Here's an interesting pair of parables! Jesus used them to explain why and how you're going to hate your family.

Wait... what?

You probably want to be sure to check this one out!

Jesus described the Kingdom of Heaven as a man who paid his workers a living wage...

Really. 

But what on earth did he mean by that? And why is it so hard for us to understand it?

We cover all that (and more!) In this week's shared examination of one of the crazy stories Jesus told. 

"It's the only way!"
Are you sure about that?

"It has to be done this way! It's JUSTICE!"
Do you really think so? Or is that your anger talking?

"It's the only language THOSE PEOPLE understand!"
Nonsense. It's the only language YOU want to speak. It's not the language that God taught you. It isn't what was decreed. It's not at all what you were told to do. It's just what you want. And, in the end, you'll convince yourself that all that blood on your hands was necessary and just and right, even though it isn't. 

And you'll find that nothing you do or think or say can get it off.

This week, the timeless tale of a man who put his trust in wealth, status, power, and walls. And when his life was to be weighed on the scales of justice, he paid a great amount of wealth, granted an unsurpassed level of status, and ceded a portion of power equal to his own to tip the balance. To what effect? Join us today for this, the second of 2025's Horror Stories from the Bible, and find out.

Every year at about this time, we spend a few weeks examining horror stories from the Bible. This year we revisit one of my favorites: The Day of the Dead.

Is there something to be learned from the stories of unnatural or even terrifying things in scripture? The earliest sages certainly thought so! They carefully included these tales in their accounting of the interactions between God and humankind and used them regularly in their teaching. I think we need to do the same. 

You never really realize how much of what you think you know is based on things that go without saying. Many of the things we believe are formed by the culture we live in. Attitudes and interpretations of events are often based entirely on assumptions we make which may or may not have any basis in reality. 

There was this time when Jesus told a story about a Pharisee... and it didn't go where you probably think it did and it wasn't intended to make a point to who you probably think it was.

Jesus said some crazy things. Join us as we look at one of them.

Yeast is a) Delicious, b) Corrupting, c) Representative of Evil, or d) a Kind of mold spore?

In one parable Jesus told the crowds who followed him, yeast was an illustration of the Kingdom of God. But that flew in the face of traditional teaching about leaven being nothing more than putrefaction. How and why could he make such a crazy analogy?

Join us as we examine one of the many parables Jesus told, the reasons he told them, and why we should never thing of them as simple moralistic stories that everyone would agree on. 

"Wait!" you cry. "We've already been through all Ten Commandments! What do you meant there's one more we need to talk about?" 

Oh, my friends. There really has always only been one commandment we've been concerned with. The Ten all point to it. The 613 demonstrate it. and, according to Jesus, we are all bound to it. We MUST choose to follow it, or we're lost, because our very souls are bound to our decision to follow or abandon the covenant path laid out for us by Jesus. 

Today: The Final Word of God, the New Covenant which it established, and what you are to do and who you are to be along the way.

Even if you skipped all the others, you'll want to hear this one...

Some say that the Tenth Commandment is there to remind us that the Law is impossible to follow. Others (and I'm of this persuasion) say it is God's way of pointing out that if we are truly grateful for what we have, the rest of the commands will be met as we express that gratitude.

To understand that, we're going to need to realize that the word "covet" doesn't refer to a sports car.

Join our examination of the Tenth Word of God! I really covet your attention to this subject - and that's just fine.

A HUGE problem with the way we tend to think about the Ten Commandments as separate rules for how to live our individual lives is that it isn't true. The deeper message behind each of God's utterances is always one of growing a community based on love and care rather than one set on rules and condemnation. That doesn't mean we don't have responsibility to uphold certain things as individuals, but it does mean that we need to stop thinking "What does this mean to me?" and get back to thinking "How do my choices effect the whole community?" And, if you think, "My little thing isn't hurting anyone," or "My thing is only hurting one or two people," or "My tiny, insignificant thing is just a spark that's going to wink out of existence and not matter to anyone," then you're ignoring the reality that even the smallest of sparks can become the largest of conflagrations.

Is the Ninth Commandment about lying? And does it matter? Join our discussion today and find out.