Buzz King: Grace & Joy thru Scripture

We consider an ancient landfill found in Egypt - which contains the oldest known New Testament fragments ever found.  We look at the very negative view that the ancient Jews had of garbage or refuse of any kind and what this means for God choosing to preserve his most ancient New Testament Word in a landfill.  We also consider a man I once met who worked in a landfill and how ashamed he was of his...

We consider something that I have had trouble conveying in my church and in my podcasts: how we know that we can relax and depend on God to take care of us.  We do this by looking at the Book of Esther, an ancient Hebrew story (and not really "history") about a woman who saves the entire Jewish people from annihilation.  God is never mentioned in the story.  Neither is prayer, the history of the I...

When I was a boy, a girl went missing while playing Hide and Go Seek with some of us.  Her mother ended up offering a prayer, which I later identified, I believe, as the Prayer of Manasseh, from the Apocrypha.  We look at the history of the evil King Manasseh from the Kings and Chronicles Books, and at this prayer which is attributed to him (which he certainly did not write).  From the beautiful,...

When I was a young kid in school, I was exposed to a boy who would probably now be called "neurodivergent".  I ended up learning a lot about what it means to be different, but still be made in God's image.  We look at Samson, a sinful, arrogant, corrupt, even laughable man who is manipulated by God to serving despite his apparent desire to dishonor his position as a Nazarite.  We look at the many...

We look at a story from Judges: the female judge Deborah and how her army destroyed the far more advanced army of their enemy.  In the Bible, it is an epic of the Iron Age of the Canaanites vs. the Bronze Age of the Israelites.  We study both the prose and the poem version of this story.  We see how with God's help, the rag tag Israelite army destroys the experienced Canaanite army which is invadi...

My father served in the Pacific in World War II as a Marine and the leader of a combat unit.  We look at three stories of resurrection, of rising from spiritual death: the return of the exiles from Babylon, the rise of Christ after death, and the growth of the Christian church in very recent times.  We also look at how my sister serving as a foreign exchange student healed my father and allowed hi...

We look at the traditional view of Holy Week, from the triumphant entry into Jerusalem on a donkey, to the gruesome crucifixion, to the glorious resurrection.  We note that low point between the ride into the Holy City and the rise of Jesus from death.  But we consider a somewhat different view - that the crucifixion does not break the joy from Palm Sunday to Easter.  We look at Jesus' last words...

I once spoke with a highly educated physicist who was a psychiatric patient.  We call her Annie.  She talked to me about the Newtonian misconception of gravity as a force, when it really has more to do with the bending of spacetime.  We consider the biblical story of the invasion of Canaan, and the evidence to counter and to defend the validity of this story.  We then get back to the bending of sp...

I once saw John Wayne in a fancy mens store.  I was a boy, and was with an older volunteer who was buying clothing for a kid whose family had no assets.  We look at her bold behavior.  We consider several passages from the Bible that all tell us how we should behave when living out our faith.  We see that this volunteer, this older woman, truly followed the instructions of God as she approached Jo...

A very successful man who was in the hospital in great pain reminded me of an important Bible passage about humility: the apparent Creed that we think Paul inserted into his letter to the believers at Philippi.  We consider Creeds in general, like the Apostles and the Nicene, and then look at this beautiful, rhythmic passage of Paul's.  We then consider why Paul's poem might be a much better Chris...

Years ago, when I had an as-yet untreated corneal disease, I had very limited vision.  I once accidentally stepped into a coffee cart line in a hospital lobby, and without meaning to, cut off a number of people.  I got yelled at loudly - and felt both angry and embarrassed when the woman who yelled at me didn't seem to care that I couldn't see well.  We look at a few quotes, from Deuteronomy, Isai...

When I was a boy, the cross on the top of my church was covered with gold leaf.  We consider the First Temple, Solomon's Temple, which King David declared "will not be for man".  We consider an amazing vision of the Prophet Ezekiel: a valley of dried and disconnected bones rising up and reforming the lost people of God.  We consider the result of the gold leaf being put on the cross of my childhoo...

My wife and I once saw a side-dump trunk tip over and completely bury and crush a car - with a man still inside.  It seemed like the perfect example showing that we can die at any time.  We look at the Lord's Prayer, its text from the Gospels, what it really meant (as opposed to what we might think it means), and we consider how it relates to us today.  We look at the Lord's Prayer as the perfect...

When I was a boy we used to look for particularly salacious or gross stories in the Bible and talk about them on the playground at recess.  My favorite one is the bread that God orders Ezekiel to bake - by cooking it over human poo.  We look at the Old Testament purity laws and what they were really meant to inspire in the People of God.  We look at what they mean for us today.  We consider how we...

I once spoke with a young woman who had been badly traumatized in life.  She understandably had a jaded feeling about the ability of Christianity to change humanity.  We look at two similar stories in the Gospels, about the "Second Coming", or the "Parousia" in Greek.  We look at this from the perspective of a spiritual, not a physical, second coming - and what this could mean for those of us who...

We look at the four famous "Servant Songs" from Isaiah.  We also consider Sister Marie, who was one of my boyhood teachers - and what she told me about the use of Jewish scripture and our relationship to the Jewish people.  As it turns out, there is strong disagreement between Christians and Jews as to what these "Servant Songs" mean.  This leads us to the much bigger question of how to interpret...

I once met a man who had lost one foot and had just been told he would lost part of his other foot.  He had something to say about how this relates to faith.  We look at the age old debate of salvation through faith vs. salvation by acts.  We consider a bit of a different perspective to try and see if we can find a way out of the seeming conflict.  Is there a way to look at faith that does more th...

A buddy of mine, long ago, once gave me surfing lessons.  I grew up near the ocean and was aware of its dangers.  Sure enough, my first time on a board, I ended up under water, spinning, trying to discern up from down.  We look at the Book of Revelation, specifically how it uses the Sea as a metaphor for the chaos of the world and the power of God.  From this we draw the bottom line: the true mess...

I once prayed with a man who was watching his grandmother pass away; she had largely raised him.  I prayed for a joyous eternity in the Kingdom.  He asked me if the story of Jesus in the New Testament was engineered to match Old Testament prophesy, and therefore, Jesus wasn't really the Messiah promised by the prophets.  We consider the classic passage in Micah that predicts a savior born in Bethl...

I came upon a man at the San Francisco airport who was reading his Bible, studying a passage from the New Testament where Jesus speaks of himself as being a Temple.  The man at the airport had had a severe conflict with his brother, another Christian, over a Bible translation, and was wishing that we could, as people of faith, come together as true community.  We consider the view that as Christia...

I once walked into my L.A. apartment to discover a burglar leveling a cutdown pump action shotgun at me.  We consider the warnings that God sends our way from time to time, reminding us of our mortality.  We know that we will die - that this life is very temporary.  Are we ready?  We look at the issue not of dying, not of going to Heaven, but of the final End Times, what will happen - how this sho...

I had a student in a class of mine once who had recently been treated for bone cancer in her spine.  She was using a cane.  She talked to me about faith and Heaven, and the fears she had when she was sick.  We discussed the issue of what it means to believe.  Today, we look at the Book of Joel, in particular at a passage referenced in Acts that says that all people will one day be able to accept G...

I once visited a woman who was almost a hundred years old and was about to die.  She expressed some sadness that she had not given enough as a Christian.  We reflect on the Book of Acts and the common misunderstanding that the early church was somehow rigidly socialist.  We consider the real gift we are supposed to give, the gift that does not involve personal assets.  We also consider what it mea...

We look at the very dramatic Psalm 137.  It tells of the fall of Babylon and the longing that the exiles have for their holy city and destroyed Temple.  We consider two people I met who reacted in very different ways to the feeling they had been harmed by others.  We look at why the Babylonian invasion is such a major cornerstone in the history of the Israelites.  We consider its use as a metaphor...

We look at the spaghetti and butter sandwiches that I ate as a kid in grammar school.  We consider Grace.  We look at three issues: first, whether it is a real thing or something invented by us or by New Testament writers; second, different variations or applications of Grace in our lives, and 3, how to measure Grace.  We see that this last issue has a lot to do with the butter in those sandwiches...