Personal transformation is a hot topic in our world. Books, conferences, life coaches, YouTube videos, and many other places offer us counsel on how to live a transformed life. This famous prayer shows us one of the most essential, but also perhaps the most repellant ingredients: repentance. Is it just beating yourself up and feeling bad about yourself, or is it something else, something deeper, and therefore more transformative than we suspect? This psalm gives us the answers.
Psalm 137 is one of the most shocking and controversial Psalms in the whole Bible. It ends with a dark line, “Blessed is the one who dashes your little ones against the rocks.” This Psalm invites us into the frightening emotion of wrath. We are often resistant to feeling wrath. But if we are willing to take the time to listen to this uncomfortable Psalm, we might find that wrath is not always a bad thing.
The Psalms give us a way of working through the various emotions and experiences of our lives that is utterly unique. This is especially true when it comes to our darker, more difficult emotions: fear, anger, guilt, shame, sorrow, grief, etc. Instead of stuffing and denying them (which many traditional and religious approaches advocate), or instead of dumping them and bowing down to them (which secular culture advocates), the psalms tells us: pray your feelings. This psalm is all about tears and sorrow, and if we follow its lead, we can find a way through the most painful experiences in life that leads us to a life of greater joy and fruitfulness.
Fear is one of the first emotions we feel. And it continues throughout our lives to be one of the most basic, primal, and consistent. What do we do with it? Prayer often begins in trouble, but inevitably leads us closer to God himself. But that doesn’t mean we no longer need to bring our troubles to God! On the contrary, the closer we grow to him, the more we can actually bring our greatest troubles to him. This week, we look at how the Psalms train us to bring our fears to God in prayer.
Many people have noticed that the “prayer book of the Bible” does not actually begin with a prayer. Psalm 1 is a meditation on meditation, and it shows us that we need a gateway or bridge to help us detox from our high-stimulus world and enter into prayer. Unless we spend time listening to God through his word before entering into prayer, we run the risk of projecting our “truth” onto God, rather than his Truth penetrating and transforming us. Join us this week as we continue our journey through Psalms: The School of Prayer.
Recent research overwhelmingly indicates that our world is becoming more religious, not less. Even though there are lower reported levels of formal religious participation in our country, human beings are just as spiritually thirsty as they’ve ever been. Spirituality is in vogue (witness the boom in interest in mindfulness meditation), and prayer is one of the main ways spiritual connection has been sought over the centuries. But in order to know what prayer is, and how to do it, you need a teacher. Psalms is the Bible’s Prayer Book. Over the next several weeks we will learn to pray using this ancient resource. This week we begin with some of the basics. Join us as we attend the School of Prayer!
Have you ever felt an emotional low after Easter? Have you ever wondered how we are supposed to live as Christians in a world that has not been finally freed from all sin and death? John addresses these questions in his first letter. He tells us that God has lovingly, and miraculously made us His children. So therefore, we ought not to act like children of the devil, rather we ought to live like children of God.
Of all the questions and objections to faith, perhaps the least common is the question of the resurrection. But it should be the biggest question! If Jesus didn’t rise from the dead, none of the other questions matter. But if Jesus did indeed rise from the dead, it is the only question that truly matters. Especially because the resurrection gives us a hope for our lives and the world that nothing else can give us, and nothing else can take away. How? Join us as we conclude this series on “The Questions of God.”
Maybe the biggest objection to belief in God is the problem of evil and suffering. Certainly it is the most personal and visceral. Amazingly, though, the Bible itself doesn’t shy away from this question. In fact, it tackles it head on in numerous places. This passage is one of the most famous stories in the ministry of Jesus, and also one of the best places to look in order to find out how the Bible engages our minds, and impacts our hearts, in this most difficult of questions.
A big objection to Christianity is its exclusivity. People ask, “How can Christians say that Jesus is the only way? That seems like the height of arrogance, intolerance, and narrow-mindedness. Religious truth claims like that inevitably lead to superiority, oppression, division, and violence.” In this passage, Jesus himself deals with this objection, because Jesus himself is the source of the claim. In doing so, he shows how the gospel is the only approach to life that has the ability to work against our innate tendencies towards superiority and hostility toward people who differ from us.
One of the most common objections to Christianity is the behavior of Christians themselves. The record of the church throughout history has been full of hypocrisy, injustice, and oppression. People rightly ask, “How can I put my faith in something that has such a horrible record of injustice?” The first thing we must say to this is, “It’s true.” But is that all there is to say? This passage from the letter of James gives us a fascinating insight not just into the problem of hypocrisy in the church, but it’s counter-intuitive and life-changing solution.
The doctrine of hell is probably the single most repellant and difficult doctrine in Christianity. Many people try to soften it, or get rid of it all together. The problem is that the person who talked more about hell, and gave us more information about hell, is Jesus himself. Apparently, Jesus did not have any problem holding together a God of love with a God of judgment. In fact, when we see what Jesus is really teaching us about hell, we learn that the only way you can have a God of love is if you’re willing to allow that God also to be a God of judgment. How? Join us and find out in this week’s episode.
One of the big questions that comes up when you start talking about Jesus in particular is the question of the Bible. Can you trust it? Is it a reliable source of information?Many people today would say, “No, it’s not reliable.” They would say, “The Bible was written so many years after Jesus lived, and has been translated and re-translated so many times, that there’s no way any of us can know who Jesus really was, or what he really said and did.”
You can see how important this question is. Because the Bible is the foundation for Christian belief and practice. If it’s true and reliable, then we have a trustworthy guide. But if it’s not, if it’s just a bunch of myths and legends, then there’s no way to know the truth about Jesus.
The question of God’s existence is a foundational question, and the way you answer it has profound implications for every other area of your life. One of the problems, however, is that God’s existence is not the kind of thing that can be proven (or disproven) irrefutably. But that doesn’t mean it is an exercise in blind (i.e. irrational) faith. The world is full of clues. In fact, when we look inside our own minds and hearts, we find powerfully compelling evidence for the existence of God. The question is not whether there is evidence. The question is: What explanation makes best sense of the evidence?
Welcome to a new series in which we examine the big questions and objections people have to faith in God, and Christianity in particular. We begin with the question of God and science. People might ask, “Why not begin with the question of God’s existence?” The reason is because for many people, science makes the question of God irrelevant. If science answers every question about the universe, there is no need to inquire about God. In fact, one common narrative is that of the war between God and science. This is both unfortunate and unnecessary. Join us this week as we explore the question of God and science.
As we end this series, we come back to the reason Jesus told this parable in the first place. The religious leaders couldn’t imagine being in community with “tax collectors and sinners.” They were angry at Jesus for welcoming people whom they saw as morally repugnant and a danger to society. The idea of a shared world with them brought them no joy, so Jesus told them this parable to say, in effect, “It should, because it brings God great joy.” How can we find, not just a willingness to be in community with people we would consider enemies, but real joy in that prospect? Jesus shows us by giving us a picture of God’s vision for the world: a feast. What does that mean? Join us for the conclusion of this series.
One of the most intimate, vulnerable, and powerful parts of our lives is our identity. While identity language and debates about identity are ubiquitous in our culture today, Jesus had a lot to say about it 2,000 years ago. As we continue our series in this famous parable, we learn the two primary ways people have sought identities over the years, and how the gospel provides a unique, unassailable third way.
This week, we get to the heart of this parable: forgiveness. On its surface, it sounds much more appealing to our cultural ears than concepts like sin and repentance. But in a society filled with oppression, victimization, and abuse, forgiveness can quickly become problematic, because it often feels like a suspension or denial of justice. However, Jesus was no stranger to oppression, victimization, or abuse. And yet he considered forgiveness to be one of the most important things to teach us, both how to receive it and how to give it. At its essence, this parable is an invitation to know God - and to become like him.
If humans are “lost,” as Jesus teaches in this parable, what is the solution? According to Jesus, it begins with repentance. But that is an offensive idea in our culture. To say someone needs to repent is to say they’re a sinner. As modern people, we say that such ideas are an assault on our dignity as humans, and that dehumanizing doctrines such as this have no place in an enlightened society. But is that true? What if repentance means something deeper? And what if practicing it will lead to an even greater level of human flourishing and dignity? In this parable, Jesus himself gives us much-needed insight into the nature and practice of repentance.
The Parable of the Prodigal Son is one of the best known and most beloved of Jesus’ parables. It’s a beautiful picture of God’s love for us. But if we only read it as a story of God’s love for us as individuals, we miss one of his biggest points. Jesus told this parable as a response to hostility and division in community: religious leaders were furious at him for welcoming “sinners.” One of the main points of this story was to help them, and us, understand the nature of depth of our own “lostness.” What does that mean? And how does it affect our communities and relationships? Join us for the first in a 5-week series.