Buzz King: Grace & Joy thru Scripture

When I was a professor, I once had a French student accuse me of Xenophobia, of giving her a bad grade simply because she was French.  I was quite worried that this could explode into a serious problem, as universities want students to be happy and do not want claims like this making their way into the press.  I ended up putting my mother on the phone and letting her talk to this student.  The interesting part is that my mother was...

I once spoke with a man who had been undergoing treatment for cancer, but who was at the end of effective treatments.  It was time to let go, and as he put it, welcome the Kingdom of God.  But he had an adult daughter who was going through an extremely difficult time - and he wanted to be there for her.  So he had decided to continue treatments so that he could live a bit longer - even though he would suffer.  We look at the issue ...

I picked citrus with migrant workers when I was a boy.  They were paid partly by being given food in the field, which they insisted on sharing with me - who wasn't supposed to get any of that food.  They also picked the tops of my trees, to keep me safe.  We look at the Book of Lamentations, and a passage that focuses on the harsh impact on children as a result of the Babylonian invasion and slaughter.  We consider just what it mea...

I once visited a recently retired reverend whose wife had just left him and who was terminally ill with heart disease.  We talked about Paul's thorn in his side, and how this reverend was unable to handle the huge thorn in his side.  We consider the way that God created us: imperfectly, with imperfect lives.  We see that humility is the product of suffering, and that it has a number of major benefits, ones that greatly outweigh the...

I once ditched a boring "team building" academic meeting to hang out for a bit with a bunch of jail prisoners.  One of them was a man who had been incarcerated for sleeping in the snow on someone's private property.  He was planning a Bible study session with the rest of his Christian inmates.  In this podcast, we look at Paul, who also proselytized while in prison - and quite successfully.  We see what this means when it comes to ...

Quantum physics tells us that we understand very little about the physical matter that makes up the universe, the way we proceed through time, and the nature of events in the universe.  We consider Tony the ant, who lives in an anthill, bringing carrying huge crumbs of unidentifiable organic material back to the anthill.  The most important and powerful people who live in this world, who live in the Kingdom of People, are like Tony...

We look at Proverbs and Ecclesiastes, and at how I managed to get BuzzKing.com as my domain.  We see that Proverbs and Ecclesiastes both tell us about the importance of having a good name.  They also tell us that it is important that we, as believers, remember that we represent the Church at all times.  We need to protect our good name - and the good name of the Church.  We also see that there comes a time - at death - when all tha...

I once sat with a woman in her nineties who was on comfort care.  Her adult children could not be there because they were out of the country, so I was with her.  She ended up telling me why she had no fear whatsoever of death - and it had to do with Easter.  We take a bit of a biblical survey, looking at both the literal version of the Easter story, and at the more personal side of the resurrection story.  We see that getting caugh...

Luke tells us that Jesus died at a place called The Skull, from which we derive the Latin word Calvary.  I once saw a skull of a Pueblo Indian.  The goal of the display was to show us that the Pueblos ground corn with sandstone, and so when they ate cornmeal, they also chewed on grit, thus wearing down their molars.  But to me, the skull reminded me that real people - long dead - once lived in those cave dwellings.  Jesus chose his...

We look at the two times in my life that I have encountered donkeys, once as a boy on the edge of town, and once in Santorini, Greece.  These incidents remind me of the two biblical qualities of donkeys, and why this makes the donkey the perfect animal for Jesus to ride into Jerusalem.  We also look at why Jesus was not the savior that many people in Jerusalem were hoping for, and this reinforces why he was indeed on a donkey.  We ...

I taught 3D modeling and animation at my university.  I had a student who apparently was on the autism spectrum, and one day I knocked his notebook computer off his desk onto the floor - and he did not react.  We look at a figure from the Old Testament, one of the fathers of the Israelite people, Joseph, who was sold into slavery by his brothers.  There is a theory that he was also on the spectrum.  We look at what we can learn abo...

We look at the construction of the Tabernacle in Exodus - and at a man whom I once drove behind as he bounced along on three wheels and a broken rim.  His determination to make his journey, to get to his meeting place, reminds us of where God is truly located, where God lives.  We also see that although history has assumed that the Israelites and Jews thought that they had to be in the Temple to be with God, their beliefs were not ...

When I was 15, there was an Earthquake that did a lot of damage in Southern California.  A fish store that I frequented had all its aquariums land on the cement floor.  It was a huge failure, a loss for the owner.  We talk about one of the biggest failures in the Bible, Peter denying Jesus after Jesus had wanted him to serve as the rock upon which he would build his church.  Peter did rise up, however, and do just that.  He overcam...

We look at Noah's ark - the story that is eerily similar to older, polytheistic flood stories.  We consider the act of God destroying all of humanity, due to its total corruption, but showing enough mercy to allow a remnant to survive.  We look at a natural disaster, a much smaller flood, that happened in Colorado, and how such natural phenomena remind us of our vulnerability, our dependency on God.  We note that in the flood story...

My mother identified strongly as French.  Thus, when my best friend's mother lent me Voyage to the Center of the Earth to read, she immediately took me to get the real version: the original French.  We look at the story of these adventurers and their naivety.  We also look at Proverbs, Chapter 2, and a speech to a son by a father, who is trying to teach the son about the importance of gaining wisdom and living the way God wants us ...