Sacred Wisdom, Sacred Texts

Maybe you’ve seen Bibles with the sayings of Jesus in red ink? Well, other than 2 verses at the beginning and two at the end, the portion of the Gospel of Matthew I will start exploring in the this Episode is all red…

I am beginning several Episodes focused on the so-called “sermon on the mount.” I say “so-called because although it took place on a mountain, it was probably not all delivered at once , in one go, as a “sermon.” However, it is a significant collection of some of the most important and best known sayings of Jesus.

As we will explore more fully as we proceed, Matthew is setting up a very clear comparison between Moses and Jesus (which will make it interesting when I get to the Episode where I bring all my friends together again! What will Jesus and Moses have to say to each other?).

By the end of this collection of sayings, what Matthew gives us is Jesus’ charter for humanity, for how live as human beings in a new social order he calls “the kingdom.”

The charter is not a rehashing of what has been said before.

Jesus is telling people to build their lives on the foundation of his own words.

I am Kevin Caldwell, and this podcast is the fruit of years of my “conversations” with some of humanity's most influential sacred texts, each of which has become a spiritual friend to me: the books of Genesis, Exodus, the Bhagavad Gita, the teachings of the Buddha, the Tao Te Ching, the Gospels of John and Luke, and the Quran.

Sacred Wisdom, Sacred Texts and Jesus:

Jesus is one of the six friends I am drawing upon for the Sacred Wisdom, Sacred Texts podcast.

Sacred Wisdom:

In these episodes, the sacred wisdom that comes from who Jesus is, and which has made him such an important friend in my life, is the wisdom I find in both how he lived and the events of his life, as well as in what he taught.

Sacred Texts:

There are several sacred texts which tell us what he did and said, so which of the texts that present the life and words of Jesus should I focus on, and are any of them reliable? There are four official ones, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. There also are many others which were not included as official versions. The story of how some of those texts were determined to be “inspired” and true and worthy of inclusion is complicated, and took decades, indeed, centuries, to be finally sorted out (though it is not really final, since there are differences among Christians about which books “count” as official).

I had to start somewhere though, and decided to focus on portions of Luke and Matthew. I will go into the reasons for that decision in more detail in the Episodes themselves, but here is a summary:

For the events in Jesus’ life which have deepened my friendship with him I wilI focus on the way the Gospel of Luke portrays things that took place leading up to the launch of his public “career” so to speak. I decided to focus on Luke for this material in part because I have spent a lot of time with Luke over the years, and in part because I think the way Luke presents Jesus is extremely relevant for the times in which we live. I will follow Luke up to the point in chapter 6 when we get his version of the material that in Matthew’s version is referred to as the “Sermon on the Mount.”

For the teaching of Jesus, I will turn to Matthew’s way of presenting the material I just referred to: Luke’s “sermon on the plain,” which in Matthew is the “Sermon on the Mount.” The reason for relying on Matthew for this, as I explained in Episode 31, is that Matthew in three chapters assembles things taught by Jesus into a cohesive “package” or summary, a collection that will more easily enable me to compare Jesus’ teaching with Moses’ Ten Commandments and the Buddha’s Eightfold Path.

For more of my work, including other podcasts and my music and poetry, check out my YouTube channels:

@KevinCaldwellPodcasts

And

@KevinCaldwellMusicandPoetry

Demons and leprosy and the poor and the rich, and a new social order. All of that is giving us clues about how Luke might answer questions about what is real, what went wrong, and how to fix it.

I am Kevin Caldwell, and this podcast is the fruit of years of my “conversations” with some of humanity's most influential sacred texts, each of which has become a spiritual friend to me: the books of Genesis, Exodus, the Bhagavad Gita, the teachings of the Buddha, the Tao Te Ching, the Gospels of John and Luke, and the Quran.

In this episode we look at accounts of casting out demons, healing, forgiving, and forming a new kind of community. It all sets up Luke’s version of the so-called sermon on the mount in Matthew…which is where the next Episodes will take us.

Sacred Wisdom, Sacred Texts and Jesus:

Jesus is one of the six friends I am drawing upon for the Sacred Wisdom, Sacred Texts podcast.

Sacred Wisdom:

In these episodes, the sacred wisdom that comes from who Jesus is, and which has made him such an important friend in my life, is the wisdom I find in both how he lived and the events of his life, as well as in what he taught.

Sacred Texts:

There are several sacred texts which tell us what he did and said, so which of the texts that present the life and words of Jesus should I focus on, and are any of them reliable? There are four official ones, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. There also are many others which were not included as official versions. The story of how some of those texts were determined to be “inspired” and true and worthy of inclusion is complicated, and took decades, indeed, centuries, to be finally sorted out (though it is not really final, since there are differences among Christians about which books “count” as official).

I had to start somewhere though, and decided to focus on portions of Luke and Matthew. I will go into the reasons for that decision in more detail in the Episodes themselves, but here is a summary:

For the events in Jesus’ life which have deepened my friendship with him I wilI focus on the way the Gospel of Luke portrays things that took place leading up to the launch of his public “career” so to speak. I decided to focus on Luke for this material in part because I have spent a lot of time with Luke over the years, and in part because I think the way Luke presents Jesus is extremely relevant for the times in which we live. I will follow Luke up to the point in chapter 6 when we get his version of the material that in Matthew’s version is referred to as the “Sermon on the Mount.”

For the teaching of Jesus, I will turn to Matthew’s way of presenting the material I just referred to: Luke’s “sermon on the plain,” which in Matthew is the “Sermon on the Mount.” The reason for relying on Matthew for this, as I explained in Episode 31, is that Matthew in three chapters assembles things taught by Jesus into a cohesive “package” or summary, a collection that will more easily enable me to compare Jesus’ teaching with Moses’ Ten Commandments and the Buddha’s Eightfold Path.

For more of my work, including other podcasts and my music and poetry, check out my YouTube channels:

@KevinCaldwellPodcasts

And

@KevinCaldwellMusicandPoetry

Who are you? Who am I? “Idenity” seems like a big topic these days. But how do we know, and what if we have reasons to doubt it? And what’s that got to do with Jesus?

In this Episode we encounter two famous scenes in the life of Jesus: a baptism at the River Jordan and a series of tests in the wilderness.

There will be voices (divine and diabolical), and a lot of implied and explicit information about who Jesus is.

And also about who we are.

Sacred Wisdom, Sacred Texts and Jesus:

Jesus is one of the six friends I am drawing upon for the Sacred Wisdom, Sacred Texts podcast.

Sacred Wisdom:

In these episodes, the sacred wisdom that comes from who Jesus is, and which has made him such an important friend in my life, is the wisdom I find in both how he lived and the events of his life, as well as in what he taught.

Sacred Texts:

There are several sacred texts which tell us what he did and said, so which of the texts that present the life and words of Jesus should I focus on, and are any of them reliable? There are four official ones, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. There also are many others which were not included as official versions. The story of how some of those texts were determined to be “inspired” and true and worthy of inclusion is complicated, and took decades, indeed, centuries, to be finally sorted out (though it is not really final, since there are differences among Christians about which books “count” as official).

I had to start somewhere though, and decided to focus on portions of Luke and Matthew. I will go into the reasons for that decision in more detail in the Episodes themselves, but here is a summary:

For the events in Jesus’ life which have deepened my friendship with him I wilI focus on the way the Gospel of Luke portrays things that took place leading up to the launch of his public “career” so to speak. I decided to focus on Luke for this material in part because I have spent a lot of time with Luke over the years, and in part because I think the way Luke presents Jesus is extremely relevant for the times in which we live. I will follow Luke up to the point in chapter 6 when we get his version of the material that in Matthew’s version is referred to as the “Sermon on the Mount.”

For the teaching of Jesus, I will turn to Matthew’s way of presenting the material I just referred to: Luke’s “sermon on the plain,” which in Matthew is the “Sermon on the Mount.” The reason for relying on Matthew for this, as I explained in Episode 31, is that Matthew in three chapters assembles things taught by Jesus into a cohesive “package” or summary, a collection that will more easily enable me to compare Jesus’ teaching with Moses’ Ten Commandments and the Buddha’s Eightfold Path.

It’s common in my culture to seek therapy to get help for father issues and mother issues…but most of us also get good things from them. I think Jesus got quite a bit of what he is known for from his mother…

In Episode 33,“Heart of Mary, Heart of Jesus “ I barely began to scratch the surface of bringing out the ways that I see in Jesus’ personality and perspectives and character the fingerprints of his mother…

The main example in that Episode being:

Mary said to the angle: let it happen to me in keeping with your word

Jesus said to God: your will be done

This Episode is a kind of “Part 2, hence the title: ”“More Mary, More Jesus.”

The point is that I am still exploring the way I see the character and heart of Mary shaping Jesus’ character and heart.

The Episode opens with some of the most frequently recited words in Christian worship, used regularly in the liturgies of the Catholic, Orthodox, and Anglican communities. In other words, buy the majority of the world’s Christian population.

It is a song or poem attributed to Mary called “the Magnificat.”

Then we will look at a visit from some shepherds, and two events in the Temple.

Sacred Wisdom, Sacred Texts and Jesus:

Jesus is one of the six friends I am drawing upon for the Sacred Wisdom, Sacred Texts podcast.

Sacred Wisdom:

In these episodes, the sacred wisdom that comes from who Jesus is, and which has made him such an important friend in my life, is the wisdom I find in both how he lived and the events of his life, as well as in what he taught.

Sacred Texts:

There are several sacred texts which tell us what he did and said, so which of the texts that present the life and words of Jesus should I focus on, and are any of them reliable? There are four official ones, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. There also are many others which were not included as official versions. The story of how some of those texts were determined to be “inspired” and true and worthy of inclusion is complicated, and took decades, indeed, centuries, to be finally sorted out (though it is not really final, since there are differences among Christians about which books “count” as official).

I had to start somewhere though, and decided to focus on portions of Luke and Matthew. I will go into the reasons for that decision in more detail in the Episodes themselves, but here is a summary:

For the events in Jesus’ life which have deepened my friendship with him I wilI focus on the way the Gospel of Luke portrays things that took place leading up to the launch of his public “career” so to speak. I decided to focus on Luke for this material in part because I have spent a lot of time with Luke over the years, and in part because I think the way Luke presents Jesus is extremely relevant for the times in which we live. I will follow Luke up to the point in chapter 6 when we get his version of the material that in Matthew’s version is referred to as the “Sermon on the Mount.”

For the teaching of Jesus, I will turn to Matthew’s way of presenting the material I just referred to: Luke’s “sermon on the plain,” which in Matthew is the “Sermon on the Mount.” The reason for relying on Matthew for this, as I explained in Episode 31, is that Matthew in three chapters assembles things taught by Jesus into a cohesive “package” or summary, a collection that will more easily enable me to compare Jesus’ teaching with Moses’ Ten Commandments and the Buddha’s Eightfold Path.

So, who was this Jesus person that has so influenced so many people for so many centuries? How do we separate the real person from the terrible things done in his name? And is the real Jesus the Christian Jesus?

I open with another data point for why I think Luke and the Gospels are reliable, and in what way, even though they differ and are not presenting Jesus in a uniform way…

And I explore the encounter between Mary and Gabriel:

Did Jesus ever become a king?

Son fo God?

A virgin birth?

And what all of that have meant, or not.

And I begin to open the window into Mary’s heart, where I see a reflection of Jesus’ heart too.

The Sacred Wisdom, Sacred Texts Episodes about Jesus:

Jesus is one of the six friends I am drawing upon for the Sacred Wisdom, Sacred Texts podcast.

Sacred Wisdom:

In these episodes, the sacred wisdom that comes from who Jesus is, and which has made him such an important friend in my life, is the wisdom I find in both how he lived and the events of his life, as well as in what he taught.

Sacred Texts:

There are several sacred  texts which tell us what he did and said, so which of the texts that present the life and words of Jesus should I focus on, and are any of them reliable? There are four official ones, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. There also are many others which were not included as official versions. The story of how some of those texts were determined to be “inspired” and true and worthy of inclusion is complicated, and took decades, indeed, centuries, to be finally sorted out (though it is not really final, since there are differences among Christians about which books “count” as official).

I had to start somewhere though, and decided to focus on portions of Luke and Matthew. I will go into the reasons for that decision in more detail in the Episodes themselves, but here is a summary:

For the events in Jesus’ life which have deepened my friendship with him I wilI focus on the way the Gospel of Luke portrays things that took place leading up to the launch of his public “career” so to speak. I decided to focus on Luke for this material in part because I have spent a lot of time with Luke over the years, and in part because I think the way Luke presents Jesus is extremely relevant for the times in which we live. I will follow Luke up to the point in chapter 6 when we get his version of the material that in Matthew’s version is referred to as the “Sermon on the Mount.”

For the teaching of Jesus, I will turn to Matthew’s way of presenting the material I just referred to: Luke’s “sermon on the plain,” which in Matthew is the “Sermon on the Mount.” The reason for relying on Matthew for this, as I explained in Episode 31, is that Matthew in three chapters assembles things taught by Jesus into a cohesive “package” or summary, a collection that will more easily enable me to compare Jesus’ teaching with Moses’ Ten Commandments and the Buddha’s Eightfold Path.

I am going back to things that Jesus did and said, but to do that we have to rely on what people wrote about him years later, using a language he didn’t use. So, do we have any reliable way of knowing him?

Since I am going to get started with Luke, I decided to start where Luke started, and thus, this Episode focuses primarily on the first four verses of Luke chapter 1.

In that brief section, Luke addresses questions like, “How can we know this is reliable? Who is this for, and who is this about?”

Sacred Wisdom, Sacred Texts and Jesus:

Jesus is one of the six friends I am drawing upon for the Sacred Wisdom, Sacred Texts podcast.

Sacred Wisdom:

In these episodes, the sacred wisdom that comes from who Jesus is, and which has made him such an important friend in my life, is the wisdom I find in both how he lived and the events of his life, as well as in what he taught.

Sacred Texts:

There are several sacred texts which tell us what he did and said, so which of the texts that present the life and words of Jesus should I focus on, and are any of them reliable? There are four official ones, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. There also are many others which were not included as official versions. The story of how some of those texts were determined to be “inspired” and true and worthy of inclusion is complicated, and took decades, indeed, centuries, to be finally sorted out (though it is not really final, since there are differences among Christians about which books “count” as official).

I had to start somewhere though, and decided to focus on portions of Luke and Matthew. I will go into the reasons for that decision in more detail in the Episodes themselves, but here is a summary:

For the events in Jesus’ life which have deepened my friendship with him I wilI focus on the way the Gospel of Luke portrays things that took place leading up to the launch of his public “career” so to speak. I decided to focus on Luke for this material in part because I have spent a lot of time with Luke over the years, and in part because I think the way Luke presents Jesus is extremely relevant for the times in which we live. I will follow Luke up to the point in chapter 6 when we get his version of the material that in Matthew’s version is referred to as the “Sermon on the Mount.”

For the teaching of Jesus, I will turn to Matthew’s way of presenting the material I just referred to: Luke’s “sermon on the plain,” which in Matthew is the “Sermon on the Mount.” The reason for relying on Matthew for this, as I explained in Episode 31, is that Matthew in three chapters assembles things taught by Jesus into a cohesive “package” or summary, a collection that will more easily enable me to compare Jesus’ teaching with Moses’ Ten Commandments and the Buddha’s Eightfold Path.

“Jesus, the Buddha, and Moses all walked into a room…”

It sounds like the start of a joke, right? But they actually have some important topics to talk about: what is real, what went wrong, and how do we fix it?

In this Episode I am bringing three friends together: Jesus (as represented through John 1:1-18 at this point), the Buddha and now Moses.

There is a lot to talk about and the conversation will focus on the three questions that came up when I was “in the room” with Jesus and the Buddha before introducing Moses:

What is real?

What went wrong?

How do we fix it?

They each have their own perspectives, and differences. And there are perhaps some surprising areas of agreement.

These are three of my “friends”, three of the sacred texts I plan to explore in this series. There will be three more, in the order in which my friendships with them began:

Muhammad and the Quran, the Bhagavad Gita, and then the Tao Te Ching of Lao Tzu.

As I have done so far, after each gets introduced in their own right, I will bring them together one by one to join the others.

In this case, however, as I explain in the Episode, before I proceed to the Quran I need to bring Jesus back to the room for a one to one sit down. Unlike the Buddha and Moses, he really didn’t have a chance to speak for himself yet, and it seems only fair.

This Episode is dedicated to the 10 Commandments.

There is a big push in the United States to have the 10 Commandments in schools. But what do they really say? And if we answer that, I wonder if we would really want them.

There are good things, certainly, in Moses. But even in a section that most might assume is a fully reliable moral compass, the 10 Commandments, there are some sharp bones that we need to take out and really look at before we swallow. And we will take an honest look at them, as well as the delicious nutritious soup that Moses serves as well.

The Moses Episodes will focus on major themes and events in Moses life, and his pre-history, as those are described in two of the five “books of Moses.” After one Episode that surveys the book of Genesis in order to provide the backdrop, the remaining Episodes will draw from the book called “Exodus” in English.

That title refers to the signature event in Moses’ life and in the life of Israel as a people: the exodus, the “going out” or liberation of an enslaved people from the land of Egypt.

That event will feature in the Episodes, of course, but my interests are primarily in Moses’ origin story. That is why the pre-history matters to me, and why I will spend a good deal of my time in the first three chapters of the book of Exodus. Those chapter speak of the birth and childhood and early life experiences of Moses leading to his role as liberator.

I will include later events in his life after the exodus, such as the period in the wilderness, the giving of the Ten Commandments, and ultimately I will step outside of the text of Exodus and conclude with Moses’ death.

Once we have explored Moses’ life, I will bring back my friends John and the Buddha and discuss the things we discover in Moses, and the three questions John and the Buddha raised:

What is real?

What went wrong?

How do we fix it?

Is This Justice?

“I’ve got good news and bad news…” There are jokes that start out like that, and in some ways the book of Exodus is full of this contrast too…but without the punch lines, because there are no laughing matters here!”

In some ways this Episode raises some of the hardest questions yet. What kind of God tells a person to do something, then hardens that person;s heart so that they refuse, then punishes them, for refusing, but instead of punishing that person, kills their son and the sons of their colleagues, and the sons of all their nation, including the offspring of their animals?

The Moses Episodes focus on major themes and events in Moses life, and his pre-history, as those are described in two of the five “books of Moses.” After one Episode that surveys the book of Genesis in order to provide the backdrop, the remaining Episodes will draw from the book called “Exodus” in English.

That title refers to the signature event in Moses’ life and in the life of Israel as a people: the exodus, the “going out” or liberation of an enslaved people from the land of Egypt.

That event will feature in the Episodes, of course, but my interests are primarily in Moses’ origin story. That is why the pre-history matters to me, and why I will spend a good deal of my time in the first three chapters of the book of Exodus. Those chapter speak of the birth and childhood and early life experiences of Moses leading to his role as liberator.

I will include later events in his life after the exodus, such as the period in the wilderness, the giving of the Ten Commandments, and ultimately I will step outside of the text of Exodus and conclude with Moses’ death.

Once we have explored Moses’ life, I will bring back my friends John and the Buddha and discuss the things we discover in Moses, and the three questions John and the Buddha raised:

What is real?

What went wrong?

How do we fix it?

What is it like to talk with God? And then have God talk back? And what if that, or what if God, is like nothing we might expect?

This episode incudes an extended dialogue between God and Moses.

And it has surprises..

Has it ever happened to you that you suddenly experience something really familiar to you as if it is totally new and it is, well, weird, strange?

Familiar Bible stories can be like that…like in this episode.

Events don’t happen always in a straight line, characters don’t always do what you expect, or even what makes sense.

And sometimes it is as if the clouds part or the fog lifts and you see old familiar territory and realize: it is a lot stranger than you remember it being!

The Moses Episodes will focus on major themes and events in Moses life, and his pre-history, as those are described in two of the five “books of Moses.” After one Episode that surveys the book of Genesis in order to provide the backdrop, the remaining Episodes will draw from the book called “Exodus” in English.

That title refers to the signature event in Moses’ life and in the life of Israel as a people: the exodus, the “going out” or liberation of an enslaved people from the land of Egypt.

That event will feature in the Episodes, of course, but my interests are primarily in Moses’ origin story. That is why the pre-history matters to me, and why I will spend a good deal of my time in the first three chapters of the book of Exodus. Those chapter speak of the birth and childhood and early life experiences of Moses leading to his role as liberator.

I will include later events in his life after the exodus, such as the period in the wilderness, the giving of the Ten Commandments, and ultimately I will step outside of the text of Exodus and conclude with Moses’ death.

Once we have explored Moses’ life, I will bring back my friends John and the Buddha and discuss the things we discover in Moses, and the three questions John and the Buddha raised:

What is real?

What went wrong?

How do we fix it?