Brad‘s Bible Study

This is a bonus recording. Next week, I'm going to be talking about the Tower of Babel and about Abram and Hagar. I won't have time to go into much detail about Hagar, but I preached a sermon about them a few weeks ago that gives some great context.

This isn't really part of the series, but I wanted to make it available for anyone who missed this earlier sermon or simply wanted to hear it again.

The Flood Story, or Noah and the Ark, is not simply a story of judgement and destruction, it is the first repetition of the Eden story. It is also a powerful picture of an incredibly hopeful mystery.

One of the most important stories in the Bible, a story that is repeated over and over and over again from Genesis to Revelation, from Abraham to Moses to David to Jesus, is the story of what it means to be human.

This is the first sermon in a 5-part series that is going to look at that repeating story. In this first part, we see the template for the repetition: Genesis 1-4.

This week, we take a long look at Romans 9 and the question "did God keep His promise to Abraham?" This might seem like a question of abstract theology, but it was a deeply emotional and concrete question of the day. Paul's answer is rich, complex, and challenging as it reveals the wider plan and pattern of God. 

Paul's letter to the house churches of Rome has been used for thousands of years to answer all kinds of questions - but what were the questions he was actually writing to answer? In this four-week series we examine how reading Romans through the lens of the 1st century can illuminate its meaning in the 21st.  

We wrap up our series on the Trinity with a look at John 17 and 1 John 4, as well as one of my favorite illustrations / through experiments about what it means to be human.

Note: there was a slight audio issue with this recording that I haven't figured out yet. It may sound just little muffled or with a stronger bass than normal. I'll try to have it sorted by next time, but in the interest of getting this out sooner I'm releasing as-is. Thank you for your understanding. 

This week we look at the question "what was God doing before creation?" This is more than a theology exercise, the answer to this question radically shapes how we relate to God and others. We also follow-up with a class question about John 20:23, what's this stuff about "retaining" sins? 

This week, we begin a look at the Trinity and why it is such good news. We set an overview for our goals and approach in this three-week series, briefly explore the history of Trinity and God's self-revelation, and conclude with the good news that God is self-sacrificing.

This episode wraps up our series on James, passes on a few of my favorite take-aways from our in-class discussions, and includes a special section on kardia that we didn't have time to cover in class. Enjoy!

We continue our series as James expands on the source of anger and its contrast with faith. He has some very direct words for those who store up wealth and underpay workers, which drive us to ask some difficult questions today. Though the words of this section are unyielding, the conclusions are compassionate and hopeful.