We all have excuses to avoid God's mission, but the most obvious ones are nearly trivial. 

Looking at the story of Jonah exposes a much more challenging idea: what if we avoid mission simply because we don't actually agree with God that someone else needs and deserves His mercy?

Abraham challenges God's suggestion of destroying Sodom and Gomorrah, which is a challenging picture of "participating in God's mission".

How might we stop "mission" becoming a mirror?

Talking about comfort zones in the context of God's mission reminds us just how powerful the pull of comfort can be. Do we get uncomfortable in our inclusive acceptance of people, or do we expect them to leave their comfort zone when joining our Christian community? 

What is the Great Commission again?

It's a command to go, make disciples, baptise them, and teach them to obey. All of these aspects deserve to be unpacked a lot, but a somewhat obvious idea is that this task might not involve all that much preaching and Revelation seminars! What if we accidentally turn mission into making people more like us, rather than more like God?

An exploration of God's Mission must start with a focus on the God of mission.

This new season will explore the theme of "God's Mission, My Mission", and we have to recognise that the word "mission" means a wide range of different things to different Christians. In fact, our initial reaction to this title probably depends on what kind of mission we are picturing. This idea will need to be explored more fully in upcoming episodes, but first In this introductory episode we focus on the God of mission as revealed in Jesus.

After exploring the themes and some details of Ephesians, does it "feel different"?

This episode is a bit of an experiment - does listening to the entire book of Ephesians work for you after 13 episodes exploring it bit-by-bit?

Ephesians closes with almost the same sentence as it began: a blessing of grace and peace.

Peace seems at first to be the flip side of the aggressive military imagery of God's armour, but it might not be that simple. The peace and unity described throughout Ephesians is something that must be built up - it does not just appear by default.

How helpful is military armour as an analogy for the Christian life?

This passage is perhaps the most well-known part of Ephesians, and yet it actually feels somewhat strange juxtaposed against the deep theme of unity that we've seen throughout the book. We discuss the aggressive aspects of this analogy, and find lots of overlap with our discomfort at the preceding slavery passage.

The theme of unity and submission gets awkward when discussing slaves!

It is hardly surprising that the New Testament mentions slavery (it was a cultural norm), but it is a shame that the various authors were not more clear in condemnation of the practice. We explore why some situations do seem to call us to obey and be sincerely respectful of authority, and yet many other situations seem to call us to resist and agitate for change. 

We've reached the well-known passage about submission in marriage...

...except that after the emphasis on unity that has been observed consistently throughout Ephesians so far, it seems most likely that this part is not talking about submission and power balance at all. It is a radical call to inclusive and united love, and it's actually quite fascinating that Paul suggests marriage relationships can help us understand the mystery of Christ's unity with the Church.