All Episodes
Repeat, Repeat, Repeat!
Most leaders motivate others by boasting of their accomplishments. They talk about past goals they have achieved, they reflect on how effective they were at leading ot...
Life is Not Gray
People resolve the tension of diversity either by clinging to fundamentalism or by embracing relativism. Unfortunately, both approaches share a desire to be right: to ...
Your Mission, Should You Choose to Accept It
We human beings love having an excuse; or having the opportunity to blame someone else for our problems; or having the freedom to blame our failures on unforeseen circ...
The Great Divorce
In one of his most popular works, C.S. Lewis talks about the inevitable divorce between good and evil: a comforting philosophical notion that allows adherents to be ri...
Don't Get Comfortable
When Paul talks about being "absent from the body," our Hellenized ears want to believe that he is talking about a dualism with some version of a Platonic soul inhabit...
Which Life is Life?
When someone sets out to do something difficult, they console themselves that their sacrifice is worth the effort because of what they will have achieved or attained. ...
From Glory to Glory
When St. Paul contrasts tablets of stone with the human heart, or the letter inscribed in stone with the Spirit, or the Old Covenant with the New, Christians are quick...
Who is Testing Whom?
It is common for students to judge their teachers. Worse, students today are encouraged to do so, being routinely asked to fill out teacher evaluation forms. Some have...
Wax On Wax Off
According to human standards of leadership, when Paul changes course midstream, it appears to his disciples that he is vascillating between "yes" and "no," like a man ...
The Blessing and the Curse
When Paul talks about comfort in 2 Corinthians, it is easy to receive his words as much needed nurturing, as though we have suffered unjustly and are in need of God's ...
Whistling to the Flock
Without realizing it, when people hear the word “church,” they usually imagine a meta institution with clear organizational or ideological boundaries, akin to a govern...
Baptism for the Dead
Isaiah 22:12 Therefore in that day the Lord God of hosts called you to weeping, to wailing, To shaving the head and to wearing sackcloth. 13 Instead, there is gaiety a...
According to the Scriptures
Psalm 2:1 Why are the nations in an uproar And the peoples devising a vain thing? 2 The kings of the earth take their stand And the rulers take counsel together Agains...
Let All Mortal Flesh Keep Silent
When reading an ancient text in translation—especially one laden with nuance—there is a high risk of misunderstanding. On the one hand, there are expressions, cultural...
Five Words
Better to “speak five words” that give instruction, Paul explains, “than ten thousand words” that mean something to you but are useless for everyone else. Richard and ...
A More Excellent Way
After spending the better part of 12 chapters putting the church’s household in order, in chapter 13 of 1 Corinthians, St. Paul crowns the power structure he establish...
Hell Was Created Just for Me
The key to understanding any idea, statement or position is to examine its premise. What underlying assumptions must be made for an idea to make sense? What motivation...
Paul's Kung Fu
According to our friend Google, a contradiction is, “a combination of statements, ideas, or features of a situation that are opposed to one another.” According to St. ...