Jesus For Sex Workers, Church People, and Me
The church is failing its mission. Rather than answering Jesus’s radical call to be salt and light, church people have chosen to go to war with their neighbors. Todd Austin shows how the ancient words of Scripture goad the righteous of today back toward the true way, and how those same words kick open a door to those the church has shut out. Season 1 focuses on the gospel of Matthew, with its announcement of the coming of a new nation—the kingdom of heaven—and the expectations Jesus has for those who choose to enter this kingdom. It’s a message that is both potently challenging and surprisingly freeing. Season 2 moves into the gospel of Mark, where we learn with the first disciples what it means to follow the Way of Christ—a way that is so counter intuitive that every single one of them walked away by the end of the book. But when they came back to it, this way transformed who they were and changed the world.
Episodes
If you wanted to convince people to take Jesus seriously, where would you start? The author of the gospel of Matthew chose a story that would scandalize most church people today, just like it did his original contemporaries.
If you want to see how the real Jesus isn’t the guy they told you he is, there’s no better place to start than Matthew 1:1–17.
...If you want to make the world a better place, where do you start?
Church people like to throw around the word repentance. It’s the right answer. But, to paraphrase Inigo Montoya, “They keep using that word. I do not think it means what they think it means.”
Jesus himself models the kind of repentance he wants. And good church people have a harder time following him than anyone else.
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One of the common themes of our public discourse is national greatness. There is an overwhelming sense among some that we’ve lost something, that we were better in the past, and that we’re on the wrong track now. While others say it was never that great, and are yearning for a nation where true greatness will finally include them.
Both groups talk about the ...
There are 613 statutes in the ancient Hebrew law. How many are there in the new law?
It depends on who you ask. Church people will give you different answers, depending on what flavor of church—what denomination—they happen to be a part of. This is one of the fundamental clues pointing to how they misunderstand Jesus and his priorities.
In this new Kingdom of Heaven, what are the standards of crime and punishment? Of law and order?
One of the problems church people have with Jesus’s radically simplified law code is that it seems ready-made for people to take advantage of. We can see the need for mercy and forgiveness, but only for those who seem to be on the right path.
After 50 years of all-out war, who is winning? And, remind me, who are we supposed to be fighting?
And, who is the Golden Rule supposed to be applied to? Just the people on our side?
Good church people have gotten pretty far off track in all the fighting. Maybe Matthew 6:1–8, 16–23, and 7:1–14 will help remind us of wha...
In the war to make America safe again for Christianity it seems like for every two steps we gain, we take five steps back.
We’ve been doing the same things over and over again, expecting different results. Some would say that’s the definition of insanity, but others would say we just need to try a little harder, for a little longer. Who are we supposed to b...
Who are the first twelve people you meet in the Kingdom of Heaven? And what can they tell us about who this kingdom is for?
Good church people think they know the answer—at least to the second question. And their answer explains why the church looks the way it does today.
In Matthew 8—11, Jesus issues his first invitations f...
Good church people say they revere scripture, but they don’t read it very well. Perhaps that explains why they don’t bother to read it very often, either. When you read the gospel of Matthew like it was intended to be read, as a single document, you start to notice themes that you don’t see when you reduce it to the twelve verse vignettes we see in most Sunday schools.
Is it a persistent illusion, or delusion, that we see ourselves as inherently better than the ancient followers of God? We scoff at their faithlessness. Why couldn’t they see the truth of what was going on? Why didn’t they listen to the prophets? Why did they worship those silly idols?
We think if we had lived back then, we would have done better.
Good Church People have a problem with legalism. It’s a problem they recognize, but they can’t seem to rid themselves of it.
The source of their legalism is in a place they’re afraid to look. It’s in the black box at the core of their faith. The black box that tells them who God is, and what He is like. Maybe it’s time to open that box, fa...
Most Christians see resurrection as something that happens after we die — the promise of heaven in the sweet by-and-by. But what if that’s only half the story? In the final episode of Season One, we return to the mountain with Jesus and discover that resurrection isn’t just our future hope — it’s a present reality. The kingdom of heaven has already begun breaking...
In the opening episode of Season 2, we step into a world on the brink of collapse—political violence, religious certainty, and a people desperate for God to step in. As competing voices promise salvation through power, John Mark offers a better, but unsettling, alternative.
His observations may hit closer to home than we’d like.
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