Buzz King: Grace & Joy thru Scripture

Knowledge, wisdom, and innocence

The story of Moses continues into Deuteronomy.  Moses delivers the Ten Commandments to the generation of Israelites who were born during the 40 years in the desert.  We look at the difficulty that we face maintaining moral innocence in an age when we are assaulted with knowledge that corrupts.  Only by being wise in handling the knowledge of our brutal, evil world can we remain innocent.  Moses faced this very same challenge: how to educate that innocent generation, and at the same time, making them wise, so that they do not become corrupt.

What is it?

This is the second in a series of messages on the Exodus.  When the People of God were in the desert for 40 years, they had a problem with their food supply: there wasn't enough.  God blessed them with manna, a sweet white substance that appeared every morning.  Manna means "What is it?", and that's what the Israelites said when they first saw it.  We look at God's dependency, God's faithfulness to us.  Whatever problem we have in life, God will get us through it, just like God got his people through the Red Sea when they had the Egyptian army at their back.  Whenever we have a need, God will meet it.  God will give us our daily manna.

Red Sea moments

Christians often talk about "Red Sea moments", times when we are facing a sea, with a mighty army at our backs.  We have nowhere to turn, no way to escape.  We can only pray that God will indeed keep his promise: to not necessarily make our promises go away, but to definitely step us through to the other side.  In our nation and world today, we are all facing one hell of a Red Sea moment, with violence and hatred on the rise, global ecological challenges, and a dramatic loss of faith in God.  We look at how a believer should handle Red Sea moments.

A living dog

In Ecclesiastes, we are told that "a living dog is better than a dead lion".  In the Bible, dogs represent the despised, the unclean, the evil enemy devouring the innocent.  But lions are like the warrior's heart, like the Messiah.  Which would we rather be, a dead lion or a living dog?  In our society, we are taught to revere the lions of society, while many of are reduced to the level of dogs.  As the faithful, we are far, far better off as live dogs with God walking beside us, than dead, once-powerful lions.

Unintentional sin

The Bible clearly says that we can sin without intending to do wrong.  While ignorance of the law is no excuse in the secular world, it seems harsh that God would judge us as sinful when we didn't intend any harm.  We look at Adam's original sin, the command God made of Moses to punish those who sin unintentionally, and the New Testament spin on sin.  Our goal is to figure out whether we can indeed sin without meaning to - and if so, how does this come about?

Evil is from within

We are told in Genesis that God created everything and God created everything good. We consider the war in Ukraine and the actions of Putin.  How did he end up seemingly so evil?  How did Satan end up evil?   Why do all humans do things that are arguably evil?   We look at the Bible for answers.  We look at the Gospel of Mark and the difference between evil and mental illness. 
 

House churches

Small churches across the country are closing.  The two options for new, successful churches seem to be 1) small ones that are established in non-traditional settings, like cafes, pubs, online churches, and in particular, home churches, and 2) very large “destination” churches that people are motivated to drive miles to attend.  We look at home churches, and how, in the near future, many smaller congregations may choose to meet in homes in order to avoid the costs associated with maintaining formal church buildings.  We examine the history of home churches, through the eyes of the New Testament.

Buzz’s burnt offering

The Israelites developed complex rituals as a way to blend together their faith lives and their daily lives.  Unlike Christians today, they didn't think of God only on one morning a week.  Christianity has lost much of its rituals.  We look at a humorous example as way of examining this issue of pulling God back into our daily lives.

Boundless empathy

In Paul's letter to Philemon, he is asking Philemon to free a slave in order to allow him to assist Paul in his ministry.  In this letter, Paul does not make an unequivocal statement against slavery, despite attempts by modern readers to argue that he does so.  However, Paul does show significant empathy for this slave, Onesimus.  And Paul tells us to "bless those who persecute you. Don’t curse them; pray that God will bless them. Be happy with those who are happy, and weep with those who weep."  Indeed, as believers are required to have unlimited, boundless empathy for all people.

Easter: Jesus Christ is free!

We look at something that Jesus was very careful to do after he rose from the dead: he returned to make sure that the Church would grow and eventually spread around the world.  We focus one one particular thing that Jesus did that is often not associated with Easter.

Good Friday: Who is he?

The people surrounding Jesus as he lay dying on a cross did not understand who he was.  Some thought that he was a failed Jewish Messiah, a man who was supposed to push the Romans aside and establish a new Jewish theocracy.  Others thought that he was a fool who only thought that he was the Messiah.  We look at the perspective of those who watched Jesus die.  We consider this from our position today.

Palm Sunday: Why a donkey?

We look at the reason why Jesus chose to ride a donkey into Jerusalem - as opposed, perhaps, to a horse.  To most of us, donkeys are not the most regal way for a king to ride.  But Jesus came to this planet to create a spiritual kingdom, and looking at Old Testament passages, as well as references to these passages that occur in the New Testament, tell us just why it is that he chose a donkey.

Grab yourself a Psalm

When Jesus was on the cross he cried out: "My God, My God, why have you forsake me?"  Many people have asked why he would ever think that God the Father had forsaken him.  But Jesus was actually reciting the first line of Psalm 22 - and many people have suggested that by saying that one line, he was in effect invoking the entire Psalm, which happens to end with an affirmation of God's commitment to always come to our need.  Indeed, those standing around the cross are likely to have been familiar with the Psalm if they knew Jesus.  We look at several Psalms and consider this question: When we are in need, when we are in crisis, should we do what Jesus did and grab a Psalm?

Bitterness roots

A warning about growing bitter appears in Deuteronomy; we are told that if we do, we will grow poisonous spiritual fruit.  This warning is echoed in Hebrews and Acts.  We can become bitter because we have done things that we know we should not have done.  We can become bitter quite innocently, simply by failing at something very important to us.  Either way, bitterness is toxic.  Unlike anger and envy, bitterness digs in deeply.  It makes us seethe.  It becomes long-lasting, far outliving whatever caused it.

To hide away

The two Kings books and the two Chronicles books cover a similar period of time - but the Chronicles books clean up the torrid history of the Israelite kings.  We look at King Manasseh, the corrupt, idolatrous king who, in 2nd Chronicles, appears to salvage himself morally.  We consider the stunning Prayer of Manasseh, which many consider to date from hundreds of years after he lived and to be apocryphal, in which he seeks forgiveness and regeneration.