A sequel to last week's podcast on the Beatitudes of Matthew 5.

Matthew chapters 5-7 contain some of the most loved and most controversial teachings of Jesus, beginning with the so called "Beatitudes". This 8 (or 9)sentences are among the most quoted and also most misunderstood sayings of jesus. When is the last time you took the time to contemplate their meanings, or, God forbid, apply them to your life?

This is my attempt (3rd attempt, actually, to make sense of them) to begin to bring some kind of a center to my life, confused and thrown into chaos by Covid 19. I hope that you will be blessed by them as I have been.

So, did God make us to sin? I know it is a stange, and some might say, offensive notion, but how do you reconcile the fact that God knew we would sin, and made us anyway? What are the implications?

Covid 19 has ushered many dark times, both for individuals and organizations. Churches are not immune, and actually have been quite hard. But, the dawn follows the night and these dark times will one day be a thing of the past. What does Jesus' resurrection teach us about overcoming darkness?

How are you processing all the information you take in on a daily basis? How do you know what to believe? This is a brainstorming session about trying to navigate through all the noise on the way to finding the truth.

In this episode, I meander my way to a possible truth: A broken understanding of hell can lead to a shying away from an encounter with God. To few of us have mystical experiences. Why is that?

Do you recognize when rhetoric is being used? Do you recognize it in the Bible? Recently in Facebook Jail because my sarcastic rhetoric was taken literally, I talk about that experience and about learning to see rhetoric when it is being used, in the Bible and elsewhere.

Abortion is a failure, but not perhaps of who you think. The Kingdom of God was meant to prevent such failure, to use it for good, even. Christians need to begin taking responsibility for our failures and do better. We need to embody grace. We need to do a better job of educating and nurturing.

This is a difficult topic, perhaps too difficult for me to handle. Let me know what you think.

Russia, one week ago, invaded Ukraine. It seems like, just when we think things are getting better, someone in the world decides to make war on their neighbor. Haven't we evolved past that point yet as a species? Are we still blind to the damage we do to ourselves when we try and solve our problems with our neighbors by violence? How can we stop this cycle?

Why do churches chase numbers? What are the consequences in trusting the world's definition of success? Is the church today enslaved by money and the pursuit of money?