Tripp Fuller

This edition of the LectioCast is from the second live session of Surviving the Bible for Lent, with Tripp and Christian and Amy Piatt. They take a look at the texts for the second Sunday in Lent (Exodus 20:1-17; Psalm 19; 1 Corinthians 1:18-25; John 2:13-22). Tripp gives you 3 different sermons you can preach for Lent using this text, Amy helps us find our true selves, and Christian helps us see the Good News, but difficult news, of Lent.

Plus, the importance of giving up the rules, our identities, our titles – anything we’ve created that we’re attached to, the completeness of God’s law in the Psalm, and the transrational nature of the crucifixion.

And don’t forget you can enter to win some sweet new bibles from our friends at the Common English Bible.

If you want to join the Surviving the Bible for Lent group, it’s not too late!

Sure, we all know Bible verses and may have even tried to read the “whole Bible,” maybe even more than once. But it can be confusing, contradictory and – if we’re being honest – really freaking boring in places. But there’s another way to approach scripture that can actually make sense, and might even be enjoyable.

Join the CultureCast’s Amy and Christian Piatt, along with Tripp, in figuring out how to “Survive the Bible” together this Lent.

This special edition of the LectioCast is from the first live session of Surviving the Bible for Lent, with Tripp and Christian and Amy Piatt. They take a look at the texts for the second Sunday in Lent (Mark 8:31-38; Genesis 17:1-7, 15-16; Romans 4:13-25) plus a brief look at last week’s texts. They talk about the Transfiguration, Peter as object lesson, the willing surrender of control, and Christus Victor.

They also cover the ways these texts have been used to justify suffering, oppression, and abuse, the covenant between God and Abraham, the genesis of the Genesis passage, how the mistranslation of one of the proper names of God radically changes our understanding of the passage, and the importance of the maternal lineage and parental role of God in these passages.

Plus everyone wrestles with Paul about the difference between Law and Covenant

And don’t forget you can enter to win some sweet new bibles from our friends at the Common English Bible.

If you want to join the Surviving the Bible for Lent group, it’s not too late!

Sure, we all know Bible verses and may have even tried to read the “whole Bible,” maybe even more than once. But it can be confusing, contradictory and – if we’re being honest – really freaking boring in places. But there’s another way to approach scripture that can actually make sense, and might even be enjoyable.

Join the CultureCast’s Amy and Christian Piatt, along with Tripp, in figuring out how to “Survive the Bible” together this Lent.

The lectionary this week is daring you to dodge Genesis 22. I talk about the other texts, but how do you pass on Genesis 22! In this episode I mention…

This week on the lectiocast I took some advice from twitter, which is tantamount to a genius, and attempted to sing the introduction to the episode. If the Good Dr. Daniel Kirk returns early to the podcast you will know why… he wants to sing.

The texts for the week include Jesus getting hardcore with his disciples in Matthew 10:24-39, Paul talking about participation in Christ in Romans 6:1-11, and one of the most terrifying texts of all scripture, Genesis 21:8-21. If you dare to tackle the Genesis text then you really need to go read the Phyllis Trible chapter on it in the book below. It’s so good you might cry.

During the episode I mention a couple of books including…

Just because you might be rocking a green stole doesn’t mean you have to dial back the sermonic nerdiness. After all this week you get one of the most important texts in the entire Bible – Genesis 18:1-15. On top of Abraham’s transformation of hostility to hospitality with the three strangers you have Matthew 9:35-10:8 in which Jesus sends the disciples out to a less than hospitable Israel, Romans 5:1-8 where Paul starts theologizing about justification, and Psalm 116:1-2, 12-19.  

The good Doctor Daniel Kirk is on a road trip across the country with Clan Kirk, but no need to fear your Lectiocast is still here! It is an honor to fill in for Daniel and talk some lectionary goodness. We will see how long it takes before Daniel quits his trip and gets me off the show, but for now I am excited.

During the podcast I discuss the four lectionary texts for the week and the questions I imagine inspiring my sermonizing…if I was still working in a pulpit.

For each of the texts I pulled out some questions that could drive a sermon. Here’s a few of them.

The Spirit enables Jesus’s followers to speak to all the devout Jews, reconfiguring our understanding of “devout,” forcing us to reimagine who it is that belongs to the inner circle of the people of God.

Acts 2:1-21 The Spirit of God comes as an image of eschatological judgment and of eschatological salvation, surprising us all with its redefinition of the people of God.

1 Corinthians 12:3b-13 God’s disassembly of our presumed social hierarchies begins with God’s own involvement with the people and extends through our being united to each other and transformed in the body of Christ.

Numbers 11:24-30 The uncontrollable nature of the Spirit of God has always been a characteristic of its work. As much as we might want to control it, God wants it to burst beyond our expectations. So, of course, it does.

Psalm 104:24-34, 35b God’s spirit is the breath of life. God’s presence is an earth-shattering event.

John 20:19-23 In John’s “Pentecost,” the disciples are equipped by the Spirit for a mission of self-giving love and representation of God to the world. 

Daniel Kirk is a writer, speaker, and blogger who lives in San Francisco, CA where he is currently Pastoral Director for the Newbigin House of Studies. His third book A Man Attested by God: the Human Jesus of the Synoptic Gospels, is hot off the presses. Daniel holds a Ph.D. in New Testament from Duke University and is the author of, Unlocking Romans: Resurrection and the Justification of God and Jesus Have I Loved, but Paul? He blogs regularly at StoriedTheology.com  (http://patheos.com/blogs/storiedtheology). You can follow him on Twitter @jrdkirk and on Facebook at Facebook.com/jrdkirk.

After Jesus got that resurrection body, God wasn’t done. The resurrected Jesus is exalted, enthroned, and glorified. Because Jesus receives God’s glory, we get to as well. 

Acts 1:6-14 God might not be restoring the kingdom to Israel, but God is restoring the kingship of the earth to humanity. The disciples will know it when they receive the same power Jesus had at their baptism by the Spirit.

Psalm 68:1-10, 33-35 The idea of God having enemies to conquer doesn’t sound that great, until we realize that they’re the ones who kept the orphans homeless and the widows penniless. The God who rides on the clouds finds echoes in the ascension of Jesus.

1 Peter 4:12-14; 5:6-11 People who follow Jesus should expect to embody the Jesus story. That means suffering and resurrection. That means having to trust God when we would otherwise be anxious. Same thing.

John 17:1-11 God restores Jesus’s glory. The heavenly future comes down into the present. And we, too, get to bear the glory of God in Christ. We, too, get to know the oneness of the divine union. 

 Daniel Kirk is a writer, speaker, and blogger who lives in San Francisco, CA where he is currently Pastoral Director for the Newbigin House of Studies. His third book A Man Attested by God: the Human Jesus of the Synoptic Gospels, is hot off the presses. Daniel holds a Ph.D. in New Testament from Duke University and is the author of, Unlocking Romans: Resurrection and the Justification of God and Jesus Have I Loved, but Paul? He blogs regularly at StoriedTheology.com  (http://patheos.com/blogs/storiedtheology). You can follow him on Twitter @jrdkirk and on Facebook at Facebook.com/jrdkirk.

Jesus has been raised. I think this means we don’t have to worry about crazy passages from 1 Peter. 

Acts 17:22-31 Paul unravels the narrative of polytheism, claiming for one God a unique place of sovereignty and honor. And then he pulls in a Jesus juke at the end to call for repentance. Masterful.

Psalm 66:8-20 God gets a lot of credit here, maybe more than we’re comfortable ascribing to a loving deity: bringing us through nets and piling up burdens before finally delivering. But it works well as a story of Jesus. Try it on.

1 Peter 3:13-22 For the second time this week we have to dodge models for doing apologetics. Fortunately there are some good distractions: like stories of fallen angels going to prison and being taunted by Jesus, stories told to provoke confidence that God will be victorious over his people’s enemies.

John 14:15-21 Get ready to have your brain scrambled by a Jesus/Spirit/Father/follower mind-meld. And all of it is known and done through a Christological reorientation of what it looks like to be the people of God.

 Daniel Kirk is a writer, speaker, and blogger who lives in San Francisco, CA where he is currently Pastoral Director for the Newbigin House of Studies. His third book A Man Attested by God: the Human Jesus of the Synoptic Gospels, is hot off the presses. Daniel holds a Ph.D. in New Testament from Duke University and is the author of, Unlocking Romans: Resurrection and the Justification of God and Jesus Have I Loved, but Paul? He blogs regularly at StoriedTheology.com  (http://patheos.com/blogs/storiedtheology). You can follow him on Twitter @jrdkirk and on Facebook at Facebook.com/jrdkirk.

Jesus. This week is all about Jesus. Jesus reconfiguring the identity of the people of God. Jesus receiving God’s vindication in the face of humanity’s rejection of him. Jesus holding the identity that we get to share in: living stones, the one in whom the father is at work so that the father might be glorified.

Acts 7:55-60 Stephen relives the Jesus story: condemned as a blasphemer of the Temple, he raises the ire of the leadership by proclaiming Jesus as the son of man at God’s right hand. He entrusts his spirit to God even as he forgives his persecutors in the face of death. Jesus’s followers are little Christs. 

Psalm 31:1-5, 15-16 Shame is found in abandonment. Honor and exaltation are found in deliverance. The New Testament’s boldest move is to claim honor and exaltation for those who go to death in service of God.

1 Peter 2:2-10 Children who long for the milk that begot them, little Christs who are living stones like Jesus, priests who minister spiritual sacrifices that replace the Temple. A multi-faceted articulation of our identity as the people of God, with a little supersessionism thrown in for good measure.

John 14:1-14 Knowing Jesus is knowing God. And knowing Jesus is knowing the one and only way to God. And knowing Jesus being made into the likeness of Jesus and God so that God will be glorified by what we do. It’s all very confusing.

 Daniel Kirk is a writer, speaker, and blogger who lives in San Francisco, CA where he is currently Pastoral Director for the Newbigin House of Studies. His third book A Man Attested by God: the Human Jesus of the Synoptic Gospels, is hot off the presses. Daniel holds a Ph.D. in New Testament from Duke University and is the author of, Unlocking Romans: Resurrection and the Justification of God and Jesus Have I Loved, but Paul? He blogs regularly at StoriedTheology.com  (http://patheos.com/blogs/storiedtheology). You can follow him on Twitter @jrdkirk and on Facebook at Facebook.com/jrdkirk.