Rebuilding Faith

After 77 weeks, we've reached the final section of the Gospel of John, and it ends with Jesus telling Peter to mind his own business. In this episode, we watch Jesus restore Peter three times over breakfast (one for each denial), we bust a favorite seminary sermon trick about the Greek words for love, and we catch John doing damage control on a rumor that he was immortal. Then there's the question Jesus asks Peter that might be the most useful question for the church today: "What is that to you?" If we actually let people have their own journey, whether that's deconstruction, reconstruction, or just taking a break, this one question could change how we treat each other. Join me for the finale of our series through John. 

Watch the episode on video: https://youtu.be/OLSvxqLOHCo

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My new book, The Edge of the Inside, is now available. You can get a signed copy or in whatever form you prefer: https://www.edgeoftheinside.com/

Join the online community and get access to exclusive content and experiences: https://www.jeremyjernigan.com/online-community

Trying to make sense of faith? Download my free Deconstruction Field Guide. It's a ten-page resource to help you navigate what's next so you don't have to do it alone. https://www.jeremyjernigan.com/opt-in 

Three years following Jesus, and Peter's first move after the resurrection is to go fishing again. Not as rebellion, just because he doesn't know what else to do with himself. In this episode of Rebuilding Faith, we look at John 21 and the strange detail of the resurrected Jesus standing on a beach making breakfast for disciples who reverted to their old lives instead of moving forward. If you've ever gone back to old patterns after a season of growth and wondered if that erased everything, this one's for you. There might be breakfast waiting on the shore for you, too.

Watch the episode on video: https://youtu.be/p0xS3bmowK0

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My new book, The Edge of the Inside, is now available. You can get a signed copy or in whatever form you prefer: https://www.edgeoftheinside.com/

Join the online community and get access to exclusive content and experiences: https://www.jeremyjernigan.com/online-community

Trying to make sense of faith? Download my free Deconstruction Field Guide. It's a ten-page resource to help you navigate what's next so you don't have to do it alone. https://www.jeremyjernigan.com/opt-in 

Thomas finally gets his moment. He has carried the weight of centuries of bad theology that turned his honest request into a character flaw, and this episode is an attempt at rehabilitation. When the disciples tell Thomas that Jesus is alive, he says what any reasonable person would say: I need to see it too. Not more than the rest of them got. Not less. Exactly what they got. And rather than scolding him for it, Jesus shows up and gives it to him. This episode makes the case that naming your doubts out loud, clearly and specifically, is not the opposite of faith. It might actually be the beginning of it.

Watch the episode on video: https://youtu.be/gHntWIFN5hc

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My new book, The Edge of the Inside, is now available. You can get a signed copy or in whatever form you prefer: https://www.edgeoftheinside.com/

Join the online community and get access to exclusive content and experiences: https://www.jeremyjernigan.com/online-community

Trying to make sense of faith? Download my free Deconstruction Field Guide. It's a ten-page resource to help you navigate what's next so you don't have to do it alone. https://www.jeremyjernigan.com/opt-in 

Mary Magdalene shows up to a tomb expecting a body and finds nothing. No body, no explanation, just absence. This week on Rebuilding Faith, we're in John 20, and the resurrection story is stranger and more human than you probably remember: a foot race, a priest who won't touch a corpse, and a woman who becomes the first witness in a world that wouldn't let her testify. But the moment that reframes all of it is Mary's announcement when she finds the disciples. If your faith used to rest on certainty and the right answers, and that's been falling apart, this episode might be the one you needed.

Watch the episode on video: https://youtu.be/Ne4ikuLyQdo 

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My new book, The Edge of the Inside, is now available. You can get a signed copy or in whatever form you prefer: https://www.edgeoftheinside.com/

Join the online community and get access to exclusive content and experiences: https://www.jeremyjernigan.com/online-community

Trying to make sense of faith? Download my free Deconstruction Field Guide. It's a ten-page resource to help you navigate what's next so you don't have to do it alone. https://www.jeremyjernigan.com/opt-in 

Most people show up for Jesus when it's safe. Nicodemus had been quietly watching for the entire Gospel of John, showing up at night, speaking carefully, covering his tracks. But something about the cross changed that. In this episode, we look at John 19 and the strange, costly responses of the people who stayed when everyone else had gone, and we ask what it means to follow Jesus at the moment it would cost you the most.

Watch the episode on video: https://youtu.be/JcI_nrHwsqA 

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My new book, The Edge of the Inside, is now available. You can get a signed copy or in whatever form you prefer: https://www.edgeoftheinside.com/

Join the online community and get access to exclusive content and experiences: https://www.jeremyjernigan.com/online-community

Trying to make sense of faith? Download my free Deconstruction Field Guide. It's a ten-page resource to help you navigate what's next so you don't have to do it alone. https://www.jeremyjernigan.com/opt-in 

Pilate says "I find him not guilty" three times, then hands Jesus over to be crucified anyway. In this episode of Rebuilding Faith, we look at the slow-motion moral collapse of a man who knew exactly what he was doing. Pilate isn't a monster. He's something more familiar: someone who disagrees with what's happening but goes along with it because the cost of refusing feels too high. The crowd, the pressure, the threat to his position, all of it adds up until his stated innocence becomes a kind of theater, a defense built on words while his actions tell a different story. The question this passage puts to us isn't whether we'd recognize injustice. It's whether we'd do anything about it.

Watch the episode on video: https://youtu.be/v9FQw_tBE3Q 

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My new book, The Edge of the Inside, is now available. You can get a signed copy or in whatever form you prefer: https://www.edgeoftheinside.com/

Join the online community and get access to exclusive content and experiences: https://www.jeremyjernigan.com/online-community

Trying to make sense of faith? Download my free Deconstruction Field Guide. It's a ten-page resource to help you navigate what's next so you don't have to do it alone. https://www.jeremyjernigan.com/opt-in 

Peter said he was ready to die for Jesus. Twenty-four hours later, he was warming himself by a charcoal fire, telling strangers he'd never met the man. Most of us know what it's like to mean something and then discover, under pressure, that we didn't quite mean it the way we thought. The gap between who we intend to be and who we actually are in the moment of cost is one of the most honest places in all of Scripture. And it turns out, it's not the end of Peter's story.

Watch the episode on video: https://youtu.be/R4SiWgQ95Zw 

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My new book, The Edge of the Inside, is now available. You can get a signed copy or in whatever form you prefer: https://www.edgeoftheinside.com/

Join the online community and get access to exclusive content and experiences: https://www.jeremyjernigan.com/online-community

Trying to make sense of faith? Download my free Deconstruction Field Guide. It's a ten-page resource to help you navigate what's next so you don't have to do it alone. https://www.jeremyjernigan.com/opt-in 

What would you do if you knew exactly what was coming and walked straight into it anyway? In John 18, Jesus doesn't hide, doesn't run, and doesn't let Peter fight his way out of it. He steps forward to meet the soldiers and then he willingly goes with them. This episode explores what it means to face suffering not as something to escape, but as something to leverage, and how Jesus models the most counterintuitive move in history: turning the worst thing into a creative force that changes everything.

Watch the episode on video: https://youtu.be/-2DJNMJeo_o

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My new book, The Edge of the Inside, is now available. You can get a signed copy or in whatever form you prefer: https://www.edgeoftheinside.com/

Join the online community and get access to exclusive content and experiences: https://www.jeremyjernigan.com/online-community

Trying to make sense of faith? Download my free Deconstruction Field Guide. It's a ten-page resource to help you navigate what's next so you don't have to do it alone. https://www.jeremyjernigan.com/opt-in 

Most of us assume we know what prayer is supposed to look like, and most of us quietly feel like we're doing it wrong. In John 17, we get something rare: an unfiltered look at how Jesus actually prayed. Not a model prayer with blank lines to fill in, but a real conversation that reveals what Jesus cared about most in his final hours. What he says about eternal life alone might rearrange everything you thought you knew. This episode sits with that prayer and lets it breathe.

Watch the episode on video: https://youtu.be/YmfwaAWzRF4 

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My new book, The Edge of the Inside, is now available. You can get a signed copy or in whatever form you prefer: https://www.edgeoftheinside.com/

Join the online community and get access to exclusive content and experiences: https://www.jeremyjernigan.com/online-community

Trying to make sense of faith? Download my free Deconstruction Field Guide. It's a ten-page resource to help you navigate what's next so you don't have to do it alone. https://www.jeremyjernigan.com/opt-in 

Jesus knows his disciples are confused. He's just told them that in a little while they won't see him, and then a little while after that they will see him again, and they've basically said, "Yes, we understand none of this." So he does what any reasonable teacher would do: he compares the whole situation to a woman in labor. He's telling people who are about to watch him die that the suffering is not the end of the story, but it is absolutely necessary to the story. If you've ever wished you could skip the hard part and get straight to whatever good is supposed to come from it, this one is worth your ten minutes.

Watch the episode on video: https://youtu.be/nZZEdaTtPc8

-----------------

My new book, The Edge of the Inside, is now available. You can get a signed copy or in whatever form you prefer: https://www.edgeoftheinside.com/

Join the online community and get access to exclusive content and experiences: https://www.jeremyjernigan.com/online-community

Trying to make sense of faith? Download my free Deconstruction Field Guide. It's a ten-page resource to help you navigate what's next so you don't have to do it alone. https://www.jeremyjernigan.com/opt-in