A Talking What? When Animals Go Crazy

Start by reading Numbers 22:22-35 and 2 Kings 2:23-25

Another title for this post would be, don’t shoot the messenger.  I say that because one of the things that becomes very apparent in this story is that it’s easy to take out our disapproval on who or what brings us the news that we don’t like.  That’s one of our problems.  We like the immediacy of exactly our displeasure on who it is that is giving us news/info that we don’t like.  We do that because we don’t like things that are different than us. and a lot of times we only realize the message when we are presented with folks who are different from us.  We like it when things come to us from the places that we expect.

Jeremiah’s Unmentionables

Start by reading Jeremiah 13:1-11, 15-27

Actually, I would start by reading second of those scripture passages first.  It does some explaining of what’s going on in the first passage.  That being said, if it still doesn’t make sense, or you’re struck by a sense of weirdness, then you’re on the right track.

This is the first in a series of posts devoted to weird scripture passages.  I can’t take all the credit for this, but its a collaboration with my friend Andy.  One of the things that we noticed is that in the lectionary (it’s a three year cycle of scripture passages that covers most of the Bible) and in the ways that we preach, and read the Bible, that we skip over some things. 

Angry Bibles – Crumbling Walls

Start by reading Ephesians 4:17-32

So we’re on the second post of our discussion of anger. Last time we started off by talking about how God gets angry. That’s okay. It happens. that’s okay. God does in fact does get angry. Is, because we are created in God’s image. we’re going to get angry too. That’s okay. it is a part of who we are. Its not wrong, it’s not a sin. It’s not something to be concealed, or put down, or push away, or kept out of sight out of mind. It is a part of who we are. Now that being said, anger, like anything else, can be bad. It can be used badly it could be purposeless it can be dangerous it could be damaging. It can be hurtful, it could be all those things that we fear the most about it, if we’re not careful.

Who Ya Gonna Call?

Start by reading 1 Samuel 15:34-16:13

When I was growing up,  one of my favorite movies was Ghostbusters.  That could have been because of the great theme song that forever changed the answer to the question,  “Who ya gonna call?”  It never fails that if you get a group of people that grew up in the 80’s and ask that question,  we’ll all respond “Ghostbusters” before we even know that a question’s been asked. The other thing that I really liked about that movie was the thought of a 20 story tall marshmallow man.   My first thought when I saw it was of all the smores that he could make.