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

Is there such at thing as Evil?  Not just as an adjective – describing the character of an act or even a person – but as a thing in and of itself; evil with a capital “E”?   From the biblical perspective, the answer is:  yes.  There is a force, a drive within creation that […]

While the biblical story centers on God’s rescue of humanity, Gen. 3 (the Garden of Eden story) makes is clear that the entire cosmos has been affected by the curse of sin. Nature itself is broken, and thus the project of salvation must include the restoration the entire created order.  In this episode we take […]

An elemental consequence of sin is alienation – alienation between people, between  humanity and creation, and, most profoundly, alienation between humanity and God (see part 2 of this series for more detail).  And thus central to the project of salvation is reconciliation – bringing creation back to healthy, loving relationship, beginning with the relationship between God […]

The miracles of Jesus were only slightly less of an intellectual challenge to citizens of the 1st century than they are to us.  Raising a dead girl to life, for example, was no more common in ancient Israel than it is now!  And thus it was Jesus’s ability to perform such “signs and wonders” that […]

How to interpret the Sermon on the Mount has been one of the most debated questions in all of church history.  The content and tone shift so dramatically – from the comforting assurance that “your Father in heaven gives good things to those who ask him,” to the simple faith of the Lord’s prayer, to […]

The Pharisees, Sadducees, Essenes and Zealots are central characters in the New Testament, and there is no understanding Jesus without understanding the larger conversation into which he entered.  In this episode we examine each of these four major sects of first century, Palestinian Judaism and their answers to the central question of the day:  What […]

What exactly is a gospel? And is there a right way to read them? In this episode, we examine the gospel as a genre of biblical literature and discuss: their content, the events that occasioned their writing, and the manner of their composition.  And we begin with fact that “gospel” (the Greek word is εὐαγγέλιον) did […]

A sermon from Canvas:  05 January 2014 The story of the magi is foundational to Matthew’s Gospel both historically and symbolically.  Historically it places Jesus’s early life in the larger context of the reign of Herod the Great, and sets the stage for a confrontation between three kingdoms:  Rome, Jerusalem, and the “kingdom of God” […]

In our modern translations of the Bible, all one has to do to move from the Hebrew scriptures to the story of Jesus is turn a page – a action so simple it suggests the connection between the two “testaments” is obvious.  Of course the story of Jesus is connected to the story of Abraham, […]

There is no understanding the Bible without recognizing love at the center – or so I have been arguing from the first installment of this series.  The whole project of salvation is rooted in the love of God for his people and indeed all creation. And I imagine that this is not so hard to […]

The period after the return from exile was one of deep confusion for Israel.  For while she had indeed been set free from captivity, the deliverance was partial at best.  The Persians remained the sovereign political and military power in the region (later replaced by a series of empires beginning with Alexander the Great and […]

Why is God so relentlessly committed to the project of salvation?  Why does YHWH persevere in covenant faithfulness when Israel has proven so unable to fulfill her calling? In this installment of our introduction to the Bible, God declares his answer:  love. God loves so dearly that he cannot abide humanity’s suffering.  “For my sake…,” […]

Waiting is profoundly difficult; all the more so when you know the one you are waiting one is capable of acting immediately.  Yet this is God’s call to exiled Israel – to wait upon the Lord for the day of salvation (in this case release from captivity). But this waiting is not to be passive […]

How do we reconcile the wrath and love of God???  The images of gentle shepherd seem so at odds with those of a punishing judge we are tempted to imagine they describe different deities.  And yet both wrath and grace are such inextricable dimensions of the God of the Bible that neither be dismissed.  One […]

What is prophecy in the Bible? And what is a prophet?  And why do I feel I want little to do with either? My personal allergy to the word “prophecy” stems from the fact that most contemporary discussion thereof involve a vast departure from the biblical understanding. From Harold Camping’s dating of the end of […]

Great poetry generally makes for difficult reading.  The words and phrases may be simple enough,  even simplistic. But the very nature of poetry is to pick up where language fails – to articulate the ineffable.  And thus readers of poetry face the dual challenge of interpretation and introspection. We must simultaneously examine words and ourselves to find […]

In the polytheistic culture of the Ancient Near East, deities were worshipped by means of sacrifices made in particular places.  Most gods were considered to have what we might consider “regional” power (the Babylonians having a few patron deities vs. those of say the Assyrians); and within those regions to have particular locations in which […]

David is a central protagonist in the biblical story.  And though his triumph over Goliath and his moral failings with Bathsheba are the stuff of great art, it is his establishment of the monarchy in Israel that both shapes and foreshadows future events. David is born in Bethlehem (c. 1040 BCE).  He spends his childhood […]

Honest answers to sincere questions are essential to the work of love.  Indeed the lessons that have been most formative in my spiritual life have not come from books and lectures (important though they are!), but from the candid conversations that came at the cafe or in the parking lot after the formal lesson was […]

Understanding the Bible requires a constant return to the covenant with Abraham (see part 3 of this series).  It is that promise of salvation that drives the rest of the biblical narrative and which guides our interpretation of scripture.  And central to Abrahamic covenant is the pledge that Israel will come to possess the land […]