We wrap up our Advent warm-up with a look at Matthew's Gospel.  The writer Matthew has lots of Old Testament connections.  A reminder that the stories in the Bible draw on each other.  They reinforce but also reinterpret each other.  Hopefully this stitching together gives us permission to see how the stories of Scripture stitch together with our lives.

May this be your *final* 2024 encouragement to walk through the Old Testament in 2025 as a way to better understand the words and actions of Jesus.

Miracles of miracles!

What do we do with the miracles in the Bible?  For many in modern (Western) culture miracles don't quite make sense given how we understand how the universe works.

This is the third in our Advent 2024 season of the Ponder Anew Podcast.  We are looking at the Christmas story to tackle some of the questions and even struggles people have when it comes to reading Scripture.

We continue our Advent 2025 series.  We are looking at the Christmas story to prime the pump on reading through the Bible in 2025.

This week we consider the fact that the Gospel stories have different accounts of the same story.  How do we handle the fact that the Bible itself presents different versions of the same story?  To answer this, we need to look at how the New Testament came to be.

In 2025, we are going to work through the whole Old Testament together, taking one book each week.

To get us ready for that, we need to address a few "How to read the Bible" matters.  In the last weeks of 2024 (the weeks of Advent!), we will look at the Christmas stories in Scripture as a way to take up some of these questions about how to approach Bible reading.  This week we take up the question -- is the Bible history or myth?  To settle this question, we will look at Luke 2:1-7... "In those days..."

If Jesus is the ransom (Mark 10:45), then who got paid off?  Pastor Rob looks at another Greek word this week, λυτρον, one that leads to quite a mystery (mystery is also a Greek word, but not the focus of this week!)

"Have you been saved?"  Christians use the word "save" all the time.  But what do we really mean by this?  Does Jesus' salvation mean entrance into heaven?  Or at least mostly mean that? 

To reflect on σωζω - " I save", we focus on a conversation in which Jesus and disciples reflect on the rich man who walked away from Jesus (Mark 10:23-27).  Of course, we end up all over Scripture, but we can start there.  Actually, we start with 90's teen sit-coms...let's get pondering!

This week is a two for one special -- two words, both translated into English as "divorce."

In the middle of Mark's Gospel, Jesus goes on a long road trip with his disciples.  This week (Mark 10:2-9) we hear Jesus offer some striking words on divorce, which is, was and will be a complex topic, both culturally and personally.

Nothing to do with Hell, the demonic and the forces of evil is ever easy.  Including translating words that have to do with "hell"!  We look at γεεννα, a word that can be translated, well, as hell, but also a lot of other things too!  (Mark 9:42-48 is where this word is found, among other places in Scripture)

This might be the easiest word of all to translate this fall.  It means "child".  But what "child" meant than and what "child" means today are very different things.

Note:  I intended this to be a mini-podcast.  But then the word got interesting.

For fall 2024, we will do a shorter podcast, focusing on one Greek word per week.  This word will come from the week's Gospel reading (in the Revised Common Lectionary).

This week we start off with Χριστός, a word found in Peter's confession of faith (found in Mark, Matthew and Luke!)