Chapter 3 of 1 John concludes with a case study of love. What is love? What does it look like? We dive into the second major theme of this letter: God is love. And because God is love, He expects His children to be examples of true love. From extreme examples of hatred like Cain to more reassurances about our relationship with God, we explore this fascinating passage.
As we move through our study in 1 John, we come to a major theme in John's letter: we are God's children. Being part of God's family is a major theme in the Bible, going all the way back to Genesis. We take a look at what that means in the context of the believer's relationship with sin and sanctification. To catch the story at the end of the episode about Kreig hiding a cat in his college dorm, check out Season 2, Episode 9 with guest co-host Jomel Delossantos.
(Originally recorded in May 2021) John's letter continues with a well-known passage about not loving the world or the things in the world. But what does that even mean? This section of the book deals heavily with the spiritual attacks on the faith and the deity of Christ that Christians were enduring in that time.
John's letter deals a lot with our duties as Christians. What should a believer in fellowship look like? Who should she be? A large part of this answer revolves around loving "the brethren" (aka, the church). Our ability to love other believers is extremely foundational to our faith. In fact, 1 John explains that those who are incapable of loving other Christians are probably not even saved. We end this section of the book going over John's beautifully worded statements about the Christians he was writing to. In the nerd corner, we talk about Superman & Lois as well as The Falcon and the Winter Solider and how exactly superheroes make money. Hit us up with that #tfatws!
1 John has a lot to say about fellowship. In fact, it's one of the underlying themes of the whole book! John the Apostle was writing to remind Christians of the great fellowship we share with Jesus and with each other. It's this two-fold fellowship that is so necessary to understand the book as a whole. God created us to be in relationship with Him, and then to be in community with others who worship Him. This original design is reinstalled in us by Christ as salvation, and it's essential to a healthy Christian life. This letter also speaks a lot about the relationship between the believer and sin. Reckless interpretation of these passages has led to some fairly dangerous false teachings about sinless perfection and other ridiculous things, which we get into in the episode. As always, we start off by talking about WandaVision, though. And "OG YouTube" gets a special mention as well as we reminisce about the wild west days of YouTube back in 2009.
Season 3 of the podcast starts with a brand new study through the letters of John the Apostle. As we look at 1 John, we talk about the overarching theme of assurance of salvation and how that confidence shapes our walk with Jesus. John wrote this first letter in a very unusual format, which can make it seem hard to follow and understand. But over the course of our study, we'll see how John's unique style emphasizes and elevates his message about confidence in the person and the work of Jesus Christ. We also talk about how light and darkness are not a balance, but two opposing forces and that leads into talking about Star Wars, naturally. Light spoilers for episodes 1-7 of WandaVision also happen, so you've been warned!
We conclude the study of the book of Esther by examining how Esther and Mordecai dealt with the impending "kill" order that Haman had gotten written into law. Through this last section, we see God's ultimate justice and His salvation and care for His people. As His church, we can take heart knowing we share in the victory that Christ has already won and that God will one day right all the wrongs that plague the world now.
The book of Esther is ramping up quickly now as Haman's grand, evil plans unravel at a breakneck speed. In the span of 24 hours, Haman goes from living his best life and feeling like royalty to seeing his plans foiled and his life taken. Irony dominates this part of this historical narrative, and God's providence again is plainly seen.
Chapters 4 and 5 of the book of Esther include some of the most pivotal moments of the whole story. Mordecai and Esther discuss Haman's horrific plan, and Mordecai pleads with Esther to do something about it. In an awesome move, Esther takes ownership of her faith and the fate of the Jews of Persia and decides to attempt to fix things. Major themes in this section include faith and prayer. We also analyze how Esther's plan to delay her request by inviting the king and Haman to feasts was brilliantly strategic.
This week, we finally meet the human villain of the story of Esther: Haman the Agagite. Haman was a pretty bad dude (Hitler-level bad, honestly), and in this episode, we see how Mordecai's decision to stand up to Haman set off the rest of the chain of events in the book. A master of the silver tongue, Haman knew just what to tell King Xerxes to get him to sign off on the total genocide of the Jewish population of Persia. Just what pushed Haman to this psychotic rage, as well as what Mordecai was taking a stand for exactly, are not fully known, but Haman's ancestors and the once-whole nation of Israel had enough history to make plenty of educated guesses. We also dive into the topic on everyone's minds: did Kreig finally watch Stargirl??
As the study of the book of Esther continues, we examine Mordecai's and Esther's entrances into the story. Xerxes loses a war, Esther enters the ancient world version of The Bachelor, and Mordecai saves the king's life. Taking a fresh look at this part of the story, you'll find that Mordecai and Esther weren't particularly "good Hebrews" in the sense of obeying the commands and instructions set forth in the Jewish law by God. But in spite of their hidden faith and questionable morals, God set them both in prominent positions for greater plans. God doesn't create evil or sin, but when humanity errs, He works through/in spite of those events to bring about ultimate Good.
We're kicking off a new book study on the BBP: Esther! Unlike previous, books, this won't necessarily be a verse-by-verse study, but rather a section-by-section study, looking through each major breakdown the book. The book of Esther is a historical and narrative book, so we have to take a wider look at the sections of Scripture here. The book of Esther is one of our favorite books. We explore the historical and scriptural context, some of the major themes, and start right into the first chapter of the book. Unlike most books of the Bible, the name of Jehovah God is not actually mentioned, yet His presence and workings are undeniable throughout. In this first section, we see how Queen Vashti stood her ground against an immoral King, and how that set the stage for the rest of the story.
Our study in Colossians concludes with a look through chapter 4. After a few verses continuing to dive deeper into the implications of Christ's preeminence in our personal lives, Paul wraps up the letter. He walks through a list of his fellow-workers and talks about his wishes for the church at Colossae. Paul accomplished a lot for the kingdom of God, but he rarely did it alone. The mission of the church is a group endeavor where every member has something to contribute. This end section also contains a lot of interesting connections to other people and books in the Bible. Curtis also riles Kreig up about the newest season of Doctor Who, but we're not talking about that right now...
We finish Colossians 3 by talking about the "put on" part of Paul's "put off, put on" analogy. Just as we were told to put off sinful behavior, we are shown how, by the power of Jesus, to "put on" virtuous behavior. When you try to leave behind something bad, you have to put something good in its place. Colossians 3 also shows us that selfless, unconditional love, is supremely important to the life of a believer, and how that love pushes us to action.
This special episode marks one year since The Bible Burrito launched! We've got a new theme song and some new ideas on the way. To celebrate, we brought in a good friend of ours to talk about a topic familiar to all 3 of us: youth ministry. Joemel Delossantos serves as the Youth Pastor for First Baptist Church of Spring Valley as well as working part-time for Urban Youth Collaborative of San Diego. Recently, UYC has launched a podcast/show geared specifically to youth pastors, talking about a wide range of topics and delivering plenty of laughs. Joemel is co-host and producer for the UYC Show which you can check out on YouTube! With Joemel, we discussed the unique ways in which teens engage with Scripture. Teenagers are blunt and brutally honest, and sometimes a bit fickle in their interests, but all of that combines into a very fresh way of doing ministry. As adults, we can quickly forget and belittle the experiences that students in youth ministry go though, so it's vital the older generations take the time to understand and hear from this integral part of the church. Link to Joemel's YouTube show: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCpIRK3Nbri_N0DsX9XV2xUw
We dive into the practical side of the book in Colossians chapter 3. Now that we understand our position in Christ, we can understand how to move forward in sanctification. Specifically, we talk about the eternal mindset we should have since our lives as believers are really in Christ, not here on Earth. Intro/Outro Music Info: AShamaluevMusic – Happy Morning. Intro/Outro Music Link: https://soundcloud.com/ashamaluevmusic/happy-morning
This week in our Colossians study, we take a quick break from the book of Colossians itself to discuss a book that is very connected to it: Philemon. The subjects at play in this book involved a total upheaval of societal norms form that period as Paul urged his friend Philemon to accept his former slave Onesimus back as a brother in Christ instead of a slave. Philemon, as a leader in the church at Colossae, was not a perfect man, but he loved God, and his life and circumstances has a lot to teach us about how we treat others. Intro/Outro Music Info: AShamaluevMusic – Happy Morning. Intro/Outro Music Link: https://soundcloud.com/ashamaluevmusic/happy-morning
March 2020 brought with it a global pandemic that has much of the population stuck inside for weeks to slow the spread of COVID-19. It’s a stressful time, so we want to offer something positive and lighthearted in these difficult times. We hope you enjoy a week-ish worth of our silliness! This episode is part of an hour-long recording session that has been chopped up into bite-size pieces for you to enjoy each day this week during the quarantine. So listen with us while you stay at home! Our final segment from our most recent Chips & Salsa session is a bit long for a mini-sode, so we're calling it our mega-minisode. We go lightning round style through a number of silly questions, giving each other mere seconds to answer. Check it out, and as always, feel free to leave us a message with suggestions for future questions! Intro/Outro Music Info: AShamaluevMusic – Happy Morning. Intro/Outro Music Link: https://soundcloud.com/ashamaluevmusic/happy-morning Game show music from Zapsplat.com
Chapter 2 of Colossians continues the thought of being complete in Christ. Specifically, we share in the victory at the cross through our relationship with Jesus. This victory frees us from the types of harmful teachings that try to tear down Jesus. Music Info: AShamaluevMusic – Happy Morning. Music Link: https://soundcloud.com/ashamaluevmusic/happy-morning
March 2020 brought with it a global pandemic that has much of the population stuck inside for weeks to slow the spread of COVID-19. It’s a stressful time, so we want to offer something positive and lighthearted in these difficult times. We hope you enjoy a week-ish worth of our silliness! This episode is part of an hour-long recording session that has been chopped up into bite-size pieces for you to enjoy each day this week during the quarantine. So listen with us while you stay at home! This episode brings a brand segment that we'll definitely be returning to: What Does the Bible Say About That? We pick topics out of a virtual hat and take a few minutes to discuss them with no prior discussion or study. Music Info: AShamaluevMusic – Happy Morning. Music Link: https://soundcloud.com/ashamaluevmusic/happy-morning