This episode features Jonathan’s sermon, On blaspheming the Holy Spirit.

This sober text haunted me much of my life. What would it mean to commit the unpardonable sin? What could I do that would be so bad that not even God would forgive it? Now I’m convinced that this text is even more haunting than ever, & it does even strike a kind of fear in me—but not in the way it used to. How can we keep from becoming the kinds of people who “saw off the very branch on which we are sitting?”

When people are seen as being too inclusive and expansive in proclaiming God’s love, they are often accused of having it upside down—of calling evil good. But in this passage, it’s opposite of that: people see clear goodness, kindness, and beauty, and still label it evil. Why is it so dangerous to call good, evil? Who puts their own soul in danger—the ones who sees no limit to the mercy of God, or the one who denies the image of God in their neighbor? Controversially, we dare to claim that the truest and deepest danger is not in who we exclude. And that whatever harm we might do in keeping our people from the community of God (and attempt to do what cannot be done—keep them them from the One who inaugurated this new community), is not nearly as great as the harm we do to ourselves when we refuse to recognize the goodness in plain sight in front of us.

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Edited and produced by Joel Everson