Buzz King: Grace & Joy thru Scripture

When I was a young man working as a computer programmer in a subbasement office, I met a man who had been badly maimed by a grenade thrown in his tank in World War II.  He gave me a perspective of God and our dependence on God that is reflected in a very unusual Psalm - number 37.  This Psalm is very much in the Wisdom literature category.  It tells us just how God deals with those who do good and those who do evil - and therefore ...

The opening of Hebrews tells us about the difference between Old Testament revelation and the revelation of Jesus Christ.  The Old Covenant was the ponderous War and Peace, but the New Covenant is the shortest of short stories - and one delivered not by a long series of human prophets, but by the Son of God himself.  We look at what that means for us today, in terms of our urgency to live as faithful people.  We consider practical ...

There is tremendous conflict in the Christian Church in the U.S. and in the world today.  We look at a letter called 3 John, the shortest book in the New Testament, by number of words, and we get a glimpse of conflict in the very early Church.  We see that even at the very beginning of the Church, conflict like we have today arose.  In the letter, we see a man named Diotrephes who is apparently the source of conflict, a man who, be...

The Didache is an Ancient Greek document that perhaps should have made its way into our Bible - but it didn't.  It could have been written as early as the year 50 A.D., and it might have been source material for one or more Gospel.  It was long lost - until it was rediscovered in the late 1800's.  We look at its content: the Didache (the "Teaching") tells us about the Way of Life and the Way of Death, as well as how to organize and...

We return to the Book of Acts, and to a man who I spoke with, a man who was about to find out if he had cancer.  We look at a very powerful theme in the Book, but something that is often overlooked: our ability, if we accept the gift, to be baptized with the Holy Spirit.  We see what it did, not just to the Apostles and to Paul, but to ordinary volunteers who worked with the Great Evangelists.  We learn how our lives can be radical...

We study the Torah - and consider the often talked about issue of it teaming with ridiculous laws, such as not being allowed to wear clothing made of two different materials, like linen and wool.  In truth, we discover some very demanding - but valuable - laws, ones that push us way beyond the norms of our nation.  We see what it means to put some real teeth in the two great commandments of Jesus, to love God with all our hearts, m...

I recently met a man who was confronting a potentially terrifying biopsy result, but who knew that the Spirit was more powerful than any cancer.  We consider the often-forgotten Holy Spirit, whom very few Christians fully appreciate.  We look at the Spirit from the perspective of the Book of Acts.  We see how the spread of the faith from Jerusalem outward to almost the entire known world - the amazing spread of the faith to the Gen...

I once spoke with a woman who had been through at least three major medical journeys.  She felt a constant pull between Grace and fear in her life.  She desperately need Grace to win the battle within her.  We look at one way that has been used to categorize Grace: Prevenient, Justifying, and Sanctifying Grace.  Our goal isn't to memorize any particular way to structure the overall notion of Grace.  We want to understand what Grace...

Matthew focuses on Jesus as the Messiah promised in many Old Testament prophesies - and thus seems to be writing for Jews.  Luke focuses on Jesus as a prophet, seeming to address Gentiles.  We look at my Scout Master, who was blind, and who inspired me (many, many years later) to look at the Gospel of Luke and consider Jesus as our Prophet.  On Palm Sunday, we see just why this is so critical to do if we truly want to understand Je...

I once spoke with a young man whose father had been a corrupt Methodist Reverend - a man who treated young women in his congregations as prey.  Before his father was exposed and arrested - when this young man was in high school - the Easter season had been his favorite time of year.  We talked about the Gospel of Luke - and the long walk from Capernaum to Jerusalem.  In this podcast, we look at that 106 mile long walk and what it m...

We take a sweeping look at the world of Faith and the history of Faith in the one, loving, and trustworthy God.  We look at the history of the manuscripts of the Bible, from ancient oral traditions to the Dead Sea Scrolls to the written story of Jesus.  We see that an astonishing, true story is told: the two phase revelation of God, first to the Chosen People, the people of the Covenant of Moses, and then, second, to us, through th...

We look at a ways in which people have tried to "prove" the Bible, using scientific and historical/archeological techniques, in particular, the Nazareth Inscription, a marble inscription that many say "proves" the resurrection of Jesus Christ.  We consider, however, what faith truly is - and the losing battle of trying to defend our faith with science, history, and archeology.  We consider just what it means to "believe" and the im...

We look at the "silent period" between the words of the Prophet Malachi and the life of Jesus.  In particular, we see that a few books that many Christians consider to be "apocryphal", the Maccabee books, give us tremendous insight into what was going on in Jerusalem and surrounding areas during the time of Jesus.  We see Jews fighting Jews because some of them had abandoned their God and become Hellenized.  We consider the New Cov...