We look at the four famous "Servant Songs" from Isaiah.  We also consider Sister Marie, who was one of my boyhood teachers - and what she told me about the use of Jewish scripture and our relationship to the Jewish people.  As it turns out, there is strong disagreement between Christians and Jews as to what these "Servant Songs" mean.  This leads us to the much bigger question of how to interpret the Bible as a whole.

I once met a man who had lost one foot and had just been told he would lost part of his other foot.  He had something to say about how this relates to faith.  We look at the age old debate of salvation through faith vs. salvation by acts.  We consider a bit of a different perspective to try and see if we can find a way out of the seeming conflict.  Is there a way to look at faith that does more than conclude that a person with faith will want to live out that faith?  Just what does it mean to have faith?  Perhaps that tells us what really matters.  

A buddy of mine, long ago, once gave me surfing lessons.  I grew up near the ocean and was aware of its dangers.  Sure enough, my first time on a board, I ended up under water, spinning, trying to discern up from down.  We look at the Book of Revelation, specifically how it uses the Sea as a metaphor for the chaos of the world and the power of God.  From this we draw the bottom line: the true message of Revelation, written by John of Patmos, based on visions of his from his years of exile on that rocky island.

I once prayed with a man who was watching his grandmother pass away; she had largely raised him.  I prayed for a joyous eternity in the Kingdom.  He asked me if the story of Jesus in the New Testament was engineered to match Old Testament prophesy, and therefore, Jesus wasn't really the Messiah promised by the prophets.  We consider the classic passage in Micah that predicts a savior born in Bethlehem.  We look at the aspects of this prophesy that some say were used to tailor the story of Jesus' birth.  We consider the issue of faith, of believing in Jesus, and how questions like this should impact us.

I came upon a man at the San Francisco airport who was reading his Bible, studying a passage from the New Testament where Jesus speaks of himself as being a Temple.  The man at the airport had had a severe conflict with his brother, another Christian, over a Bible translation, and was wishing that we could, as people of faith, come together as true community.  We consider the view that as Christians, we are collectively, like Jesus, the Temple.  We look at modern technology, which could be used to create an Internet Temple.

I once walked into my L.A. apartment to discover a burglar leveling a cutdown pump action shotgun at me.  We consider the warnings that God sends our way from time to time, reminding us of our mortality.  We know that we will die - that this life is very temporary.  Are we ready?  We look at the issue not of dying, not of going to Heaven, but of the final End Times, what will happen - how this should change our behavior and our mindset right now on Earth.

I had a student in a class of mine once who had recently been treated for bone cancer in her spine.  She was using a cane.  She talked to me about faith and Heaven, and the fears she had when she was sick.  We discussed the issue of what it means to believe.  Today, we look at the Book of Joel, in particular at a passage referenced in Acts that says that all people will one day be able to accept God.  This serves as a critical motivational factor for Acts: to fulfill an ancient prophecy.  We consider the larger issue of who can believe, what it means to believe, and if there are alternative ways to "believe".

I once visited a woman who was almost a hundred years old and was about to die.  She expressed some sadness that she had not given enough as a Christian.  We reflect on the Book of Acts and the common misunderstanding that the early church was somehow rigidly socialist.  We consider the real gift we are supposed to give, the gift that does not involve personal assets.  We also consider what it means to lose a loved one who is very elderly.

We look at the very dramatic Psalm 137.  It tells of the fall of Babylon and the longing that the exiles have for their holy city and destroyed Temple.  We consider two people I met who reacted in very different ways to the feeling they had been harmed by others.  We look at why the Babylonian invasion is such a major cornerstone in the history of the Israelites.  We consider its use as a metaphor in both the Old and New Testaments.  We consider today - and how we should react to betrayal and loss.  

We look at the spaghetti and butter sandwiches that I ate as a kid in grammar school.  We consider Grace.  We look at three issues: first, whether it is a real thing or something invented by us or by New Testament writers; second, different variations or applications of Grace in our lives, and 3, how to measure Grace.  We see that this last issue has a lot to do with the butter in those sandwiches.

A student once asked me for advice on how he should react to his family, especially his father, who did not approve of him being baptized a Christian.  I gave him a lesson that I learned from Acts.  In this book, we see "the Way" spread to Jews in Jerusalem and then to Gentiles outward in the Roman Empire.  There is a turning point midway through Acts that is carefully engineered by God when the first Gentile, Cornelius the Centurion, is converted.  We learn from this what a great gift it is to have faith...

I was once toured around Jerusalem by a 12 year-old boy named Yaakov.  He showed me many sites, including a number of Christian sites, as he knew I was a Christian.  He also talked to me about the evolution from Temple to Rabbinic Judaism - something that is critical to understanding the theological underpinnings of the Book of Acts.  We consider this new movement that is called "the Way" in Acts, and we see what it has to do with the end of Temple Judaism.

I once was asked to sit with a Buddhist patient who was passing away.  She asked me to recite a mantra with her.  We look at the Prophet named Habakkuk.  We see that he offers an unusual message for a Prophet.  He doesn't simply warn people that God will punish his people for their wayward means.  He offers us an upbeat message of hope no matter what happens.  We consider prayer, and the relationship between the practice of reciting a mantra and reciting a prayer.  We see that both offer peace for someone who is seeking perseverance and calm.

We look at how the grammar school I went to long ago managed to ensure that all people, including the less well off, were given equal justice.  We consider Amos, the minor prophet, and the prophet who preached about justice and righteousness.  He was from the southern kingdom but preached in the north, all during a time of great prosperity.  The book is beautifully written in stunning poetry.  We consider the lessons it teaches by examining a number of passages and analyzing them carefully.

I was once approached in a hospital parking lot to pray with the father and sister of a badly injured young man.  We look at the Book of Daniel, and at other Bible passages, where we are told to pray with others and to share our faith with others and to make spiritual decisions with other believers.  We see the power of doing this.  We learn that just as Daniel was able to do what seemed impossible, by praying with fellow faithful we too can do so much more.

In 2022, Vladimir Putin did what ancient kings in the Old Testament did: he invaded another nation - and he did it on his own.  We look at the Book of Daniel, and how it proports to be about the Babylonian exilic period, but perhaps was written hundreds of years later, when the Jews were fighting the Greek speaking Seleucids.  We look at this book and ask the question: Is Daniel simply a prophesy after the fact, or is it something that we should take in a more general context?  Was Daniel doing something wrong if he claimed to be writing about a much earlier period, but was doing it for a faith-based reason?

We look at a (very) non-canonical book called 1st Enoch, which tells us the story of the Prophet Enoch, who lived before Noah.  (But this was not written until just before the life of Jesus).  It tells us about the Watchers, evil angels who create a race of giants on Earth.  We see that there was apparently some influence of this book on the New Testament.  We consider what this means for us today - especially with respect to how we should live with humility and love.  We also look at professor I knew who was quite arrogant and pissed off the queen of his country.

I once had a neighbor who kept me up all night with loud rock and roll.  Then one day, there was a massive car accident in front of our two buildings.  I discovered that just as we see in Obediah, my neighbor apparently had learned a lesson.  In Obediah, we see a people called the Edomites who assist the Babylonians in conquering the people of Israel - the neighbors and linguistic cousins of the Israelites.  We look at the typical, simplistic theory of Obediah, one that has to do with God's vengeance - and then we look a little deeper.

We consider the progression of idol worship from the Old Testament to the time of Jesus - to today.  We also consider a man I met who collected restored classic cars and another man who owned a wall of expensive guitars, but who could no longer play them because he had developed a disability.  We consider that question of how we end up like our idols: blind, deaf, and spiritually lifeless.

My mother believed in miracles - and when I was born very sick, she baptized me herself, because at the time, the Catholic Church taught that unbaptized babies that died went to Limbo.  We look at the miracles of Jesus, and how the Synoptic Gospels refer to them as "deeds of power", while John refers to them as "signs".  We see that there is a very deep reason why John does this - and we consider how this reveals the very theological nature of the Gospel of John.