Year A, Lectionary 4
Hate feeling lost on Sundays at church? Searching for a better explanation of the Bible than what you hear from your pastor's sermon? Check out the following collection of audio, video, and text commentaries from various Christian experts for a better understanding of today's scripture that deal with: Abraham • Acknowledge • Advent • Competition • Creation • David • Desert • Exile • Exodus • Faith • Gift • Holy Spirit • Hope • Hypocrite • Incarnation • John the Baptist • Judgment • Kingdom • Knowledge • Mature • Messiah • Peace • Pharisee • Prayer • Prepare • Prophet • Repent • Resilience • Sin • Tree • Unity • Wisdom •
“if you want to understand John the Baptist you have to understand that the hopes of the Bible, of the prophets the Old Testament, was much more than just an earthly political Messiah to set the Jews free from the Roman Empire. You got to read all of the prophecies of Isaiah”
“one of the great temptations of the Christian life is that when suffering comes it's easy for us to lose hope and to forget just as God fulfilled his seemingly impossible promises to Abraham...so too God will fulfill his promises to us to bring us into the glorify of the resurrection of the dead and the life of the world to come.”
“John is keenly aware that it is not by birth, it is not by race, it is not by religious expression, it is not by education or social status or financial clout that assures someone has the keys to the Kingdom...what makes us friends of God is our total dependence on God for everything we need”
“Many times in life we focus so much on competing with others that we forget our destiny, that we miss our destiny...The problem with unhealthy competitions is that competitions never end. Unhealthy competition is an unending cycle.”
“So what John the Baptist does is he goes back to the place where the first Exodus ended and he says the new Exodus is now going to begin. The the Good News of the coming of the Kingdom of God...the fulfillment of all the prophecies of God to his people”
“Keep in mind that metanoia is primarily a transformation of consciousness, a change of heart, a new way of thinking, seeing and looking at life. We then, hopefully, will produce fruit worthy of repentance.”
“will you allow a metanoia to occur inside of you? Will you allow yourselves to forsake your learned hopelessness and hope again? Hope again that the Prince of Peace can come in our world, in our time, the Prince of Peace can come to your family and to our world.”
“God creates life in spite of us choosing death as long as we maintain faith, hope in God. God can provide even when, you know, it seems like there's no life there or nothing can grow from that.”
“This grace of hope that God gives us allows us to be humble enough that we can undergo refining fire because it's part of the path that leads us to a greater future”
“Do we think about emptying ourselves so that we may be filled with the Spirit? Do we make time to look within and feel the pull of the heart?”
“we read two classic stories of prophecy, Isaiah and the Jesse tree and John the Baptist and the tree of good fruit. In both stories the prophets have chosen the tree as a way to communicate the coming of the incarnation of God's love in the life of Jesus.”
“Church, making a u-turn is a decision, isn't it? When we make a u-turn our heart needs to make a u-turn. What does that mean? We make a u-turn when we start forgiving everybody that we still hold a grudge about.”
"we're not immune to tragic events or to illness or to anything. We just have a different, I guess, we just have a different way of approaching it and that's through the lens of faith."
In the latest episode of the 1 Christian 1 Topic Podcast "Faith Amidst Tragedy," we have a conversation with Liz on faith, suffering, and prayer. More