Jesus At 2am - A Humorous, Intelligent Look At The Bible, Church History & The Life Of Faith

Growth in love requires us to step into the unknown, to take the path of risk and dependence upon God. In this episode we look at Jesus’s 40-day journey into the wilderness. It is there he faces the temptation to other, easier “loves” (what are – in reality – false loves).  And it is there […]

An enigmatic figure in his day and in ours! In this episode we examine the ministry of John the Baptist – a prophet in the style of Elijah who came preaching both warning and welcome as preparation for the coming of Jesus. In particular, we’ll interpret John in light of his contemporaries and how his […]

The central question of Israel’s faith in the first century boiled down to this: What must we do to provoke God to complete his project of salvation? It had been centuries since the temple – destroyed during the Babylonian invasion – had been restored, and yet the glory of God had not returned. Some attempts […]

The “annunciation” to Mary of Jesus’s birth is, at one level, a very gracious encounter between God and a young girl – the divine revelation that, with Mary’s permission, she will be the means through which God’s messiah enters into creation. And it involves one of the great miracles of the biblical story – the pregnancy […]

Luke opens on a darkened scene. Herod, a despotic ruler installed by Rome, sits on David’s throne in Jerusalem – a powerful symbol that Israel is far from where she expected to be. The first character we meet is Zechariah – an aged priest of a childless wife – coming to due his religious duty in the […]

The Apostle Luke is often regarded as an historian. His book, Acts (of the Apostles), is a highly detailed description of the events of the early church, and he describes his “gospel” as a carefully investigated “orderly account” of Jesus’s life. Both are the sort of literature we find in other ancient histories. But Luke’s […]

Love is the name of the game. It is the purpose behind creation, the goal of life and the greatest of all commandments.  In this episode we begin an extensive look at love in practice – love of God, self and other (indeed even of enemy) as displayed in the life of Jesus. Our guide […]

In this conclusion to our study classical Christian spiritual formation, we take all practices we have learned so far and put them together to get a picture of a typical day-in-the-life of one growing to maturity in Christ. What we discover is that the work of spiritual discipline is rarely burdensome nor heroic, and one need […]

A personal trainer for the soul? Every great athlete has a coach, every great artist a teacher, and every great saint a mentor, “confessor” or spiritual director. And while most of us are not striving for formal “sainthood,” we can all benefit from some formal spiritual direction. In this episode we explore the a bit […]

Genuine hardship is an essential part of the work of maturity in the Christian life. And one of the most damaging fallacies of pop-Christianity is that experiences of distance from God, isolation and aridity are signs of regression (or as my tradition so often refers to them: “back-sliding”). One need look no further than to Jesus’s […]

How do you know when God is talking? There are some people who claim to hear the voice of God constantly – in every impulse they have, every chance event or random encounter. And others who have never had an inkling of divine communication. The classical tradition says that neither of these pictures is accurate. It […]

Is it possible to have an unmediated experience of God? A direct encounter with the divine that transcends any use of the senses or even the intellect? The classical answer is –  yes!  And its pursuit is the goal of the mystic tradition (an element of the spiritual life that is accessible to us all, […]

In this episode, we turn to the next of our spiritual “personality types” (i.e., attraits) – the apophatic-speculatives. What defines an apophatic is a basic desire to escape distraction. They are the ones who love the very idea of a silent retreat or the spiritual practice of “simplicity.” They are not anti-creation. Nor are they anti-social or […]

Just as some people need faith to make intellectual sense, so others need to feel it – to have the emotional experience of God’s presence, to know in the manner of the heart and not the head. These are the “affectives.” (And all of us are affective to a degree, some just more so than […]

For me, another January 1st begs the question: Is “new” really possible?  New in the sense of a genuinely a clean slate, a fresh start, even new heart or a new creation? I want to say yes, but the combination of my awareness of a finite universe, my limited capacities  and many failed “resolutions” leave me wondering. […]

How one over-busy pastor remembers that you can’t be a part of peace on earth until you find peace within (and with God). In this episode I take a pretty personal look at what to do when the internal angst is up, satisfaction with the state of the world is low and prayer feels impossible. […]

For centuries the church has linked Isaiah 35 with abounding joy. (If searching for a reason to sing “Joy to the World,” the church would put this passage high on the list of reasons why!) In this episode, I do my best to explain why this poetic vision is cause for rejoicing, how it is […]

How does one put words a vision of a world in which peace and compassion had become the truest laws of nature?  That is the work given by God to Isaiah – putting language to the depth of shalom that is coming, a picture of creation as it will be when the project of salvation is […]

In this first week of Advent – the season of preparation for Christ’s coming – we turn  to an early oracle of the prophet Isaiah in which recounts a vision of God’s coming salvation and the blessings of peace: For out of Zion shall go forth instruction, and the word of the LORD from Jerusalem. He […]

I first laughed at the idea of wall between United States and Mexico. Now I fear the potential exists for many, many more to be built… Not physical walls, but personal and cultural barriers to connection. It seems to me that the ultimate winner of this election has been division – the deepening of an […]