Buzz King: Grace & Joy thru Scripture

When I was a boy, I was confronted by an angry officer with a gun who wanted to arrest me.  He thought I had just attacked and badly injured an elderly lady.  When he found out he was wrong, he went out of his way to apologize to me and my father.  We look at forgiveness in both the Old and New Testaments.  We consider what it really means to have forgiveness be an integral part of our Christian lives.  We consider what flows from that...

We look at the story of the Tower of Babel, and at its traditional interpretation, along with some newer twists on that interpretation.  We consider how this ties in with a story from the New Testament, and how the Tower of Babel, combined with a New Testament slant, tells a very uplifting story.  We also look at a man I met a while back who was building his own Tower of Babel, and how that went wrong.

A man with no home and no family once showed up at the hospital having a seizure.  We look at how this man responded to being treated with compassion.  We also look at the "sandwiched" stories of Jesus curing the daughter of a rich man and Jesus healing a poor woman.  We look at a very special word in the inner story - kraspedou - and how the way it is typically translated tends to greatly minimize the true impact of this story.  We consider how we use this to greatly ease the process of connecting with God in a truly deep and meaningful way.
 

I once met a former EMT who was using a high tech wheelchair because she was an incomplete quadriplegic.  She was in the hospital for a test, but was highly traumatized, suffering from a PTSD attack because she was back in a hospital - after having spent months in an ICU after her accident.  She told me the story of how, as an EMT earning a bit over the minimum wage, she had been in a traffic accident while on an emergency run.  We look at 1 John and at Galatians, and see just what Scripture says about risking our safety to help others, spiritually and physically.  We consider this woman, and we look at our own lives.

Supposedly, Ecclesiastes was written by Solomon, but in truth it was written 700 years later.  I studied Greek philosophy and literature in college at Occidental, long ago.  Something stuck with me later: Ecclesiastes was probably written in part as a response to the Greek influence on Hebrew culture at the time Ecclesiastes was written - just after the height of the Epicurean age.  We consider the jaded view presented by the author of Ecclesiastes and how in truth, the author is making a very positive point about the frustrations, the "vanity" or "vapor" of the things we grasp in this life "under the sun".  We consider why the author writes from the perspective of Solomon, and we look at the place Ecclesiastes holds in the world of philosophy - and what we can learn from this today.

I used to tease my kids, telling them things that were not real and getting them to believe it, before telling them it was a joke.  This backfired when my little daughter refused to eat an ice cream cone that I told her was safe to eat - convinced that I was trying to get her to eat cardboard.  I had turned myself into a wolf in sheep's clothing, a dad that was not to be believed.  We look at the use of the wolf in the Bible, as a symbol of brutal attack on us physically and spiritually.  We consider various Bible passages, from Jesus' warning about those wolves in sheep's clothing to Isaiah, who predicted a time when we would live with the wolf.  We consider the fact that it is time to do so - despite our society declaring Christians as inherently evil.

Wendy and I once traveled in Ireland with our kids - when they were quite small.  We had some adventures, in particular, a surprise concert at a nearby zoo, by U2.  We look at the book of Ecclesiastes, a very enigmatic and literate book that talks about the difficulties of finding true satisfaction and meaning in life on Earth.  It can be a very jaded read.  But it teaches us some very important points about God's plan for us in this life.  We look at how to grab onto joy, and we also consider how this Old Testament philosophy is strongly echoed in the New Testament.

I met a young man who considered himself a modern "Gnostic" - and I learned about the dire limitations of his faith.  We look at 1st John, a deeply theological letter that strives to set the reader straight on the basic tenets of Christian faith.  We look at issues such as Christ being both fully human and fully man, at the source of love, and the need to recognize the reality of sin.  We see why being fully Christian is so important today.

I visited Israel once, and drove the length of the old Unified Kingdom under David and Solomon: about 100 or so miles.  We look at the history of the 10 tribes of Israel, the United Kingdom, and the divided kingdoms of Israel and Judah.  We consider the tiny size and brief period during when the Unified Kingdom existed.  We consider what a couple of Prophets and the New Testament has to say about the coming eternal, universal kingdom.  We also consider how this should impact the way that we deal with the chaos of the world around us.

We consider a couple of prominent Bible passages that superficially seem to back up the "fire and brimstone" sermon that I once heard from a rather strident pastor.  But we look at these passages more closely.  We consider whether God really is vengeful and violent.  We consider an alternative interpretation of these New Testament passages - and see if perhaps there is a common misinterpretation of the message of God, in both the Old and the New Testaments.

We consider an ancient landfill found in Egypt - which contains the oldest known New Testament fragments ever found.  We look at the very negative view that the ancient Jews had of garbage or refuse of any kind and what this means for God choosing to preserve his most ancient New Testament Word in a landfill.  We also consider a man I once met who worked in a landfill and how ashamed he was of his work.  Little did he know that he worked in the sort of place that has become beloved by archeologists and is a primary reason why future generations will have no choice to trust that the New Testament Word of God is real, not faked, not forged - and very dependable.

We consider something that I have had trouble conveying in my church and in my podcasts: how we know that we can relax and depend on God to take care of us.  We do this by looking at the Book of Esther, an ancient Hebrew story (and not really "history") about a woman who saves the entire Jewish people from annihilation.  God is never mentioned in the story.  Neither is prayer, the history of the Israelites, the covenant with God, or theology ever explicitly mentioned.  Yet, we see that this is a deeply spiritual book - and therein lies our secret.

When I was a boy, a girl went missing while playing Hide and Go Seek with some of us.  Her mother ended up offering a prayer, which I later identified, I believe, as the Prayer of Manasseh, from the Apocrypha.  We look at the history of the evil King Manasseh from the Kings and Chronicles Books, and at this prayer which is attributed to him (which he certainly did not write).  From the beautiful, poetic prayer we can learn a lot about why to pray and how to pray.

When I was a young kid in school, I was exposed to a boy who would probably now be called "neurodivergent".  I ended up learning a lot about what it means to be different, but still be made in God's image.  We look at Samson, a sinful, arrogant, corrupt, even laughable man who is manipulated by God to serving despite his apparent desire to dishonor his position as a Nazarite.  We look at the many lessons we learn about what God can do with someone or some situation that seems imperfect.

We look at a story from Judges: the female judge Deborah and how her army destroyed the far more advanced army of their enemy.  In the Bible, it is an epic of the Iron Age of the Canaanites vs. the Bronze Age of the Israelites.  We study both the prose and the poem version of this story.  We see how with God's help, the rag tag Israelite army destroys the experienced Canaanite army which is invading on their iron chariots.  We look at how this applies to us today - and we consider more than just the lesson that we need God's help.