The Teaching Series (with Brad Gray and Brad Nelson)

Life can be gut-wrenching. And when the bottom falls out, we need people who know how to hold and honor our pain. Unfortunately, most of us don’t know how to respond well to the feeling of pain for others. In this episode we explore Jesus’s response to a desperate situation in Mark 9 . His first impulse wasn’t to fix the pain, but to feel the pain. And if we can emulate this in...

We’re often oblivious to and annoyed by distractions and interruptions because we inhabit a culture obsessed with speed, efficiency, and productivity. But hurry is trouble for the soul. “Hurry,” said Dallas Willard, “is the great enemy of the spiritual life.” This teaching explores how Jesus led an interruptible life, and how our willingness to slow down and entertain the interruptions can allow u...

Too often, we live with divided hearts. On the one hand, our hearts are devoted to God. We want God’s best for our lives. We want God’s kingdom to come. On the other hand, we continue to allow places in our lives where evil and sin persist. This episode explores the life of King Asa and our deeply human tendency to be devoted to God without tearing down the high places in...

The idea that we don’t have enough permeates our lives. We don’t have enough money. We don’t have enough sleep. We don’t have enough time. We’re constantly looking for ways to acquire more. But “more” rarely delivers the contentment we’re looking for. And the wilderness is the place where God strips away the faulty distractions and excess that increasingly define our lives. In the wilder...

There are moments in life when the path ahead is unclear or downright scary, moments when everything in us wants out of the situation or circumstance we’re in. It’s only natural to ask God to rescue us or change things. That’s part of what prayer is about. But there’s another dimension of prayer we find in the Scriptures. It’s one we often fail to pray, making our prayers incomplete. It’s the pray...

You’re not where you were, and you’re not where you’re going to be. You’re in between. Welcome to the wilderness. It’s in these ambiguous spaces where we either become who God is inviting us to be or we shrink into the smaller, more manageable stories we write for ourselves. Because it’s easier to be a slave in Egypt than to trust God in the desert. But no one aspires to be the person who shrinks....

The practice of grounding yourself in gratitude is essential to a life well-lived. But in the wilderness experiences of life, gratitude isn’t enough. In those times, we need to identify, name, and express our losses. The Psalms are a case in point. Filled with both songs and prayers of praise, they’re also packed full of songs of lament. Because being grounded in gratitude and lamen...

In Hebrew, the root word for midbar (desert) is the Hebrew word davar, which means to speak. While God is always speaking, we usually hear God best in the desert experiences of our lives. Why? Because in seasons of hardship and challenge, busyness and distraction are stripped away, and we become more present and open to God’s voice. When that...

When things go wrong in life, one of the first things we feel is that we’re alone. And the social distancing and stay-at-home orders of the COVID-19 pandemic only amplify our sense of isolation. In the Hebrew Scriptures, the wilderness is the primary metaphor for challenging seasons of life. But what if the challenges and limitations of the wilderness actually call forth the richness of our creati...

The number 40 is hugely significant in the Scriptures. Noah. Moses. Israel. Elijah. Jonah. Jesus. It shows up again and again, and for good reason. The number 40 represents testing, trial, opposition, challenge, and refinement. But all the challenge and struggle are in service of the wisdom and newness that’s seeking to be born. In the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, may we not give way to fear, a...

Honor and shame played a significant role in the cultural context of Jesus’s life and ministry. Like a stain, shame diminished a person’s worth in the eyes of the community, and shame continues to have this crippling effect on countless people. From start to finish, this parable is saturated with shame, and Jesus seems to have designed it this way on purpose. Why? Because Jesus is telling us somet...

Two significant (but often overlooked) moments in the parable reveal there’s more than one way to be lost. It’s just as possible to be lost in the Father’s house as it is to be lost in the far country. Countless people end up lost not as prodigals, but by believing they’re earning God’s love and acceptance with their obedience. This is not how the Father runs the house. And this episode explores h...

Sometimes people walk away from God, but few things are as painful as seeing your children walk away. Jesus’s words strike a deep chord with parents who’ve felt helpless as their children walk their own path. Parenting is a sensitive issue and addresses the most tender place within us: our deep love for our children. In this episode, we examine the Father’s posture of heart towards a son he knows...

It’s easy to forget how much we’ve been forgiven. And when we do so, our relationship with God and others suffers greatly. In this episode of the parable of the lost son, we key in on the younger son and unpack his journey of being lost and then found. And in doing so, we get to marvel at the extravagant grace of God who embraces us despite our faults and failures. But until we allow our...

Right before Jesus told the Parable of the Lost Son, he told the Parables of the Lost Sheep and the Lost Coin. That’s because these three parables go together. And in order to understand what Jesus was challenging his hearers with in the Parable of the Lost Son, we must first understand what Jesus was communicating with the Lost Sheep and the Lost Coin. Hence, this episode. And as we’ll be qu...

Traditionally known as the “Parable of the Prodigal Son,” this story of Jesus has captured the hearts and minds of people for two thousand years. It’s among his most famous teachings, and it highlights the essence of his mission. And like every story of Jesus (and of the Bible), it has a context that is often lost on readers. Which is why in this episode, we begin laying out that context by l...

92% of New Year’s resolutions fail. Clearly, there’s something wrong with the way we execute our goals. But the biggest problem isn’t with the execution; it’s with the goals themselves. Many of us are setting bad goals, and we don’t even know it. They’re having a negative impact on us, and we’re totally unaware. In this final part on the Parable of the Rich Fool, we’re goi...

We are not the sum total of our possessions and accomplishments. Nor are we the sum total of our faults and failures. And yet, we often live as if that’s the case. We believe our worth and our value comes from what we have or what we do. Jesus confronted this toxic perspective in the Parable of the Rich Fool. But even more than that, he obliterated it in his...

One of the biggest mistakes we make is believing that what we have, we actually own. In God’s eyes, we don’t own anything. Everything we have – our accomplishments, our possessions, even our lives – all belong to God. We’re simply called to steward what we have on God’s behalf. The rich man in this parable failed to see this, and many of us do as well. Until we recognize this, we’ll struggle...

Possessions can be tricky. On the one hand, many of them are needed and incredibly useful. But on the other hand, they can possess us in ways that we may or may not realize. In the Parable of the Rich Fool, Jesus warns, “Watch out! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; for one’s life does not consist in an abundance of possessions.” His point is easy to understand. But then the question bec...

Despite what we may think, many people didn’t believe Jesus’s ministry was all that impressive. In fact, they questioned whether or not God’s kingdom was really advancing through him. In response, Jesus told a parable about a mustard seed. Even though it’s incredibly small, its capacity for growth is massive. Jesus challenged his audience to recognize that even though things may not...

Did you know that Jesus didn’t manufacture the Parable of the Good Samaritan out of thin air? He was actually drawing upon a story from the Old Testament (his Bible). And it’s one of the most incredible war stories on loving one’s enemies. It’s sitting behind the parable, and this story, coupled with Leviticus 19:18, gives us a window into how we can love all people well, and how we must...

Jesus didn’t tell the Parable of the Good Samaritan so that we would help people in need. That was a byproduct. He told the parable to smash our categories of who’s “in” and who’s “out” to smithereens. The Samaritans were the most hated people on the planet for Jesus’s audience. And yet, to their utter shock and anger, the Samaritan was the hero of the story. Tantamount to saying, “The G...

There’s a marked distinction between sympathy and empathy. Sympathy stands at a distance and says, “I’m sorry you’re going through this.” Empathy stands in the other person’s shoes and says, “I want to understand your situation so that I can respond in a way that’s truly loving and helpful to you.” Too many of us choose the former. The Good Samaritan ch...

So often, we allow fear or inconvenience drive our response to someone who is in need. In the Parable of the Good Samaritan, we meet a priest and Levite who fail to help a man who is in great need. But a Samaritan does what they were unable or unwilling to do. The priest and Levite were more focused on the implications for themselves than they were for the implications of this man. In th...