Bible Study, Gospel of Mark, audio files

The link below is to the audio file from my Bible study that began this week in the Gospel of Mark.  This is a verse by verse study, not utilizing any outside materials, simply discussing the text and and answering the questions of those attending the study.  Each week a new link will be added until all of the Gospel of Mark is included.  Feel free to post any questions you have regarding the text to this page and I'll try to answer it in a subsequent week's study.

The audio file is hosted on archive.org, let me know if you have any technical problems with listening to and/or downloading it.

Bible Study: Gospel of Mark 1:1-18

Bible Study: Gospel of Mark 1:19-39

**** I've moved the future postings of audio podcasts to its own page, the rest of the segments for Mark and future Bible study podcasts will be placed there; simply scroll up to the top of the blog and click on the tab. ****

Looking to the future: The Terminator movies and Christians

With another installment of the Terminator movies about to be released, I am once again reminded of the harmful attitude of fatalism that permeates much of Evangelical thought about the future.  In the Terminator movies, both a hero and a villain are sent back from the future to try to change what is coming.  The villain wants to prevent the good guys from winning after a horrific holocaust, and the good guy is hoping to not only preserve that victory, but somehow make the entire dystopic future null and void.  Each of the Terminator movies ebbs and flows back and forth with the future fate of humanity hanging in the balance.  What has this to do with the attitude of Christians regarding the future?  Quite a lot actually.  Christians ought to know what the future holds, God has given us a broad outline of what will one day happen along with a variety of difficult to understand pieces of the puzzle.  What we do know, for certain, is how the story ends; it ends in the complete and total victory of Jesus Christ over all opposition: sin, death, and Satan.
So why are so many Christians walking around with an attitude that the future is doom and gloom?  The answer is simple enough, they believe in a Pre-Tribulation Rapture, and thus believe that the future of humanity is a downhill slope that cannot be altered.  Those who believe in a post-Tribulation Rapture, or a Post-Millennial Rapture are far less pessimistic because in the first case, Christians won't be taken away before the trouble starts, in other words, we're going to have to deal with it, and in the latter, the next thing to come on God's cosmic plan is the 1,000 year reign of Christ, a time of glory not tribulation.  Because many Evangelicals firmly believe in a Pre-Tribulation, Pre-Millennial Rapture, they almost welcome bad news in the world. looking at it as a sign that Christ's return is closer.  Why try to alter the world we're living in if it is inevitable that it will decline, and why try to slow the decline if it must reach its nadir before Christ can come back?
In the Terminator movies, when the heroes know that the future is bleak, they are willing to risk anything and everything to try to stop it.  For some Christians, they believe that they're interpretation of Biblical prophecy is the correct one, and therefore there is no point in trying to stop it.
I don't know which interpretation of the Scriptures is right, those willing to have a pinch of humility will agree, so why would I live like a pessimist?  It is our job to do what we can, with what we have, where we have been placed.  We do know how the story ends, but keep in mind, we have no idea how long it will be until the final chapter begins.  Christians need to ditch the pessimism, embrace the final victory of Christ, and roll up their sleeves and get to work trying to claim our world for the kingdom of God.

The importance of heaven: a life lesson from Everybody Loves Raymond

In an episode of the excellent sitcom, Everybody Loves Raymond, Ray's brother Robert is faced with a moral dilemma because he for once has a beautiful woman, Stephana, who is interested in having sex with him.  Robert, a lonely middle-aged man with serious fears of commitment, makes the morally correct decision to not get into a physical relationship with Stephana, despite her overwhelming beauty and clear willingness.  As Stephana leaves in anger from his apartment after Robert informs her that they shouldn't see each other anymore, she taunts him one last time with the beauty that he had chosen to abstain from, after Robert had shouted at her, "I did the right thing, morally".  After her taunt, Robert says to himself, "there had better be a heaven".  Sitcoms are meant to be funny, first and foremost, but in this case Robert is also hitting upon an important moral principle.  The morality that we live by is not limited to this lifetime; it is affected by, and carries over into, the afterlife.  Because Robert was a Christian, a Catholic to be precise, he believed that making morally correct decisions was more important that worldly pleasures.  That Robert is counting upon heaven to recompense him for his sacrifice is not a cop-out, but a wise perspective on his part.  Too many Christians live too much of their lives as if this life is really all that they believe there is.  When we instead consider eternity as we think about today, our perspective changes, what we place value in changes, what we focus upon changes, and we find motivation and encouragement that will help us to achieve victory over temptation as well as endurance in our acts of righteousness.  Robert chose to do the right thing, he did so in the hope that there is indeed a heaven, fortunately for him and all of us, he is right.

Sermon Video: The grace of God has appeared - Titus 2:11-12

There are many ways that we learn things in life, from watching others to being taught by the spoken or written word, to the life lessons that we only learn through experience.  Knowledge of the things that we need to know about God also comes in a variety of forms.  We most often think of the Word of God as our primary teacher, whether we're reading it or having it explained to us, or perhaps the Holy Spirit as our guide, but we must also learn from the experience of being born again and transformed by our faith, by God's love for us, and as Paul explains in Titus 2:11-12, by our experience of the grace of God.
When God's grace if poured out upon us, bringing healing and forgiveness to our undeserved and unearned souls, it also acts as a powerful teacher to spur us on in our Christian faith to both say "no" to sin, and to say "yes" to living for righteousness.  The Word of God and the Holy Spirit are great and helping us see what we should and should not do as Christians, grace offers us motivation as to how we can accomplish the difficult task of living like Jesus.  Paul's combination of saying "no" to ungodliness and worldly passions, while at the same time saying "yes" to self-control, upright living, and godly lives, reminds us that our faith cannot simply be defined by what Christians say "no" to, it must go one beyond that to fully embrace the life or righteousness that God intends for us here and now, as Paul says, "in this present age".

To watch the video, click on the link below:
Sermon Video

Who is "winning" and who is "losing", thoughts on the Pew Research Center's data

Much has been made of the recent Pew Center research showing a big gain among the "none/unaffiliated" in American religious life.  While this is certainly a concern, and one that churches know all too well when it reflects the reluctance of even regularly attending people to become members (with the rights and responsibilities that entails, which varies by denomination).  The article on the FiveThirtyEight website analyzing that data is worth thinking about as it sheds light on the bigger picture concerning the direction that American religious life is heading.  The future is, of course, unknowable by us, but it is important to have a clear understanding of where we stand at the present.

FiveThirtyEight article on Pew Research

One thought on the article: When an Evangelical church gains a "convert" from a Catholic church or a Mainline church, it isn't a "gain" for Christ's Church (unless the person in question had no prior relationship with God despite being formerly part of a church), it is simply shifting people from one a Christ's flocks to another.  The Church, the universal Church, needs to grow by bringing in the Lost, those who don't know Christ, as well as retaining our own natural growth of those raised in the Church.  It is always good to see people more committed to Christ, and if changing denominations is a part of that deeper commitment it is a good thing, but that isn't the same thing as taking the Gospel to the Lost.  Our focus in evangelism should always be to seek the Lost, not shuffle the Found into a new category.  People will always change churches, for good reasons and bad, Americans especially it seems, but our "growth" will only be growth in the genuine sense when it encompasses new sinners saved by grace.