Exploring My Strange Bible

We’re looking at Matthew Chapter 14. I consider two stories alongside each other in this teaching. One is the story of John the Baptist getting beheaded by the royal family. It is followed by another story of Jesus providing food for hungry people in the wilderness that interrupts his cousin’s death.

The character of Jesus shines brightly in this episode.

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

We consider one of Jesus’ parables in this episode. Jesus is explaining who he is and what the kingdom of God that he is announcing is like. He is trying to shift and recreate new paradigms for people and life and God. The “Weeds and Wheat” is a famous parable that Jesus gives in Matthew Chapter 13. Listen in as we dive in together.

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

In this teaching, we address Matthew Chapter 12. Here, the leaders of Israel challenge Jesus and they want to make him prove his identity. Jesus responds by giving them a riddle and talking about the sign of Jonah.

This story also raises a fascinating parallel with many of our own personal stories where Jesus is not coming through for us at all the way we thought he would, and we begin to bargain with him, but Jesus just doesn’t really work like that. Listen in for more on these topics.

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Matthew Chapters 11 and 12 are stories about people responding to what Jesus has been doing in chapters 4 -10. What we see here is one of the first notes of people’s rejection of Jesus by the Israelite contemporaries. So in this episode, we situate Jesus how he thought of himself in the tradition of the Hebrew Prophets. He gives warnings that are serious and significant, and they show us that Jesus was fully embedded in the religious controversies of first-century Israel in relation to the Roman empire.

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

We look at Matthew Chapter 11 today. It is kind of a puzzling story, where John the Baptist (who is actually Jesus’ relative and played a very key role in Jesus’ life early on) is in prison. John the Baptist is also expressing serious doubts about who Jesus is and his identity.

It is a fascinating story that gives us a window into the kinds of expectations that Jewish people had about the Messiah. What was Jesus NOT doing that made John have these doubts?

We explore this story and our own personal expectations of Jesus in this episode.

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

This episode addresses faith in a story about Jesus healing a blind man in Matthew Chapter 9. In the Gospels, the word “faith” and specifically "having faith and trust in Jesus" really has a specific meaning.

We see that different people have very different experiences with Jesus. Why the different reactions and responses? We address that question and more in this episode…

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

We unravel a well-known story that takes place in Gospel Chapter 9 about Jesus forgiving the sins of a man who is paralyzed in legs. Then, he heals his legs so that he can get up and walk away. However, this is a controversy around this healing that Jesus performs, and it becomes a focal point for the whole story.

For Jesus to forgive sins a first-century Jewish context was a loaded and symbolic act. We’ll discuss more about this and Jesus redefining the definition of God in today’s episode.

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Today we look at a story in Matthew chapter 9. Each story makes a unique claim on Jesus’s identity, about his character, and the kind of communities that Jesus came to create. Jesus has brought together a diverse and complicated group of people around his Kingdom of God announcement. He’s labeled a rebel by the Jewish community, but today we are going to explore the method and mindset that is underneath Jesus’ mission of creating these really unique Kingdom of God communities.

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

We are in the narrative chapters of Matthew Chapters 8 and 9, where Matthew has collected nine stories of Jesus performing a whole number of powerful deeds and acts. Some of them are acts of healing, others of them are acts of creative power.

In this episode, we talk about two stories. One is about Jesus calming chaotic waters. The other is about Jesus meeting two dangerous men in a graveyard. Listen in to hear more.

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

In previous episodes, we explored the Sermon on the Mount, but now we turn a corner back into the story Matthew of chapter 8. We explore this story of Jesus healing a man with a skin disease, which holds a lot of symbolic freight.

Most importantly, this story is about Jesus’ contagious holiness. Jesus embodies the healing power of God’s holiness. This is an amazing story, especially once you take into consideration all of the Old Testament context.

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.