In this episode we start with something I think is a real blind spot -- not just in the church, but anywhere there are people who need to be led. The problem is that we are drawn to charisma even when we know better. Even when there is clear evidence of poor character, the charisma wins. We talk through what makes someone charismatic. Warmth and competency are the two research-backed traits. But we dig underneath that to find the meta-characteristic, the thing that might be even more powerful, which is conviction. The strength of what someone believes and how they communicate that belief. It explains a lot about why people follow leaders who lead them somewhere terrible.

From there we get into a deep dive on the holiness of God. Is holiness a limitation on God, or does God define holiness? Divine command theory, the incarnation, and what it means that Christ chose to limit himself to reveal himself. We talk about large language models as an analogy for how definition is what gives something the ability to act.

We close the episode talking about conflict. How do you fight well? With your spouse. With your boss. With the people you love. We talk through what fair fighting looks like. How to depersonalize the issue. Why you should never fight on social media or text message. and why leaving conflict unresolved does not end the conflict. it just loads the gun.

This week Pastor Mel takes us through the second half of Romans 8. The sermon opens with a reframe that sets the tone for everything that follows. When Paul talks about glory in Romans 8, Mel argues he is not primarily talking about heaven. He is talking about God's Spirit tabernacling in believers -- the same dwelling presence that was in the wilderness with Israel -- and about the goodness of God's Spirit being manifest through us for dominion in a broken world. Psalm 8 comes in here, and the connection between crowned with glory and given dominion over creation is one of the most striking moments in the message.

That leads into the central question Mel keeps returning to throughout: what if God is not saving us from the world, but for the world? Creation is groaning like a woman in childbirth, waiting for the sons and daughters of God to be revealed. And Mel makes the case that every time Summit does teacher appreciation or shows up for first responders, something is happening in the spirit -- the sons and daughters of God are being revealed and a little of the brokenness of the world gets relieved.

From there he works through the Holy Spirit interceding for us with groanings that cannot be expressed in words, and makes a careful distinction between this and tongues -- these are sighs, the same word used in Luke 10 when Martha asks Mary to come help her. The Holy Spirit is not waiting on God to work. He is waiting on us.

Mel handles the suffering question honestly: suffering is not evidence that God does not love you. It is part of what it means to be co-heirs with Christ.

1. Mel argues that Paul's vision of glory in Romans 8 is not only about heaven someday, but about God's Spirit dwelling in and manifesting through believers now. How has your understanding of "glory" been shaped by Western individualism — and how does the truth that glory and suffering are inseparable change the way you think about what it means to walk with God?

2. Mel poses the question: "What if God is not saving us from the world, but for it?" Where in your life have you built walls to protect yourself from brokenness rather than stepping into it as a carrier of God's glory? What would it look like to move from escape mode to engagement mode in your neighborhood, workplace, or community?

3. Mel describes the Holy Spirit interceding for us with "groanings that cannot be expressed in words" — meeting us in moments when we simply don't know how to pray. Can you think of a situation in your life right now where you genuinely have no words? How does it change your posture to know the Holy Spirit is already interceding in that situation on your behalf?

4. Mel argues the Holy Spirit works in conjunction with us — not instead of us — and that many believers either never get to prayer, or stop there without ever taking action. What is one specific broken situation in your life or community that God may be calling you to both pray about and actively move toward? What has kept you from doing both?

5. Romans 8:38–39 declares that nothing in all creation can separate us from God's love in Christ. Mel is careful to distinguish this from a prosperity gospel promise — it doesn't mean life will be easy, but that God's love is immovable regardless of circumstances. Where in your life are you currently judging God's love by what you see, feel, or experience? How does Paul's declaration reframe what you're going through?

This is Part 2 of the Week 3 discussion on Romans, and I'm back with Caleb and Joel for another wide-ranging conversation that covers a remarkable amount of theological ground.

We open with the Pharaoh question -- the quintessential hard heart story in Scripture. Caleb walks through the alternating pattern of Pharaoh hardening his own heart and God hardening it, and raises the provocative idea that God may have been giving Pharaoh enough resolve to ensure his repentance would be genuine rather than just coerced by pain. From there we get into the Egyptian magicians -- and Caleb makes clear that the Prince of Egypt movie has misled people here -- these men had real power, not sleight of hand. And that raises an important question about where that power came from.

That question becomes a conversation about how you distinguish the voice of God from your own imagination or something darker. We land on some really practical wisdom: the danger of taking the Lord's name in vain by attributing to God things he never said, why biblical illiteracy is so dangerous, and -- one of the most memorable moments in the episode -- Caleb's point that you are allowed to just say something is on your heart without stamping it with God's name.

From there we talk about God as impartial judge, which leads into an unexpected and fascinating cultural observation about what happens when people replace God as judge with a political figure -- and what Trump derangement syndrome might actually be revealing about us.

The episode closes with Caleb introducing Anselm's debt argument for the necessity of the incarnation. It is one of the clearest explanations of why Jesus had to be both fully God and fully human.

In this episode of the podcast we start off with a simple question that has a challenging answer. The question is this: how do you become more compassionate without just following your heart? What if compassion could be principled rather than emotional -- something you choose based on information rather than how you feel in a moment? I tried to draw a distinction between pain being objectively measurable and subjectively distributed, and the conversation gets into why the progressive approach to compassion gets it wrong, why the dispassionate approach also fails, and what a truly helpful response to someone in pain actually looks like. Mel brings in the image of Jesus being moved with compassion -- not paralyzed by it, not clinical about it -- and it lands really well.

From there the episode moves back into questions from the Asking for a Friend series. First up: are Catholics as Christian as Protestants? Mel gives a fair, grounded answer that avoids the ditches on both sides, and then we add a sharp theological point about why the doctrine of papal infallibility functionally breaks the authority of Scripture even when Catholics claim Scripture is primary.

The final question wrestles with one of the most universally felt problems in life: how do you walk through a long season of suffering when it seems like God is not answering or helping? Mel takes on word-of-faith theology directly, talks through the end of Hebrews 11 where the heroes of faith die without receiving the promise, and makes the case that God owes us nothing -- and how understanding that is actually what sets you free. Joel brings in a famous story from Daniel which teaches us to be faithful even when God doesn't show up how we want.

Walking With God Through Pain and Suffering by Tim Keller

This week Pastor Mel brings us to Romans chapter 8 -- what he and many theologians consider to be the most important chapter in the entire Bible. Mel opens with the four most liberating words in Paul's writing: there is no condemnation. He unpacks what that actually means -- not that condemnation was abolished, but that Jesus took it on himself so we don't have to carry it. And he makes the case that this freedom is not just about your past. It covers your present and your future too.

From there the message moves through eleven verses in which Paul references the Holy Spirit eleven times. Mel traces the Spirit's work from the very beginning -- hovering over the chaos in creation, coming upon judges and kings and prophets in the Old Testament, temporarily and selectively -- all the way to Pentecost in Acts 2, where everything changed and the Spirit became permanent and available to every believer.

There is a really powerful section on the Greek word translated as "to mind" -- and what it means to be in agreement with the flesh versus in agreement with the Spirit. Mel connects it to the word amen, and the application is practical and pointed: where does your mind go in the still, quiet moments of your day?

Next week Mel picks up in Romans 8:18 and gets into what it means to share in Christ's glory -- and his suffering.

1. Mel unpacks Romans 8:1 as covering not just past sin but present and future — arguing that Christ's work crushes condemnation in all three tenses for those submitted to him. How does living from "already exonerated" rather than "trying to stay forgiven" change the way you approach God day to day? Where are you still carrying condemnation that Christ has already canceled?

2. Mel says our thoughts and our actions are directly linked — that "minding the flesh" means coming into agreementwith it, and that this agreement inevitably produces corresponding actions. In the quiet moments of your day, when nothing external is competing for your attention, where does your mind naturally go? What does that reveal about what you're currently in agreement with?

3. Paul mentions the Spirit eleven times in eleven verses, making him the central figure of Romans 8. Mel draws a sharp contrast between the Old Testament Spirit — temporary and selective — and the New Testament Spirit, who is permanent and available to every believer. How actively are you relying on the Holy Spirit in your daily life, and what would it look like to become more intentionally submitted to his work in you?

4. Mel points out that Roman adoption gave adopted children the exact same rights and inheritance as biological children — and that Paul uses this to show believers have the same standing before God as Christ himself. How does the image of God as Dad rather than a distant "Father in heaven" change your posture in prayer and your sense of belonging in his family?

5. Romans 8:17 says that if we share in Christ's glory, we must also share in his suffering — what Mel calls the verse nobody tattoos on their arm. Where in your life right now are you experiencing difficulty, resistance, or loss connected to your faith or obedience to God? How does knowing that suffering and glory are inseparable in Christ change the way you hold what you're going through?

In this episode we open with a question that sits right at the intersection of theology and everyday life: given what we believe about total depravity, how do you actually trust people? Mel and Joel work through why cynicism usually traces back to pain, why trust is hardwired into us by God as a gift for building community, and how to hold grace and wisdom together rather than collapsing into either naivety or suspicion.

From there we move into the Cain and Abel question -- am I my brother's keeper -- and what it means for leaders to choose costly love over self-preservation. We land on something really important: sacrifice only feels like sacrifice looking forward. Looking back, it almost never does.

The last stretch is devoted to spiritual disciplines. Mel talks about the Sabbath and what he means by staying yoked in prayer. We make the case for living in continuous proximity with God. You can practice His presence in the same way you have a steady awareness of your spouse in the next room.

In this episode we discuss Romans week three.

We started with something Paul says almost in passing -- that humanity not only sins, but invents new ways of sinning. That opens into a rich conversation about creativity, technology, and what it looks like when God's image-bearing gift of creativity gets corrupted. From there we move into what Caleb calls narrative reconstruction -- the idea that when we sin and then justify it, the justification is itself a sin, a reframing of truth as falsehood. And if you do it long enough, you lose the ability to see clearly at all. That might be the most dangerous place the human heart can go.

Next the conversation takes on some genuinely hard questions: What do we do with Rahab lying to protect the spies? What does forgiveness actually mean when recidivism is likely? We talk about the difference between forgiveness and the restoration of privileges, and why getting that distinction wrong may be part of how the church lost its moral footing in culture.

There is also a beautiful thread near the end on practical spiritual disciplines -- the Daily Examen, the Wesleyan accountability bands that go back to John Wesley himself, and what Joel calls a posture of humility where you replay your day honestly before God. Caleb introduces a Wesleyan theological distinction -- Christian perfection versus entire sanctification -- that is well worth sitting with.

This week Pastor Mel continues the Romans series with Week 13, and he lands in one of the most personally honest passages in all of Paul's writing -- Romans chapter 7.The big question Paul is answering is one that every honest Christian has probably asked: if grace covers our sin, does that mean we can live however we want? Paul's answer is emphatic. Of course not. And Mel walks through exactly why, using the striking image of marriage. When we died with Christ, we died to the law -- and now we are free to marry someone new. Not the law, but Christ himself. And just like any healthy marriage, that relationship means we don't only ask what we want. We ask what he wants.From there, Mel moves into the wretched man passage, where Paul confesses that he does what he hates and cannot do what he wants. Mel makes the case that this is not a passage about spiritual failure. It is a passage about spiritual honesty, and about the difference between being called to perfection and being called to a lifelong process of being perfected.

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS:

1. Paul uses a marriage illustration to show that believers are dead to the law and now united with Christ. What is the difference between relating to God through rule-keeping versus relating to him as someone you are in a committed covenant with — and how does that shift change the way you approach obedience day to day?

2. Mel says the law does two things: it defines sin and reveals it in us. When has scripture or the Holy Spirit put a spotlight on something in your life you didn't even realize was sin? How did you respond — with repentance, defensiveness, or something else?

3. Romans 7:14–25 is Paul confessing, "I do what I hate." Mel notes that the longer we walk with Christ, the more our seemingly small sins bother us. What pattern or habit in your own life do you keep returning to despite genuinely not wanting to — and what does a repentant (not perfect) response look like in that area?

4. Mel says the daily solution is to die — to crucify the flesh and do the opposite of what it tells you. Where in your life right now is your flesh telling you not to do something you probably should? What would it look like to act against that impulse this week?

5. Mel closes with the image of posthumous legal exoneration — that in Christ we are declared not guilty of sins we actually committed. How does living from a place of "already exonerated" rather than "trying to earn forgiveness" change your posture toward God, toward your own sin, and toward other people?

Today we are back answering more of your questions from the Asking for a Friend series. In this episode we respond to some really substantial topics — how God speaks to people today and how to discern whether what you are hearing is actually from him, the purpose and meaning of communion and why it matters how we approach it, why the church still uses traditional preaching rather than open dialogue, and whether Summit should be teaching more on Bible prophecy and end times. This was a productive discussion that was both theologically grounded and refreshingly practical.

This week Pastor Mel continues our series through the book of Romans, picking up in the second half of Romans chapter 6 where Pastor Kim left off. Using the vivid historical reality of slavery in the Roman Empire — including an actual slave tag discovered in Rome — Mel unpacks Paul’s powerful argument that every one of us is a slave to whatever we choose to obey. He walks through what it means to be freed from sin’s dominion, why so many believers find themselves returning to old masters, and what it looks like to surrender wholeheartedly to God rather than simply going through the motions of religious duty. It is a challenging and deeply practical message about freedom, identity, and the incredible gift of grace found in Romans 6:23.

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS:

1. Paul says we become "slaves to whatever we choose to obey." What modern masters — comfort, acceptance, achievement, pleasure — quietly command your obedience? How do you know when something has shifted from a good thing to a governing thing?

2. Paul distinguishes obeying God out of fear of punishment from obeying "from the heart." Where in your life are you performing obedience out of obligation rather than genuine affection for God — and what would it look like to close that gap?

3. Emancipated slaves in Rome often voluntarily returned to their former masters because it was familiar. What old masters do you keep returning to after experiencing freedom in Christ, and what payoff — however small — keeps drawing you back?

4. Pastor Mel emphasized that who you are enslaved to affects everyone around you, for good or ill. Can you think of a time someone else's devotion to God (or to sin) shaped your life in a concrete way? How does that reframe your own choices as something bigger than personal?

5. Romans 6:23 contrasts earned wages with a free gift. How does receiving eternal life as a gift — not a wage — change your motivation for obedience? What would it look like this week to relate to God as a son or daughter, not as a slave earning approval?