mark 8:36 is between gaining the whole world and losing our soul, so does this help clarify the heavenly treasure?

Is debt more about stewardship or exploitation? The lesson this week makes some bold statements about the undesirability of debt, and even the Bible sounds similar in passages such as Deut 15: "You will lend money to many nations but will never need to borrow." Loans and finance are an almost inescapable part of contemporary society - are they actually all that similar to the way debt worked in Bi...

How can offerings fit into the habits of generosity? In Christian vocabulary, Offerings are regularly found close to tithe - but the words are not synonyms. We read from the passage about an offering being given to support needy Christians in Jerusalem, and it seems this idea is perhaps more prevalent in the New Testament than the simple formula of tithe. A great number of questions quickly arise...

How did tithe actually work, and can it be more creative? It is all very well to say that the Old Testament tithing system was to support the Levites, but what did they actually do? What was tithe used for, and how was it "paid"? We have many more questions than answers in this conversation! Exploring how the biblical system might map across to contemporary tithing ends up with us pondering what t...

How does tithe relate to generosity? There are clear words on the page in Malachi 3 that suggest a tight relationship between tithe and blessing, and yet history has plenty of counter-examples. What can we do with this passage, and how does it connect to the idea of tithing as practice for generous living?

Reflecting on what "God's Family" means. The Sabbath School lesson for this new season explores the theme of stewardship, and we are reluctant to jump in with all our most prominent thoughts because they'll invariably form themes for the coming episodes. We share some reflections on family that arise from the recent Christmas season, and anticipate a few key ideas that will surely come up in the n...

Does believing in resurrection automatically lead to a good way of living? At the end of a season discussing beliefs about what happens after death, we finish things off by pondering just how much these beliefs impact the way we live. Through a variety of hypotheticals and a few unpleasant historical stories we identify a lack of direct logical connection between these things. In the end we can't...

Is our doctrinal emphasis more biblical or cultural? Coming near the end of this season exploring death and the afterlife, we explore how beliefs on this topic fit into the bigger picture of living a Christian life. The Adventist church has a fairly strong focus on the "state of the dead", and what if someone agrees with the doctrine but not the emphasis? With a fascinating touch on the issue of g...

What if the Spirit guides us beyond our "Biblical" worldview? Being a Bible-valuing and Spirit-led follower of Christ can lead to tension - sometimes we need to be led beyond our existing interpretations and applications of scripture. This tension has existed since the earliest days of the Christian movement.

How does the person of Christ fit with His teachings? We turn to the parable of the building on sand versus rock foundations in an attempt to discuss the role of doctrine, heading towards a conversation about "false teachings" about experiences after death. However, we end up substantially side-tracked by a rousing critique of phrasing in the Sabbath School lesson. Is there even a contrast to be m...

There's a tension between discontinuous change and continuous transformation. The lesson explores the fires of hell and the theory of purgatory, and from an Adventist perspective it is easy to roundly dismiss both of these ideas. But does it really get much easier when we shift our focus to "the Kingdom of Heaven" itself? The parable of a wedding guest being thrown into outer darkness over a dress...

What to do with the Rich Man and Lazarus? This season on death and resurrection would certainly be incomplete without a discussion of the parable Jesus tells about a rich man and a pauper named Lazarus. The story has seemingly preposterous geographical details about the afterlife. This takes us to a broader conversation about how we might work out what to interpret literally? What does a literal i...

It seems "soon" is ambiguous in God's vocabulary. We explore the fundamental conundrum of waiting 2000 years for the "soon" return of Christ. There are a variety of ways to make some sense of this dilemma, but it is not well served by simple or trite answers. As well as Bible passages in 2 Peter 3 and Psalm 90, we reach for "friends of the podcast" C S Lewis and George McDonald for some provoking...

How did Jesus' disciples respond to his resurrection? The Bible contains a few fascinating anecdotes about how the disciples responded to the resurrection. We start with the road to Emmaus and then think about whether or not Thomas deserves his "doubting" title.

What does Christ's death on the cross mean for us? It almost seems a silly question, but there's a surprising variety of aspects to unpack on this topic. We consider a question from the lesson about "adding to what Christ has already done for us", and briefly explore what kind of understanding of the death of Jesus is revealed in Gamaliel's wise counsel in Acts 5.

Resurrections before the cross often involve children. We look at the story of Elijah saving a young boy's life twice - and the second time is after he's died. Like many of the Old Testament resurrections, this story is remarkably connected to people outside the explicit community of God.

What is hoped-for in the Old Testament? Some OT passages seem to fit our picture of the resurrection, but there are others which seem to come from a different picture of hope for the future. We explore a few of these that represent the variety, and see what we find out about hope.

What if the pondering the state-of-the-living is more valuable than the state-of-the-dead? This is a shorter episode because life seems particularly busy for us at the moment - and maybe it's the same for you! Ecclesiastes 12 has verses which sometimes contribute to discussions about what happens after death, but the passage seems much more focussed on how we live here before death. 

Is theology more like an umbrella or a colander? Travel plans over the long weekend made it difficult to schedule a recording. Instead, here is a tasty morsel of contemplation that emerged during our post-recording "cool-down" conversation. Luckily it was captured in our backup recording, and we hope you enjoy this episode even though it is rather brief. This will make the most sense if you listen...

We consider the origin of evil, and wonder how much can be learnt of this story from old testament metaphor. To launch a new season on death, dying, and the future hope, we dive into a malediction given to Ezekial about the King of Tyre. There is a bunch of imagery here from the Creation story, so is it valid or useful to read Satan into this passage. After a robust conversation we stumble on a ge...

Wilderness temptations are a crucible for Christ. These are recorded in both Matthew and Luke (with an interesting difference of sequence), and immediately precede the beginning of Jesus's ministry. The story seems to link back to Edenic temptations and also prefigure aspects of the struggle in Gethsemane before the crucifixion. We ponder the ways in which these clearly labelled "temptations" matc...

We help Cameron write a sermon about responding to people in crucibles. Luke 8 has featured previously (season 2), but Cameron wants to preach on it and so we do an experiment in this episode: can a podcast discussion and sermon preparation be combined into a single activity?

Waiting is never easy, but it is often unavoidable. We start with the story of David being anointed king in 1 Samuel 16 David - well before he actually takes the throne. So many of our favourite stories actually come from this long period of waiting. Cameron refers back to Season 2 Episode 8 for some examples of Jesus not  wanting to make people wait , and we end up pondering the parables in Matth...