The Teaching Series (with Brad Gray and Brad Nelson)

Comparison is the fastest way to sabotage the unique path God intends for our lives. It’s so easy to get sucked into thinking, “I’ll never be as_______ as ________.” Before long, we’re chasing someone else’s story rather than our own. But as we’ll see in John 21, each of us has a sacred and holy path to walk, and it’s only when we learn to crush the comparison game and follow Jesus that we’ll find...

One of the most challenging things on the journey is trying to discern God’s will. How do you know if what you’re sensing is from God? For anyone seeking to follow God faithfully, this is the age-old question. This episode offers a 7-part framework for how to discern God’s will. It’s not a formula. It’s not 7 easy steps to discerning God’s will. Instead, it’s a framework to invite your heart and m...

The Hebrew language of Psalm 37:5 offers an interesting visual for how we’re meant to live our lives. It says, “Roll onto the LORD your path, trust on him, and he will act.” The problem is most of us try to walk God’s path our way. We prefer our comforts, decisions, and preferences to determine how we walk, but that’s not what the Psalm is inviting us into. In this episode, we’ll explore what it l...

Following Jesus isn’t safe. It was never intended to be. And yet, many of us make decisions based on what’s safe, comfortable, and predictable. Paul understood that following Jesus didn’t come with those guarantees. And he accepted that because he knew Jesus wasn’t interested in safety; he was interested in faithfulness. Like Paul, we’re called to be faithful whatever the cost. Until we can identi...

One of the classic dilemmas we all face in life is this: What does it look like to live faithfully when we’re stuck and not sure what to do? Exodus 13 and 14 perfectly capture the conundrum many of us encounter. Trapped between the Sea and the Egyptian army, Moses tells the people, “God will help you! You only need to be still!” God’s response to Moses...

If God is a God of the journey, and not the destination, then how do journey well when there aren’t any manifests or roadmaps? That’s precisely the content of this episode. By examining Paul’s first two missionary journeys in greater detail, we get an idea of how to navigates life’s path when we don’t have the luxury of an itinerary, and don’t know what to do.&nb...

Abraham is often held up as a model of faithfulness because when God told him to go, he went. No questions. No “yeah buts.” He didn’t even know where he was going. But he started moving anyways. Abraham understood something about God many of us miss: God is the God of the journey, not the destination. And trusting God as we walk into the unknown is challenging for so many of us because we crave cl...

What does Jesus mean when he says, “Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened to you?” When we look carefully at where and when he says these words, it becomes clear that he’s not giving us a blank check to pursue whatever it is our heart’s desire. God is many things, but a genie in a bottle isn’t one of them. Instead, Jesus is offering us a...

Easter isn’t a day we celebrate. It’s a way of being in the world. It’s a posture of heart that announces, “What Jesus accomplished at the cross and empty tomb changes everything!” In this resurrection episode, we’ll look at the story of the disciples on the road to Emmaus—a story only Luke records in vivid detail—and see how Luke’s subtle use of Scripture makes the bold claim that, in Jesus, ever...

The New Testament uses all kinds of words and phrases to describe Jesus and his kingdom. Savior. Son of God. Gospel. Forgiveness of sins. But these aren’t just poetic, flowery phrases. They’re actually concrete ideas everyone in Jesus’s world was familiar with. But not because of Jesus. They were familiar with those ideas because of Caesar. What the New Testament, and especially Paul’s writings, d...

One of the biggest problems we have when reading the Bible is familiarity. When we’re too familiar with a passage, we start believing we already know what it means. In doing so, we forget there’s so much more it has to teach us, and we rob it of its explosive power to transform our lives. In this final episode in our series, Rabbis and Disciples, we set Jesus’s famous words about “his yoke” in the...

We all want to live fully and deeply, but in order to do that we’ve got to live as Jesus lived. The problem is we don’t always understand what Jesus’s life looked like. In this episode, we dig into the details of the itinerant rabbinic lifestyle and quickly realize that Jesus’s life as a traveling rabbi wasn’t glorious or easy. It was actually really, really difficult. It came...

In the culture of Jesus’s day, one was forbidden to receive payment for the teaching of God’s Word. Which is why every rabbi had a trade or occupation. Jesus had one, but the term “carpenter” doesn’t nearly do it justice. In fact, Jesus’s occupation is filled with surprises that perfectly explain how his trade prepared him for his ministr...

In the Gospels, people were always commenting on Jesus’s authority. It was clear to everyone that he had it. Some marveled at it, while others scoffed at it. The Scribes and Pharisees even questioned it. But what exactly did they mean by authority? How did Jesus understand it? And does that enhance our understanding of what happens with the Great Commission in Matthew 28? Without questio...

Jesus walking on water is one of the best-known stories in the entire Bible. But we often miss the point because we fail to see the discipleship component at play. When we see it, we learn that the story has less to do with Jesus walking on water and more to do with Peter’s actions and Jesus’s response. But the story isn’t just about Peter. It...

Most of us love the idea of Jesus as savior. We’re usually less enthusiastic about him being our teacher and reorienting our lives around his. But that’s precisely what it meant to be a disciple. The goal wasn’t to know what the rabbi knew. It was to become who the rabbi was. It meant journeying with him and observing how he spoke, what he noticed, and how he interacted with others. It meant under...

Christmas is a season of hope. 2020 has been a season of grief. How do we hold hope and grief in creative tension? Because when things get hard, we feel overwhelmed. And when we’re overwhelmed, our tendency is to check out, numb out, and wish the moments or seasons away. But in our confusion, heartache, and disorientation, God is working in subtle and often unseen ways. By the end of this epi...

The Jewish educational system in Jesus’s day was astounding. Growing up in that culture was about total immersion in the Scriptures. It was about learning and memorizing God’s Word so that it shaped everything you did. It was also about learning to ask really great questions and debating with your teachers. But much like professional sports, only t...

Being intentional with God’s Word is essential to living a deep and meaningful life. In the biblical period, God’s people were called to not only dig into the Scriptures but also to have an ongoing discussion with their friends and family about them. Formany of us, our time with God’s Word often stops with reading it and we miss out on the critical responsibility of discussion. In this episod...

Sometimes the Bible speaks right to our hearts by encouraging or challenging us in just the right way. Other times, we walk away uninspired and discouraged, feeling like we didn’t get anything out of it. What do we do in those moments? In this episode, we explore the practice of placing God’s Word upon our hearts, so that when the time is right, and our hearts are ready, they will be available to...

Being intentional with God’s Word is essential to living a deep and meaningful life. In the biblical period, God’s people were called to not only dig into the Scriptures but also to have an ongoing discussion with their friends and family about them. For many of us, our time with God’s Word often stops with reading it and we miss out on the critical responsibility of discussion. In this episode, w...

Storms are a guarantee in life. We lose jobs. Relationships end. Money gets tight. All of this can leave us feeling anxious and fearful. Therefore, the reason we feel those things is because storms expose what we really trust. We may say we trust God, but a crisis here and a pandemic there, and we’re confronted with the hard truth that our trust lies elsewhere. Which is why Jesus addresses th...

Jesus was a master at navigating the polarized social context of the First Century with wisdom and skill. In this third and final episode in our teaching series, “The Dignity of Difference”, we’ll examine how to be Christ in the chaos. There’s a lot of chaos and division right now. Racism. Politics. Wear a mask. Don’t wear a mask. How are we to respond? By watching Jesus, we’ll learn to live...

Things are heated right now. Tensions are high. People are on edge. And justice is the battle cry of so many. “We want justice for ________!” But what is justice? How does the Bible portray it? And who is responsible for pursuing it? Welcome to the essence of this episode. Justice and Righteousness are two of the most explosive themes in the Bible, and they’re always attached at the hip. But...

God is a God of unity, not uniformity. In this episode, Brad Gray discusses how there is a dignity to difference. As a result, diversity isn’t the aberration; it’s the expectation when it comes to the kingdom of Christ. Our world is deeply divided right now. Whether it’s politics, race, or the latest headline, our cultural default seems to be an “Us vs. Them” mentality. What’s fascinating is that...