Rabbit Holes & Meditations - Christian Bible Study

You have prayed your whole life. You still might not know how.

The men who followed Jesus prayed constantly. Shema at dawn and dark. The eighteen benedictions, three times a day, every day, from childhood. They had more prayer in a week than most of us have in a year. And they watched Him pray, and said: teach us. We do not know how to do that.

Sit with that. The most prayerful men alive asked a carpenter to teach them to pray.

Bec...

You think the Parable of the Dragnet is a threat. Look at who heard it.

Matthew 13. Jesus sends the multitude away. He goes into the house. The crowd is gone. Only the disciples are left — men who dropped their nets, left the tax booth, walked away from everything. And it is to them, privately, that Jesus tells His last parable of the day. A net swept through the sea. Every kind gathered. Drawn to shore when full. The good in...

I don't get rattled much by what's going on in the world, but the production of this podcast has stirred some anxiousness deep in my soul. Not because of what Revelation says, but because of the plausibility of what we're presenting.

Everybody watching the field of AI has no doubt crossed paths with Yampolskiy. We watched an interview with him and then asked a simple question. Can we extrapolate what Yampolskiy is saying and overla...

You’ve heard this parable your whole life. Two verses. A merchant, a pearl, a sale. Simple — until you notice where Jesus said it, and to whom.

Not to the crowds. Matthew is explicit: Then Jesus sent the multitude away, and went into the house: and his disciples came unto him (Matthew 13:36). The Pearl of Great Price was never public teaching. It was spoken behind a closed door, to twelve men who had already sold everyt...

One verse. That is the whole parable. And almost everyone reads it as a sales pitch — Jesus persuading seekers to consider the kingdom. Read the chapter again. The crowds were already gone.

Matthew 13:44 was spoken inside a house, after Jesus sent the multitude away. The only people in the room were disciples — men who had already left boats, nets, tax tables, and family businesses to follow Him. This is not an altar ca...

You have been told this parable is about corruption. Look again.

One sentence. That is all Jesus gave them. The kingdom of heaven is like unto leaven, which a woman took, and hid in three measures of meal, till the whole was leavened (Matthew 13:33). No story. No explanation. He explained the Sower. He explained the Tares. This one He left in silence — and the silence was the point.

He was speaking to the multitude. Ordinary ...

For three thousand years the prophets mocked the idols of the nations with a single taunt: "They have mouths, but they speak not... there is no breath at all in the midst of it" (Psalm 115:5; Habakkuk 2:19). Every idol in history was silent. Then Revelation 13 describes the day the silence ends — an image made by human hands, given breath, that speaks, deceive...

A seed you could lose in the crease of your palm. A tree so large the birds of the air move into its branches. And a quiet, centuries-long argument over what those birds are doing there.

Jesus told the Parable of the Mustard Seed to the crowds, and three Gospels carry it. He explained the Sower. He explained the Wheat and the Tares figure by figure, in private, at His disciples’ request. This one He never explained at all. He...

Jesus explained this parable Himself. Symbol by symbol. And His explanation dismantles the chart on your church wall.

The crowd got a story: a man sowed good seed in his field, and while men slept, his enemy came and sowed tares among the wheat, and went his way. The disciples got more. They came to Him privately, in the house, and asked. And He answered with a key no other parable receives. The sower is the Son of man. The field i...

I won't lie, this gets heavy. I almost didn't publish this episode but decided that this podcast, as much as it is about Christianity and biblical truth, is also about a journey... mine obviously. So I hope it's provocative and mind-bending. For me, going through this was convicting. When I created the article (in the notes), I decided not to push that personal experience into the background. I think it's important to see a real pe...

There is a verse that makes people close their Bibles.

Jesus, explaining why He teaches in parables: that seeing they may see, and not perceive; and hearing they may hear, and not understand; lest at any time they should be converted, and their sins should be forgiven them (Mark 4:12).

Read it plainly. It sounds like He tells stories so people won't understand. So they won't repent. So they won't be forgiven. It sounds like conceal...

“He knoweth not how.”

That is what Jesus says about the man at the center of this parable. A farmer. He plants the seed. He brings in the harvest. And everything that matters in between — the growing — happens without him. By a power he cannot see. Cannot explain. Cannot control.

Read that again. The man does not know how.

Jesus said this to a crowd that wanted a kingdom they could watch arrive — by fo...

You think you know this one. Four soils. Sunday school flannel-graph. Heard it a hundred times.

Jesus says if you get this parable wrong, you get them all wrong. Know ye not this parable? and how then will ye know all parables? (Mark 4:13). His words. This is the key. Misread it and every parable after it breaks in your hands.

So look at who He's talking to. Great multitudes on a shoreline — so many He has to teach from a boa...

Today we go for the Christian jugular. We asked the Berean search app some of the toughest questions about Christianity. Today’s podcast is Straight Up Challenges and Straight Up Answers to Christianity. The challenges.

• The New Testament is loaded with contradictions.

• Challenging the necessity of Baptism

• And the validity of infant Baptism

• Challenging Christian Exclusivity

• Science Disproves the Bible

• Challenge...

I created this short story to make a point. >> Julian 

I would recommend you read the story first before listening to this podcast. Some who follow this podcast will get it; most people won't get it without the context. Hand the story to someone else but not the commentary (which I'll also post here). This podcast delves into the creative process behind developing the story, and the commentary is a word-for-word discussi...

I saw this video, “The Real Reason Fasting Attracts God,” and fed the transcript into the Berean filter to isolate the claims that overstepped the concept of fasting. I’ve always had this question about fasting, so today I used my quiet time to look at the texts called out in the video, to ignore conclusions that sometimes seemed overreaching, and ultimately to establish my own framework for fasting.

Notes fo...

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 D...

If you have followed this podcast for some time, you might detect some discrepancies. And you would be right. I’m not what many would call a seasoned Christian. My journey as a Christian has been but a few short years. Perhaps my life was preparing me for the journey, only God can say, because when I finally embarked on this journey, it was what many would describe as fervent, zealous - even fanatical if you ask some.

I have ...