The Teaching Series (with Brad Gray and Brad Nelson)

When someone wants to encourage others to ask questions, they will often say, “There are no stupid questions.” But those who’ve been asked too many stupid questions will invariably reply, “Sure, there are no stupid questions – just stupid people who ask them.” It’s their way of humorously (or not so humorously) stating that there are clearly good questions a...

Did Jesus tell parables to confuse his audience? A literal reading of the Parable of the Soils seems to indicate that. But what most people don’t realize is that Jesus does something with this parable that he doesn’t do with any of his other parables – he bookends it with the words “to hear.” Whoa! Until this phrase is set within the unfolding narrative of the Bible, it’s impossible to unders...

The Parable of the Soils (traditionally: Sower) is only one of three parables that shows up in all three synoptic gospels (Matthew, Mark, and Luke). Of the three parables, it shows up the earliest, and in each one, it kicks off a series of parables. Why do we need to know that? Because it’s a parable about parables. To understand what Jesus is doing in his other parables, it’s imper...

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...

We’re kicking off a brand-new series on Jesus and His Parables. Nearly one-third of Jesus’s teachings are in the form of parables. Jesus knew how to tell a good story. And he leveraged the power of story because he knew it was the most effective strategy for spreading a message. When we understand the power of story, and how Jesus utilized it, we’ll not only better un...

How do you get people to change? It’s a simple, yet profound question. What if I told you that the way we typically think people change isn’t the way they change at all – that we’ve got it all backwards? The good news is that Jesus didn’t. He knew exactly how people change, and employed an approach that maximized this. And when you understand what he did and why he did it, the way y...

Most people have heard the axiom, “It is more blessed to give than to receive.” According to the apostle Paul (in Acts 20), it was Jesus who coined this. He knew this truth more than anyone else, because his entire life was devoted to loving and serving people well. As followers of Jesus, we’re called to do the same. But how can we grow in our ability to do so? I...

According to Proverbs 9:10, “The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom.” Perhaps you’ve heard this before, and maybe, like me, you’ve wondered, “Are we supposed to be scared of God?” Is this what this verse means? Or as some of us have no doubt learned, the “fear” here is really a “reverent fear.” But is that true? In this episode we unpack this passage to understand...

Over and over again in the Bible, we hear the command, “Do not fear.” But what is this command really getting at? Is it simply that we’re never to experience fear, and if we do, we’re disobeying God in some way? Or is there more to it? Fear can be a paralyzing reality in our lives. But it can also be a gift. It all depends on how we engage it. That’s why in this episode, we explore ...

Most of us have heard the proverb, “Train up a child in the way they should go, and when they are old they won’t depart from it.” It’s a great proverb about teaching kids how to walk out God’s path in life. But there’s another level to understanding this proverb that I believe sheds light on one of the most significant principles for not only parenting our kids extremely well, but in how we love a...

We often carry our burdens alone. Maybe we don’t want others to know what we’re going through. Maybe we don’t want to burden anyone with our burdens. Whatever the reasons may be, we don’t distribute them very well. And when we do this, the weight of carrying our burdens alone becomes an endeavor that leaves us weary and discouraged, with very little hope that anything...

Throughout this series, we’ve looked at all of the various aspects of the Lord’s Prayer. In this final episode of the series, we look at several methods in which we can pray and utilize the Lord’s Prayer on a regular basis to take what we’ve learned and put into a practice. And in doing so, really owning this prayer in our lives so that it governs the way the way we think and live,...

The part of the Lord’s Prayer that asks God not to “lead us into temptation but deliver us from evil” has created a lot of confusion. Even Pope Francis has sought to modify this language. Is God in the habit of leading us into testing and temptation? Is there a difference between the two? And how are we to understand the moments when Jesus was tempted? In this episode, we answer these questio...

Jesus told us to pray, “Forgive us our debts as we have forgiven our debtors.” Jesus’s assumption is that we would be forgiving others in the manner in which God has forgiven us. But what happens when we’ve been wronged by someone and we’re struggling to forgive them? What do we do when the pain is so real that we can’t stomach the thought of forgiveness? That’s what we tackle in this episode...

“Give us today our daily bread.” Sounds pretty straightforward, right? But what does it mean to ask for daily bread? How do we bring our requests before God? And what should we be asking for in the first place? These questions and more are the subject of this episode as we seek to understand what Jesus meant by the phrase, “our daily bread,” and what it means to faithfully live out...

Many people believe that the point of Jesus was to rescue us from our sins so that we can leave earth and go to heaven. But the problem is that Jesus doesn’t spend his time teaching about how we from here (earth) to go there (heaven), but about getting there (heaven) to come here (earth). Hold on tight because without question, the conten...

Hallowed be your name. What in the world does it mean to “hallow” someone’s name? And what is the significance of God’s name? Furthermore, why does Jesus tell us it needs to be hallowed in the first place? As with every aspect of the Lord’s Prayer, this one is loaded with meaning and rooted in Old Testament stories in order to help us understand the absolute necessity of God’s name...

When Jesus told us to pray, “Our Father who is in heaven,” it is literally recorded in Greek as, “in the heavens.” Why would Jesus be talking about God being “in the heavens?” What did this mean to the people first hearing Jesus say this? And what does this mean for us in our relationship with God and in our understanding of “Heaven?” All of this and more are addressed in this teaching as we...

The Lord’s Prayer begins with “Our Father.” Whoa! In Jesus’s day, you couldn’t begin a prayer more explosively than that. It’s been said that when Jesus told us to address God as “Our Father” that he was introducing a new way to approach God. Nope! The notion of God as “Father” had been deeply rooted in Israel’s story for fifteen hundred years. What Jesus was doi...

The Lord’s Prayer is the most well-known and well-loved prayer in history. But how well do we know the Lord’s Prayer? Sure, most of us can recite it off the top of our heads (and probably in the King James with its “thy’s” and “art’s”), but do we really understand what Jesus was saying and teaching us when he gave this prayer? I know I sure didn’t. But when I began to...

The most monumental event following the death, burial, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus was the giving of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost. It was a day that changed things forever. And yet, most people don’t know how deep and significant this event was. For example, did you know that Pentecost wasn’t a new festival? Or that it didn’t take place in the Upper Room? Or that it was con...

In this episode, we’re celebrating the Resurrection, and we’re going all out! God raised Jesus from the dead on a Sunday. But it wasn’t just any Sunday. It was a Sunday where people were celebrating a significant festival in conjunction with Passover and Unleavened Bread. And the implications of why Jesus rose on this Sunday will astound you, as there is another whole other level of...

One of the most challenging passages to understand is Jesus’ “Bread of Life” teaching in John 6 where he tells his audience they must “eat his flesh and drink his blood.” And then he goes on to say that if they don’t, they have no life in them. What is up with that? And then John, who spends more time on the Last Supper than all of the other gospel writers combined, doesn’t even mention ...

What happens when our expectations and our realities do not align? How do we respond when there’s a gap between what we hoped God would do and doesn’t? Answering that is the essence of this episode as we explore Jesus’s bold proclamation in John 6 that he is the “Bread of Life” and that he desires to provide for us in the midst of our circumst...

Following the feeding of the four thousand, Jesus and his disciples get into a boat and discuss the “Yeast of the Pharisees” after the disciples forget to bring bread. And then Jesus appears to heal a blind twice outside of Bethsaida, making one wonder if he made a mistake. And we’re left asking ourselves, “What is up with these bizarre stories?” Well, ...