More Than Bread

Send me a Text Message!

In this episode, we are hanging out in the New Testament book of Colossians, and here is what I love about Colossians. It is passionately thrilled with Christ. Colossians is one of the most Christ-centered; Jesus-loving, Son of God-exalting books in the Bible. It’s filled with variations on the theme of Jesus. Jesus is the object of our faith and the image of the invisible God. Jesus is the creator of all things and in fact, all things were created by him and in fact, all things are even now held together in him. He is the head of the church. The resurrected one; our Savior through the cross; our victorious champion over sin and Satan, Lord of glory. Lord of Life. Model for living. Colossians is an exaltation of the exalted Christ.

If you ever need a pick-me-up reminder of the treasure that has been given to us in Christ, just take 15-20 minutes and read through Colossians. You will find that there is nothing greater than Christ. Christ is the treasure of Christianity. With all my heart I believe that the church is the hope of the world, but only because the church is on the heart of Christ.

I don't know why you are listening to these podcasts, why you are reading through the whole New Testament, but if it's not because of Christ, you're missing everything. Join me in pondering the treasure of Christ, described in the book of Colossians.

Send me a Text Message!

Today's reading covers the book of Philippians, Paul's letter to the church of Philippi. Philippians as a book on extreme joy. If joy was an XGames event, this would be the manual. Extreme joy.  There are few books of the Bible that focus more on joy than Philippians.  But the fascinating truth, that gives this study an extreme edge... is that this book on joy was written by a man in prison, a man in chains, a man with circumstances we would not necessarily define as joyful. And this was not his first bad experience. 

When he wrote to some of his friends in Corinth; he was swapping "good old days" stories...and comparing himself to others he said something like this,  (I Cor. 11:23-28) "They say they serve Christ?  I know I sound like a madman, but I have served him far more!  I have worked harder, been put in jail more often, been whipped times without number, and faced death again and again. I was beaten, stoned, and shipwrecked--three times! I've faced more danger in more places from more people than I can count." 

So much difficulty and now in prison, possibly facing execution...so when Paul says, "Rejoice in the Lord and again I will say rejoice," his words have power because of his life experience.

In this episode, we will pause for a time on Paul’s antidote for worry and anxiety because if there is a joy-sucker out there it’s worry and anxiety right? And my goodness in the last year we have had more than enough good reasons to worry. All the uncertainty has been fertile soil for worry. But Paul tells us that no matter what...we can have joy!

Send me a Text Message!

In this episode, we are reading Paul's letter to the church at Ephesus. Paul started the church at Ephesus in Acts 18/19 during his second missionary journey and they experienced a mighty move of God, a city-wide awakening. Paul and the church at Ephesus literally changed the spiritual climate. During Paul’s ministry, so many people became Christ-followers, that it disrupted the marketplace, specifically those connected to the worship of Artemis. If there is a church in the New Testament that experienced a region-wide move of God, it was the church in Ephesus.

 Ephesians is one of my all-time favorite New Testament books and it develops an amazing blueprint for the church. Because of that, there are so many places where I want to pause, but in this podcast, we will touch briefly on two things. First, we will talk about what Paul means when he says that we are "in Christ." This is so important. "In Christ" is our address and it shapes our identity. Secondly, we will talk about how being "in Christ" gives us strength for the dark, difficult days. Because we are in Christ, we can persevere, thrive and finish well regardless of how great the battle becomes.

Send me a Text Message!

In this episode, we are going to read Paul’s letter to the church at Galatia. Probably written around 48AD to the church that Paul started during his first missionary journey. He’s a bit critical of the church, there is a division in the church, a Jewish kind of legalism has sprung up. But his solution is to draw them back to the gospel. And that’s why it has great value for us. 

There’s a bit less scripture to read this time, so I’m going to pause for a moment on the front end as well as the back end. There are so many incredible truths in this letter, but I'll start with the cross. Paul’s passion for the cross leads us to celebrate Christ crucified... Honestly, I cringe a bit putting those three words together.  Celebrate -- Christ -- Crucified.  It is a mysterious wonder that they could be put together and still have meaning.

 Here is this struggling movement, persecuted, scattered, poor, doing anything they can to spread the good news of life, the good news of the Kingdom of God here and now.  They are doing anything they can to invite people to dive into the gospel with them and the logo they choose to be recognized by is a symbol universally understood to represent pain, rejection, death, failure, and humiliation.  A cross. Who thought that was a good idea?  Apparently, Paul did.  In Galatians 6:14, he wrote,  "May I never boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ..."  Keep those words in mind as we read Paul's letter to the church of Galatia.

Send me a Text Message!

In 2 Corinthians 4, Paul is talking to people whose lives have become hard and whose stories are messy. When he writes in vs 1, "Therefore, since through God’s mercy we have this ministry, we do not lose heart," we should realize that when he wrote those words, "through God's mercy we do not lose heart," he wrote them because people were losing heart.

And the reality is that life is not always easy.

So here's the challenge that I get from 2 Corinthians 4.  Let's be honest about our story--the mess and the difficulty--but in the midst of the honesty,  don't lose heart. Don't let your hearts get hard.  Don't stop taking the risk of love.  Don't give up. Don't lose heart. Sometimes life is just hard, but that doesn't mean it can't be good.  Even when we get stuck in hard days, we hope, because when God is the author of our story, then hope is the story of our life. 

And in fact, hope is birthed in the crucibles of life. This idea of a crucible is woven throughout scripture. In Proverbs 17:3 it says,  The crucible is for silver and the furnace for gold, but the Lord refines the heart.  In 2 Corinthians 4, Paul is talking about the crucible experiences of life.  Here is our problem. We want change without the crucible. We want glory without the pain. We want resurrection without death. But there is only one path. The crucible leads to change. Pain leads to glory and death leads to resurrection life.  Don't lose heart. Hope is the story of your life!

Send me a Text Message!

Gilbert Bilzekian writes, "The silent churning at the core of our being is the tormenting need to know and be known, to understand and be understood, to belong unconditionally and forever without fear of loss, betrayal or rejection." In other words, what we are seeking is love unbounded, love without walls. We want to know that we are not outside the boundaries of somebody's complete love; that someone out there can love me... as I am; that there is someone with whom I can be real and not fear rejection or ridicule. 

But in fact, it's even more than that.  It's good to know that I can be real with you and not face rejection, but it's not enough. I want to be loved in a way that changes me. Aren't we seeking a love that adds value?  A love that never fails?  Love unbounded.  This is the love that Paul describes in I Corinthians 13. This kind of love will change you. It could change the world! 

Send me a Text Message!

I’ll introduce Corinthians a bit more in the next episode, but for now let me simply say, that the main message of the 1st Corinthians is that the Gospel of Jesus Christ is relevant to every area of our life and the life of the church. 

Can I tell you what I believe as I read the first eight chapters of I Corinthians? I believe that all over our neighborhoods, our workplaces, in our friend groups, God is stirring up people’s hearts toward Him. The Spirit is drawing people to Jesus and you are going to miss it if you are too scared, or too busy to join Him. Something is shifting. God's at work. Jesus is building something. The world's greatest building project was not the pyramids of Egypt or the Great Wall of China, or Boston's Big Dig. The world's greatest building project started about 2000 years ago and is still under construction.  

The world's greatest building project is the church. And the church is not a building.  It's not an address.  It's people. The church is God's people under construction. You are the church and ultimately it's not about where we meet, or when we meet, or even if we meet, but it might be about who you meet and what you do when you meet them. Every time you embark upon your front yard mission, you are joining Jesus in the world's greatest building project.

Send me a Text Message!

It’s my hope that this podcast might be a small part of developing a hunger for more than bread, a stirring in our hearts for every word that drops from the mouth of God. It’s my prayer that letting scripture saturate our souls will cause us to be different.  Honestly, throughout the centuries those who believe that the Bible is truth, those who value the Word and surrender to Christ, have always been different.  

 John Stott points out that this call to be different is found in each of the four great sections of scripture; the law, the prophets, the gospels, and the epistles. For example in the sermon on the mount, in Matthew 6, Jesus said, "Do not be like them." In the epistles, Romans 12 (part of our reading in this episode) Paul says, "Do not be conformed to the world around you." 

In the midst of our reading, Romans 12-15 is a strong call to be different in our love, different in our unity, different in our willingness to sacrifice for God and others. That's what happens when scripture saturates our souls. So ask yourself, "Am I listening with open ears, learning with an open mind, and leaning in with a hungry heart?"  

Send me a Text Message!

I remember a number of years ago, I was talking to my daughters about their upcoming baptism. They were thinking deeply, asking good questions like, "How do we know that there really is a God?"  I looked at them and thought, "You are how I know."

I am amazed that in our world today, intelligent, highly educated men and women can look at the intricate design of the universe and call it a product of time and chance. People who would never buy a lottery ticket because of the mathematical probability of winning can look at the human eye and call it the jackpot of all creative jackpots. How can they not know?

Paul suggests that they do know.  In Romans 1, God says through Paul that we know but we suppress the truth because of our pride.  In other words, God says, "They know.  I know they know, and they know they know, and they know I know they know. What really is going on here is that people deny my existence so that they don't have to surrender control." But if we don't surrender control, we won't get to Romans 8. Which is so amazing! Glory is coming and nothing can separate us from His love!

Send me a Text Message!

Today's reading completes the book of Acts, Acts 24-28. As we come to the end of the book of Acts, I just want to share a few thoughts about the life of Paul. As we continue to make our way through the New Testament, many of the books were actually letters written by Paul to the churches he started in the book of Acts. So in today's podcast, I will reflect for a few moments on his life. Starting from his Damascus Road encounter with Jesus to his final two years in Rome, Paul's life is a great chapter in the on-going love story that God has for people. That story cannot be written without grief, pain, and sorrow, but it is also so full of grace, truth, and joy. It is an amazing story and you are part of it! You are relentlessly pursued by God!