Geocaching Scripture

Jesus goes back to his hometown. The people have trouble with the paradigm shift of who Jesus was to Who Jesus actually is: "We've known you since small times." We talk about our own personal trouble with this paradigm shift, and how it's hard to see things from a God's eye view. That and apparently Rick wasn't very good at kickball..? 

Tell my brothers to go to Galilee. Jesus gives some very simple directions after the extremely unsimple event of the resurrection. Yet the disciples can't quite figure out how to follow. Fear? Disbelief? Disobedience? Yep, probably all those. We'll look at this extremely slow trip to Galilee in our latest episode.

Have you ever been in a really bad storm? The kind where you wonder if the house might blow away or a flood might carry you off? The disciples were in the midst of a brutal storm that night and they go to find the one guy who's supposed to be in charge – and He's taking a nap! Let's dig into this story, and the delicious details throughout and see if we can't figure out why Jesus was – apparently – snoozing on the job.

We look at the story within a story of Mark 5 – the raising of Jairus's daughter and the woman with the issue of blood. The detail that connects them is the number 12. Mark seems to draw an analogy between this woman lost to her community and this girl lost to life. "You are a daughter" – Jesus speaks these life-altering words of resurrection and restoration. Tune in.

We kick off season five with a discussion of a political slogan that sneaked into some of Paul's writing. Against the iron backdrop of the Roman Empire, Paul reminds us of the kingdom that will have no end. In his encouraging letter to the community in Thessalonica, Paul talks with them about the great final "Day of the Lord" in which no political structure will stand, and he parodies a Roman slogan in the process. We also briefly reflect on the political slogans we remember through the years. 

"Marry a prostitute..." Among the strange things that God asked prophets to do in the Old Testament, this has to be in the top three. Hosea and Gomer's bizarre marriage becomes a powerful symbol of God's love for Israel – unfaithful and unworthy as she might be. The story, again, is that our "worthiness", like Gomer's worthiness, comes from God, not from us. Therefore the reality – you are worthy, you are mine – is unshakable. 

"Immeasurably more than all we can ask or imagine..." This one often gets taken out of context, and might be applied to requests for Instagram followers or the latest new TransAm (whatever your generation might be). But we look closer at the setting of this passage, which is right within a hymn of praise telling us about who God is, not what we can get from Him. We talk about the importance of interpreting scripture in its details along a theme, and not retrofitting the context to whatever we're looking for at the time. This, and we discuss the importance of knowing if God or Ben Franklin wrote a popular phrase. 

Have you ever had a nickname that stuck? Usually the best ones are those that poke us a little – a short guy called "Too Tall Jones" etc. Jesus had a special nickname for his disciples, that we translate the dullest way possible. Looking at this little moniker gives us insight into Jesus' personality – his humor and his whimsy, which often gets lost in translation. 

"Muzzle not the ox" is kind of vaguely rhetorically powerful bibley thing that people say about pastor's salaries. But what was the context really pointing to here? Why did Paul bring this up? This OT verse, and Paul's quotation of it, gets low-key half-interpreted throughout the church, and we just can't have that! It's a discussion of justice, in the end, of how you treat your neighbor and what it looks like for us to take on the yoke of Christ. This, and a brief discussion of the effect of bottle rockets on cattle's general well-being.

Rick tells the harrowing story of being injured on a rural farm as a kid. It took them two hours to get to the hospital from the country, and the doctor said he wouldn't be able to do much. But God had different plans. Broken glass, slashed ligaments, 36 stitches, and mix that with bizarre theology, but God's miracles still manage to come through, right in the middle of our mess.