Save My Darlings

The Bible contains a lot of pretty scary stuff from the spiritual world. We saw the Seraphim on Sunday and in the last podcast and, let's be honest, from our perspective these "Burning Ones" seem like monsters. So are we supposed to be scared of all that? The answer is a little bit Yes and a little bit No. Check it out!

Read the Bible enough and you will encounter some weird stuff. On Sunday, we ran into the "Seraphim," or "Burning Ones," who had six wings and set things on fire! What do we make of stuff like that? In this episode I give some explanation of what the Seraphim are and how we might interpret weird stuff like that when we come across it in the Bible.

In this episode we show what the Bible does and doesn't mean when it talks about a special movement of the Holy Spirit on individuals or groups. You may have heard Christians talking or singing about the Holy Spirit coming or filling a place. Well here I explain how to know what that means and how to tell is it's actually true!

Some Christians feel like they don't have much of a testimony. Maybe it's "boring" or "too simple" or they've just "always believed." Well I'm here to tell you that these kinds of stories aren't boring at all--in some ways, they might be the most important stories we've got. Listen here to find out why and then take the challenge to begin askin...

The Bible just sort of assumes that bad things happen to good people and doesn't seem terribly bothered by that fact--it certainly doesn't hamper anyone's faith in God! But in in today's world atheists and agnostics use the fact of "unnecessary evil" or suffering as a major reason to disbelieve in God or at least be unsure about God's good character. In this week'...

In this episode, I explain why we used the translation we did of Psalm 139 and explain the logic of the Psalm. In doing so, we see how important it is to take note of the weird stuff in the Bible. It's easy to gloss over things that don't fit our idea of who God is or what God is like, and doing so has led to missing out on the real depth, power, and tension in Psalm 139, and many other te...

This week's podcast ties up our Exiled series with a reflection on the role of remembering as people in Exile and how we can rekindle the joy of our greatest spiritual experiences in the here and now. Plus, a little bit of National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation to help make sense of it all.

There are a lot of good interpretations of the Bible, but not every interpretation is good. A lot are out of bounds. But how? In this episode we go through three critical rules for interpretation: (1) Words can mean a lot but not anything, (2) The Bible tells a coherent story about God, the Universe, and us, and (3) The pieces of Scripture fit together to show us an all-loving, self-giving King. I...

Here's a question I get asked about different biblical passages: "What does this mean, this or that?" The assumption is that each text from the Bible has a correct interpretation and a whole bunch of incorrect ones. In this episode I demonstrate how the Bible might have multiple--even endless good interpretations. That doesn't mean anything goes, but that's for next week! See...

This might seem weird, but sometimes asking God to destroy someone or some group is a *good* thing. In fact, Jesus, Peter, and Paul all do it! The key is to understand why. Listen to this episode to get a quick course on what to do and what not to do and why.

In this episode we begin to understand humor in the Bible. Because there's actually a lot of it, we just don't usually get it because we have such a different culture. But the humor is there. And if you start to get it, you might find yourself laughing!

How do you know if you've interpreted the Bible rightly or well? Good question. We look at point #1 today, by way of 2 Timothy, Hebrews, and St. Augustine. The answer might surprise you because it has nothing to do with how good you are at reading!

On Sunday we talked about drawing lines that make us visibly different from the culture. One of the things we talked about but couldn't spend a lot of time on was the importance of choosing lines that are hard, unappealing, maybe even impossible for us. But why? Well, I think it comes straight from the text so take a listen!

Last week we talked about reading the Bible as if God is the main character of all the stories, poems, letters, histories, etc. in order to grasp his nature and character. Well what do we do when reading that way makes God look like a bloodthirsty tyrant? Are we wrong? How do we know? In this episode we use the analogy of the plot twist in mystery novels to explain how it can be that the God who o...

A lot of people ask me how to read the Bible. So I'm doing a quick and dirty series of tips for being better at engaging Scripture in a meaningful and practical way. This week? Remember it's God's story, not anybody else's. Only fifteen minutes to get way better at reading the Bible well!

We talked a bit about transformation and God's plans for our glory on Sunday. Here we expand the analogy of the fixer upper home with some input from the apostle Paul in 1 Corinthians 15 to get a better grasp of what we can expect in the here and now and in the next life.

Here's a question: What are the implications of "You can't lose" for heaven? I mean, sure, Jesus can turn our losses into wins, but is there any reason to strive for that? Turns out, yes, and I'll prove it!

Since we got such a big response to the AI podcast a couple of weeks ago, I thought I'd do another. There are a lot of questions about using AI, the ethics of it, and how it can help or hurt, and I'm answering them! Today we talk about the fact that AI lies, cheats, and steals BUT ONLY IF YOU LET. I've used Claude enough to see how it works and what it's capable of, and the extent...

In this week's episode, we look at CS Lewis, Revelation 3, and Colossians 3 to see how there is a way in which spiritual complacency is just as deadly to the goal of Life as murder. If that seems like a wacky claim, listen! And if you like it, share!

We saw on Sunday that God gives Satan the right to accuse us and test us with harrowing circumstances. He did it to Job. He did it to the disciples. Why would God let that happen? Doesn't this show the Bible to be silly and God to be unfair? Well, no. Listen to find out why!

5 minute sermon recap and weekly challenge

Plagiarized sermons? Sermon-writing laziness? How does the sausage get made? Over the years that I've been writing sermons with my friend Pastor Mike Lotzer of Mercy Road Church in Lakeville, MN, many people have wondered what that looks like and just what we do. Well, in this episode Mike joins us to help explain what the process looks like and how we're beginning to incorporate AI into i...

One question we didn't address on Sunday is "Why doesn't God give us some things that would be good for us?" That is, there's plenty of things that would probably make us better people and Christians, things that are good for us, that God doesn't allow. A great example is trouble with fertility/conception. It's undeniable that God wants us to "be fruitful and mul...

"Not today, Satan!" is a popular meme these days. I think it's meant to mean that the enemy is out there trying to destroy us--which is true. But how, exactly, does he operate and what can we do about it? I survey a bunch of places in the Bible that show us what he's doing and how to live in victory!

Trying to understand the Bible when it talks about the end times is hard. Is there an idea or interpretive lens that can help? There sure is! It's called "partial preterism," and it's how I am able to make sense of some pretty confusing texts. Open up Mark 13 with me and check it out.