God in Context

Most of us hear "suffering servant" and go straight to the cross. Matthew goes there too, eventually. But first he quotes Isaiah 53:4 right after Jesus touches a man with a skin disease, heals a centurion's servant, and lifts a fever from Peter's mother-in-law.

In this week's Gospel Cycle teaching, we follow Matthew 8–10 and ask what the servant's work looks like before Calvary, and what it changes about how we read the cross. Along the way, I share something I learned as an ICU nurse about the gap between being healed and being declared clean.

Then the question turns toward us. Jesus sends the Twelve into the same work. Whose burden could you help carry this week?

Reading along with the Gospel Cycle? Get the free reading schedule at https://thegospelcycle.com.

Prefer to watch? The full video is on YouTube:

I appreciate the time you took to listen to this podcast. If you were inspired by it, do me a favor and share it with just one person you know.

Should Christians celebrate Halloween? Ryan argues no, but not because of pagan origins. Halloween comes from All Hallows' Eve and All Saints' Day, and historians still debate how much Samhain shaped it. The real question is what the holiday says today and what Scripture says about death.

In this episode: why touching a corpse kept Israelites out of God's sanctuary (Numbers 19 and 5), what the Asherah in Deuteronomy 16 teaches about meaning versus origins, why Aaron compared Miriam's tzaraat to a stillborn child, how Jesus reversed impurity by touching the sick and raising the dead in Mark 1 and 5, and what Paul means by "the temple of the living God" in 2 Corinthians 6. Ryan, a former ICU nurse with a master's in biblical studies, also answers the strongest Christian defenses of Halloween, including memento mori and "O death, where is your sting?"

Free 5-day mini-course on reading Scripture with confidence: faithofmessiah.com

Why do the Gospels tell Jesus’ story with echoes of Israel’s Exodus? Matthew brings us from Egypt through water and wilderness, and Luke uses the word exodos for what Jesus would accomplish in Jerusalem. In this episode, I trace those connections and ask what rescue is for. Jesus’ death, resurrection, and the new life he leads us into are all part of the story.

Why did Jesus’ followers walk away after he fed five thousand? Explore John 6, the new Exodus, and what “I am the bread of life” asks of us.

Jesus never once says the words "I am God" in plain terms — so how do we know he claimed to be? This video walks through a pattern hiding in plain sight across the Gospels: Jesus calming a storm (echoing Jonah), forgiving sins outright, touching an untouchable leper, and walking on water. Each story, written by different people for different audiences, shows Jesus stepping into a role the Hebrew Bible says belongs to God alone. The people who witnessed it didn't say "nice trick" — they asked "what sort of man is this?"

We'll look at:

* Why Jesus calming the storm is a direct echo (and reversal) of the Jonah story

* Why forgiving sin outright was a bigger claim than the healing itself

* What actually reverses when Jesus touches a leper

* Why the Roman centurion's faith is the model, not Peter's doubt

* What "my Father is still working, and I am working also" means as 1st-century apprenticeship language

The claim isn't just in what Jesus says — it's in the pattern of what he does.Want to go deeper on this kind of study every week? Join the newsletter and get a free 5-day course on reading the Bible better: https://faithofmessiah.com

I appreciate the time you took to listen to this podcast. If you were inspired by it, do me a favor and share it with just one person you know.

Nicodemus and the Samaritan woman both meet Jesus in John 3–4 — but only one walks away changed. A Bible study on "born again" and God's "I AM."

You can stop working and still not be resting. In Matthew 12, religious leaders turn a hungry disciple's handful of grain into evidence — and a suffering man's healed hand into a legal problem. This episode traces what that anxiety reveals about the voice that still grades your rest today, and what Jesus' "light yoke" offers instead.

Seven men once tried to cast a demon out using Jesus's name, pronounced correctly, and it did nothing for them. This episode starts there, because that story exposes an assumption most of us carry without noticing: that knowing the right name, the right words, the right pronunciation gives us some kind of leverage with God.

From there we trace that assumption back to Moses at the burning bush, where God answers a request for his name with a verb instead of a noun, and forward to a scene at Hanukkah where Jesus refuses to let a crowd pin a label on him before the cross. Episode 1 of a series through the Gospel of John: The God You Did Not Expect.

If you've ever wondered whether saying it right, believing it right, or belonging to the right group earns you better standing with God, this one's for you. Get a free 5-day mini course on becoming a Confident Reader at faithofmessiah.com.

Most people who try to rest feel guilty the moment they stop. Not peaceful. Not restored. Just guilty.

This episode isn't about rules for the Sabbath. It's about why rules alone can never teach a slave how to rest — and why the voice that shows up when you sit down ("you should be doing more") isn't a discipline problem. It's a Pharaoh problem.

We look at what God was actually doing before he ever gave Israel the Sabbath law — why manna came before commandments, what the prophet Amos says about people who stop with their hands but never stop in their hearts, and what it means to start practicing rest without turning it into another performance.

If Sabbath has always felt like one more thing you're failing at, this one's for you.

Are you stuck in a cycle of indecision, waiting for the “perfect” time to change?

In this podcast, we explore the Feast of Unleavened Bread as a powerful biblical reminder that transformation demands urgency. From the Israelites fleeing Egypt to Jesus’ harsh words to the lukewarm, Scripture doesn’t celebrate caution—it calls for commitment.

I’ll share my personal “Passover moment,” why indecision is rebellion in disguise, and how the Passover Principle can ignite real change in your life starting today.

➡️ If you’ve been waiting for a sign… this is it.