Rabbit Holes & Meditations - Christian Bible Study

As we continue our Red-Letter Bible journey, we arrive at Matthew 7:7-12 and Luke 11:9-13. It is so easy to just gloss over this and because of this, our prayers become either very superficial or sometimes even scripted. And that loses the meaning of this passage. To bring it closer to home, I started to think about some of the best podcast hosts that I have listened to, and Joe Rogan comes to mind. He never comes to meeting with a...

They all but created a day online for today! It was Rapture Day! And then it wasn't.

If you’ve followed this podcast from its inception, you’ve heard maybe 10 different podcasts about Rapture. Different theories, different timing abounds, and we’ve covered them all for the most part. So, what do we actually think? It’s interesting because I’m not a pastor but I kind of question those pastors who are discussing the imminence of the ...

I think we live in a culture of judges... doing so without considering their own inward issues first. Jesus isn't telling you not to judge... which is how Matthew 7:1 is used:

“Judge not, that you be not judged.” (ESV)

I'll issue a challenging corollary that is often used: Judge the sin, not the sinner” is not biblical. Scripture commands us to judge both—actions and people—yet with mercy, humility, and the aim of r...

We live in a stress filled world. The two keywords in that sentence are "stress" and "world". Imagine your life if you could stop worrying so much about what tomorrow brings? In today's culture that sounds like a tall order. To chill out doesn't mean you have to slow down. It really comes down to the why behind your actions? If you're doing it because you're fearful about what would happen to you if you didn't, you need to consider...

Leviticus is a tough book for me to read. It's a book of rules. I've been reading it slowly, in small chunks so my I can stay focused on the text. Well, last night, while I was reading Leviticus 18:24, I woke up! God said, "Do not defile yourselves in any of these ways, for by all these the nations I am driving out before you have become defiled". The chapter names all kinds of sexual deviancy - much of it happening AND BECOMING AC...

We're still following Jesus in our Red-Letter journey and Jesus is telling a crowd of followers: warning about hypocrisy, fearing God, confessing Christ and relying on the Holy Spirit and this guy speaks up and suggests to Jesus that He should tell his brother to share his money and inheritance with him. It's almost comical that he doesn't comprehend what Jesus has been saying. Sometimes we read this stuff that is just so obvious.....

In our modern culture, it seems that we are rediscovering the physical benefits of fasting. Unfortunately, how we look in the mirror can take more precedence in our daily lives than how we look spiritually. Yes, there are physical benefits to fasting and even if you focus on the spiritual, you will see the physical benefits. But remember where Jesus words about fasting are in the bible? Matthew 6:16-18 is in the Sermon on the Mount...

We've seen this in every church - mumbling through the Lord's Prayer. Recited, forgetting it's reverence. Today, we hear from that persistent kid in the room - pestering the teacher (interesting that they referred to Jesus as teacher), looking for answers. Sometimes you want to tell that kid to be quiet... but Jesus want's that very kid in the room. That is when you start following your curiosity and your questions. You forget the ...

When you give a large sum of money to someone or some charity, how does that make you feel? Good right? But ask yourself why? Do you want some credit for giving generously? Do you want to be recognized? Are you doing it so that you'll feel good about yourself? You might want to check your motivations for giving. 

We jump into Matthew 6:1-4 to see what Jesus says about giving. It may be more convicting than you think it is on the su...

We are outside the sequence of the Red-Letter Bible Study here, but I wanted to address this. If you get some of your religious content from social media (especially YouTube), then I'm sure you've caught the rapture buzz. The latest, among many is the feast of trumpets and September 23rd 2025. 

I'm going to go out on a limb (with Bible in hand) and tell you that this prediction is false. Let me go one further. There is not going to...

You just bought a big red truck. You loved it. It was new, it was different and nobody else had one! You hop in, drive down the road and all of a sudden, there are big red trucks everywhere! Same model even! Ever had that happen? That's how the eye works. It illuminates what you're thinking about. The eye illuminates what's on the brain; what's in your heart. Let's talk about what Christ means when he says the eye is the lamp of th...

The Sermon on the Mount was a rollercoaster ride for me. Taken in isolation, Jesus sets an incredibly high standard. I can't possibly achieve what Jesus is suggesting here! It's convicting. I had to sit with the idea that "I'm doomed". I can't possibly live up to this. I need help. And then you realize: "Blessed are the poor in spirit". "Blessed are those who mourn." "Blessed are the meek." "Blessed are those who cry out for righte...

I know! I made that word up!!! But it fits! (apologies... first version was cut short for some reason. This is now corrected.)

We are on the tail end of the Sermon on the Mount and the Beatitudes in our Red-Letter Bible Study. It occurred to me how foreign the message in Matthew 5:38-42 was and that led me down the Rabbit Hole of "why?". Why don't I connect to this. It feels historical but not relevant. For me, at least, that's a ...

Today, we landed on Matthew 5:33-37.

Have you ever lied? Have you ever not done something you said you were going to do? Have you ever sworn to God only not to fulfill the promise you were making. I'm guessing you can't even count the times. Yet this is the standard to which Jesus is calling us. If the Law didn't expose your own sinful nature, Jesus makes it abundantly clear. The whole purpose of the Sermon on the Mount is to raise...

We have walked quite a way into the Sermon on the Mount. If it feels convicting, that is good! I think that is the very reason for the sermon. Jesus is basically verbalizing what the law was meant to expose. The legalism that surrounded the law often hid the meaning behind it. People and especially the religious elite were so caught up in the ritual, they lost the meaning. The Torah, the Law, became a book of rules to follow. The W...

You hear it all the time, John 3:16... whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. But John did not end there. John 3:16 could be the summation at the end of a courtroom scene. John closes with 3:21 "But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what they have done has been done in the sight of God."

Abiding in Christ is to understand The Cost. Belief is an ongoing acti...

We never know where the rabbit hole is, but there always is one! Today, quite by accident, we discovered the phrase in Matthew 5:22 - "whosoever is angry with his brother without a cause". "Without a cause" stood out, but why? It just rubbed me the wrong way and made me question the passage in the context of "love your enemy". So, we took the detour until we flushed out the real meaning of the passage. The notes get quite long for ...