Red Letter Episodes

Jesus has just issued woes against the person who causes one of his children (one of the believers) to stumble. That doesn't mean the person that stumbles get a pass! Notes on the Stumbler

After Jesus has held a child up as an example of who is the greatest in the kingdom, he expands the meaning of "child" to cover all believers. You are indeed a child of God. We're reading Matthew 18:6, Matthew 18:10, Matthew 18:14, Mark 9:42 and Luke 17:1-2. There's an interesting mention of angels in Matthew 18:10 and we dig a little bit into the role of angels in our lives. The passages focus on those that would cause one of His children to stumble. That got us to ask the questions. Who makes ...

If you want to destroy a kids soccer game, load the benches with their parents! If you can picture the concept I'm reaching for, you'll also be able to picture what Jesus was teaching his disciples about being Child-Like. Jesus is aware of the conversations among the disciples; about who will be the greatest in the kingdom. Imagining the construct of that conversation will lead you to understand why Jesus uses a child as an example of greatness. None of the disciples would have considered the ch...

Yesterday, in Church, we covered 1 Corinthians 9. In our Red-Letter journey, we encounter Peter being asked if Jesus pays the temple tax. It turns out that these two scriptures dovetail really well! So today, we launch off that question to Peter and dig deep into Jesus' response. Let's Go Fishing! Notes to Yes We Have No Drachmas Episode Link: https://www.rabbitholesandmeditations.com/yes-we-have-no-drachmas/

What we heard in parables is now fully out in the open. Coming off the transfiguration, in the disclosure of His death and resurrection, Jesus now spells it out in plain English. What is fascinating is not the revelation itself, but how the disciples take it. They are clearly disturbed by the revelation and don't know how to process it. I think sometimes when we read the Gospels, we leave our empathy on the table and look at scripture from a purely intellectual vantage point. And of course we ha...

How does your discipleship look? Are you seeing comfort in your relationship? Are you holding back until such a time when you'll have enough time to be fully committed. Are you straddling your commitments to the world and your commitment to Christ. Three seeming very reasonable requests to follow Jesus are rejected by Him. How would you fare? Notes to Commitment Episode Link: https://www.rabbitholesandmeditations.com/commitment-vs-seeking-comfort-putting-things-off-holding-on-to-your-world/

We have just witnessed the Transfiguration of Jesus on the mountain, and the pieces should be falling into place both for us and those that witnessed the event. Sometimes the best way to read the Bible is to put yourself in the sandals of one of the disciples. We did that and we started asking exactly the same questions. The clarity that comes from approaching the Bible with humble curiosity is awesome. Definitely check the notes on this for a deeper bible study: Notes to Descending the Mountain...

We've followed the disciples on this chronological red-letter journey so far covering a period of a little over a two year of Jesus' ministry. Through all of that, we have the benefit of the Bible, the New Testament and 2000 year's worth of commentary and still we find it hard to fathom what happens next! Some of us want to take Peter aside and say: "Dude, don't you get it!" Sometimes, we want to help Jesus turn the tables over in the temple! We want to wag our fingers at the Pharisees! Are we s...

There's a subtle lesson I'm slowly beginning to learn. Start your day in scripture and the rest of your day will follow you. Start your day in the world, in your email inbox, on your phone or social media and you're the follower! Today, we started in a very well-known passage. Peter has just confessed Jesus as the Messiah but his understanding of what that means led to one of Jesus' sharpest rebukes in the Bible: "Get behind me Satan". Even the reader, and certainly Petere, might stagger in bewi...

We just left Caesarea Phillipi where Peter proclaimed Jesus as the Messiah. Shortly after this, Jesus has a discussion to let His disciples know what MUST now happen. It is news the disciples are not quite ready for... though I can't imagine there ever being a good time to bring this up! We walk through this short passage in Matthew 16:21-23, Mark 8:31-33 and Luke 9:22 and then try to empathize with how the disciples would have received the news. We piece together what they had been taught from ...

I loved resting on this passage and digging into it. The full weight of what is happening comes to life when we understand the context and the setting of Caesarea Philippi. We spent some time tracing who they really thought Jesus was and importantly, how they got to their conclusions. From the context and the history, we can also discern how much Peter's confession reveals and what he still has yet to learn. We also took the same question beyond scripture and asked the same thing about religions...

Sometimes the fly on the wall gets the best perspective! We're in a synagogue on a Sunday, of course, and a woman has been coming to this place for 18 years. Everything we see here smacks of cliche'. Jesus healing on the Sabbath. The religious leader of course not having it - though there's not much he can do about it. So, as we went through this passage, we started asking some pretty serious questions. What I love about the Bible, is for every question, there's an answer! Notes for Sickness and...

We took the opportunity today to step back and look at how we read scripture. Jesus has just come from the Decapolis. He's healed a woman's daughter, a deaf mute, fed 10,000 people on the mountain without only 7 loaves of bread. He warns his disciples to beware the leaven of the Pharisees and then we come into Bethsaida. A small group of people bring a blind man to Jesus. My first thought, is OK... haven't we seen Jesus heal the blind before? But I persisted, and read through the passage, and I ...

I had to read this a few times. I'm convinced that this is what's going on. Jesus is in the Decapolis. He has just left a woman who accepts the Jewish perspective of gentiles as dogs. Even the dog eats the crumbs from his master. That segways into this scene. We're in the Decapolis, deep gentile territory. A sea of "dogs" by Jewish standards. Here, you don't get the sense of the disciples actively, enthusiastically participating. Something is off. The focus is on Jesus, his miracles, the healing...

I don't get emotional much when I'm reading something. Today, for some reason, I did. And I had to stop, back up and zoom in on a scene that would have been so easy to blow past. Jesus is leaving the region of Tyre and Sidon. It was there where he met the woman who famously said even the dog feeds off the crumbs of the master. That was amazing in and of itself. So I picked up here and followed Jesus into the Decapolis. This is still gentile territory, and Jesus goes up on a mountain and sits. It...

We just saw Jesus proclaim to the Jews in Capernaum: "I am the Bread of Life". That caused quite a ruckus. From here, Jesus retreats into gentile territory for the first time in his ministry and encounters a gentile mother. It's only fitting that from the Bread of Life we see the crumbs of mercy. Notes for Crumbs of Mercy Episode Link: https://www.rabbitholesandmeditations.com/crumbs-of-mercy/

Almost every encounter between Jesus and the Pharisees becomes a teaching moment for Jesus and a learning one for us. It starts off simple enough. Jesus and His disciples sat down to eat. The religious elite seem mortified that they did not wash their hands. Jesus has just the opening he needs. As we were studying this, the surface level stuff became pretty obvious. By now in our red-letter journey, it is almost redundant. Jesus calls the Pharisees out on their hypocrisy... again. This time he b...

It's easy to look at the scriptures and judge. It's better to look at the scriptures and learn. We often ask: "How could those guys have missed the Messiah?" He was standing right there, healing, casting out demons, raising the dead! Jesus had just fed a crowd of probably 10,000 people (5000 men plus women and children) and some of them came back and asked for a sign! Hello! We looked at what they knew. We looked at what their expectations were. We looked at scripture they would have been intima...

The title is intended to be provocative. Of course A.I. is not the bread of life... however you don't have to go far into the web to discover many people that would disagree with you. As we were walking through the Red-Letter journey that we've been on, we are just leaving the scene where Jesus has fed the 5000. He sends his disciples onward. He dismisses the crowd and the retreats to the mountain. Later that evening, he heads to Capernaum taking the shortest distance, across the water. That's w...

Jesus and the disciples are leaving a full day. They never seem to have time to rest. After the feeding of the 5000, Jesus instructs his disciples to take the boat over to their next destination. Jesus dismisses the crowd and retreats to the mountain to pray. After waiting a bit, the disciples move out without Jesus. They encounter rough waters and find themselves struggling against the waves and the wind. Jesus crosses the water on foot. This miracle cements the notion that Jesus is the Son of ...

The Disciples have returned from their mission. They've seen Jesus over the course of about two years perform every kind of miracle. They've seen Him calm the storms and cast out a Legion of Demons. He's turned water into wine. Now, before they've even had time to reflect on the meaning of their recent mission. With the help of a young boy, Jesus is going to show it to them the meaning of discipleship and giving. Notes for Even the Smallest Offering Episode Link:

As we continue following Jesus' words chronologically, we are about halfway through his ministry. Jesus says: “The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field.” That prayer asked and answered launches the first mission of the disciples. We find accounts in Matthew, Mark and Luke. To make it real, we have imagined what it might be like in the day of a disciple pair on this mission journey. In fact, we imagined 3...

This is why we love Rabbit Holes. As we continue to follow Jesus through the gospels in our Red-Letter journey, we get to the part where Jesus is now going to send out his 12. And we asked, why 12? The answer to that simple question is deep and profound and if you trace it, you end up seeing the entire story of the Bible. Ever wonder about the 144,000? This is so cool! Notes to Twelve

As we walk with Jesus, we constantly see a stark contrast. We see the helpless, the blind, the sick, the demon possessed being healed. We see the Pharisees and the Scribes deny the very deity of the one who is healing these people. Today we seek to understand why the thoughts and ideas of the Jews of the day split into these two camps. Hopefully we begin to see how these miracles speak to the glory of God and we even recognize meaning of why sometimes the healing doesn't happen. We should never ...