The Shield ONLINE

Advent starts next week and we'll talk about the Christmas story throughout the season. This week, though, we're going to talk about two women who had obviously rejected God's ways and brought great shame to their families and communities by their brazenness. Except, maybe that wasn't the way God saw their stories...An Unexpected Christmas Story begins here...Questions or comments? You can put them here or email roger.mccort@usw.salvationarmy.orgPodcasts of our messages can be found as The Sh...

Long long ago, in a place far far away...The world was broken, so God used Abraham to put it back together again.Yes, Abraham.Listen to this episode of the TSA-Napa podcast to understand why that was and how it matters to you right now, today.

I don't think Sunday School Teachers set out to lie to their charges - it usually happens because they are passing on wrong things they have been taught. They just don't take the time to research something that they think they already know. Or they teach from their modern point of view, missing or ignoring what the author(s) intended.Which is how the story of Jonah stopped being a tale of God's amazing grace and became about a man and a whale...Which is very much is NOT.

Christmas is over. What was the point of it all anyway? Why do we always seem to leave the holiday season with the feeling that something was or is missing? And is that something that can be fixed, or is it just the way things are?Today we look at God's goal for his creation and the true meaning of the Christmas story. It's perhaps not what you thought and it's so much more than we usually celebrate about it.

Dear Magi,Thank you for bringing gifts to help with the raising of our child. They sure came in handy! It wasn't more than an hour after you left that we needed to pack up and move to another country, and we never would have been able to do that so easily without the extra funds you provided. Thank you! We enjoyed having you as our guests.I'm not so sure that the other parents in the area have quite the same fond memories of your visit...We'll be sure to stop in if Joe and I ever head over yo...

You know all those pictures of the blonde women with harps and halos and swan's wings flying over a bunch of shepherds and some sheep while spotlights from heaven light them all up while the birth of Jesus is announced?Where does any of that come from? Because it isn't from the stories in scripture. What does the Bible say happened? Oh, it's something so much better...Join us for the third week of Advent and the true story of why it mattered to shepherds that this particular baby was born whe...

We've grown a whole tragic mythology around the Christmas story that makes me CRAZY. This is supposed to be a CELEBRATION, people! Why do we insist on ignoring all the joy and adding false horrors into a tale that has enough difficulty of its own?This Christmas, try sticking to the scriptural story of Christmas and see if the true story isn't a thousand times BETTER than the one you see on TV.

There is HOPE in the real story of Christmas that you'll never find under a tree. There are examples of people who have been clinging to the world's shame and condemnation accepting - if somewhat dubiously at first - that God can and does love and care for them for who and what they are. And that if that is true, which it IS, then the opinions being heaped on them by their family, their culture, and their world, do not matter one donkey dropping in the deepest desert.This is the Advent story ...

A lot of stories people tell over and over take on a mythic quality. The story of the first American Thanksgiving is one of those. Happy Pilgrims and happy Indians planning out a feast of turkey and pumpkin pie is a fairy tale, not a history.Many of the stories from scripture are the same. What we are taught isn't what you read. Sometimes the things you read are colored by your expectations and sometimes bits are skipped to make the story say what the narrator wants it to say. The REAL storie...

Sure, the Beatitudes make a nice little framework for a life of faith in Jesus. Maybe I'll work on them sometimes, you know, like a church-related hobby. But we wouldn't want to go all in on them, would we? What would people think? We'd seem to be some kind of Jesus freaks if we did that. People might be mean to us. Some might even be angry! Jesus didn't really mean for his followers to take this stuff personally, did he?Oh, let me tell you, he made this all VERY personal when he told us to p...

Is there any way to look at being made to suffer at the hands of others that could be considered any kind of a blessing? And yet, Jesus offers us this wild saying that says we are blessed when we are persecuted for righteousness! What the heck is he going on about there? Has he spent too much time in the sun?Today, we dive into this Beatitude to uncover what it means and - just as importantly! - what it DOESN'T mean. And what, exactly, it means for those of us who are trying to follow t...

"In the real world, that stuff [that Jesus said] doesn't work."This was said to me by a pastor friend as we discussed the importance of following the Way of Jesus as he laid it out. Our disagreement was about how we are to respond to those who are or may be trying to harm us.That friend is no longer a pastor, which I think is probably for the best, because if a representative of Jesus doesn't believe the teaching and example of Jesus matters in "the real world" then they aren't representing J...

Purity and holiness sound like terribly boring religious concepts requiring us to lead dull lives enclosed in harsh boundaries, deprivation, and perfection. When we screw up, we're out, right? ZAP goes the lightning, then straight into the depths of depravity and destruction!Yeah, that would be every bit as horrible as it sounds. Fortunately, that's not at all what the Bible means when it talks about being pure in heart! Remember that Jesus was pure in heart but his opponents got all over him...

Sometimes people suck, and when they do they should be held up for ridicule and contempt and mockery... Oh, wait. That's what we DO, but is that what Jesus asks of his followers? Is it the example God provides us with? Or are we supposed to find it in ourselves, somehow, to show mercy?I suspect you already know the answer. Maybe looking at the examples Jesus gave for showing mercy will give us some hope that we might be able to learn how to do it. Or maybe we'll decide that we just don't care...

Now that we've spent a few weeks talking about being blessed, let's talk about what the word BLESSED means and how it may not be exactly what we've been thinking it is. Then let's talk about the deeper meaning of righteousness and how it's something for every one of us to embrace, not just a thing for holiness superstars. Something to consider: Being righteous doesn't come from following rules! It's based on something else entirely. Something we all want!

Just because things rhyme, that doesn't mean they are the same. If you use a cat for a bat, you'll never get a hit, and if you wear it as a hat, you'll probably regret it. And yet we tend to mix up meekness by thinking it is a weakness when the reality is that it takes a lot more strength to live out meekness than it does to dominate, bully, or push your way over the top of anyone else.Well then, what IS meekness? And how could we live it out, if we chose to give it a try? And what does any o...

Today we start with a lesson in the obvious: Life hurts. There are wounds which we need to tend to or they will fester and drive us to self-destructive means of altering or covering the pain because we just want it to stop hurting. Or the pain takes over so much that we don't realize we can feel anything else. How can there be any blessing in pain or loss or disappointment?But maybe there is...This week, we explore how that might work, and why we are never so alone as we think.

What does it mean to be poor and why would Jesus claim that this is some kind of blessed state? Why do we allow anxiety to drive us to cling to things we could release? What makes THIS the thing Jesus wanted to tell his followers to learn ahead of everything else?This week we cover the first of the Beatitudes, Jesus's instructions for life as a citizen of God's Kingdom.

"Guard your heart," declares scripture, "for everything you do flows from it."But what does that mean and what should we be letting in or keeping out of our hearts? It's not like Jesus left us a checklist... did he?Welcome to the new season of The Shield Online! We're starting with a life-changing dive into what Dallas Willard called, "a curriculum for Christlikeness," the Beatitudes!

There's a little story towards the end of the book of Acts that most people slip past quickly, noticing only the unusual story about a snakebite. But this is the beginning of Luke's conclusion to the full message of the book he has written! Why is he wasting space on a little travel vignette? Or did he have a more important purpose in mind when he described the Followers of the Way living together with three different pagan groups? Find out by joining us for today's look into the Book of Acts.