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Episodes
Dedicated to the legacy of bold thinking Christianity through the writings of George MacDonald and Michael Phillips.
Episodes
Thursday Mar 21, 2024
Thursday Mar 21, 2024
It is unfortunate, in one sense, that the Lord's parable of the talents is about money and the return gained from its use. This has led to the false idea that God cares about the world of finance. The misappropriation of the truth of this parable has contributed to many foolish prosperity doctrines that are an embarrassment to the church. Because of the deeper meaning in the parable, however, the first century unit of money-weight Jesus spoke of actually became our English word for "talent," which certainly brings us much closer to Jesus' intent.
Tuesday Mar 19, 2024
Tuesday Mar 19, 2024
New Testament scholar William Barclay says plainly about Mark 9:48-50, "These three verses are amongst the most difficult in the New Testament to interpret."
Thursday Mar 14, 2024
Thursday Mar 14, 2024
At first I wrote Bring children to me in order to more directly represent Jesus' words. Then I realized that Jesus was addressing a larger principle: The childlikeness required to receive the principles of God's kingdom. There are several huge implications involved.
Tuesday Mar 12, 2024
Tuesday Mar 12, 2024
We continually find that the familiarity of certain of Jesus' words often obscures their astonishing meaning. Here, for example, many images of what it means to take upon oneself the Lord's "yoke" spring to mind, along with his oft-quoted words of comfort, You shall find rest for your souls.
Thursday Mar 07, 2024
Thursday Mar 07, 2024
Self-defense is one of the most automatic of human responses. When challenged, threatened, contradicted, or accused, we blurt out a defense before the voice of criticism has even died away. Often we do not wait so long as that to defend ourselves, but interrupt to counter the word against us before it is even finished.
Tuesday Mar 05, 2024
Tuesday Mar 05, 2024
With so much emphasis in Christendom through the centuries on salvation, it is remarkable that Jesus did not spell out in more detail exactly what salvation is. In his conversation with Nicodemus, in which he said that one must be "born again" to see the kingdom of God, in the single most well-known verse of the Bible, he connects being born again with "belief"; For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. (John 3:16)
Thursday Feb 29, 2024
Thursday Feb 29, 2024
One of the curious anomalies to arise out of the Evangelical and Pentecostal renewal of the late 20th century has been an inordinate obsession with spiritual "signs and wonders" as validating the work of the Holy Spirit. Entire churches, ministries, evangelistic movements, and schools have devoted themselves to the miraculous, and the encouragement of its manifestations to the exclusion of many other aspects of a rounded Christian life of obedience.
Tuesday Feb 27, 2024
Tuesday Feb 27, 2024
There are a variety of Commands that all point in the same direction: Give and expect nothing in return. Some emphasize giving more than has been requested: Go two miles instead of one, when asked for your coat give your cloak as well. The Command before us from Luke 6 contains three messages.
Thursday Feb 22, 2024
Thursday Feb 22, 2024
We continue to encounter the strange dichotomy in the Lord's words between public and private righteousness. How do we balance, Beware of practicing your piety before men, with, Let your light so shine before men? The two commands appear less than a chapter apart in the Sermon on the Mount, yet seem to instruct us in completely opposite directions.
Tuesday Feb 20, 2024
Tuesday Feb 20, 2024
Note that Jesus does not directly command Don't be a hypocrite. Is the reason perhaps because, in truth, to a degree we cannot help being hypocrites. We are all sinners, and thus hypocrites, together. It is part of the human condition.