The most played episodes among Podcast App listeners.

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   Number 1: Who’s Your Daddy?

   “Ben the ‘Bastard Boy’ is what they called me,” explained the old man to Professor Fred Craddock. “In front of everyone, and so that everyone could hear, the preacher man spoke with a voice like God, saying ‘Boy I know who your Daddy is; your Daddy is God.’” And then, Ben Hooper, elected twice the governor of Tennessee, looked at Fred Craddock and said, “I was born that day, the day the preacher man told me: ‘Your Daddy is God.’” “Behold what manner of Love the Father has given unto us,” writes John, in 1 John 3:1, “that we should be called the children of God; And so, we are.” I tend to think that the Love of God is some sort of ontologically mandated necessity, and maybe it is. But John is saying “Wait don’t you see what manner, what kind of love, this love is? It’s Daddy Love. Behold it!” Jesus said, “Pray our Father.” And it appears that he often used the word “Abba,” which is most naturally translated as “Dad” or “Daddy.” Paul tells us in Romans 8, that “When we cry ‘Abba! Father!’ it is the Spirit himself bearing witness with our spirit that we are children of God.’” Behold: it's Daddy Love. Daddy Love is unique. It’s different than other types of Love. It just showed up in me, not long after my son was born. I didn’t earn it; I didn’t manufacture it. But the way I felt about my son was different than the way I felt about everyone else in the world. Daddy Love is unique, unearned, unconditional, and intensely passionate. When people discount my children, there is a wrath in me that burns toward them. Once, when I was feeling this wrath toward a woman that had ignored my daughter, I think I heard the Lord whisper, “Hey Peter, did you ever think that this woman might also be my daughter? What if I love everyone in the world, the way you love your daughter?” Wrath is the burning edge of a Father’s Love. And what does the good Father do with all of his wrath when his beloved children don’t love each other? Daddy Love is intensely passionate and sacrificial. So, God is vulnerable to you, and yet, “his mercies never come to an end.” It may seem like they do come to an end, but they don’t come to an end; love is the end and so, every punishment is discipline. If someone told my children to fear me because my love would never come to an end, and so I would discipline until each of them believed my love and so surrendered to my love, that would be good advice. But if someone told my children to fear me because my love might come to an end and I would then torture them forever without end, my wrath would burn hotter than it ever has before.... and yet if they too were my children it would burn for them, as well as at them, until they too surrendered to my love, until they too trusted in my love—that’s called “faith.” Daddy Love most earnestly desires faith from his children, for the Good Daddy most earnestly desires the love of his children. And so, he bears his own wrath, until his children surrender to love and return his love. Good Daddy Love “bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things (1 Cor. 13:7).” It doesn’t end and it doesn’t fail. I remember my father leaning over my hospital bed, saying “If only there was a way that I could, I would bear this pain for you.” And I remember looking at him and thinking, “You’re crazy.” Is God our Father crazy? I suppose so. He’s a Daddy, crazy with love for you. When my children doubted my love—and my love is very imperfect—they would act like little, sorry to say it, little bastard’s. But when they trusted my love, they would imitate me as if it were their heart’s greatest desire. Daddy Love is that powerful. And so, for some, this message doesn’t feel like a blessing but a curse. Perhaps, unlike me, you had a terrible daddy. And now you look in the mirror and see him staring back at you... or worse, you still don’t know who he is. My Aunt told me of a man, who came down the stairs late one night to see his father, drunk, and waving a rifle around the kitchen threatening to kill his children. His mother hung onto the stock of the rifle begging him to stop. He only stopped when the police came and took his father away. Psychologists will say that that boy would most likely grow up to be just like his father: angry and severely limited in his ability to love. But that man is the most Christ-like man that I’ve ever known. That man was my father (who would only speak well of his father). What happened to my father? Well, the same thing that happened to Ben Hooper. When he was a young man, he heard a preacher man say “Boy, I know who your Daddy is. Your Daddy is God.” Do you know who your Daddy is? Let me tell you: Your Daddy is God. And when you say “Daddy,” it’s not just you, the old you, that’s speaking; it’s the Son of God; it’s the Spirit of God; it’s who you truly are. Say, “Daddy.” “When we cry ‘Abba! Father!’ it’s the Spirit himself bearing witness with our spirit that we are the children of God.” “Behold what manner of Love the Father has given unto us.” You’re not a Bastard; you’re the son and/or daughter of the Living God.

   January 02, 2022·52min
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   Number 2: Hold the Baby

   This is the Christmas Testimony of St. Nicholas of Myra. He claims that Santa Claus is an idol. And that we better hope that God is not making a list and checking it twice to find out whose naughty and nice... or “we’ll all be going straight to hell and Ho, Ho, Ho!” “God is not Santa Clause; He’s the Anti-Claus,” says Nick. “God gives good gifts to naughty people, and he is the Good Gift that he gives.” “God is a baby in a manger and a baby is good for nothing, just good. A baby is hard to manipulate but easy to love... and God became a baby.” God wants what every baby wants. He wants you to pick him up and hold him close to your heart. And he wants to give you his heart—Jesus, “from the bosom of the Father.” We think we get a gift for “being good,” when being good is the gift we get. To think you make yourself good is like stealing baby Jesus from the manger. To actually be good is like holding baby Jesus close to your heart. You are the manger. You are “the naughty” and Jesus is the nice. God makes you nice with Jesus. He is not keeping a record of wrongs but cancelling the devil’s record of wrongs by making us right—he is your righteousness. When he seems to be good for nothing, just good, would you pick him up and hold him close to your heart? He may seem to be good for nothing, but he is the something that makes everything good. Pick him up and hold him close to your heart. It’s how you make his Christmas and how he makes you. Merry Christmas.

   December 24, 2021·49min
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   Number 3: Relativity and the Reason That is Right (Christmas)

   “God is so pure and holy that He will punish every single sin ever committed by every single person, either in that person or in the substitute for that person. That is the heart of Christianity,” says John MacArthur, explaining Penal Substitutionary Atonement Theory. Atonement theories try to answer the question, “Why did Jesus have to die on the cross?” Penal Substitution is the prevalent view among American Evangelicals today. There’s definitely something there that’s right and yet, it can also seem so very wrong… even satanic. Instead of Preaching “God so loved the world that he gave his only son;” we preach “God so hated the world that he murdered his only son.” Instead of preaching that it is God’s judgment to save, we preach that Jesus came to save us from God’s judgment... with some knowledge of Good and evil... to be dispensed by the pastor in an authorized church.” We give the impression that our God is a blood-thirsty god. And yet, it was us that drew his blood on the tree, and it was him that offered it the night before at dinner. You can’t find the phrase “penal substitutionary atonement” in your Bible. However, you can find the words, “substitution” (in some Bibles), “punishment,” and most definitely “atonement.” Actually, it’s almost as if the entire Old Testament is a definition of that word. Atonement basically means “at-one-ment.” In ancient Israel, on the day of atonement, the high priest would make atonement for the unintentional sins of Israel by sprinkling sacrificial blood on the top of the Ark of the Covenant in the Holy of Holies between the two Cherubim on top of the Holy Mountain. That place was called the “kapporeth” in Hebrew, meaning “Place of Atonement.” It was also known as The Mercy Seat, The Judgment Seat, and The Throne of God. The Lord asked for blood, for he gave all the blood in the first place. The blood would return to the Throne in the Temple, like blood returns to your heart, receives oxygen, breath, or Spirit, and then is sent back to all the members of your body. The Life is in the Blood. MacArthur asks, “How can God forgive me and still be holy?” That’s such a strange question, considering that the holiest thing, on the holiest day, in the holiest place on the holy mountain was the forgiveness of sins. You can’t find the word “penal” in your bible, but you will find the word “punishment.” And yet every word translated as “punishment” can also be translated as “discipline.” The punishments of God can kill you, but also, raise you from the dead. They’re not bad; they’re the very presence of the Good. The punishment for darkness is Light. For desecration, it’s Creation. For bad judgment, it’s Good Judgment. For sin, it’s Grace. For the Liar, it’s the presence of the Truth. For the lost, it’s being found by the Way. For death, it’s the death of death in the Lake of Fire and Divinity—it is the Life, Eternal Life. There is atonement, and there is punishment, and there is substitution, but maybe not for punishment—a penal substitution. In Genesis chapter two we learn that the punishment for sin is death. Through Ezekiel God tells us, “the soul that sins will die.” No substitutes. It’s strange to imply that Jesus died so you won’t have to die. Jesus taught that you can’t live unless you die; you must “lose your life,” to “find it.” He even said, “pick up your cross and follow.” He didn’t choose to die so you wouldn’t have to die. He died in order to help you choose to die, so you might live—that’s called Faith. Jesus is not a substitute for the Judgment of God your Father. Jesus is the Judgment of God your Father and yet, he is a substitute. He is the substitute for your own bad judgment. Jesus is your righteousness. Faith is “reckoned as righteousness” because it is. So why did Jesus have to die on the cross? When you ask the question from our frame of reference, God will seem to be divided, changeable, limited, and blood-thirsty like us. But when you ask the man on the tree, the answer is rather surprising. He didn’t have to die, he wanted to die; “No one takes my life from me,” said Jesus. And what does his death accomplish? Well, everything . . . including you. Romans 3:23-25, “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified [made right] by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation [literally “The Mercy Seat,” “The Place of Atonement”] through faith in his blood.” Faith is in his blood like oxygen is in your blood. The One on the tree is God your Father who is giving you, his heart. The One on the tree is God the Son who makes you his body and bleeds his life into you. The One on the tree is God the Spirit who longs for you to exhale him and inhale him, to “pass the ball,” “to lose your life and find it,” to love. The One on the tree is Love and he’s making you in his image. “God is One,” writes Paul, “who will justify the circumcised by faith and the uncircumcised through faith” (Romans 3:30) That’s everyone. And that means the atonement works. For it is not your judgment. It’s how God implants his Judgment in you. What’s the reason for wrong? The revelation of the Right. And what’s the reason for the Right? There is no reason for the Right, the Right is the reason for everything else. So, what’s the reason that is Right? That’s Christ and even Christ in you. You are like a virgin that conceives. Jesus never referred to himself (at least in Scripture) as the Son of Mary. His favorite title for himself was “the Son of Man.” That means “Son of You.” “So, what becomes of our boasting?” writes Paul. “It is excluded.” All of our empty boasting will turn into praise. The atonement conquers hell, by filling it with heaven. So, he took the bread and broke it saying this is my body given to you. And he took the cup saying this is the covenant in my blood. Drink of it all of you. This is the atonement. You can never comprehend it, but it will comprehend you.

   December 12, 2021·49min
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   Number 4: Relativity and the Reason for Wrong

   My Dad was really into safety, but he was just nuts for me and the mountains. One day, when I was a boy, we set out early to climb Peak One in the Ten Mile Range. We started early to avoid afternoon storms, but not early enough. White puffs soon turned into black thunderheads. We were in sight of the peak when I noticed my father’s hair standing on end. The wind was beginning to howl. The rain was beginning to fall. We saw lightning and heard thunder. Then, I heard crackling sounds in the rocks beneath my feet. I looked at my Dad and yelled, “We need to turn back, NOW!” My Dad, the safety freak, looked at the peak, looked at me, and yelled “We can make it!” And I thought “This is so wrong.” Do you ever look at our world and think, “This is so wrong.” Then look at our Father in Heaven and say, “I thought I was following you!?” God our Father can’t choose wrong for wrong is defined as ‘that which he does not choose.’ But maybe he can choose that we would gain the knowledge of that which he does not choose—the knowledge of evil. He doesn’t choose evil, but he does, at times, seem to lead us into temptation. The temptation is always to put Him and His Word to the test. He put two naked people, with no knowledge of Good and evil, in a Garden with an evil talking snake, the strangest tree, and a cryptic word warning that the day they ate of it, dying they would die. Is it right that God would let it all go so wrong? What’s the reason for wrong? Why would he lead us into a temptation? My Dad glanced at the peak and looked back at me with a look I’d never seen before. There was a fire in his eyes. He smiled and yelled, “We can make it; let’s do this!” And we did. Alone on that peak with my Dad in the storm is one of my all-time favorite memories. It was the day I learned that there are some things worth dying for—specifically, the view from the top of the mountain. Ezekiel tells us, what most of the ancient Rabbi’s believed, that Eden was at the top of a Holy Mountain—a primordial and eschatological mountain at the beginning and end of time. Eden was also Moriah, Zion, Calvary, and the site of the New Jerusalem containing the tree of Life with leaves for the healing of the nations. Perhaps all the chaos, sin, suffering, and pain of this world is worth the view from the top of that mountain? In Roman 3:3 Paul states his “Theological Theory of Relativity” We must let God be faithful and true (that’s the constant) and let all men be unfaithful and untrue (we are the variables). The implications are astounding. In Romans 3:22-24, he simply states: “There is no distinction: for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.” How many fall short? ALL. And how many are justified by Grace as a gift? ALL That’s the view from the top of the mountain. In the middle of his discourse, he refers to David’s words in Psalm 51—the words he speaks before the Judgment seat in the Sanctuary on the Holy Mountain after he is confronted with his sin against Bathsheba and Uriah, and learns of God’s judgment: 1. David will experience what Uriah experienced. His wives will be taken from him. 2. But it’s not retribution; it’s discipline, for his sin has been “put away.” 3. The Son of David born to Bathsheba will die; it seems this is how the sin is put away. 4. David will “comfort Bathsheba.” He will know her in a new way, not as fruit to be taken, but as a bride to be loved. And she will bear a son: the Prince of Peace. Bathsheba is the great-great-grandmother of Jesus—The Son of David, The Son of Man, The Judgment of God. Jesus is the Judgment of God in David. He is David’s righteousness. That’s how God makes David—the “man after God’s own heart.” So David prays, “Against you, and you alone, have I sinned, that you may be justified in your judgment.” So, what came first? David’s sin or the Judgment of God: Jesus? In the Revelation, Jesus says “I am the root and the offspring of David.” So, what’s the reason for your wrong, and how does God make you right? How does God make Adam (humanity) in the image and likeness of himself? He makes a judgment: “Let us make man in our own image.” He hangs his judgment on a tree on top of the Holy Mountain. He lets us make a bad judgment, which reveals his Good Judgment, that we might fall in love with his Judgment, freely choose his Judgment, give birth to his Judgment, and never desire to put him to the test again. Paul writes, “Let all men be untrue,” because God has “let all men be untrue.” The problem is that we don’t “let” ourselves be untrue... we hide from the Truth: God’s Judgment. If you would “let” yourself be unfaithful and untrue (because you are), you would see that God is always faithful and true and is making you faithful and true. And then you would have no problem with God making everyone faithful and true. You would justify God’s Judgment gladly proclaiming with Paul, “All have sinned and all are justified by his Grace as a gift in Christ Jesus my Lord.” Just before I was defrocked for refusing to publicly confess that God could NOT justify all by his Grace in Christ Jesus my Lord, my wife had a vision of my Dad during communion as we worshiped on the mountain. She said his eyes were... like on fire, as he reached out holding a bowl and saying, “Susan and Peter, do not be afraid to drink from the cup the Lord has for you.” I think he was saying “Let it happen. It’ worth the view from the top of the mountain.” As Jesus hung on the tree on top of the Holy mountain he said, “Father forgive them.” The word forgive is also translated as “let.” “Let all men be untrue and we will show them that we are true and make them all true.” You must forgive yourself and you must forgive all people. It’s worth the view from the top of the mountain.

   December 05, 2021·41min
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   Number 5: Relativity and Thanksgiving

   An old friend once told me, what Billy Graham once told him but didn’t share often in public. That is, that years ago somewhere in China Billy approached a Buddhist monk praying on the side of a road and, through an interpreter, told the monk about Jesus and handed him a Bible. Then, through the interpreter and through tears of joy, the monk told Billy: “How could I ever thank you for such a book? This Jesus you described—I’ve always known him. As you were reading from this book, within me, he was saying, ‘he’s talking about me.’ And when you said the name ‘Jesus,’ he said to me, ‘That’s my name. That’s my name.’” Billy Graham told my friend that he didn’t often share the story in public, for it offended and confused Evangelicals Christians. “Evangelical” literally means “good news teller.” Why would Evangelicals find the good news of salvation to be offensive and confusing? In Romans chapter 2, Paul revealed that all humanity will be judged with the same judgment. And in Romans 3:1, he anticipates this response: “Then, what advantage has the Jew?” That is, “What advantage has the Christian? If Jesus can just show up in the heart of a Buddhist, why talk about Jesus at all? What’s the advantage?” Paul responds: “Much in every way! ... Let God be true, and let every man be a liar.” Yet every man lets himself be true and lets God be untrue--divided, changeable, and false. Then Paul starts talking about justifying God’s judgment. We think: We sinned, so God judges and inflicts wrath to reveal his judgment. Paul thinks: God judged, so we sinned, so God could inflict wrath revealing his judgment, so that we would justify his judgment saying, “Wow that’s a good judgment! I could worship that judgment!” Then Paul makes it clear that we all are untrue, and that Scripture has always revealed this to be true; there is a reason that we are confused and offended. If we let God be true—undivided, unchanging, ubiquitous, and eternal—then, we must let ourselves be divided, changeable, limited, and temporal . . . as in, “dead.” And that’s offensive. And confusing. If you’ve been in the dark for a time, the light can be quite offensive. But if you allow yourself to be offended, the light will cease to be offensive, and everything will begin to make sense, as the light makes sense of you. In 1905 a 24-year-old clerk, named Albert Einstein was riding a bus and looking back at the clock tower in Bern Switzerland. He imagined what he would experience if the bus were traveling at the speed of light. He suddenly realized that the hands on the clock tower would stop, and not just seem to stop, actually stop, for him... if he were light. But we’re not light, are we? We’re matter and energy moving through space and time, right? Until Einstein, physicists assumed that matter, energy, space, and time were constant and then built their house on that foundation. But Einstein jacked up the house and suggested a new foundation: the speed of Light. He took it as a constant, and everything else changed—matter, energy, space, and time. To us, Light appears to be two incompatible things—a particle or a wave. But maybe we are two incompatible things and light is One—undivided, unchanging, true. Physicists have discovered: 1. Light is one and undivided 2. Light is unchanging. It exists in some sort of eternal now. 3. Light is ubiquitous. Whether we “see” it or not, light is everywhere and every-when. In light, we literally “live, move and have our being.” Scripture declares, “God is light.” Jesus said, “I am the Light of the World.” Paul wrote, “You were darkness, but NOW you are light in the Lord.” If you believe that, it will jack up your house and replace the foundation; you will repent and “walk as children of light.” I call it St. Paul’s Theological Theory of Relativity. “Let God be true” (that’s the constant) “and let every man be a liar” (that’s the variable). Look at the One hanging on the tree in the garden. Do you let him be true, or do you let yourself be true? Is he undivided, unchanging, and ubiquitous? How would you know? How do you judge? You could take his life, like fruit from a tree. That’s the original sin. That’s a bad choice. He could give his life even before you took it. That’s the original blessing. That’s the eternal judgment of God. That’s the Light of the world. We can only know because we judge God’s Judgment and everything dies (That’s sin) and because God judges our judgment (that’s grace) and everything lives, as we say, “Wow! That’s a great judgment! Thank you!” (That’s the Kingdom of God). What difference does this make? It’s the difference between nothing and everything. It’s also how you could enjoy Thanksgiving or a great banquet. Imagine all your relatives at Thanksgiving dinner: Now, let all of them be true. . . Expect them to be true and you’ll be horribly disappointed, have a terrible time at dinner, and not be thankful. Now, let some of them be true . . . And you’ll begin asking, “Who’s true and who’s not true? And who paid for the turkey?” You’ll get offended, confused, and not be thankful. Now, let God be true and all of them be false. . . And a miracle begins to happen. You realize: “No one deserves turkey; it’s all gift. None is right; for all are wrong. If anyone speaks the truth (including your cousin, the Buddhist) it’s not her that’s speaking; it’s the Truth within her speaking; it’s Jesus. And if you believe that this is true it’s not even you that’s doing the believing; it’s Christ in you, for although you were faithless, he remains faithful. You are the Judgment of God. You are his creation. Your ex-wife asks you to pass the turkey—the Butterball Turkey—and so, you pass the ball . . . and it’s fun. It is the Judgment of God in the Kingdom of God and you’re thankful.

   November 28, 2021·50min
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