The Marben Bland Podcast

Send us Fan Mail   It’s New Year’s Eve and in a few hours from Time Square in New York to Main Street in Waycross, Georgia many folks are getting dressed up or going out to watch the celebration the dawn of a new year.  2023 like any new year is loaded with what I call watchful questions.  Will my health hold up in this year to come?  What challenges will my children and those I love face? What ad...

Send us Fan Mail The reason for the season it not the tree, the parties, the presents or the Eggnog   Believe or not Jesus in not the reason for season.   The reason for the season is you, the tidings of great joy are for you, the savior born in the city of David is for you.  Jesus was born, Jesus lived, Jesus died, was risen from the dead and will come again all for one reason for you.  For God s...

Send us Fan Mail Matthew 2:1-12 describes a lone star appearing in the sky at the time of Jesus birth.  Seeing the star, the three wise men who knew the prophecies concerning the Messiah came to Jerusalem seeking the location of the newborn King of the Jews. News of the birth of Jesus scared Herod, the threaten King called a meeting of Jewish religious leaders.  These leaders also knew prophecy an...

Send us Fan Mail The Room That We Have In The Inn  It’s Christmas Eve and on this night the vivid account from Luke chapter 2 verse 7 of the birth of Jesus is recalled. Where Mary brought forth her first born son, wrapped him in swaddling clothes and laid him in a manager because there was no room for him in the inn.    Tonight, in El Paso, Texas and in countless towns along our southern border th...

Send us Fan Mail  When I was growing up the three things that told me that Christmas time was here. Was the celebration of my sister’s birthday on December 17th, getting out of school on whatever date it may happen to be and watching the animated special “A Charlie Brown Christmas” on television.    Throughout the special Charlie Brown expresses his inability to get into the “Christmas Spirit” he...

Send us Fan Mail Thanks to the vaccines many of the traditions of Christmas have returned. The hectic days, the gifts, the parties and yes depression and the blues.    What has also returned is in a season where Jesus is the reason we drift away from Jesus because we are all caught up in doing the season instead of the reason.    Three quick ways to stay close to Jesus in this season where He is t...

Send us Fan Mail “Blessed Are Those Who Mourn, for They Will be Comforted” This is Jesus’ recognition in Matthew 5:4 that our spirit are actually lifted when we mourn which is our emotional response to sorrow.  For most of his life Billy Collins lived out this beatitude by simply being with the people of Gray and Jones County at their most tender time, the days after the death of a loved one.   Fo...

Send us Fan Mail The other day a friend posted the scary account of her getting a flat tire.   She got the tire changed but had to drive home on the small tire, during the drive she used the emergency flasher on her car to be seen.  God does not need an emergency flasher to see you.   God sees the woman experiencing homeless  God sees the man living a life of loneness now that his wife has died  G...

Send us Fan Mail Charles E. Richardson and Marben Bland discuss the news of the day including the Georgia Runoff, The Mid Term Election and Coach Prime moving on up.   For More Great Content Go To  Marben Bland.com 

Send us Fan Mail John The Baptist  important to the coming of Jesus Because sometimes you need a divine disruption before the divine disruption.    For More Great Content Go To  Marben Bland.com 

Send us Fan Mail Praying For Herschel Writing about Herschel Walker in The Atlantic Magazine Caroline Randall Williams the writer in residence at Vanderbilt University, relays a critical scene from Friday Night Lights.   The 2004 movie that follows the story of a Texas football team making a run toward a state championship.   The scene takes place at a country club dinner where a team booster dema...

Send us Fan Mail Counting primaries, general elections, and runoffs Reverend Senator Raphael Warnock has faced the voters of Georgia five times each time winning the most votes.  Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock and are the first Democrats elected to the U.S. Senate from Georgia since Zell Miller in 2000.  Warnock is the first African American to represent Georgia in the Senate, the first Black Demo...

Send us Fan Mail The book of Joshua tells the story of the Israelites who, under God’s divine disruptions and Joshua’s guidance finally cross the Jordan River. Taking control of the land of Canaan.   Let’s be clear the land is God’s gift, promised to the ancestors in the stories of Genesis, and secured by conquest under God’s military leadership.  In generations to come, God’s gift Israel’s posses...

Send us Fan Mail Sometimes I wonder where I've been,  Who I am,  Do I fit in.  Make believein' is hard alone,  Out here on my own. As a confused college student in 1980 these lyrics to the song “Out Here On My Own” written by the sibling songwriting duo Lesley Gore (lyricist) and Michael Gore (composer) and performed by Irene Cara spoke to me as I was trying to find my place in this worl...

Send us Fan Mail A disruption is defined as something which interrupt an event, an activity, or a process.  The birth of Jesus is the biggest blessing and the biggest divine disruption the world has ever known.   Jesus the divine Son of God became human, born in the humblest conditions a manager because there was no room at the inn. Teaching God’s New Covenant to a skeptical population and to even...

Send us Fan Mail Psalm 107:1 says to Give thanks to the Lord, for He is good; His love endures forever. Thanksgiving Day offers us the opportunity to focus our thoughts on God’s amazing grace that has been extended to ourselves, our families, our communities, and our church, The Greater Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Athens, Georgia.   Today many of us will gather around tables with...

Send us Fan Mail According to data compiled by the Gun Violence Archive and reported by the Washington Post there have been more than 600 mass shootings so far in 2022. With a month to go in the year the question is will 2022 top the 2021 record of 700 mass shootings? A mass shooting is defined where four or more people, not including the shooter, are injured, or killed.   The data shows we have a...

Send us Fan Mail During our seven-week Bible Study at Greater Bethel, we have been looking at the parables of Luke 15, with special emphasis on the Parable of the two lost sons, known most widely as the Parable Of The Prodigal Son.   In the final sermon of the series Pastor Marben Bland, set the Thanksgiving table by proposing the critical question asked in the parable: “Will he eat with us?”  For...

Send us Fan Mail Tarsha Champion  is a wife and mother who understands the power of prayer.  She wants children to know that God answers prayer regardless of the situation.  Tasha carries out that mission in her new children’s book “ Help Jay I’m Scared Of The Dark!”   Author Tarsha Champion  joins the Podcast to talk about her book and what her character a child angel named Jay will be up to next...

Send us Fan Mail On December 6, Georgians will complete the voting season to elect our next United States Senator.   I call it a voting season because early voting starts on November 28 and in some counties it will start earlier.   Under Georgia election law, runoff elections are heled when no candidate secured at least 50% of the vote.  That is why we are voting again on December 6th  “Be Alert A...

Send us Fan Mail In Luke chapter 15 the Pharisees and teachers of religious law complained that Jesus was associating with tax collectors and other notorious sinners, even eating with them.  In judging Jesus’s behavior, the Pharisees committed the same mistake we often make, that is trying to put Jesus in a conventional box.  A box that we have tailored to the way we have come to believe by custom...

Send us Fan Mail Black Americans are disproportionately affected by dementia. Older black Americans are twice as likely as older whites to have Alzheimer's or another dementia.  Among Black Americans ages 70 and older, 21.3% are living with Alzheimer's or another dementia.  Alzheimer's and Dementia strips away the cognitive functioning of thinking, remembering, and reasoning.  It in...

Send us Fan Mail If trends continue the election will not turn out the way I had hoped for, worked for, and prayed for.  As Christians in times of victory and times of loss, we turn to the Lord seeking guidance for how we should live with the results that have been given to us.   The Prophet Jeremiah is God’s messenger to the exiled Israelites in Babylon.  For the exiles, Jeremiah is like the prop...

Send us Fan Mail The Word of the Lord reminds us “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God”. A shooting at a congressional baseball practice, the storming of the capital, an attempted murder plot against Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh, the attack on Paul Pelosi. All infused in an atmosphere of election deniers and conspiracy theorist reminds us that in politics p...

Send us Fan Mail Chapter 5 Summary:  With both the elder and younger brothers, the father takes the initiative and extends to them his love. God is not a Pharisee to the younger brother, but he is also not a Pharisee to the Pharisees. He loves the wild sinner and the religious sinner. Pharisees may repent (with great remorse, guilt, and anguish) but they remain elder brothers because their repenta...