Jesus at 2AM - A Humorous, Intelligent Look at the Bible, Church History & the Life of Faith

By Kirk Winslow | Canvas | Irvine, CA

Religion & Spirituality Spirituality Christianity

What's Jesus at 2AM - A Humorous, Intelligent Look at the Bible, Church History & the Life of Faith about?

Where intellectual integrity meets an honest quest for faith. Humorous and sincere, this is one pastor's attempt at late-night-level honesty about the Bible, church history, theological scholarship, spiritual practice and...God. And how it might just turn out that love is the name of the game.

5.0

229229 ratings

Download our free app to listen on your phone

Jesus at 2AM - A Humorous, Intelligent Look at the Bible, Church History & the Life of Faith episodes:

06.20.2022
Jesus and the Revolution, Part 03 - The Enemy and the Allure of Now
The divine rescue - of which the ministry of Jesus is the decisive act - is not merely to be understood as the securing of a heavenly afterlife for the faithful, but the restoration of a fallen creation. To be...
06.13.2022
Jesus and the Revolution, Part 02 - A Prophet as of Old
God's Revolution to Restore All Creation begins with a cry to all Israel to prepare for war. But not the war Israel expected... For decades tensions with Rome had been growing. Various political and religious sects (think Pharisees, Sadducees,...
05.05.2022
Jesus and the Revolution, Part 01 - A Call to Revolution!
At the heart of Jesus's ministry is the declaration that "the Kingdom of God has come near!" This is not merely a call for sinners to secure the afterlife, but the announcement that the fulfillment of the covenant of...
04.21.2022
Hope in the Time of COVID, Part 19 - Resting for the Kingdom
The one commandment I disregard without a second thought is the one about resting. The irony, of course, is that I often ignore this divine call to honor the sabbath in what feels like the work of the Kingdom....
04.01.2022
Hope in the Time of COVID, Part 18 - The Loving Road to Justice
No, your eyes do not deceive you...the podcast is back! (It never really left, but was definitely on leave of absence for a while...very sorry about that - some of the details are in the intro.) Then it's on to...
07.29.2021
Hope in the Time of COVID, Part 17 - Origin Stories
Does the 21st century nation state of Peru play an essential role in salvation history? Short answer: Of course not. God loves Peruvians! But Peru the cultural/political body is not critical to the plan redemption. So why do many...
07.19.2021
Hope in the Time of COVID, Part 16 - Admitting the Problem (of Sin)
How do I, as a white, well-educated, heterosexual, Protestant, cis male, who would never knowingly sanction racism of any sort, reflect on "systemic racism"? For those of us who try hard to so very hard to be good people (defined...
07.06.2021
Hope in the Time of COVID, Part 15 - On Love, Hope and Change
Hope is the belief that things can change for the better. And it is the question the gospel persistently sets before us: Are we naive in thinking that meaningful transformation is possible? And more naive still to believe that love...
06.23.2021
Hope in the Time of COVID, Part 14 - What God Wants? Justice, Mercy and Humility!
"How does one appease a deity? Gain a favor? Avert a curse?" Such questions stood at the center of Ancient Near Eastern religion (and of many cultures since...). And thus great effort has been dedicated to rituals and ceremonies and...
06.16.2021
Hope in the Time of COVID, Part 13 - Jesus and Divine Justice
As those called to share in God's project of restoration, justice is at the heart of our work. But what does the Bible mean by "justice"? The term easily conjures feelings and images not shalom (peace), but punishment - that...
06.04.2021
Hope in the Time of COVID, Part 12 - Hope and Vision
Essential to the life of faith is recognizing that hope is rooted in reality, in what is actually possible. The gospel has no room for fairy tales or wishful thinking, only for what can be accomplished in this time and...
04.12.2021
Easter 2021: The Long, Slow Triumph of Love!
At the cross, Love and Evil went to war - the final confrontation between God and sin. And the question is: Who won? (It would be good to know, as the answer changes everything about how we live!) The New...
03.31.2021
Hope in the Time of COVID, Part 11 - Love and Revolution
APOLOGIES for being away so long. No...really. I'm sorry for the extended absence (more in the intro). But at last we continue in our look at hope in the time of COVID, and particularly how we make good use of...
12.24.2020
Advent 4 (2020) - The Name of the Game
The ultimate lesson of Advent, indeed the ultimate lesson of the whole of scripture and the life of faith, is love - the pure, open, unending and unconditional, freely-given love of God. It is the simplest of insights, and yet...
12.23.2020
Advent 3 (2020) - Come and Be Joyful!
If any emotion has been in short supply this year, it's joy. And yet Advent calls us to return to this central experience of the Christian life, whatever our momentary circumstances. Today we hear from Banning Cantarini, a young and...
12.10.2020
Advent 2 (2020) - Peace Within and Peace on Earth
Peace is the theme of the 2nd week of Advent and one of the central promises of the Bible. And yet for many of us, true peace - both inward and in creation - is very elusive. How can we...
12.03.2020
Advent 1 (2020) - God, Sosthenes and Hope
We begin Advent 2020 with a look (by our beloved Rev. Ian Farrell) at a Jewish official named Sosthenes. Originally mentioned in the book of Acts, he took part in bringing charges against Paul in Corinth, charges that could have...
11.26.2020
Hope in the Time of COVID, Part 10 - On the Difficulty of Discipleship and the Grace of God
If you find yourself having to learn the same lesson of faith a thousand times, following Jesus closely and then wandering off aimlessly, believing and not believing, trusting and doubting...this is the episode for you. And you happen to be...
11.17.2020
Embracing Every Saint - The Church and the LGBTQ+ Community
Who truly belongs to the family of faith; how wide is the circle of God's people? This was one of the most contested debates in the early church, and remains so 2,000 years later. In this All Saints Day...
10.28.2020
Hope in the Time of COVID, Part 09 - The Love of a Mother and the Heart of Jesus
Continuing our look at the practice of being loved by God, we read the story of Jesus encounter with a young mother desperate for healing of her daughter. Everything about their meeting is a violation of cultural expectations, and the...
10.20.2020
Hope in the Time of COVID, Part 08 - Love Embodied
Continuing our look at the practice of being loved - the work we can do on our side of the relationship to receive what God has already given us - we look, again, to Jesus. But we do so not...
10.16.2020
Hope in the Time of COVID, Part 07 - The Practice of Being Loved
That individual humans are dearly loved by God is central claim of Christianity. And yet many of us go through periods where we question even this foundational idea. Are we loved? Really? And even when we believe - intellectually -...
09.15.2020
Hope in the Time of COVID, Part 06 - Hope and Holiness
Having established the content of Christian hope - the present assurance of God's ultimate salvation (see ep. 292) - we turn now to the Christian obligation to be instruments of hope to others. Amidst suffering, even suffering inflicted upon us,...
08.28.2020
Hope in the Time of COVID, Part 05 - What, Exactly, IS the Christian Hope?
For many of us right now, especially, hope can feel in short supply. Not just the amount of hope, but the content of hope. What are we actually hoping for? And what has Jesus got to do with it? What...
06.10.2020
Hope in the Time of COVID, Part 04 - In Praise of the Saving God
This remains a very difficult time, as crisis seems to mount upon crisis, pain upon pain, fear upon fear. And the question that confronts us is: How do we remain people of enduring hope, while honestly enduring suffering? When we...
05.20.2020
Hope in the Time of COVID, Part 03 - Suffering, Character and Hope
What most of us want amidst suffering is for the pain to end - to be quickly delivered from our distress. And it is tempting to imagine that if God loves us, this must be what he desires as well...
05.08.2020
Hope in the Time of COVID, Part 02 - What We Know for Sure
One of the hardest parts of enduring this crisis is coping with so much uncertainty: How long will it last? Who will be affected? What about the economy? Will there be a vaccine? Who should I trust for information...? The...
05.06.2020
Hope in the Time of COVID, Part 01 - Never Waste a Crisis!
This is the first in an entirely ad hoc series on hope and transformation and how they fit together. It is born out of the pandemic that has swept our world, and my ponderings on what defines the Christian hope...
03.26.2020
8 Questions on Life, Death, God and Faith, Part 08 - What Does God Really Want?
Isn't the main point of Christianity to be a good person (and thereby to secure my place in heaven)? I mean, if one is basically moral, reasonably charitable and occasionally saintly, doesn't that please the Almighty? Is the point to...
03.11.2020
8 Questions on Life, Death, God and Faith, Part 07 - How Does Sanctification Work?
I know that as a Christian I am called to sanctification - to a life shaped ever more into the image of Jesus, in short, to a life of sinning less and loving more. And in some areas of my...
02.28.2020
8 Questions on Life, Death, God and Faith, Part 06 - Does Prayer "Work"?
Does prayer work? By which we mean, does prayer change anything? Is it supposed to change things? Change external circumstances? Or merely the disposition of the pray-er? And if God knows all that we need and loves us dearly, does...
02.25.2020
8 Questions on Life, Death, God and Faith, Part 05 - Sharing My Faith???
Few words in the Christian vocabulary evoke more discomfort than "evangelism" - sharing the story of Jesus in hope that another will join the community of faith. In the 21st century, such efforts can feel relationally disrespectful and intellectually...crazy. Oughtn't...
02.14.2020
8 Questions on Life, Death, God and Faith, Part 04 - What Is Heaven Like?
Pop culture overflows with visions of "heaven" - from floating cities with streets of gold to childlike cherubim to the white robed "saved" joyfully playing the harp unto eternity... But these images have little to do with the actual biblical...
02.11.2020
8 Questions on Life, Death, God and Faith, Part 03 - What Happens When We Die?
Of all the subjects we choose to avoid, death is probably first on the list! We fear it for ourselves, and perhaps even more, we fear the pain of the loss of those we love. But at the heart of...
01.20.2020
8 Questions on Life, Death, God and Faith, Part 02 - What Does the Bible Say about __Slavery__?
Name a hot topic - from abortion to refugee resettlement to gender identity - and someone in the church will declare "what the Bible says" about the matter. (And where there are 2 Christians there are usually 3 passionate, dissonant...
01.15.2020
8 Questions on Life, Death, God and Faith, Part 01 - Why Trust the Bible?
We begin this series on deep questions with a discussion of the Bible as a source of fundamental truth? Is there any reason to believe it is more authoritative on matters of God than other religious books? Or any books...
01.08.2020
Visions of the Messiah: Sermons for Advent, Part 05 - Christmas Eve 2019
Once again, Isaiah speaks of the birth of a child in connection with Israel's deliverance. But unlike the the prophesy of chapter 7 (see Ep. 278), the child described is nearly impossible identify in Isaiah's original context. Indeed, the whole...
12.31.2019
Visions of the Messiah: Sermons for Advent, Part 04 - Immanuel
"Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall name him Immanuel." Most of us know these words by their appearance in Matthew's telling of the Christmas story, where we tend to focus mainly on the "virgin"...
12.21.2019
Visions of the Messiah: Sermons for Advent, Part 03 - The Redeeming God
Isaiah presents us with another poetic glimpse into God's salvation, this time describing the people of God on pilgrimage home from exile. As they travel through the desert, the redeemed of God find both themselves and the very desert around...
12.11.2019
Visions of the Messiah: Sermons for Advent, Part 02 - A King of Justice and Reconciliation
How far can we dream of a world set right? What can we imagine of creation on the other side of salvation? In this episode we continue our look at the vision of salvation that God provides through the prophet...
12.04.2019
Visions of the Messiah: Sermons for Advent, Part 01 - A Kingdom of Hope and Peace
That God intends to save the world from the curse of sin has been clear from the very beginning of the biblical story. But it is through the 8th-century BC prophet Isaiah that God begins to reveal the specifics of...
11.11.2019
Romans: How God Saved the World, Part 37 - Concluding Doxology
What more appropriate end to a letter such as Romans than a prayer, particularly a prayer in praise of God's goodness and glory? In this episode we examine Paul's closing doxology in detail and in the process review all that...
11.05.2019
Romans: How God Saved the World, Part 36 - Personal Greetings and Female Apostles
As Paul approaches the conclusion of his letter, he extends personal greetings individuals in Rome. It's a list of mostly Greek names that we know little about, struggle to pronounce and are very much inclined to skip. BUT...if we take...
10.30.2019
Romans: How God Saved the World, Part 35 - Paul's Plans and God's Providence
As he approaches the end of his letter, Paul turns his attention to immediate and personal matters, most particularly his plans for the future - plans for trips to Jerusalem (to deliver a financial offering) and to Spain (to proclaim...
10.24.2019
Romans: How God Saved the World, Part 34 - The Weak and Strong in Faith
The followers of Jesus are tragically prone to argue with each other. We bicker about theology, about worship, about piety and morality, sometimes to the point of church schism (the undoing of the very community we are called to create)....
10.14.2019
Romans: How God Saved the World, Part 33 - Why and How to Love the Other
The call to love the other - the neighbor, the stranger, even the enemy - is foundational to the Christian life. But why are we to love them? And perhaps even more importantly, how? Where do we find the mean...
10.02.2019
Romans: How God Saved the World, Part 32 - Church and State
The foundational confession of Christianity is that Jesus is Lord (and thus Caesar is not). So what are Christian to do with Caesar? What role has the civil government? In this episode Paul takes up the question of the relationship...
09.24.2019
A Very Present Help in Trouble - Psalm 46
Sometimes life hands us the worst case scenario. This is a sermon about those moments and where we can find hope. It is not a sermon of platitude or cheap advice, but a deep look at scripture's own articulation of...
08.28.2019
Romans: How God Saved the World, Part 31 - Love Genuinely
It will come as no surprise that, as Paul turns his attention to daily Christian living, love once again takes center stage. Having allowed our minds to be shaped by the Holy Spirit, now we are to live out the...
08.15.2019
Romans: How God Saved the World, Part 30 - How, Then, Should We Live?
Having revolutionized Hebrew theology, Paul now turns his attention to practice - how we are to live as the people of God for whom future salvation is breaking into the present, people who possess the Holy Spirit in our individual...

What's Jesus at 2AM - A Humorous, Intelligent Look at the Bible, Church History & the Life of Faith about?

Download our free app to listen on your phone

Jesus at 2AM - A Humorous, Intelligent Look at the Bible, Church History & the Life of Faith episodes:

Jesus and the Revolution, Part 03 - The Enemy and the Allure of Now

Jesus and the Revolution, Part 02 - A Prophet as of Old

Jesus and the Revolution, Part 01 - A Call to Revolution!

Hope in the Time of COVID, Part 19 - Resting for the Kingdom

Hope in the Time of COVID, Part 18 - The Loving Road to Justice

Hope in the Time of COVID, Part 17 - Origin Stories

Hope in the Time of COVID, Part 16 - Admitting the Problem (of Sin)

Hope in the Time of COVID, Part 15 - On Love, Hope and Change

Hope in the Time of COVID, Part 14 - What God Wants? Justice, Mercy and Humility!

Hope in the Time of COVID, Part 13 - Jesus and Divine Justice

Hope in the Time of COVID, Part 12 - Hope and Vision

Easter 2021: The Long, Slow Triumph of Love!

Hope in the Time of COVID, Part 11 - Love and Revolution

Advent 4 (2020) - The Name of the Game

Advent 3 (2020) - Come and Be Joyful!

Advent 2 (2020) - Peace Within and Peace on Earth

Advent 1 (2020) - God, Sosthenes and Hope

Hope in the Time of COVID, Part 10 - On the Difficulty of Discipleship and the Grace of God

Embracing Every Saint - The Church and the LGBTQ+ Community

Hope in the Time of COVID, Part 09 - The Love of a Mother and the Heart of Jesus

Hope in the Time of COVID, Part 08 - Love Embodied

Hope in the Time of COVID, Part 07 - The Practice of Being Loved

Hope in the Time of COVID, Part 06 - Hope and Holiness

Hope in the Time of COVID, Part 05 - What, Exactly, IS the Christian Hope?

Hope in the Time of COVID, Part 04 - In Praise of the Saving God

Hope in the Time of COVID, Part 03 - Suffering, Character and Hope

Hope in the Time of COVID, Part 02 - What We Know for Sure

Hope in the Time of COVID, Part 01 - Never Waste a Crisis!

8 Questions on Life, Death, God and Faith, Part 08 - What Does God Really Want?

8 Questions on Life, Death, God and Faith, Part 07 - How Does Sanctification Work?

8 Questions on Life, Death, God and Faith, Part 06 - Does Prayer "Work"?

8 Questions on Life, Death, God and Faith, Part 05 - Sharing My Faith???

8 Questions on Life, Death, God and Faith, Part 04 - What Is Heaven Like?

8 Questions on Life, Death, God and Faith, Part 03 - What Happens When We Die?

8 Questions on Life, Death, God and Faith, Part 02 - What Does the Bible Say about __Slavery__?

8 Questions on Life, Death, God and Faith, Part 01 - Why Trust the Bible?

Visions of the Messiah: Sermons for Advent, Part 05 - Christmas Eve 2019

Visions of the Messiah: Sermons for Advent, Part 04 - Immanuel

Visions of the Messiah: Sermons for Advent, Part 03 - The Redeeming God

Visions of the Messiah: Sermons for Advent, Part 02 - A King of Justice and Reconciliation

Visions of the Messiah: Sermons for Advent, Part 01 - A Kingdom of Hope and Peace

Romans: How God Saved the World, Part 37 - Concluding Doxology

Romans: How God Saved the World, Part 36 - Personal Greetings and Female Apostles

Romans: How God Saved the World, Part 35 - Paul's Plans and God's Providence

Romans: How God Saved the World, Part 34 - The Weak and Strong in Faith

Romans: How God Saved the World, Part 33 - Why and How to Love the Other

Romans: How God Saved the World, Part 32 - Church and State

A Very Present Help in Trouble - Psalm 46

Romans: How God Saved the World, Part 31 - Love Genuinely

Romans: How God Saved the World, Part 30 - How, Then, Should We Live?

8 Questions on Life, Death, God and Faith, Part 02 - What Does the Bible Say about Slavery?