Buzz King talks about being spiritual in a high tech world that is often hostile toward those who believe. But Buzz is not defense; his is an upbeat approach. He draws on his experience as a reverend, a professor of computer science specializing in 3D modeling and animation, and a hospital chaplain.
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I had a rather short Boy Scout career that ended when I set off some dynamite for fun. We'll look at Isaiah and how he answered the call from God to serve as a prophet. Isaiah ended up the most referenced prophet in the New Testament and perhaps the most impactful prophet of all the Hebrew prophets. We carefully look at how we can more carefully tune our spiritual hearing to be open to the voice of God calling us. We'll also look at how to help others do the same - without risking their spiritual hearing...
We consider the common belief that Christ replaced a notion of justification by following the intricacies of Mosaic Law with justification by faith alone. Is this true? What did the Jews of Jesus' day truly believe about being made righteous in the eyes of God? We talk about Jewish man I visited in the hospital and two rabbis who had come to see him. The group of us talked about misconceptions that Christians have about the relevancy of Jewish beliefs and the Old Testament today. We consider what it means for us, as Christians, to have been, as Paul put it, grafted onto the Jewish tree.
In the third in our series on the Book of Romans, we consider a young man, a Christian, who was badly injured helping others. We look at a part of Paul's letter that has often - and quite wrongly - been used to support the notion of Predestination, that we cannot control our salvation. We explain what this passage really means, and how it fits naturally into the central focus of the letter. We consider our free will, our ability to voluntarily serve or to try to refuse to serve - and we note God's powerful ability to use our acts to do good, even if we don't want him to. We look at the good th
When I was a small child I had seizure-like fits. My parents took me to numerous doctors, and even a few scientists who were studying seizures in kids. They were faithful people - and it made them confidently determined. They never doubted that God would guide them to a cure. We look in detail at the letter of James - and how he taught us that faith leads to persistence. We also consider another benefit of letting ourself live by our faith and letting it make us persistent...
We pick from last week in our discussion of the Book of Romans. We consider a man who was near the end of his life and didn't know if he truly had faith. We consider the Book of Romans, what it has to say about faith, and what its impact has been on Christianity. We look at this question that this man was confronting and use it to ask each of us if we do indeed have the kind of faith that makes us right with God.
We look at the most influential document in the New Testament, outside of the Gospels: Romans. We consider why it is that historically, some scholars and pastors have not liked it, and have considered it to diverge from Jesus' teachings in the Gospels. But we also consider it as an "occasional writing", that is, a document meant for a focused purpose - as a letter to a church at a certain place and time, and with a somewhat narrow purpose. We see what Romans teaches us if we take into account what Paul was addressing historically and culturally. We end up with a much more nuanced and deeper un
I once visited a woman who was sick with a chronic condition and had a concern about her ability to continue to serve God with the gifts he had given her. She wondered if her life was over. We look at the theological issue of whether we can earn gifts from God. It's a complex issue with a few different perspectives presented in the Bible. We try to come to a conclusion about what it means to be blessed by God, what we are supposed to do with these gifts, and when and how we receive them.
When I was a boy, I was confronted by an angry officer with a gun who wanted to arrest me. He thought I had just attacked and badly injured an elderly lady. When he found out he was wrong, he went out of his way to apologize to me and my father. We look at forgiveness in both the Old and New Testaments. We consider what it really means to have forgiveness be an integral part of our Christian lives. We consider what flows from that...
We look at the story of the Tower of Babel, and at its traditional interpretation, along with some newer twists on that interpretation. We consider how this ties in with a story from the New Testament, and how the Tower of Babel, combined with a New Testament slant, tells a very uplifting story. We also look at a man I met a while back who was building his own Tower of Babel, and how that went wrong.
A man with no home and no family once showed up at the hospital having a seizure. We look at how this man responded to being treated with compassion. We also look at the "sandwiched" stories of Jesus curing the daughter of a rich man and Jesus healing a poor woman. We look at a very special word in the inner story - kraspedou - and how the way it is typically translated tends to greatly minimize the true impact of this story. We consider how we use this to greatly ease the process of connecting with God in a truly deep and meaningful way.
I once met a former EMT who was using a high tech wheelchair because she was an incomplete quadriplegic. She was in the hospital for a test, but was highly traumatized, suffering from a PTSD attack because she was back in a hospital - after having spent months in an ICU after her accident. She told me the story of how, as an EMT earning a bit over the minimum wage, she had been in a traffic accident while on an emergency run. We look at 1 John and at Galatians, and see just what Scripture says about risking our safety to help others, spiritually and physically. We consider this woman, and we l
Supposedly, Ecclesiastes was written by Solomon, but in truth it was written 700 years later. I studied Greek philosophy and literature in college at Occidental, long ago. Something stuck with me later: Ecclesiastes was probably written in part as a response to the Greek influence on Hebrew culture at the time Ecclesiastes was written - just after the height of the Epicurean age. We consider the jaded view presented by the author of Ecclesiastes and how in truth, the author is making a very positive point about the frustrations, the "vanity" or "vapor" of the things we grasp in this life "unde
I used to tease my kids, telling them things that were not real and getting them to believe it, before telling them it was a joke. This backfired when my little daughter refused to eat an ice cream cone that I told her was safe to eat - convinced that I was trying to get her to eat cardboard. I had turned myself into a wolf in sheep's clothing, a dad that was not to be believed. We look at the use of the wolf in the Bible, as a symbol of brutal attack on us physically and spiritually. We consider various Bible passages, from Jesus' warning about those wolves in sheep's clothing to Isaiah, who
Wendy and I once traveled in Ireland with our kids - when they were quite small. We had some adventures, in particular, a surprise concert at a nearby zoo, by U2. We look at the book of Ecclesiastes, a very enigmatic and literate book that talks about the difficulties of finding true satisfaction and meaning in life on Earth. It can be a very jaded read. But it teaches us some very important points about God's plan for us in this life. We look at how to grab onto joy, and we also consider how this Old Testament philosophy is strongly echoed in the New Testament.
I met a young man who considered himself a modern "Gnostic" - and I learned about the dire limitations of his faith. We look at 1st John, a deeply theological letter that strives to set the reader straight on the basic tenets of Christian faith. We look at issues such as Christ being both fully human and fully man, at the source of love, and the need to recognize the reality of sin. We see why being fully Christian is so important today.
I visited Israel once, and drove the length of the old Unified Kingdom under David and Solomon: about 100 or so miles. We look at the history of the 10 tribes of Israel, the United Kingdom, and the divided kingdoms of Israel and Judah. We consider the tiny size and brief period during when the Unified Kingdom existed. We consider what a couple of Prophets and the New Testament has to say about the coming eternal, universal kingdom. We also consider how this should impact the way that we deal with the chaos of the world around us.
We consider a couple of prominent Bible passages that superficially seem to back up the "fire and brimstone" sermon that I once heard from a rather strident pastor. But we look at these passages more closely. We consider whether God really is vengeful and violent. We consider an alternative interpretation of these New Testament passages - and see if perhaps there is a common misinterpretation of the message of God, in both the Old and the New Testaments.
We consider an ancient landfill found in Egypt - which contains the oldest known New Testament fragments ever found. We look at the very negative view that the ancient Jews had of garbage or refuse of any kind and what this means for God choosing to preserve his most ancient New Testament Word in a landfill. We also consider a man I once met who worked in a landfill and how ashamed he was of his work. Little did he know that he worked in the sort of place that has become beloved by archeologists and is a primary reason why future generations will have no choice to trust that the New Testament
We consider something that I have had trouble conveying in my church and in my podcasts: how we know that we can relax and depend on God to take care of us. We do this by looking at the Book of Esther, an ancient Hebrew story (and not really "history") about a woman who saves the entire Jewish people from annihilation. God is never mentioned in the story. Neither is prayer, the history of the Israelites, the covenant with God, or theology ever explicitly mentioned. Yet, we see that this is a deeply spiritual book - and therein lies our secret.
When I was a boy, a girl went missing while playing Hide and Go Seek with some of us. Her mother ended up offering a prayer, which I later identified, I believe, as the Prayer of Manasseh, from the Apocrypha. We look at the history of the evil King Manasseh from the Kings and Chronicles Books, and at this prayer which is attributed to him (which he certainly did not write). From the beautiful, poetic prayer we can learn a lot about why to pray and how to pray.
When I was a young kid in school, I was exposed to a boy who would probably now be called "neurodivergent". I ended up learning a lot about what it means to be different, but still be made in God's image. We look at Samson, a sinful, arrogant, corrupt, even laughable man who is manipulated by God to serving despite his apparent desire to dishonor his position as a Nazarite. We look at the many lessons we learn about what God can do with someone or some situation that seems imperfect.
We look at a story from Judges: the female judge Deborah and how her army destroyed the far more advanced army of their enemy. In the Bible, it is an epic of the Iron Age of the Canaanites vs. the Bronze Age of the Israelites. We study both the prose and the poem version of this story. We see how with God's help, the rag tag Israelite army destroys the experienced Canaanite army which is invading on their iron chariots. We look at how this applies to us today - and we consider more than just the lesson that we need God's help.
My father served in the Pacific in World War II as a Marine and the leader of a combat unit. We look at three stories of resurrection, of rising from spiritual death: the return of the exiles from Babylon, the rise of Christ after death, and the growth of the Christian church in very recent times. We also look at how my sister serving as a foreign exchange student healed my father and allowed him to rise again.
We look at the traditional view of Holy Week, from the triumphant entry into Jerusalem on a donkey, to the gruesome crucifixion, to the glorious resurrection. We note that low point between the ride into the Holy City and the rise of Jesus from death. But we consider a somewhat different view - that the crucifixion does not break the joy from Palm Sunday to Easter. We look at Jesus' last words on the cross and how they have been traditionally very misinterpreted. We see that things are different than we have viewed them in the past. We also look at an encounter I had as a kid with a family rid
I once spoke with a highly educated physicist who was a psychiatric patient. We call her Annie. She talked to me about the Newtonian misconception of gravity as a force, when it really has more to do with the bending of spacetime. We consider the biblical story of the invasion of Canaan, and the evidence to counter and to defend the validity of this story. We then get back to the bending of spacetime - and we see that there is something very deep we can learn about advancing our faith.
