Ponder Anew Podcast

"God is love." Let's talk about love, looking at the first letter of John. Again, this season of Ponder Anew, we are working through the Bible, one book at a time! In so doing, we will talk about Eagles Football, the greatest African theologian of all time and once again, why this Lutheran thinks Aquinas, the ultimate Roman Catholic thinker, may have gone too far in trying to make everything organized. 

1) I make the claim that "God is love" would not have made obvious sense to people millennia ago. Did you buy this argument? 

2) A pagan culture tends to have a sense of gods being far off, unmoved by human concerns. Do you think that people today live with a sense of God's loving presence in their lives? If not, what might the claim that "God is love" mean to them? 

3) Many people have migrated towards more of a new age sense of spirituality, whereby gods/divinity is found in nature. We simply have to use the right tools or methods to access this divine. What might people who have this sense of the gods/divine hear in "God is love."   

4) Do you know people who struggle with "God is love" because of their interaction and experience with legalistic religion? 

5) How does Christian specificity about Jesus change what is meant by "God is love." 

Note: I had some additional content on Buddhism, but I felt I was too far away from my area of competence, but generally, I am convinced that Buddhism also doesn't necessarily lead to the argument that God is love, certainly not as Christians understand love in Jesus. 

6) Augustine speaks about well-ordered love. What stood out to you here? What are ways in which people talk about "love" that has little to do with real "love." What can help us distinguish between lust (not just for other people) and love? 

7) Aquinas offers clarity about what our priorities within well-ordered love look like. What is your sense of our proper priorities when it comes to love? How do we balance the obligation of loving all of our neighbors with the finite amount of time we have?

It wasn't part of the original plan for us to cover 1 and 2 Peter (2 Peter is really short!)  But reading this book of the Bible convinced me there was a podcast within!  Note, here is the link to the icon I discuss:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trinity_(Andrei_Rublev)

Questions to consider

1)  How might heaven NOT be like retirement with a younger body?  Where does Jesus fit into your heaven?

2)  What are ways that "participate in the divine nature"?  How have you experienced God's grace not simply external to you, but actually within yourself?

3)  Have you experienced "the divine nature" in worship?  In serving others?  In Scripture?

4)  Do you find yourself drawn more towards a theology that assumes as human we can climb to God or more drawn to a theology that assumes that God has to come down to us?  How might you argue for or against human free will when it comes to salvation?

5)  To what extent can we experience heaven here on earth?

6)  What spiritual disciplines are essential for your life?

First Peter assumes the church is a powerless minority seeking to survive in the face of a brutal and pagan empire.  Peter challenges the early followers of Christ to be ready to give the apologetic, their defense, of the faith.  In some ways, we can find increasing resonance with Peter's emphasis on living as a spiritual minority.  However, after many centuries of Christian power, Peter's understanding of faith, power and empire likely feels foreign to us and in fact, many of us may feel a need to apologize for the previous mistakes of Christians in power.  Questions

1)  Do you feel like a minority as a Christian?  Do you feel like a minority within a minority as a Christian of your particular type (say Lutheran)?

2)  How might it be different for young Christians today verses young Christians three generations ago?

3)  Are there times when you've felt called to give a defense of the hope within you?

4)  What are the central things of the Christian faith you would want to emphasize or communicate to some who was a non-believer?

5)  Have you ever had to apologize for the Christian faith?  For what do you have to apologize?

6)  What can be lost if we apologize too much for the faith?

7)  What might be ways for Christians solidly in a church to interact with non-believers?

"But the book of James says that faith without works is dead!"  So goes the classic critique of Lutheran theology.  Turns out, actually, that Luther acknowledged faith without works is dead!  Alas, we will need to muddy the waters before we clean up this mess!

As we continue to work our way through the Bible, one book at a time, some discussion questions

1)  What verses challenged you in the book of James?

2)  What verses offered you encouragement in the book of James?

3)  Did the letter feel like it was written by someone who cares for you or not?

4)  What do you make of the fact that both Paul and James have different interpretations of Abraham's faith, works and righteousness?

5)  Do think faith without works is dead?  Can you measure the works of another person or yourself to determine what kind of faith the person has?

6)  What would be the problem if the whole Bible read like James?  What would be missing from the Bible if we didn't have James?

7)  Can a congregation hold people together who come from different economic backgrounds? 

Hebrews can be a tough book to read because it makes a lot of dense arguments that rely on a heavy dose of Old Testament quotes.  However, it gets at two basic questions:

How do we deal with people who have lost the passion in their faith?

Will people who leave the faith be saved?

Some questions to ponder

1)  Have you ever known someone who was a "backslider" who walked away from the faith?  What brought them back? 

2)  Have you ever been away from the faith for a long time?  What brought you back?

3)  When it comes to people attending church on Sunday less frequently, what might it look like for the church to a) resist this?  b) adapt to this?  c) accept this?

4)  Did the distinction between the preached and unpreached God make any sense?  

5)  How can we comfort parents of people whose children left the faith?

In honor of the shortest of Paul's letters, we take up the biggest of questions:  How do Christians respond to evil?  Should and can this response be political?  

1) I argue that although Jesus challenged political leaders, he was not interested in change through political means. Does this seem fair? How might you describe Jesus' attitude towards politics to a non-Christian? 

2) What are issues -- dare we call them evil -- where your faith makes you feel summoned and inspired to combat them on a person level? Where you actively seek to help people through time, treasure and talent, who are impacted by X, Y or Z. 

3) What are issues -- dare we call them evil -- where your faith makes you feel summoned and inspired to combat them politically? Where you actively seek to help people through advocacy, voting, donations to campaigns or even running for office? 

4) Do you think local congregations should be most focused on   a) cultivating Christians who can fight evil outside of church   b) creating caring communities that include people on the margins (don't fight the world, create a counter balance to the world)  c) engaging in direct aid to local people who are suffering   d) engaging in advocacy for local issues (township, city or school board)  e) engaging in advocacy for statewide or even federal issues 

5) What is your response when pastors discuss politics?   

6) I spend a lot of time talking about the rise of bishops from upper class families. Just curious for your response to this reality. Does this church need leaders who can play "chess" as the world does? 

7) People in Paul's day couldn't see the problem with slavery because it was so woven into the fabric of his culture. What things about our culture might future generations look at as terribly evil even though we assumed they were normal?

Is obedience a virtue?  How do we square the modern command: "Be yourself" with Paul's strong sense of social order, obedience and self-restraint?  As we continue reading through the New Testament, we come to Titus.  It is a short letter, but it gets at a question of vital importance for us in the age of authenticity:  What do we do with the Bible's uplifting of obedience?

1)  Would you agree we are a society that values individual expression?  What is evidence of this?

2)  Would you agree we are a society that distrusts institutions?  What is evidence of this?

3)  What is lost and what is gained in a world in which corporal punishment is no longer used?  What is lost and what is gained in a world in which obedience is a second tier virtue?

4)  What might be attractive about a church or Christianity that highly valued self-expression?  What might be problematic about this?

5)  What might be attractive about a church or Christianity that highly valued obedience and strong pre-existing roles for people in society?  What might be problematic about this?

6)  What might be ways forward of a middle path, that avoids the excesses of self-expression"ism" and also avoids the pitfalls of repressive and rigid religion?

Paul didn't write just one, but wrote two letters to Timothy.  We use this opportunity to reflect on Paul's relationship with Timothy, namely, that of a mentor.  We reflect on what it means to be a mentor, especially a spiritual mentor?

1)  Who have been key mentors in your life?  What made them good mentors?

2)  Whom have you mentored? What have you learned about yourself, life or even your "trade" through this mentoring?

3)  Do you have a relationship with a godparent or a godchild?  What made this meaningful (or not!)?

4)  Who have been your spiritual mentors?  How is this kind of mentoring different?

5)  What could your church to do better foster spiritual mentorship?

Why do people not get along on teams, in businesses and in organizations or even churches?

As we work through the Bible in a Year, we turn to Paul's first letter to Timothy.  In this letter, Paul is seeking to help his mentee, Timothy, manage the church.  It may surprise us to consider that so early on in the church life, they needed to develop clarity around church leadership positions.  However, if anyone has ever been a part of an organization that is bigger than a single household, you know how important structure and leadership expectations are!

Some questions to consider

1)  What are times in your life where you have experienced conflict due to a lack of clarity about expectations?

2)  What are times in your life where you have experienced conflict due to a lack of clarity about boundaries and lanes?

3)  Have you been a part of religious organizations that have handled staff and volunteer expectations well?  What kind of expectations have you ever had of yourself made clear to you?

4)  What kind of behavior do you expect out of your clergy? 

5)  How can a religious organization have expectations but also grace for the humanness of their leaders?

6)  What did you think of Pastor Rob's definition of immaturity as a lack of awareness about our reaction to stress?

7)  How do you help people see their immaturity?  What has helped you become more aware of how your reaction to stress impacts others?

8)  What has helped you become a more self aware person who can better navigate stress?  What tools have you developed?

The oldest written evidence of what the first Christian communities look like is... Paul's First Letter to the Thessalonians!

One of the themes that emerges in this letter is Paul's concern for Christians returning/assimilating to the broader culture around them.  He quite often reflects on the idea of holiness in the letter.

1)  What do you think about when you hear the word "holiness"?

2)  What do people mean that the Bible is "holy"?  In what way do you consider the Bible "Holy"?

3)  What is gained by having a written record of biblical events and stories?  Is anything lost by moving from an oral to a written tradition?  What might we lose or gain in a post-reading culture?

4)  Do you think that for most people their idols are concrete things or more typically abstract things (like their career, or their kid's success)?

5)  What pieces of Christian art do you find moving?

6)  Do you think it is important for Christian community to have a different standard for sexual ethics than the surrounding community?

7)  Do you think that sexual ethics should be one of, if not the, defining holiness issue for Christians?