Lent Week 2: Utter Dependence #LectioCast

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03/06/17 • 37 min

From Abram to Jesus to the inclusion of the Gentiles we are called into a story of utter dependence on God: trusting God to do for us what we would otherwise try to do for ourselves.

Genesis 12:1-4a Abram has to leave behind everything that should provide for him. God promises a blessing that is too big for Abram to control or contain.

Psalm 121 A psalm of trust in God’s holistic care. Where does our help come from? Are we willing to give ourselves to the God who made heaven and earth?

Romans 4:1-5, 13-17 The inclusion of the Gentiles means rereading the story of Abraham. Abraham is blessed through his trust. Abraham trusts the God whom Paul preaches: the God who gives life to the dead and calls into being what does not exist.

Matthew 17:1-9 Remember when Jesus refused to bite during those satanic temptations to explore what “son of God” might mean for him? God honors that trust, and will honor it again in Jesus’s resurrection.

John 3:1-17 Nicodemus gets Jesus talking. Dependence on God, trust in God, comes to its ultimate manifestation in the need to be born from above, by the Spirit, in order to see the Kingdom. Scary as that might be, it’s a stipulation held in the hands of the God who sent His Son into the world to save it, rather than condemn. This God can be trusted.

Books discussed this week: JRD Kirk, Unlocking Romans: Resurrection and the Justification of God.

Daniel Kirk is a writer, speaker, and blogger who lives in San Francisco, CA where he is currently Pastoral Director for the Newbigin House of Studies. His third book A Man Attested by God: the Human Jesus of the Synoptic Gospels, is hot off the presses. Daniel holds a Ph.D. in New Testament from Duke University and is the author of, Unlocking Romans: Resurrection and the Justification of God and Jesus Have I Loved, but Paul? He blogs regularly at StoriedTheology.com (http://patheos.com/blogs/storiedtheology). You can follow him on Twitter @jrdkirk and on Facebook at Facebook.com/jrdkirk.

From Abram to Jesus to the inclusion of the Gentiles we are called into a story of utter dependence on God: trusting God to do for us what we would otherwise try to do for ourselves.

Genesis 12:1-4a Abram has to leave behind everything that should provide for him. God promises a blessing that is too big for Abram to control or contain.

Psalm 121 A psalm of trust in God’s holistic care. Where does our help come from? Are we willing to give ourselves to the God who made heaven and earth?

Books discussed this week: JRD Kirk, Unlocking Romans: Resurrection and the Justification of God.

Previous Episode

Lent Week 1: Fasting as Trust in God #LectioCast

Lent begins. And we are invited into the ancient practice of fasting. Fasting does not mean adding a new practice, but shedding a practice for the purpose of deepening our trust in God. The stories of Jesus and of Adam and Eve invite us to consider what sorts of props we have erected to hold ourselves up rather than entrusting ourselves into the hands of God. Will we give these up for Lent?

Matthew 4:1-11 Jesus pulls off what neither Adam nor Israel were able to do before him: and he reaps the rewards of it in the end.

Genesis 2, 3 The question of trust: will we trust God or will we accept and perpetuate and create alternative interpretations of the world?

Psalm 32 It looks like God is more willing to forgive us than we are. Read here an invitation to confession, maybe to recognizing the need to confess as generated by Lenten fasting.

Romas 5:12-19 Adam and Jesus: alike in representation, way different in results! Here’s your big chance to be a universalist if you want to take it.

Books discussed this week: Danielle Shroyer, Original Blessing

Next Episode

Lent Week 3: Is the Lord Present to Provide? #LectioCast

In times of hunger and thirst, do we trust God to be present? Do we trust God to provide? Do we believe that this is the path to eternal life rather than a roadblock keeping us from it?

Genesis 17:1-7 The people grumble and test and complain. But only because they were worried about dying of thirst. God doesn’t just give them water: God gives them Godself.

Psalm 95 God as the rock of salvation: the rock from whom waters come when needed. God as the God worth trusting because God has made everything.

Romans 5:1-11 Justification doesn’t take away the suffering, but the suffering is part of the promise of glory. Be at peace with God: because God has already reconciled us.

John 4:5-42 The woman at the well is willing to ask for what she needs, and is willing to see Jesus offering it. Jesus doesn’t seem to mind that he’s hungry or thirsty because he knows what God is up to.