The Goodness of God

John the Baptist, Peter, and Andrew go directly against what's good for them. John has become the leader of a religious movement. People wonder if he's the Messiah. John repeatedly points to the reality that Jesus is the far greater. Peter and Andrew leave behind a comfortable life to follow Jesus into unknown discomfort. They set an example that undergird being part of God's work and God's call t...

A children's movie about King David? It's a musical for some reason. It's made by Angel Studios. The entire concept created a lot of skepticism. Will it be terrible? Will it be wildly theologically conservative? Will it just be a nonstop preach-fest? It's none of those things. Instead, they made a weirdly decent children's movie that grasps a decent junk of what the Bible wants you to know about B...

The story of the Magi's arrival is as much about who isn't there as who is. Three gentile astronomer priest journey from afar, show up, get filled with joy, worship the infant Lord, and work to protect. Missing are the priest, scribes, and King Herod. They all know better than the Magi what's happening, but none of them show up to pay homage. Instead, Herod hatches a plot to kill Jesus. The contra...

Christmas represents the tension between the vastness of God's grandeur and the lowliness of the Christ's birth. Jesus was born to a working family, in a shed, surrounded by farm workers. He's also the Lord of all creation, the divine word, who built the underlining foundation of all things. We welcome an infant born to a brave, faithful, and average young woman. This baby is God among us. This te...

The New Testament works at a way different scale than the Old Testament. In the Old Testament, we work at the scale of nations, kings, prophets, princesses, emperors, and generals. We mostly remember the high and mighty. The New Testament is largely about teen moms, fishermen, lepers, tent makers, a few rich homeowners, and a bunch of shop keepers. The story of Christ's birth focuses on a godly, b...

Mary is extremely brave. She risks at lot and at an young age, yet she greets all of this with joy. The Magnificat, Mary's beautiful song at the beginning of Luke, boldly declares exactly what her soon to be born child means and excitement and amazement at the whole thing. Mary gets it far earlier than anyone else in the New Testament, more so than the Disciples, or anyone else who met Jesus in hi...

From the Root of Jesse's tree (AKA the House of David) will come one who makes all things well. When Isaiah spoke these words, the king who arrived made things better, but they didn't stay better for long. Destruction and exile eventually came. These words of the prophet point to what a messiah, a savior is and does. They come from the House of David, and they set things right. Some Old Testament...

Jesus is actually quite clear about trying to predict the end times. He essentially says, "Don't bother. Even I don't know." Instead, we should focus on being spiritually ready, living our lives with hope, and trust that at some unknown point, God will make all things well. That there is an end point is meant to motivate discipleship - not rampant speculation. We begin each Christian year with an...

Imagine yourself at your worst moment. Picture in your mind's eye being pushed, painfully, to the brink of death. How would you react to the people responsible for putting you in that situation? How would you treat those around you? This is the context of Jesus offering forgiveness to persecutors and to the penitent thief as he hangs on a cross. Jesus is actively and painfully dying and spends his...

The ending of Isaiah projects a beautiful image of the world made right. Jerusalem restored. People live to an advanced aged. The lion eats straw. The serpent is not longer a problem. For a people deeply traumatized from the experience of exile and now returned home, there are probably images that felt both comforting and true. There world, once rocked and destroyed, had massively improved. Howeve...

Purity Culture is a thing - quite a thing. It was all the rage in youth groups across the nation and fed in part by Joshua Harris's I Kissed Dating Goodbye. It put an extreme focus on saying literally everything until marriage and turned pre-martial sex (particularly for young women) into a kind of uber sin, a sin that there's no coming back from. Good news! None of that's in the Bible, and Joshua...

Contemplating the meaning of life is one of humanity's eternal challenges. We want there to be meaning - to have our existence be more than simply a set of memories that evaporate with us. Our relationship with God hold the answers to these questions and fears. While our earthly life does end, God does not, and when we invest our lives into our relationship with God and with others, our existence...

Two men pray, but the one that doesn't match the traditional social script is the one that walks away justified. Part of God's deep beauty is the way that God, unlike the bulk of humanity, looks purely at a person's heart. It's not about being from a righteousness focused group or being the wrong kind of person. God sees through all of that into a person's reality and deeper motivation. So, as we...

Talking about prayer can stray to some difficult directions extremely quickly. When we have story about being persistent in prayer and about God's goodness, we need to balance all of that being truth with the fact that plenty of people end up feeling like they're prayer didn't get answered. That persistence isn't simply about banging down God's door. It's about staying in our relationship with God...

Jesus concludes a conversation with a particularly thankful leper that his "faith had made him well." Ten lepers all received physical healing just because they asked. This one who turns around and actually thanks Jesus gets something additional. It all points to a kind of wellness or wholeness that stretches far beyond the physical. Thankfulness and a deeper connection with God are all part of a...

2 Timothy positions Paul at the end of his life - reflecting on what it meant and trying to pass something onto the next generation. Timothy represents that next generation. He grew up in the church and marks a major shift in church leadership to second generation Christians. He's the first youth group kid that made good. We see an early iteration of what has become the eternal work of the church...

Shiny Happy People Season 2: A Teenaged Holy War is A LOT if you crew up in the Christian Rock/Evangelical/Contemporary Christian Music scene in the 1990s and early 2000s. Both Pastor Trey and Pastor Emily very much did. Journey with them as they explain their near misses and the ways that they might still be fighting a holy war. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Jeremiah is a sad prophet. He has a lot to be sad about. By serving as prophet in the direct run up to the Exile, he was never going to have a lot of good news to report. The people are crying out for relief, but a long history of their own failings landed them in this position in the first place. When we find our selves wondering where God is in the midst of a world looking on the brink of collap...

Every tell all documentary about a new religious movement takes a turn at some point. They all start out with a merry band of weirdos and misfits - folks who never feel like they belong anywhere else but finally find belonging. It's great. Eventually, it all turns dark when someone declares themselves perfect and a living god to be followed and served unquestioningly. Paul never does that step. He...

Sometimes, Jesus goes for shock value. You have to be willing to hate all your loved ones, get rid of all your property, and take up your cross. It's a lot. It's probably, partly, hyperbole, but still, it's a blunt statement on the nature of discipleship. God comes first. We live our lives with God as one priority among many - job, family, the grind daily life, our finances. That's not how Jesus l...

This scripture looks like social advice. Don't jump to the seat on honor until it's offered to you. Sure. However, there's more to it than that. It's not just about where you try to sit and, instead, is more about how important you think that you are. Don't think so highly of yourself that you automatically assume that honors should be coming your way, and don't see yourself as above others that y...

Any time we hear about Jesus healing or doing anything else on the Sabbath, we have to recognize that he is breaking the Law. He keeps getting a reaction for it because it is truly and rightfully shocking to his original audience. The Old Testament spends a lot of time explaining that you should be willing to die rather than be prevented from living a holy, Law abiding life. Jesus keeps breaking t...

Sit through enough funerals, All Saints Day services, or Memorial Day events, and at some point, some one will remind you of the "Great Cloud of Witnesses." We often use this as a generic term for the saints that came before us. Their original context, in Hebrews, is far from generic. This cloud is specifically our faithful heroes of the Old Testament who went through a shocking amount of human su...

When we picture a "religion" in our mind, we probably see ceremonies, special outfits, and specific traditions. We might call to find a Catholic Mass, a Jewish Passover seder, or a Muslim family breaking a fast together during Ramadan. In theory, we practice these rituals to connect us to God and each other - to help us down a journey of transformation. The religion is a set of practices to aid in...

Before starting this episode, open up Google maps and punch in "storage units near me." In classic Internet parlance, the results may surprise you. They're massive and just about everywhere. We keep finding more stuff to put in them. Who doesn't like cool stuff? However, Jesus reminds us of a couple of things. One, we can't take it with us, and two, maybe we should focus on the things that we can...