TRC Chattanooga Podcast

Isaiah prophesied about the coming birth of Christ long before it actually happened. Then when it did happen, Matthew's Gospel referenced Isaiah's writing. For about 2,000 years, we were all pretty happy with that explanation. Until some historical critical theologians got ahold of it and made a mess of things. What should we know about the prophecy concerning Jesus Christ's incarnation? Listen as...

The fourth week of Advent has the theme of Love. As Christians, there is no greater example of love than God himself in Christ Jesus. Listen as Elder Glenn Jones exhorts the congregation from John's gospel and first epistle to believe the full scope of God's love for the world and how it will one day make the whole world Christian.

We’ve all had people and institutions who have let us down over the years, or at least failed to meet our expectations. When two disciples are sent by John the Baptist to Jesus to ask him whether he is the coming one, Jesus asks them to observe what they see around them and draw their own conclusions. Did John the Baptist have his own Doubting Thomas moment? Or does it really matter, anyway? What...

The theme for the third Sunday in Advent is: joy. Paul tells us in both Philippians and Romans that Christians ought to be joyful…always. This is the expected biblical disposition of the Christian’s emotional and mental state. The problem is that we’re not always joyful. The world loads us down, especially in Advent, when calendars get more full than we might like. But if Christians have a God who...

What exactly was John the Baptist's ministry all about? What kind of a man was he? The message that a prophet of God brings us isn't necessarily always what we want to hear - it might not even be pleasant. John was not a soft man. He was desert-tested, and he thundered! Listen as Pastor James Durham delivers this week's sermon at TRC Chattanooga.

The theme for the second week of Advent is peace. In Isaiah 53:5, we learn that Christ's chastisement brought us peace. It was our sin that brought us into a state of war with God. The only way that peace could be brokered was by the suffering and death of the only begotten Son of God, Jesus Christ. Through his stripes, we are fully reconciled to God. Listen as Elder Wes Keene exhorts the congrega...

A new Church year is upon us and that means that we must prepare our minds and hearts to celebrate and remember how Christ came into the world at Christmas. But before we get to the Christmas season, it is always helpful to gain a deeper understanding of the season of Advent as a whole, especially in how Jesus' coming into the world is a unified whole - Christ has come, Christ is coming, and Chris...

The season of Advent begins every Church year with week one as a reminder of the Christian's hope. Just as the Old Testament saints looked forward to the birth of Christ, we as Christians today look forward to the return of Christ to consummate all things. Listen as Elder Glenn Jones exhorts the congregation at TRC Chattanooga to continually put their hope in Christ.

The Gospel text for Christ the King Sunday is a bit of a surprising selection for the uninitiated. We find Luke’s account of the crucifixion of our Lord, and that doesn’t exactly seem like a King reigning on his throne. That’s the problem for us: things often seem upside down to us. But reigning is exactly what he is doing. Christ has put all his enemies under hit feet. And at the throne of his cr...

Christ is the image of the invisible God. No one has ever seen the Father, but we have seen Christ. And if you have seen Christ, you have seen the Father. So it is fitting for us, on the last Sunday of the church year, to consider the lordship of our Savior Jesus Christ. Today is Christ the King Sunday. How does St. Paul help us to understand what that means? Listen as Elder Wes Keene exhorts the...

Through poor theology, misuse, disuse, and modernism’s warm embrace of rationalism, the church is at risk of missing the full value of her sacraments. Rather than letting the church get robbed blind, we need to embrace the plain words of Christ written right in the New Testament, and truly believe them. In this lesson, we follow the scriptural warrant for the Eucharist, as well as the many misunde...

People like to focus on eschatology. They have their reasons, but often it’s because people aren’t content to just busy themselves with the work the Lord has given them to do. As it turns out, this phenomenon isn’t new. Paul saw exactly the same thing among the Thessalonians, and he deals with it head on. Listen as Rev. David Beckmann preaches this week’s sermon at TRC Chattanooga.

God has written a book of remembrance in heaven of all those who esteem his name. As Christians gather together for worship every Lord's day, faithfully and fearfully glorifying his holy name, he remembers his people and renews his covenant with them. Listen as Elder Glenn Jones exhorts the congregation of TRC Chattanooga with Malachi 3:16.

Why do children take Holy Communion in our church? What’s the justification for it, and are those justifications found in Holy Scripture? Fred Thompson leads us through the biblical and historical case for this practice and shows why deviation from it can be so dangerous for not only a church, but for a nation.

Jesus's answer to the Sadducees is one of the most memorable and impactful answers ever given about the doctrines of marriage and the individual's life after death. Even though he gave the answer in a hostile context, there is a wealth of wisdom and teaching to derive from his brief interaction with these Jewish leaders. Listen as Elder Glenn Jones preaches the sermon to TRC Chattanooga on Luke 20...

The second letter to the Thessalonians was written on account of a fake letter having been received by the congregation claiming to be from Paul himself. But in spite of this confusion, the Apostle Paul sends his own letter and offers them his confidence that they will not depart from the teachings and commands that he had already delivered to them. In our day today, technology and artificial inte...

The Lord's Supper, also known as Communion and the Eucharist in Christian tradition, is the sacramental meal of the New Covenant. In today's TRC Sunday School class, we consider the Old Testament meals and how these divine and sacred events that came before the New Covenant prefigured and gave a foretaste of the good things to come in Christ and the Lord's Supper. Listen as Elder Glenn Jones leads...

We have heard the ditches analogy: that we want to avoid behavior that causes us to fall off into one ditch or another, and stay in the center ground. There are indeed situations where this is a great way to explain how to find the moral answer. But not every moral question is a ditch. When it comes to following God’s laws, we are highly imperfect. But far from calling us to be moderate centrists...

Most understand Psalm 32 to be about David’s contrition after his affair and resulting treachery with Bathsheba. In it, David says that he acknowledged his sin before the Lord and did not cover it. But that wasn’t always true. David, did for a time attempt to keep silent about it, and that had devastating effects for him. Keeping a sin secret is futile. The Lord is not mocked. But when we come to...

On the occasion of Reformation Sunday, Elder Glenn Jones preaches to the congregation about the tale of two men, Martin Luther and John Tetzel, asking the congregation, based on Luke 18:9-14, which of them went home justified. Jesus' teaching on God's mercy is so clear in Scripture, it is hard for anyone reading Luke's Gospel to deny that one is justified purely by God's mercy in Jesus Christ alon...

The Church is always to be reformed, whenever corruption and false teaching creeps in. The well known Latin phrase, Semper Reformanda, is a way of summarizing this teaching we find in Jude's epistle. TRC Chattanooga is both a reformation and a catholic congregation, knowing that all Christians throughout history share in the faith once for all delivered to the saints and that they must also stride...

What exactly is going on with Jacob's wrestling match in Genesis 32? Who is he wrestling and why? Before we understand that, we have to understand Jacob's relationship with God, and how he viewed prayer. Maybe you wrestle with men and with God, but your prayers before God must always be importunate. Listen as Rev. David Beckmann preaches at TRC Chattanooga.

Paul tells Timothy that he must continue in the things which he had learned, and he tells him why. But we must understand the importance of the teachings of our own youth. It is critical that we not deviate from what our parents and ministers taught us about the Christian faith. Because there are many forces upon the Christian urging them to form new and strange beliefs. Listen as Elder Wes Keene...

Paul wrote his second letter to Timothy at the end of Paul's life. Rather than the problem being about Paul, this letter was about the problem of Paul no longer being in this world and the reality that Timothy would face in appointing younger leaders to succeed in the faithful teaching of the Gospel message Paul had preached. We in the American churches today face a similar demand as the older gen...

Paul warns Timothy to charge the congregation not to quarrel about the meaning of words because it ultimately leads to the ruin of the hearers. In Paul's day, the dispute was over the meaning of the Resurrection, but in our day the dispute is over the meaning of the created world and such terms as man and woman, the meaning of marriage, and much more. How should we apply this directive for us 'not...