The TMP Podcast

Our Teaching Pastor Paul Walker sits down with Pastor Keith to discuss the implications of Acts 15 as it relates to the gospel, race, polarization, and the third way of Jesus. Keith shares his own experience of walking through the polarization of USA political landscape and the racial tensions that ensued.

We are excited to have Meghan Larissa Good teaching us this week.
Our age is characterized by intensifying polarization. Largely because of theinternet, increasing numbers of people have fallen into echo-chambers where their beliefs are continually affirmed and radicalized and where their capacity to empathetically understand opposing perspectives, even their desire to correctly understand opposing perspectives, is greatly diminished. As a result, westerners are quickly losing what once was a shared trust in foundational institutions, norms, values and practices. The question we must ask is: In a social context in which everyone clamours for the power to get their way at the expense of others and/or the earth and animal kingdom, what would it look like for the church to model a radically different and altogether beautiful kind of power, in the process of pointing people to a radically different and altogether beautiful God? The Apostle Paul teaches along these lines when he writes: “Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse them” (Rom 12:14). We are never to “repay anyone evil for evil” and never to retaliate against an evil-doer (Rom 12:17-18), which is to say, we must “not be overcome by evil” but are instead to “overcome evil with good” (Rom 12:21). Hence, Paul concludes, “if your enemies are hungry, feed them; if they are thirsty, give them something to drink, for by doing this you will heap burning coals on their heads” (Rom 12:20). The image of burning coals being placed on someone’s head is a reference to coming under conviction. Paul is suggesting that by responding to aggression with love rather than violently defending ourselves, we expose the wrongfulness of the action being perpetrated against us. As we saw was true with Jesus’ teaching in the Sermon on the Mount (Matt 5:38-48), this opens up the possibility that our aggressor will wake up to, and turn away from, the wrongfulness of their action against us. This is the power of Cross-like suffering love. The “natural mind” can’t see the power of the cross, but we who follow Jesus are called to trust that this kind of power is the strongest force in the universe.

This week, we discuss that to be known by and linked to Jesus is all that we need.

Ryan teaches us to understand the spiritual significance of sexuality and make decisions to experience the best version of this gift.

The Apostle Paul begins addressing the Galatians directly and pulls no punches: “You foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you?” Paul is expressing his deep concern about what is taking place in Galatia, including: enslavement to religion, failure to live out the truth of the gospel, and threats to the unity of the community. The heart of matter that Paul is addressing is the bounded set approach on the “works of the law”—-actions like circumcision and dietary rules that the agitators used to draw boundary lines. Through Paul’s rhetorical questions, he communicates, again, that they do not need to take up the Jewish customs suggested by the other missionaries in order to be worthy of God’s grace or to truly belong to God’s people. They have already experienced the reality of the Spirit and God has worked miracles without them complying with the “works of the law.” God’s actions were not conditional on them being circumcised or living like Jews. God was always working by faith as evidenced through Abraham the man of faith. The promise of God came to fulfillment in Jesus the “seed” of Abraham. “ Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law” and thus made it possible for all of us to “receive the promise of the Spirit”. Here in this section of Galatians, we are again reminded that we cannot earn our belonging to God’s family. Our ethnic-racial distinctions , cultural- social distinctions, nationalism, and all other forms of belonging do not take precedent over our identity in Christ. God welcomes us because of Jesus — and we need to learn to understand the long story of Scripture as culminating in the promise of Jesus.