Exploring My Strange Bible

This teaching explores Jesus' call to a radical way of life in following him. It's based on Luke Chapter 14, which includes some very challenging sayings of Jesus about counting the cost of following him. We will consider the balance between Jesus’s generous grace as he invites everyone into his community, as well as his stiff challenge about the great cost and sacrifice that is going to be required.

Many of us have a difficult time balancing Jesus' generosity with his intense call to follow . How do they go together? We explore that in this episode...

Many people believe that science and religious faith are bitter enemies with conflicting views of the universe. One the one hand there is the scientific account of the origins of life and then there is the story of universal origins told by the bible. But is this tension real, or is it based on a deep misunderstanding of what the Bible is and how it communicates? This is a lecture I gave at a Science and Faith conference at Blackhawk Church in Madison, WI in the year 2011. I ask what it means to read the first two pages of the Bible as ancient Hebrew texts written thousands of years ago. When we begin with that simple fact, Genesis chapters 1-2 say many surprising things we never would have imagined, and they also leave unaddressed most of our modern questions. Consider this a crash course in reading the Bible as an ancient cross-cultural experience.

Today we are going to explore one of the most memorable teachings of Jesus that many people, even non-Christians, know. It is the teaching that centers around judgment or the idea “Don’t judge so that you will not be judged”.

What did Jesus mean when he said not to judge other people? This is one of the teachings of Jesus that has truly taken on a life of its own. How has its meaning morphed over time, and what did Jesus intend for this teaching to mean?

We address these questions and more in this episode.

In the final episode we see Jonah's response when God forgives his enemies. He's hot with anger and chews God out for being to gracious.

This part of the story challenges us to reconsider Jesus' teaching to love and forgive our enemies, those people in our lives who are the most difficult.

Jonah goes very much against his own desires to the ancient city of Nineveh. He utters a very strange five word sermon and the people of Nineveh have a very interesting response. Also, we discuss the meaning of the biblical word “repentance” and what it does and doesn’t mean.