Reflective Bible Study

Last week, we began our annual two-part finale by looking at insights we discovered in the first half of this past year of moving through the gospels. In part 2, we’ll pick back up where we left off and focus in on insights we learned during the second half of this year moving through the gospels.

But before diving into the insights, I want to share briefly what’s planned for our next year in the gospel adventure podcast. We have just finished moving through four years of chronologically jumping through the gospels, and we have now finished this crazy idea I had several years ago when we began. While it would be easy to simply start over, I thought it might be fun to do a couple of years focusing on certain topics.

One topic that has been fresh on my mind, perhaps because all four gospels dedicate significant space to it, is the week leading up to Jesus’ crucifixion. For this next year of episodes, this is where I’m thinking of taking us. However, for future years, be sure to email me and share your ideas. We may come back to doing chronological years in the future, but before that happens, let’s focus in on some topics.

However, while I’m excited to get started, we still have the second half of this past year to focus on in this episode. So let’s dive in, starting at what we learned in Episode 26.

In episode 26, we focused on Mary and Martha’s first encounter with Jesus, and how each of them interacted with Jesus. From this episode, we learned that “It is more important for us to focus on learning from Jesus than trying to please or impress Him through our actions.” We also learned that “God is never going to distract us away from spending time with Jesus.”

Moving into episode 27, we looked at a passage Jesus shares about faith, and how faith must be visible. In this episode, we saw that “Those who publicly side with Jesus will be acknowledged by God throughout the universe.” We also learned that “secret faith is worthless; faith that is valuable is one that stands for God when challenges come; and that the more we reject the Holy Spirit in our lives, the less connected to Jesus we will be.”

Jumping to episode 29, we focused on a passage where Jesus describes how some people will ultimately miss out on salvation even though they believed themselves to be ready. In this passage and episode, we learned that “there will be a time when salvation’s door is closed. After this point, those who knock on the door are not allowed to enter. This is because the homeowner does not know them. This tells us that it is very important that God knows us, and this is accomplished by regularly spending time with Him.” This passage also taught us that “people who do evil are excluded. This passage strongly suggests that doing evil will forfeit your salvation.” Overall, what matters most is what we choose to do in the present, and not on what we have done in the past. Our present choices are more important than our past failures.

Jumping forward a couple of episodes to episode 31, we spent some time talking about the rich man and Lazarus illustration Jesus shared. Regardless of what you believe about this illustrations regarding it’s teaching on the state of the dead, we concluded that one of the biggest themes it tells us is that “after someone has died, they cannot change their decisions from this life. This makes our decisions today especially important.” We also can all agree that “the next conscious thought someone has following their death will be one of regret when realizing they didn’t choose correctly.”

In episode 32, we looked at Jesus healing 12 lepers. We learned that “there is never a wrong time to stop and be grateful towards God for what He has done in our lives.” Also in this passage, we see the big truth that “sometimes we must obey before we are able to see God’s hand working in our lives.”

Episode 33 might have been the most controversial episode this year because it focused in on Jesus’ teaching on the topic of marriage and divorce. While our current generation has wrestled with this, we discover from this passage in Matthew’s gospel, that every generation since sin entered the world has been challenged by God’s ideal for marriage. Jesus tells us that while not everyone can or will marry, those who do will be held to the truth He teaches us about marriage.

Jumping up to episode 35, we discovered in the parable of the ten servants that “the important man who left returned as king. In spite of his enemies’ wishes, this man becomes king. This teaches us that Jesus will one day return as King. Jesus had enemies while here on earth because He wasn’t impressed by ambitious spiritual ladder-climbers. Now is the best time to ally with Jesus because we don’t know when He will actually return.” Also, looking at this parable we discover that “it is important to be fruitful with what God has blessed us with. The worst thing we can do is nothing.”

In episode 36, we discovered a short passage where Jesus cried when approaching Jerusalem. Among the things we discovered in this passage, we concluded that “as followers of Jesus, we should spend 5-10x more time praying than we do seeking influence among other people. Seeking influence shouldn’t even be a measurable goal for a follower of Jesus.” Also tucked in Jesus’ message for Jerusalem is the truth that “the only place where peace can be found is by seeking God through Jesus, learning to depend on Him for everything, and praying like crazy for His will to be done in the world today.”

Episode 38 challenged us again when we read Jesus’ parable about a man being kicked out of a wedding banquet. We discovered in this episode that accepting the invitation is a great first step, but also equally important is accepting the free gift of wedding clothes that the king would have offered when the last minute guests arrived. We accept the gift of clothing when we put our sinful lives in the past and let God replace our sinful characters with Jesus’ sinless character.

The next episode, number 39, found us looking a little closer at Jesus stumping the Pharisees with a question of His own. Ultimately, we concluded that “the Bible gives us plenty of evidence we can use to base our faith on, and we can use what the Bible says to know everything we need to know to be saved.”

Jumping ahead to episode 41, we looked at the parable of the three servants, which shares several characteristics with episode 35’s parable of the ten servants. In the parable of the three servants, we learned that God, “the master, gave everyone something, and He is watching to see what we will do with what He has blessed us with. When Jesus returns, those who have done something will be rewarded, while those who were fearful of making a mistake will lose out on everything.”

Moving forward to episode 43, we discovered three levels of faith in what Jesus shared with the eleven disciples as they were headed to the garden on the night He was betrayed and arrested. In Jesus’ conversation with the disciples, we learn that “God has called us to three distinct levels of faith: We should have faith in who Jesus is as God’s Son and a member of the Godhead; we should have faith in what Jesus has done for us, especially focusing in on what He accomplished on the cross; and we should have faith in Jesus’ working in our lives in both our present and our future.”

Episodes 44 and 45, which also focused on the night Jesus was betrayed and arrested, focused us onto the truths that “History is ‘His Story’, specifically Jesus’ story, and it is a story of redemption. While sinners killed Jesus, Jesus chose to die for those who God desires to save.”

Moving forward, while being led to the cross in episode 47, Jesus shared a challenge to some women who were following the procession. We learned in this episode that “we shouldn’t feel sad that Jesus faced the cross, we should be glad – we should be grateful for what Jesus’ death accomplished for each of us!”

Just a few short weeks ago, we looked at episode 48, and discovered that “In Peter’s experience on the morning Jesus was raised to life, we have a model for what we may experience. Peter found enough evidence to support a belief in the resurrection, but not so much evidence that would eliminate the need and role of faith. God has called us to have faith in Jesus, and to trust His promises. It is unlikely He will remove every reason for doubt, but He is more than willing to give us enough evidence for us to base our faith on.”

As we wrap up this episode, and this year of podcasting chronologically through Jesus’ life, I want to leave you with the main insight and challenge we wrapped up episode 50 with:

If those in the first century lived so close with God that they had the Holy Spirit show up in their lives in visible, miraculous ways, and these early church leaders didn’t believe themselves to be special or exclusively picked to receive the Holy Spirit, we can conclude that each of us living 2,000+ years later is capable of living lives like Jesus’ first followers and receive the Holy Spirit like they did. Knowing this, let’s intentionally live our lives so focused on growing closer to God that the Holy Spirit cannot help but show up in miraculous ways.

This episode marks the first part of our finale in our second chronological year podcasting through Jesus’ life, and as we begin, let me wish all of you a very special, very Merry Christmas during this holiday season. While I don’t have any idea what most of those listening to this episode are doing, I hope you are able to spend some time remembering Jesus and what His birth into this world ultimately means for our salvation.

As we have looked at over this past year of podcasting, we got a glimpse of who Jesus was when He came to earth during His first advent, and this glimpse that has been recorded for us will help us clearly recognize Him when He returns!

As is our custom, these two last episodes each year are focused on sharing insights that we uncovered during this past year of podcasts, and as is always the case, we discovered so many great insights that make our list difficult to narrow down to something manageable for this set of finale episodes.

With this said, let’s dive into what we learned during the first half of our year moving chronologically through the gospels looking at events in Jesus’ life and pull out some of these awesome insights.

Let’s start by focusing on what we discovered in episode 1, which focused on the two genealogies of Jesus. While other people might see these lists as boring, when we looked at them together, we discovered that like our human parents helped direct the nurture side of our lives, perhaps God could be said as directing the nature side of our development. As a parent, I am able to partner with God in my children’s development. Just like my wife and I are parents to our children, we could also understand God as being a parent to us. When we help raise our children, we are called and challenged to raise them up into being who God created them to be.

Jumping forward to episode 3, where we looked at some prophecies surrounding Jesus’ birth, we discovered that if the religious leaders stopped looking for the Messiah because of Herod’s mass killing of the infants in Bethlehem, then it shows how little faith they had in God – specifically in God’s ability to protect the Messiah that He promised to send. In this episode, we also were challenged by the realization that knowledge is a poor substitute for attention, and if we are not paying attention, no amount of knowledge will keep us from drifting away from God.

Blasting forward to episode number 8, we looked a little closer at Jesus inviting the tax collector Matthew to be a disciple. In this episode, we learned that “good enough” is the enemy of where God wants to take us. God has so many amazing things in His mind for each of us, but if we settle for “good enough”, we stop short of the plan God has for our lives. In other words, good enough is the enemy of God’s great plan for each of us, and it is up to us to be willing to be taught, helped, and lead forward in our lives and our understanding of God and His plan for each of us.

Skipping over episode 9, we come to episode 10, where we looked at a section of Jesus’ famous Sermon on the Mount. In this episode and passage, Jesus tells us that the intent of the law is to guard our thoughts and our minds from doing evil – and not just giving us the excuse that the law is only relevant for our external actions. The gift Jesus gave to us does not give us a license to sin. Jesus’ gift to us gives us freedom from our past sins.

In the very next episode, number 11, we looked at Jesus teaching on the topic of forgiveness. We learned from what Jesus told those listening that God forgiving our sins is necessary for us to be in heaven, and according to what Jesus says here, He will not forgive us when we choose to not forgive others. Jesus challenges us in this passage to do for others, what God has already done for us!

Jumping forward to episode 13, we looked at John the Baptist sending some followers to Jesus with a question. In this episode, we were challenged with the idea that when something we read or are challenged with doesn’t display a loving picture of God, we are challenged to tell ourselves that we only have less than half a perspective. In every event throughout history, there are always more sides to any event than we can fully uncover. With that understanding, we can know and trust that just because something doesn’t look loving from our vantage point, it does not make it unloving from God’s perspective.

Moving forward to episode 15, we looked a little closer at Jesus teaching about a lamp being placed on a lamp stand and how that is a metaphor for our lives. In this episode, we concluded that if God has made us a light for Him, then hiding us away is very illogical. As lights pointing people to Jesus and God, we shouldn’t be surprised when He places us on a lamp-stand, and gives us a platform to shine from.

In the next episode, which was episode number 16, we looked at Jesus sleeping through the storm in a boat. In this episode, we were reminded of the truth that Jesus had complete trust in God and His protection for His life. We also were challenged with the idea that God didn’t keep the storm from happening to Jesus and the disciples, but He protected them all through it.

Jumping ahead to episode 17, where we focused in on Jesus healing some blind men as well as a mute, demon-possessed man, we uncovered a simple litmus test we could use when looking at miracles that happen in our lives. We concluded that if the miracle we are experiencing leads us to strengthen our faith in God, Jesus, and/or the work of the Holy Spirit, then the miracle was from God. If the miracle leads us to place our faith in anything else, then there is a different spiritual force working behind the miracle.

Moving ahead to episode 19, we spent a little bit of time unpacking what we could learn from one time where the crowds abandoned Jesus after Jesus had shared a challenging message with them. In this episode, we discovered that Jesus’ words have creative, restorative, and life-giving power, and they are the essence of His ministry. The miracles and healing then become significant because they point us to pay attention to Jesus’ message and Jesus as God’s Messenger. The miracles lead us to the Messenger and His message, while the Messenger and His message bring us eternal life.

In the very next episode, episode number 20, we looked at Jesus feeding a new crowd of over 4,000 people. In this episode, passage, and miracle, we learned that sometimes we will have to put in the little that we have in order for God to multiply it into being something more. Gifts that other people bring can be multiplied by Jesus, but so can the gifts that we bring too. In this passage, we also discovered that Jesus sometimes will prompt a miracle because He knows we need it perhaps even without us asking. We don’t see people in the crowd asking for or demanding a miracle. We simply see Jesus offering to perform the miracle because He knows the people need it.

Moving forward to episode 21, we looked at Peter’s declaration that Jesus is the Messiah God sent into the world. While there was a lot we discovered in this episode, one key insight that is always worth remembering is that it is God the Father and His Spirit who impress upon people the truth about who Jesus is. We can share the good news, we can tell others about Jesus and how our faith has helped our lives, but only God can really move someone to internalize the truth about who Jesus is in their own hearts. Only God can make Jesus real to someone.

As we come to the halfway point of our year, let’s wrap up this first part of our year-end finale by looking at episode 23 and on what Jesus taught His followers about dealing with conflict. In this episode, we discovered that God didn’t call us to hate, avoid, or put down those who don’t believe in Him or those who collect taxes. He calls us to love them. Jesus loved people who didn’t believe in God, and Jesus loved tax collectors. Jesus complimented Zacchaeus the tax collector after He visited Him in Jericho and He called Matthew the tax collector to be one of His twelve closest disciples. While the one who doesn’t listen to the church will be moved to the outside of the ring, there is nothing in Jesus’ words that tell us that the circle of the church is to be exclusively focused inward.

This leads us beautifully into our challenges to wrap up this podcast episode.

As I always challenge you to do, intentionally seek God first in your life and choose to reflect Him and His love in the world around us. If you are unsure about what God’s love looks like, look no further than Jesus.

Also, as I regularly challenge you to do, continue praying and studying the Bible for yourself to learn and grow closer to Jesus each and every day. While other people have ideas to think about, never let someone else’s spiritual journey get in the way or replace your personal spiritual journey with God. God wants a personal relationship with you and for your relationship to be personal, it cannot be based on another person’s relationship.

And as I end every set of challenges by saying in one way or another, never stop short of, back away from, chicken out of, or give up on where God wants to lead you to in your life with Him!

Hey guys,

I know last week for our flashback episode, I said we’d be taking a break this week and as it turns out next week as well since there are two Mondays left in this year. However, after recording that, I thought I’d pull out the recording gear and record a little Christmas greeting for you since it’s Christmas Eve and all.

As many of us are spending time with friends and family remembering the ultimate gift that God sent into this world, remember that God’s gift to us through Jesus only has value because of what Jesus accomplished for us on the cross. Also, it is worth remembering that Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross only has value in our own lives when we have accepted Jesus into our hearts and let Him lead and guide our lives.

While culture has placed a significant emphasis on gift giving during these last few weeks, whether this is buying gifts for others or even buying gifts for yourself, remember that the gift God gave us through Jesus isn’t a gift we can buy, sell, or even repay. The gift Jesus gave us is His life, and Jesus’ life within our lives leads us to ultimately receive eternal life when Jesus returns.

With all this said, let me again say Merry Christmas and I hope that this Christmas season is a time of joy, love, and a time we can remember what Jesus ultimately gave for us by coming to this earth to redeem each of us!

As we begin our special, annual two-part finale, first off I want to wish all of you a Merry Christmas. We are well into one of my favorite times of the year, and while it’s likely not the time Jesus actually was born, it is a great time to remember His birth, and what that means for all of His followers living around the world.

This fourth chronological year was a powerful year, and we covered some challenging passages. I know I learned a lot while putting these episodes together, and I hope you learned a lot through what was shared.

As our custom is, let’s begin looking back at some of the biggest insights, at least in my own mind from this past year of episodes. As always, there are way more insights than we can cover in one, or even in two episodes, so this is why we break this finale into two parts while also having to pick and choose.

We began the year looking at Jesus’ birth story, and in our first episode, which focused in on Gabriel the angel’s visit to Mary, we discovered two powerful reminders we can apply into our own lives. The first is that Mary is a perfect example of someone willing to let God use her for His plan. Mary humbly steps into the role of the Messiah’s mother and her example is an example to all of us how a life surrendered to God can be used for His purposes. The second big reminder we can learn is from Gabriel’s message. Gabriel tells Mary that “No word from God will ever fail”. This promise is as true today as it was in the first century when Gabriel spoke it.

Jumping a few episodes forward, we arrive in episode number 3, which focused in on John the Baptist’s message and ministry. Luke describes John’s message, and from this description, we discovered that “Our greatest witness is how we live our lives each day,” and that “We shouldn’t rest on our past ancestry, our past choices, or our past accomplishments. A live of repentance is lived each and every day.”

Episode number 4 focused in on Jesus’ first followers, and how John’s gospel describes how Jesus’ first followers go and invite others to come and see Jesus. When faced with skeptical responses, they simply give an invitation. We can learn from this example that “Jesus did the convincing, we simply need to do the inviting”.

Moving forward into episode 6, from Jesus’ trip to His hometown synagogue, we learned that any “Christian” who does not love someone from another worldview, or even another denomination, is not acting as Christ instructed us to do. Jesus loved Gentiles, and this tells us that God loves both Jews and Gentiles.

Jumping up into episode 9, while reading about Jesus picking the 12 disciples, we see that Jesus spent the night praying before choosing His inner circle, and Jesus specifically chose Judas Iscariot. God knew Judas would betray Jesus, and Jesus choosing Judas Iscariot demonstrates that God is willing to even give betrayers a chance. God loved the betrayer and Jesus was willing to give Judas Iscariot every possible opportunity to place his faith in Him. We also discover how Jesus picked the least likely team of people from the world’s perspective to be His ambassadors for the Christian movement.

A couple episodes later, in episode number 11, we focused on Jesus’ teaching about worry. We learned that “If you cannot change something, it isn’t worth paying a lot of attention to it”. We also asked the question, “Does this desire or goal I have place God’s kingdom first?” This question makes for a great litmus test for if our focus is on the right things. Overall episode 11’s passage taught us that “Trust and faith is the antidote for worry. When worry is present in our lives, we can know we have room for faith and trust to grow.”

Episode 12 focused on Jesus helping a Roman officer. In this episode, we realized that “God’s goal for us is not an easy life in a sinful world. God’s goal for each of His followers is a new life with Him in a sinless new heaven and new earth!”

In the very next episode, episode number 13, we discover a huge truth in the gift a woman gave Jesus, and how Jesus chose to respond. In this episode, we learn that “the sin in our past doesn’t matter as must as our decisions in the present. Forgiveness is available for everyone who turns away from sin.” This episode also taught us that “how we choose to love Jesus demonstrates how forgiven we really are.”

Episode 14 focused on Jesus telling us why listening to His teachings is important, and how by applying what Jesus teaches in our lives is the best way to understand God’s plan for our lives.

A couple episodes later, in episode number 16, we looked at what happened when Jesus got distracted from going to heal a little girl. In this episode, we discovered in the almost secret miracle a formula that can be described as this: Faith + Jesus = a Miracle. The woman who was healed, was healed because she placed her faith in Jesus. This passage reminds us that Jesus is the best place to place our faith.

Moving forward to episode 19, which focused on Jesus insulting a gentile woman, we discover that “In God’s eyes, His people will not display an ‘us vs. them’ attitude. Instead, God’s people will display an ‘us blessing/helping/loving them’ attitude. This is God’s challenge for all His people!”

Following this episode, we then looked at a misunderstanding Jesus has with His disciples in episode 20. This misunderstanding taught us that “God will not bless us in a way that causes us to lose our salvation, but He will also not curse us when we could have been saved under difference circumstances.”

Jumping forward to episode 22, we focused on a passage that defines how God sees greatness. In this episode, one of the big truths we learned was that “Greatness in God’s eyes has to do with stepping down and welcoming those who are unknown in Jesus’ name.”

In episode 23, we find Jesus traveling through Samaria, and a town refuses to let Him stay the night. In this episode, we discovered that both the Samaritans in that town, and some of the disciples are prejudiced towards one another. We discovered from Jesus’ response that “Prejudice doesn’t help anyone. The Samaritans missed out on Jesus and the disciples were scolded because each group was prejudiced. Jesus modeled the right response when He was rejected. Jesus chose to simply move on to another town.”

Episode 24 continued episode 23’s theme about prejudice when we learned that the Pharisees rejected Jesus because they believed no prophet would ever come from the secular region of Galilee. We learned that we can fall into the same trap when we close our eyes and minds to the possibility that God could use some tragic event, a certain group of people who are different from us, or even a certain style of music for His purposes. We set ourselves up to be challenged when God chooses to use something we believe He would never use.

We’ll finish this first part of our annual two-part finale by focusing on the huge truths we learned in episode 25. In this episode, Jesus is teaching and challenging those in the temple during one of the major Jewish festivals, and we learned that holding onto and applying Jesus’ teachings are what make us His disciples. It is only after we hold onto and apply Jesus’ message that we will then know the truth and be set free. We also learned that sin’s goal is to trap and enslave us while Jesus came to set us free and adopt us into God’s family. We learned that death is reserved for those who disobey Jesus, and that Jesus came to honor God and free His people from the fear of death. Jesus teaches us that all the petty excuses and insults people try to use to discredit will never change who Jesus truly is. Jesus is God who came to earth as a human. Obedience is the way we discover the validity of God’s truth in our lives.

As we come to the end of part 1 of this yearly two-part finale, ending with even more challenges doesn’t make a lot of sense, especially when we have covered so many great challenges and things we’ve learned this past year in the gospels. So instead, I’ll simply remind each of us to:

Seek God first and place Him first in our lives;

To always pray and study the Bible for ourselves to keep our connection with God strong;

And to never stop short of where God wants to lead you to in your life with Him!