Exploring My Strange Bible

We are going to explore probably the most famous story from the Gospel of Matthew in today’s show. It is the Christmas story, or the story of Jesus’s birth (you know, all the iconic images of Joseph and Mary riding on the donkey). So for this sermon, I tried to shake off all that familiarity and read this text from Mary’s perspective. Because interestingly, the story focuses in on her personal narrative.

In today’s episode, We also look at how Matthew keeps connecting these events in the early story of Jesus into large events happening in the Old Testament scriptures.

I learned a lot from this, and I hope you do too.

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These sermons originally took almost two years to get through, and it was a remarkable experience for our whole church community. Stories of Jesus can become so over-familiarized that they begin to lack the power and passion and brilliance that they actually possess. Going through this book was an amazing religious and life-transforming experience for me and I hope it is for you too.

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These are famous love poems where Paul talks about nature and love in a Christian vocabulary. A lot of love poems from weddings begin right here in this teaching.

Paul didn’t write for people getting married, but he actually wrote it to bring local community members together who were riddled with moral compromise. He wanted to give us an idea of what human existence and love was all about, and it manifested into this poem.

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The meaning and the symbolism of that final meal left a HUGE impression on the disciples that were there. So much so, that some sort of account has made it into every single one of the Gospels in the New Testament, and even made its way into one of the Apostle Paul’s letters.

We did this teaching leading up to resurrection Sunday during holy week. During this episode, I reenact a short version of this Messianic Passover. You’ll hear how Jesus is intentionally explaining what is about to go down and the meaning of his death at the Passover meal.

Listen in to hear more…

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This was part of an Advent series that was kind of a stand-alone message the week before Christmas, and it is a reflection on the meaning of hope in the Old Testament. Hope is such an important virtue that God’s people have to actively cultivate throughout their lives. The hope for the Messiah in the Old Testament was a kind of hope that followers of Jesus actually still need to be anticipating… there is still a lot that needs to be fulfilled in the promise of the return of the Messiah.

In this episode, we focus on how what we hope for shapes what we live for.

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You find these words only in the crucifixion account in the Gospel of John. And these words bring into culmination a whole theme throughout the entire story of John’s Gospel.

This sermon was from some of my very early days as a pastor at Door of Hope Church. I hope you enjoy this episode.

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This episode is a reflection on Daniel Chapter 12 (the last chapter of Daniel) and how it culminates the dreams and visions that Daniel had in the chapters previous to that. Ultimately, this chapter is really a meditation on the hope of the resurrection and new creation. We even explore the roots of the resurrection and new life throughout the Old Testament.

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The book of Daniel is about of a group of Israelites who are essentially kidnapped and exiled from their homeland. Daniel and his friends struggle to remain faithful to God in a place that is pressuring them to disobey.

This book explores the challenge of being “in the world but not of the world.” It offers valuable lessons to us today, as we try to follow Jesus in the modern world.

Listen in to learn more...

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The book of Daniel is a story about a group of Israelites who have been exiled from Babylon, and the whole point is to explore what it means to be God’s people when you’re a minority. This book is about the struggle to maintain faithfulness and the struggle to maintain hope.

What does it mean to be people who maintain hope and a way of life that says that Jesus is the king of the world? Welcome to Daniel Chapter 7. This whole story is portraying the four characters as models or examples of resistance to the empire. One night Daniel has a dream that gives us a new perspective on things… Listen in to learn more..

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I did this teaching a couple of years ago about Daniel Chapter 3. It is a famous story in the Old Testament about the three guys who get thrown into this Babylonian furnace because they won’t worship an idol of the kingdom of Babylon as if it is God.

Because most people are introduced to this story as a children’s story, they miss out on the extremely adult themes in this chapter. This is not a children’s story. It is an example of how nations exult their power, national security, and the economy as if they were God.

Let’s dive in and learn together.

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