Buzz King: Grace & Joy thru Scripture
Learning about God’s grace from Scripture & Passing that grace on to others.
Episodes
Sunday Jul 31, 2022
The journey
Sunday Jul 31, 2022
Sunday Jul 31, 2022
We look at the Gospel of John and the story of Nicodemus, a seemingly minor character, yet a person who shows us something very important about faith. He is a member of the Sanhedrin, the rabbinical court that ultimately condemns Jesus to death. Through a series of meetings with Christ, he incrementally becomes a true believer, finally ending up at the grave of Jesus, offering the myrrh and aloe to anoint Jesus' body. Thus we see that faith is not an instantaneous all-or-nothing thing, that it grows continuously over years, or decades, or perhaps over our entire lifetimes.
Sunday Jul 24, 2022
To set sail
Sunday Jul 24, 2022
Sunday Jul 24, 2022
As a chaplain, I have noticed that older patients are often far more worried about the spiritual health of their adult children than they are about their own physical health. To a believer, it can be far easier to accept approaching death if one knows that they are right with God. In Paul's letter to the believers in Philippi, he says that he has trouble deciding between remaining on Earth and serving God's people or "departing" and being with God. The word he uses, depart, is "analysai", in Greek, and it was used to refer to a boat being released from the dock and setting sail. We look at the duality of serving other believers while we are alive and knowing that one day we, too will be released to set sail.
Sunday Jul 17, 2022
The wilderness
Sunday Jul 17, 2022
Sunday Jul 17, 2022
God gave the Israelites land to live on - but it was not the most accommodating land. The Israelites lived under the constant threat of the dangers of the "wilderness" desert. From Moses to Jesus, biblical figures faced spiritual testing in the wilderness. We can live in the wilderness vicariously by reading the Bible. This can prepare us for our own wilderness experiences, so that these experiences grow - and do not damage - our faith.
Sunday Jul 10, 2022
Life eternal
Sunday Jul 10, 2022
Sunday Jul 10, 2022
In 1st Timothy, one of the Pastoral Letters (a letter written by Paul to a pastor, not to a church), Paul tells his protege Timothy that those who believe in Christ receive zōēn aiōnion, or life eternal. As a hospital chaplain and a pastor, I have seen many terminally ill people who have not attended church for many decades turn back to their childhood faith and the comfort of the promise of a life eternal. We look at what these ancient Greek words actually mean. What is zōēn aiōnion? It's not exactly what our English Bible translations would lead us to believe...
Monday Jul 04, 2022
Joy comes in the morning
Monday Jul 04, 2022
Monday Jul 04, 2022
In Exodus, Moses' life is broken into 3 poetically perfect periods of spiritual trial, with 40 being a common numerological device for representing a maximal period of testing in the Bible. He spends 40 years living with his people who are slaves in Egypt, 40 years hiding and working as a shepherd in a remote area, and 40 years in the Wilderness leading his people. Through Moses, we see that our goal should be a life of faith, not a life of earthly reward.
Sunday Jun 26, 2022
Hail and burning coals
Sunday Jun 26, 2022
Sunday Jun 26, 2022
We see that the story of Exodus is referenced by Bible authors many hundreds of years - perhaps a millennium after it occurred. In fact, repeatedly, and into the New Testament, Exodus is echoed in Scripture as the ultimate example of God coming to our answer when we find ourselves in an impossible situation. We look at how we can turn to God and ask for our own Exodus when we need God to guide us through a great trial.
Sunday Jun 19, 2022
Knowledge, wisdom, and innocence
Sunday Jun 19, 2022
Sunday Jun 19, 2022
The story of Moses continues into Deuteronomy. Moses delivers the Ten Commandments to the generation of Israelites who were born during the 40 years in the desert. We look at the difficulty that we face maintaining moral innocence in an age when we are assaulted with knowledge that corrupts. Only by being wise in handling the knowledge of our brutal, evil world can we remain innocent. Moses faced this very same challenge: how to educate that innocent generation, and at the same time, making them wise, so that they do not become corrupt.
Sunday Jun 12, 2022
What is it?
Sunday Jun 12, 2022
Sunday Jun 12, 2022
This is the second in a series of messages on the Exodus. When the People of God were in the desert for 40 years, they had a problem with their food supply: there wasn't enough. God blessed them with manna, a sweet white substance that appeared every morning. Manna means "What is it?", and that's what the Israelites said when they first saw it. We look at God's dependency, God's faithfulness to us. Whatever problem we have in life, God will get us through it, just like God got his people through the Red Sea when they had the Egyptian army at their back. Whenever we have a need, God will meet it. God will give us our daily manna.
Sunday Jun 05, 2022
Red Sea moments
Sunday Jun 05, 2022
Sunday Jun 05, 2022
Christians often talk about "Red Sea moments", times when we are facing a sea, with a mighty army at our backs. We have nowhere to turn, no way to escape. We can only pray that God will indeed keep his promise: to not necessarily make our promises go away, but to definitely step us through to the other side. In our nation and world today, we are all facing one hell of a Red Sea moment, with violence and hatred on the rise, global ecological challenges, and a dramatic loss of faith in God. We look at how a believer should handle Red Sea moments.
Sunday May 29, 2022
A living dog
Sunday May 29, 2022
Sunday May 29, 2022
In Ecclesiastes, we are told that "a living dog is better than a dead lion". In the Bible, dogs represent the despised, the unclean, the evil enemy devouring the innocent. But lions are like the warrior's heart, like the Messiah. Which would we rather be, a dead lion or a living dog? In our society, we are taught to revere the lions of society, while many of are reduced to the level of dogs. As the faithful, we are far, far better off as live dogs with God walking beside us, than dead, once-powerful lions.
Sunday May 22, 2022
Unintentional sin
Sunday May 22, 2022
Sunday May 22, 2022
The Bible clearly says that we can sin without intending to do wrong. While ignorance of the law is no excuse in the secular world, it seems harsh that God would judge us as sinful when we didn't intend any harm. We look at Adam's original sin, the command God made of Moses to punish those who sin unintentionally, and the New Testament spin on sin. Our goal is to figure out whether we can indeed sin without meaning to - and if so, how does this come about?
Sunday May 15, 2022
Evil is from within
Sunday May 15, 2022
Sunday May 15, 2022
We are told in Genesis that God created everything and God created everything good. We consider the war in Ukraine and the actions of Putin. How did he end up seemingly so evil? How did Satan end up evil? Why do all humans do things that are arguably evil? We look at the Bible for answers. We look at the Gospel of Mark and the difference between evil and mental illness.
Sunday May 08, 2022
House churches
Sunday May 08, 2022
Sunday May 08, 2022
Small churches across the country are closing. The two options for new, successful churches seem to be 1) small ones that are established in non-traditional settings, like cafes, pubs, online churches, and in particular, home churches, and 2) very large “destination” churches that people are motivated to drive miles to attend. We look at home churches, and how, in the near future, many smaller congregations may choose to meet in homes in order to avoid the costs associated with maintaining formal church buildings. We examine the history of home churches, through the eyes of the New Testament.
Sunday May 01, 2022
Buzz’s burnt offering
Sunday May 01, 2022
Sunday May 01, 2022
The Israelites developed complex rituals as a way to blend together their faith lives and their daily lives. Unlike Christians today, they didn't think of God only on one morning a week. Christianity has lost much of its rituals. We look at a humorous example as way of examining this issue of pulling God back into our daily lives.
Sunday Apr 24, 2022
Boundless empathy
Sunday Apr 24, 2022
Sunday Apr 24, 2022
In Paul's letter to Philemon, he is asking Philemon to free a slave in order to allow him to assist Paul in his ministry. In this letter, Paul does not make an unequivocal statement against slavery, despite attempts by modern readers to argue that he does so. However, Paul does show significant empathy for this slave, Onesimus. And Paul tells us to "bless those who persecute you. Don’t curse them; pray that God will bless them. Be happy with those who are happy, and weep with those who weep." Indeed, as believers are required to have unlimited, boundless empathy for all people.