Buzz King: Grace & Joy thru Scripture

The 7000

The prophet Elijah comes under a death threat from Jezebel, the queen, because he urges his people to worship only the one, true God, while she is a pagan who worships Baal.  He does not succeed in getting the Israelites to all abandon paganism.  He goes into the desert, thinking he is a failure, and wanting to die.  But God tells him that a remnant - 7,000 - have come back to worshipping only God, and that 7,000 is all that is needed to save the people.  Today, Christianity is under great duress.  But we should be thankful to be among the 7,000!

Whose own might is their god

Habakkuk, in his brief Old Testament book, tells us what he thinks of people who use their power to control others: "Then they sweep by like the wind and go on, guilty men, whose own might is their god!"  I was once a very successful professor, and as a result, have a lot of experience with selfish, brutal people who care only about promoting and advancing themselves.  We look at the alternative, and that is rather than seeing our strength as our god, we can get our strength from God.  The result, as Habakkuk tells us, is that God rewards us: "God, the Lord, is my strength; he makes my feet like the deer’s; he makes me tread on my high places."

God’s second draft

One of the complaints that people make about the Bible - and use it to argue that it is nothing more than fiction and myth - is that clearly, the Bible has been edited and rewritten, and that much of it was composed from smaller, pre-existing fragments of text.  I argue that the Bible we've inherited may be God's "second draft" in some sense, but it is nonetheless a stunning faith book - and exactly the Bible God wants us to have.

A bag with holes

Recently, there was a massive fire in a highly developed area north of Denver.  A thousand structures, mostly homes, were destroyed.  We look at God's command to rebuild the Temple after it was destroyed by the Babylonians - and how the People of God were too preoccupied by rebuilding their own homes after the Babylonians were conquered.  But God prevailed and the Second Temple was built.  We consider the dual need for people to rebuild their homes in Colorado and again fill their yards with kids and dogs - as well as to maintain our internal Temples, our personal relationships with God.

Killed by a frying pan

When I was a boy, my father cashed in his retirement money and went into business with two supposed close friends of his.  One of them embezzled from the business and my father lost everything.  God didn't to choose to punish that thief the way God punished the evil acts of Abimelech, the son of the great Judge Gideon, after Abimelech murdered his brothers so that he could be king.  Abimelech ended up being killed in battle by a woman who dropped a millstone on his head.  We look at that age-old question: why does God let evil exist on Earth?  So, why didn't God punish my father's "friend" the way God punishes evil in the Old Testament?

Forgetting what lies behind

Not long ago, I bumped into a man a bit younger than me who had taken a course from me as an older student.  It turned out that he was now terminally ill.  He felt he had tremendous regrets in life, that he had not done the things he should have done.  We talked about Paul - who had once been known as Saul, a very evil man - and who certainly had much to regret, but who was determined to not look at what lies behind.  

For my clothing they cast lots

Television and the Internet are filled with ads for online gambling.  We see a man dressed up as Caesar, with thousands of people essentially worshipping him as he proclaims in a loud voice that we should all get on our phones right now, install his gambling app – and start placing bets.  I was raised to believe that gambling was evil, and I compare the modern do-it-from-anywhere gambling world to the father of a friend of mine who, when I was a boy, had to drive all the way to Las Vegas to feed his gambling addiction.

A New Covenant blessing

Under the Old Covenant there was an agreement between God and an entire people.  Under the New Covenant, each of us has an individual relationship with God.  We look at the most famous Old Testament blessing: the blessing that Jacob stole from his brother.  We compare this to the blessing that each of us gets from God.

Coffee ice cream

When I was a boy, I met my mother's father for the first and only time - and besides him buying me coffee ice cream, which I found disgusting - I learned that he was very anti-Semitic.  We look at 2nd Corinthians, where Paul tells us that each of us has an opportunity to leave our old life behind and being a new life.  I gently challenged my grandfather on his behavior.  Will my grandfather choose to begin a new life?

Listen to him

The New Testament uses the Old Testament heavily, as a way of legitimizing Jesus' role as the Messiah and the last prophet.  We look at Moses' statement that a prophet from among the Israelites will rise up - and that we should listen to him.  We see that passage echoed in both Acts and the Gospel of Matthew.  I take a humorous look at a sister at my Catholic grammar school who caught me not paying attention in class, and yelled at me to listen to her.  But the sober truth is that there is only one person to whom we must ALWAYS listen.

Lemonade

When I was a very young teenager I got a job installing a sprinkler system in the desert in the summer. I proceeded to have a massive asthma attack.  The reaction of the woman who hired me - and the trust she had in her faith - reminds me of the widow with a young son who gives the last of their food to the prophet Elijah.

A Christmas blessing

We look at the biblical use of a father's blessing for his son (in particular, Isaac's blessing of Jacob) as a metaphor for God's blessing for us.  I also remember, when I was a box boy in high school, being sent around town to collect stolen shopping carts, and a woman cursing at me when she saw me hop the wall into her backyard to retrieve a cart, and how she ended up blessing me.

Shepherds

As followers of Jesus, as people who believe in living the way that Jesus lived - with empathy, forgiveness, and grace for all - we inherit the responsibility to act as shepherds for people in spiritual and emotional need.  I look at a brief encounter where my wife and I came upon a lonely person displaced by a forest fire.

Free!

I stood in an ICU room with a young woman whose mother was dying.  She told me about the sacrifice her mother had made.  Fifteen years before, her mother had left home, traveled from the east coast to Colorado, to raise the children of her other daughter, who had died.  Then, the day before she was due to finally go home to her husband and her other daughter - after fifteen years - she suddenly had a massive stroke and would never awake again.  

Blessed are those who thirst

We are told that those who thirst will be blessed, and if we drink the spiritual water offered by Jesus, we will never thirst again.  But how do we remain willing and motivated to search out God in our lives after we have that first, great thirst that is satisfied?