Obedience Episodes

A great sermon always leads to a good conversation after church. Then pizza : ). Then home to feed and let the dogs out. But the subject never left my brain. I took a motorcycle ride on which the sermon kept playing back in my head. So back home in quiet time I found myself pondering how the serpent deceived Eve so easily. There was something there nagging at me. That led to the article you have in the source material: “The Deception Spectrum”. Note to the Deception Spectrum Episode Link:

Typically when you embark on a journey to study end times in the bible you’re are bounced between Revelation, Daniel, Ezekiel, Zechariah with a little Matthew 24 and 24. Here, though, in season 5, As we walk through the Bible landing where God interacted with His creation, we are way back at the beginning and whatever the temple of the day was, we’re still seeing the connections leap off the page straight through the cross into Revelation. Honestly, we were hoping this would happen. We wanted to...

What is it about the word “No”? I don’t know about you, but for most people, the minute they are told they can’t have something, they want it. Or at the very least, they are curious. A friend of mine has a two-year-old, and up until now, he’s gotten everything he’s asked for. Now, he’s learning the word “no”. There is a reason we call this age the “terrible twos”! Inevitably, when the boundary is set, a person wants to see what is on the other side of the barrier. And that doesn’t stop at the ag...

We take a break from the Red-Letter journey today to just discuss the elephant in the room. And to be sure, your elephant might look different. You could be looking at the tail or a foot. Or at the trunk. You're just a speck on this huge planet, and your perspective will drive your agenda... or perhaps your agenda will drive your perspective. I'm not sure in which direction we travel. As I was looking at this, I recognized that I, too, have an agenda. So does President Trump. So does Netanyahu. ...

How many times have you blown over the passage. Yeah, you marveled that Peter heard the rooster crow, which recalls what Jesus told Peter would happen when they were in the upper room. But let's really dig into this. There is so much we can learn from Peter in this moment and the subsequent restoration. Notes for Lovest Thou Me Episode Link: https://www.rabbitholesandmeditations.com/lovest-thou-me-the-restoration-of-peter/

I think today's podcast is a helpful example of how we study. I spend a good part of my day in a variety of different resources. This is daily and habitual. In between all of that, I actually retreat to work, which has nothing to do with my biblical studies. My commercial breaks during the day usually return me to my Christian studies. I usually open with a section of the Bible I want to read in the morning. But my brain is saying, " Hey, that's cool - remember this from yesterday or a few days ...

If you have been traveling with us and followed the words of Jesus chronologically through the Gospels, then you have been the proverbial fly on the wall. Do not lose the immediate context when you read this - it is so easy to do because the theology is so rich. We are in the upper room for pages of scripture, and Judas has left the room. What Jesus has to say is not for Judas. But it is for you! Without stating exactly what will happen in the next few hours, Jesus addresses the tension in the r...

I know some of these later podcasts are long. They are heavy. They are worth listening to multiple times. It's worth reading the notes, reading and rereading the scriptures they are bound to. Matthew 14 answers some profound questions. The question I came with was: Why Why must Jesus leave in order to send "the helper". The Holy Spirit. Why can't we just do it? The answer goes all the way back to why Moses couldn't look at the face of God. Matthew 14 will open your entire understanding of the Ho...

Have you even sat in a business conference or meeting and totally missed the point? You look at the speaker and go "Wait........ What?" Like you thought you understood it until you just realized what he was saying is not what you were thinking. We've walked through the red-letters all the way to this point and never have the disciples let go of the idea that Jesus is the conquering king. They have been told at least three times that He would be killed. They've been told that He will return. They...

While the synoptic gospels picked up the core elements of the Last Supper, it seems that John captured more of the conversation. We want to spend some time here. We stop to ask questions. We are at John 13:31-35. Judas has left the room. The conversation gets deep. We are going to slow down and make sure we understand what this all means. Today we get practical with the very things Jesus is commanding. For example, it's one thing to say do it for the glory of God, but how often do we consider wh...

As we leave Matthew 24, we leave with a warning. I'm multitasking right now in front of a YouTube video by John Barnett. If you're not familiar, he spends every waking moment in his online ministry discussing End Times. And he is REALLY GOOD at it though admittedly; I waver on dispensational theology and pretribulation rapture stuff. That said, that is is an interpretation no false prophecy and we as Christians should know the difference and not throw the baby out with the bathwater. John's teac...

It was early last night. I thought, I'm not getting anything productive done, I'll just turn in. So I did what I always do. I open my Bible - just where we left off on our Red-Letter journey. We are on the Temple court still early in Passion Week (most likely still Monday). A couple of Greeks ask a question that would keep me up for the next three hours. Not because of what they asked, but because of how Jesus responded...and how God responded. Notes for The Glory of Jesus is the Glory of God Ep...

Jesus is on the temple court speaking to the pharisees and he tells the Parable of the two sons. Jesus is pretty explicit about the different between professing belief and walking in faith. There's a famous expression that says that the road to hell is paved with good intentions. Thousands of preachers preach the sinners prayer as if that moment in a person's life is all that is needed for salvation. Many people do exactly as asked. They stand or even approach the altar; they pray the sinner's p...

Jesus didn't have a GPS, he had something better. He had ancient prophecy. And at this point in the journey, Jesus is the only one who can see the destination. The other disciples are blind and fearful. They are marching right where they think they ought not be traveling. Notes for Marching on the Roadmap Through Prophecy Episode Link: https://www.rabbitholesandmeditations.com/marching-on-the-roadmap-through-prophecy/

The resurrection of Lazarus itself is almost anticlimactic in the scope of what's presented. So we slow down dramatically and focus here on the interaction of Jesus with Martha and Mary. Within this context we see one of the rawest expressions of emotion we see from Jesus anywhere in the Gospels (and also the shortest sentence in the Bible: Jesus wept.) By slowing down, we were able to determine not only the difference and character and response of Martha and Mary, and we took the time to unders...

During the Red-letter journey, we encountered the Thomas. It occurred to me that we didn't know much about Thomas except this one phrase that has lingered through history - "Doubting Thomas". When Jesus is ready to turn back toward Judea, in the face of imminent danger - Thomas stands up and basically says to the other disciples: If He's going to face death, we're all going with Him. It's worth taking a deeper look at Thomas and reframing his legacy. https://mcdn.podbean.com/mf/web/j25gsatzrmdhd...

As we continue along on our red-letter journey, we encounter Jews asking Jesus who will be saved. Will it be many or just a few? The beauty of following along chronologically is that we just heard Jesus discussing the narrow door over in John 10. There he was addressing the religious leaders. Well, that doesn't mean that their followers get off the hook and Jesus makes it abundantly clear. Some will suggest that this can be one of the scariest passages to hear Jesus utter. Luke 13:25-27. Once th...

John chapter 9 continues where 8 left off. An ordinary man would be long gone. Remember, they were resolved to stone Jesus at the end of John 8. Instead, Jesus reverts back to what He is sent to do. Even the water of Siloam stays in the picture. Jesus approaches a blind man and heals Him. We break down the entire chapter of John 9 and come away with some pretty cool answers to common questions about grace, obedience, suffering and most importantly who Jesus is. Also, be sure to check out the pod...

There's an easter egg at the end... Just wanted to get that out early. We are still in John Chapter 8. I had intended to finish this and, well, I made it to verse 32. TWO VERSES out of the 29 we wanted to cover. Is it any wonder that we call our podcast Rabbit Holes and Meditations? I think it helps to explain how this content is generated. Today, I have two verses and 47 pages of typed, formatted, organized notes. It's basically how I journal through scripture. I read what I want to study, then...

As I continue to ponder John 8:21-30, my mind was connecting the meaning of all that we have discovered up to this point in our red-letter journey. Walking chronologically with Jesus through the gospels helps afford you the same maturity of thoughts and ideas that the disciples would have been going through. It's only fitting that each encounter feels more deeply meaningful. I like to consider myself the 15th disciple. Matthias was the 13th replacing Judas. Paul, the 14th and the rest, you, me, ...

We've walked with Jesus' first two and a half years in our red-letter journey, and we've seen the growth and evolution of his audience. Hopefully we've even added a few believers along this podcast journey. What is becoming plainly evident is the great divide within Judea. You could consider the great divide within our society as a parallel example and the context hints to reasons why that occurs. Here, we stick to the context of Jesus' ministry, but we do approach why people gravitate to "posit...

Why did the Vatican mint a coin commemorating the Covid Vaccine? That's the image you see... OK, so we jumped off the red-letter trail for this one. Tucker Carlson interviews a guy named John Leake. You may not know who he is, but he wrote a book with Dr. Peter A. McCullough whom you may remember became infamous during the Covid era as one of the more vocal dissenters. The book is called: Vaccines: Mythology, Ideology and Reality (available on Amazon if you want to go deeper). Say what you will ...

It's a subject that comes up again and again. "Once saved, always saved". And inevitably, embedded in that argument is "They went out from us, because they were not of us…” (1 John 2:19) leading to the response that if someone leaves the faith they were never saved in the first place. So, we tackle that head on. Let your discerning heart guide your faith. Sometimes, when you hear something like this, your inclination is to remain quiet. After all that's your preacher saying that (and it often is...

We hop off the red-letter journey today. A brother approached me to look at this passage from 1John 5:16. If you see any brother or sister commit a sin that does not lead to death, you should pray and God will give them life. I refer to those whose sin does not lead to death. There is a sin that leads to death. I am not saying that you should pray about that. This turns out to one of those cases where you just have to walk it slowly and it all makes sense. The bottom line is two people can be do...