Sabbath School From Home
214 episodes - English - Latest episode: 1 day ago -Sabbath School is perhaps the most communal and participatory element of a regular Seventh-day Adventist church event (after foot-washing), but social distancing has us all isolated at home. This is a weekly Sabbath School styled conversation on Biblical themes and passages. Join in the conversation by writing comments/questions to [email protected] .
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Episodes
John 9 - Now I see
April 26, 2024 07:00 - 44 minutes - 46.4 MBStanding for the Truth is vital, but what if our "truth" needs tweaking? History is full of people who passionately defended what they felt was true, but which seems more questionable to us in retrospect. This problem is not new - exactly the same thing occurred in Biblical times. Throughout the Gospels people struggle to accept the Truth in Jesus because of their passion for defending truth they inherited or developed. John 9 tells a fascinating story all about knowledge, which h...
John 17 - Teach them your word
April 19, 2024 12:37 - 43 minutes - 48.5 MBWhy is it so hard to accept an incarnational nature of scripture? Christians take that name because of their belief in Jesus as God incarnate - the whole point is that He had to become human in order for us to better understand who God is (and what we mean to Him). It seems reasonable to encounter the Bible in the same way: inspiration but through genuinely human authors.
1 John 4 - Love God and love each other
April 12, 2024 12:12 - 41 minutes - 95.3 MB"Love or selfishness" forms an interesting axis. It might seem strange not to contrast love with hate, but the book of 1 John spends a lot of time on the relationship between love and a focus on what is best for others. It is quite a stimulating perspective on love and its role in the revelation of God. We realise that love can have many "opposites", each of which represents a somewhat "great controversy" that we each must navigate in the particulars of life.
Genesis 2 - God put the tree
April 05, 2024 10:51 - 39 minutes - 89.7 MBThis new season will explore "the Great Controversy", and so we start with some of the biggest questions about good and evil. It is easy to get tied up in knots with this sort of thing, ending up squeezed into a rhetorical corner that sounds like God is responsible for bad things in the world. In a way that's the whole point of this theme and exploration - searching for a way to express a deep conviction that God is good and just even while we acknowledge pain and suffering. We de...
Psalm 126 - The Lord has done great things
March 29, 2024 10:24 - 40 minutes - 91.7 MBIt is tricky to summarise the Psalms, or even the things we've learnt from them this season. One helpful thought is that things are never "just symbols" - human societies are too much dominated by story-telling for that to work as a dismissive statement. Symbols matter, and feelings matter, and we find that validated by the Psalms.
Psalm 134 - Stand by night
March 22, 2024 06:00 - 36 minutes - 84.3 MB"Worship that never ends" speaks to more than just time. Psalm 134 is extremely brief but packs in a number of interesting thoughts. There's a suggestion that worship is valid at all times and all places, and we are invited to explore what it means to bless someone.
Psalm 122 - Standing inside your gates
March 15, 2024 06:00 - 36 minutes - 83.8 MBMany Psalms speak joyfully or longingly about specific places, so how do we read them in a culture not much concerned about location? The idea of pilgrimage has been central to much of religious history, and yet is largely absent from protestant Christianity. Are we missing anything of importance? How might the idea apply to our own experience?
Psalm 78 - Stories we have heard
March 08, 2024 06:00 - 36 minutes - 83.3 MB"Lessons from the past" are important, but not always easy to transmit. This Psalm is dominated by an overview of Israelite history, with a remarkable focus on where they failed to stay faithful to God. It seems the main point is that "God cared for them" even though "the people kept sinning". It is interesting to reflect on how well lessons from the past are handed between generations in our own society, and indeed which lessons are most important to pass on.
Psalm 2 - You are my son
March 01, 2024 07:35 - 41 minutes - 95.2 MBMessianic elements in the Psalms can be tricky to handle. Some psalms obviously (to our eyes) foreshadow aspects of the earthly life and ministry of Jesus. Psalm 22 and 23 contain perhaps the most prominent examples, which we enjoyed in the first season of Sabbath School from Home. Psalm 2 makes mention of "submitting to God's royal son", but there's some cultural and linguistic context worth exploring. We ponder the challenges of prophecy, inspiration, and messianic interpretatio...
Psalm 141 - Drift toward evil
February 26, 2024 03:06 - 30 minutes - 70 MBThe Sabbath School topic this week is "wisdom for righteous living", and Psalm 141 serves us a good dose! It is clear that controlling what we say is a core step towards wisdom, and this psalm also contains a vivid reminder of how important it is to be open to correction. These are both harder than they initially appear, and we explore the themes and challenges within these few verses.
Psalm 57 - Have mercy!
February 16, 2024 11:22 - 31 minutes - 72.9 MBMercy seems to be one of God's most prominent characteristics. Psalm 57 is a beautiful celebration of God's mercy, but this concept keeps popping up all over the Bible. It is clearly an emphasis worth dwelling on.
Psalm 41 - Kind to the poor
February 09, 2024 10:32 - 37 minutes - 85.7 MBThe theme of being kind to the poor is well-trodden on this podcast, but we turn to Psalm 41 for new insight. The Sabbath School lesson falls into a fascinating trap by using fairly heavy "us" and "them" language to describe the poor and needy. We don't claim to be in this category, but it is likely that some readers of the lesson will be. Psalm 41 actually addresses this in a subtle way by switching from 3rd- to 1st-person part way through!
Psalm 77 - The good old days
February 02, 2024 10:02 - 37 minutes - 84.8 MBThinking about "singing the Lord's song in a strange land" makes us wonder what feels normal and what feels strange. Exile in a foreign land is a substantial theme for many biblical authors, and the lesson this week applies the idea to our sin-bound world. This resonates with our calling to enter God's Kingdom, but it seems possible to get too carried away with this analogy. Is sin becoming more prominent in society, or less? Is the world becoming more of a strange land, or more o...
Psalm 121 - Keeps you from all harm
January 26, 2024 07:31 - 37 minutes - 86 MBAny discussion of how the Lord hears and delivers has to consider the times when he doesn't. This well-loved Psalm strongly endorses God's protection, and we find the passage to be uplifting and helpful. But it is certainly easy to find counter examples provided by people who weren't kept from all harm, and we discuss how this all holds together.
Psalm 100 - the Lord is good
January 19, 2024 06:14 - 33 minutes - 76.8 MBThe Lord "reigning" is a somewhat antiquated metaphor in our contemporary social and political context. What does it tell us about God, and is there any helpful alternative imagery? We dwell on Psalm 100 to ponder the greatness and goodness of God.
Psalm 44 - Lord, wake up!
January 12, 2024 06:00 - 48 minutes - 111 MBThe Psalms have plenty to teach us about how to pray. Perhaps the most striking thing about Psalm 44 is the rawness of complaint and accusation against God. Clearly a person of faith must be "allowed" to express their feelings - both in contentment and in anguish. We usually gravitate towards praise and worship, but it is OK to be honest. In fact, we realise that complaint and lamentation can be an expression of faith.
Psalm 33 - Sing a new song
January 05, 2024 11:13 - 42 minutes - 96.6 MBThis season we return to the Psalms, and it is good to start by exploring how we can read them. Our initially general discussion of Inspiration leads to the reasonably profound idea of transferring a thought between two people. There are some interesting insights from mathematics, but some thoughts are not so easy to transfer to another person in high fidelity. The Psalms seem to be the result of many repeated attempts all building on each other and combining to provide a richer p...
1 Peter 2 - Living stones
December 30, 2023 00:41 - 35 minutes - 81.8 MBWe attempt to wrap up this season on "God's mission", but it seems there's more to learn and understand. The lesson poses a question about what the end of God's mission might be, and it is a difficult thing to qualify with thresholds. The metaphors in 1 Peter chapter 2 seem to suggest that God's mission is always ongoing, as He attempts to build His creation into a better temple.
Esther 8 - They feared the Jews
December 22, 2023 12:52 - 35 minutes - 81.1 MBEsther is a complicated story in any context, let alone the theme of God's mission. This complication arises from the implicit role of God in numerous surprising coincidences, and yet the complete absence of explicit mention of God. It is also difficult to find much helpful contemporary mission relevance for the bloodthirsty conclusion to the story. Fear seems to be a substantial element of the "mission activity" described in this story, and we ponder a few responses to the challe...
Jeremiah 7 - The Lord’s Temple is here!
December 15, 2023 08:07 - 33 minutes - 77.1 MBWhat might it mean to participate in God's mission to the "reached"? As anticipated, we follow on from last week's topic of "the unreached" by considering what it could mean to be reached. This passage in Jeremiah 7 is one of many that make it quite clear that many who self-identify as "reached" by God still have glaring deficiencies in understanding.
Acts 17 - Hearing something new
December 08, 2023 06:00 - 36 minutes - 41.4 MBThe "unreached" might need mission, but it is not such an easy category! We look at the well-known story of Paul in Athens using a statue to an unknown god to launch a conversation about Jesus. The trouble is that the analogy worked because these people were perhaps "partly reached" more than "unreached". In fact, it might be a useful challenge to ponder how reached we are ourselves rather than feel smug in our current state of knowledge and belief.
Daniel 1 - Serve in the royal palace
December 01, 2023 07:51 - 26 minutes - 34.3 MBIt's fascinating to explore mission to the powerful. A number of biblical examples are illustrative, but perhaps the most iconic is the story of Daniel and his friends making a point to King Nebuchadnezzar about their overarching commitment to God.
James 1 - Pure and genuine religion
November 24, 2023 06:00 - 33 minutes - 44.9 MBTo explore the topic of "Mission to the needy" we turned to the story of friends lowering a paralytic man through the roof. This topic is particularly timely for our world, stretched by financial pressure and prominently torn by conflict. It is worth pondering the thought from James 1 that pure religion is looking after widows and orphans.
Luke 10 - Love your neighbour
November 17, 2023 07:02 - 32 minutes - 50.4 MBThe topic "Mission to my neighbour" sends us straight to the Good Samaritan. Although so well-known, this story has so much capacity to challenge us. It provides an excellent perspective on key aspects of "mission", and we ponder what it means for us today.
Luke 24 - Hearts burn within us
November 10, 2023 05:54 - 35 minutes - 37.2 MBHow to catch the kind of motivation that makes you re-walk a day's journey without resting? Some of the motivations experienced by friends of Jesus in the New Testament don't correspond all that well to our experience as followers of Christ millennia later. Other stories map more closely, and Cleopas walking with a friend to Emmaus seems a great example.
Jonah 4 - Angry enough to die
November 03, 2023 05:49 - 30 minutes - 42.3 MBWe all have excuses to avoid God's mission, but the most obvious ones are nearly trivial. Looking at the story of Jonah exposes a much more challenging idea: what if we avoid mission simply because we don't actually agree with God that someone else needs and deserves His mercy?
Genesis 18 - Will you sweep away?
October 27, 2023 06:08 - 32 minutes - 40.9 MBAbraham challenges God's suggestion of destroying Sodom and Gomorrah, which is a challenging picture of "participating in God's mission".
Isaiah 58 - This kind of fasting
October 20, 2023 06:00 - 40 minutes - 56.2 MBHow might we stop "mission" becoming a mirror? Talking about comfort zones in the context of God's mission reminds us just how powerful the pull of comfort can be. Do we get uncomfortable in our inclusive acceptance of people, or do we expect them to leave their comfort zone when joining our Christian community?
Matthew 28 - Some of them doubted
October 13, 2023 06:47 - 26 minutes - 37.8 MBWhat is the Great Commission again? It's a command to go, make disciples, baptise them, and teach them to obey. All of these aspects deserve to be unpacked a lot, but a somewhat obvious idea is that this task might not involve all that much preaching and Revelation seminars! What if we accidentally turn mission into making people more like us, rather than more like God?
John 3 - God sent His Son
October 07, 2023 23:30 - 38 minutes - 52.8 MBAn exploration of God's Mission must start with a focus on the God of mission. This new season will explore the theme of "God's Mission, My Mission", and we have to recognise that the word "mission" means a wide range of different things to different Christians. In fact, our initial reaction to this title probably depends on what kind of mission we are picturing. This idea will need to be explored more fully in upcoming episodes, but first In this introductory episode we focus on t...
Ephesians - Union with Christ
September 29, 2023 11:59 - 25 minutes - 30.7 MBAfter exploring the themes and some details of Ephesians, does it "feel different"? This episode is a bit of an experiment - does listening to the entire book of Ephesians work for you after 13 episodes exploring it bit-by-bit?
Ephesians 6 - Grace and peace
September 22, 2023 07:00 - 19 minutes - 25.6 MBEphesians closes with almost the same sentence as it began: a blessing of grace and peace. Peace seems at first to be the flip side of the aggressive military imagery of God's armour, but it might not be that simple. The peace and unity described throughout Ephesians is something that must be built up - it does not just appear by default.
Ephesians 6 - Stand your ground
September 18, 2023 04:19 - 39 minutes - 52.9 MBHow helpful is military armour as an analogy for the Christian life? This passage is perhaps the most well-known part of Ephesians, and yet it actually feels somewhat strange juxtaposed against the deep theme of unity that we've seen throughout the book. We discuss the aggressive aspects of this analogy, and find lots of overlap with our discomfort at the preceding slavery passage.
Ephesians 6 - Do not provoke
September 08, 2023 12:52 - 21 minutes - 27.2 MBThe theme of unity and submission gets awkward when discussing slaves! It is hardly surprising that the New Testament mentions slavery (it was a cultural norm), but it is a shame that the various authors were not more clear in condemnation of the practice. We explore why some situations do seem to call us to obey and be sincerely respectful of authority, and yet many other situations seem to call us to resist and agitate for change.
Ephesians 5 - United into one
September 01, 2023 09:25 - 26 minutes - 30.9 MBWe've reached the well-known passage about submission in marriage... ...except that after the emphasis on unity that has been observed consistently throughout Ephesians so far, it seems most likely that this part is not talking about submission and power balance at all. It is a radical call to inclusive and united love, and it's actually quite fascinating that Paul suggests marriage relationships can help us understand the mystery of Christ's unity with the Church.
Ephesians 5 - Making music to the Lord
August 26, 2023 12:17 - 41 minutes - 52.2 MBEphesians 5 is a call to "be careful how you live". The chapter opens with a stark juxtaposition between "worthless deeds of evil and darkness" and choices "that please the Lord". It is valuable to ponder the inclusion of greed at least as prominently as sexual immorality - an emphasis that has perhaps been lopsided in Christian history. There's also some interesting comments on music which circle back to themes of unity and community.
Ephesians 4 - Say only what helps
August 20, 2023 00:27 - 31 minutes - 39 MBThe second half of Ephesians 4 looks at some practical ways to pursue the unity that has formed a substantial theme of the book so far. There's an interesting comment on anger, but we end up spending most of our time exploring the admonition to "watch the way you talk". The bar of "saying only what helps" is a very lofty goal, and has direct relevance to the way we interact online in modern society.
Ephesians 4 - One God and father
August 12, 2023 11:11 - 25 minutes - 31.9 MBThe theme of unity is again in the foreground. This chapter starts with an exploration of the reason for and mechanism of unity: love. This emphasis is expressed explicitly through some wonderful verses, and also poetically through a pattern of 7 that culminates with God our father of all, "who is over all, in all, and living through all." We are intrigued by the role that teaching and doctrine plays (and specifically does not play) in all of this.
Ephesians 3 - Plan of the mystery
August 05, 2023 05:55 - 20 minutes - 23.1 MBEphesians 3 continues Paul's effervescent enthusiasm for a gospel of inclusion. Even while taking some diversions to obliquely reference his own calling and situation, Paul sticks with the tone and theme that he has developed in the previous chapters. A few key metaphors and images jump out at us, including "mystery", "prisoner", and inclusive unity.
Ephesians 2 - Part of this dwelling
July 28, 2023 11:38 - 30 minutes - 36.8 MBThe New Testament claims Jesus broke down walls of hostility that divide us as people - what walls might still exist today? We continue our steady meander through Ephesians, which this week is up to the second part of chapter 2. There are a range of meaningful metaphors here describing the inclusion of Gentiles into God's plan, culminating in sanctuary imagery that speaks of the unity God seeks to have with us as his creation.
Ephesians 2 - We are God’s masterpiece
July 21, 2023 09:57 - 25 minutes - 31.9 MBEphesians 2 opens with a succinct but thorough outline of the gracious gift of salvation. This is such a clear description of the idea that God saves us by his grace and because of his love (not as a reward for our actions or attitudes) that it is hard to work out how some Christians have seen things differently. We are particularly intrigued and puzzled by a few phrases Paul uses here, such as "children of wrath" and the past tense of God having "raised us from the dead along with...
Ephesians 1 - Pray without ceasing
July 14, 2023 06:47 - 32 minutes - 74.6 MBPaul turns to prayer as he continues to introduce this epistle. There are two prayer sections in Ephesians (1:15-23 and 3:14-21), and we notice they have a lot in common. Even though they're positive and uplifting, we are vaguely uncomfortable because of hearing numerous didactic and disciplinary prayers in the past. Thinking about various "cultures of praying" turns into somewhat of a mirror in which we examine ourselves and personalities, and we are challenged by the idea to pray...
Ephesians 1 - United with Christ
July 08, 2023 01:22 - 24 minutes - 56.3 MBEphesians opens with an encouraging summary of Christian hope. Paul seems keen to introduce themes of unity, redemption, Spirit, and inheritance. Each of these are likely to be developed further in the epistle, but even in the first 14 verses there is a range of rich ideas worth pondering. In particular, the unity described as God's plan is astoundingly wide-ranging.
Acts 19 - Great is Artemis of the Ephesians
June 30, 2023 07:27 - 45 minutes - 103 MBActs 19 tells a 3rd-party perspective to prepare us for studying Paul's letter to the Ephesians. There are a number of anecdotes recorded about Paul in the city of Ephesus, and most of them seem to highlight the prominence of his activity. It seems he regularly "went viral" in the society of the day, and stayed there for some years having significant impact.
Revelation 21 - Wipe every tear
June 23, 2023 07:40 - 43 minutes - 54.7 MBWe turn to the end of Revelation to wrap up this season. Exploring (nominally) the "3 angels messages" of Revelation 14 has been hard work at times this season, and we approach this final episode with a slight sense of exhaustion. We certainly haven't resolved all the questions that arise from these chapters! However, there is a hope and peace that seems central to the book, and comes more prominently to the foreground in the final chapters of Revelation. This is worth some attenti...
Matthew 16 - Get behind me Satan!
June 16, 2023 07:29 - 34 minutes - 35.9 MBWhat if the mark of the beast is something that we might have in varying degrees? Thinking about "marks" in general leads us to wonder what it might mean for somebody to be Graffitied by the Beast. It is remarkable to find that Peter is declared by Jesus as the rock of the church and also decried as "Satan" within only a few verses of Matthew 16. We suspect there is room for considerable humility when thinking about beastly marks.
Job 1 - Accuse God of doing wrong
June 09, 2023 07:00 - 44 minutes - 44.4 MBSparked by a midweek conversation, we explore the book of Job as apocalyptic literature. There are a surprising number of connections and similarities between Job and the more recognisably apocalyptic writings of Daniel and Revelation. There are scenes in heaven, and even beasts from the land and the sea!
John 11 - Destroy our temple
June 02, 2023 08:20 - 44 minutes - 43.5 MBLanguage like "Satan's deceptions" often implies that salvation is somehow about expertise or technical knowledge. The lesson jumps straight into some well-worn Adventist slippers: the State of dead (which we mostly skip over), and the 7th-day Sabbath (which we focus on a little more closely). It is interesting to observe that Adventists in practice often end up loving Catholics while excoriating the Catholic church, which actually suggests some equivocation about our conventional ...
Daniel 10 - Prince of Persia
May 26, 2023 07:00 - 52 minutes - 51.6 MBBabylon was already archaic by the time Revelation was written, so how do we understand it today? It is interesting that Babylon is invoked in Revelation to represent great evil. A number of pretty terrible regimes intersect with the Old Testament stories, and taking another look at Babylon leaves us feeling that it might not have even been the worst. We discuss the different approaches to life that can arise from a focus on apocalyptic Babylon.
Exodus 20 - Earth, sea, and everything
May 19, 2023 07:00 - 45 minutes - 46 MBSabbath, Creation, and the End seem to deserve a bit of untangling. The lesson this week sets out to discuss Sabbath and issues of worship in the End Times described by Revelation. It quickly stumbles into a bit of a creation rut, which is a topic we already discussed in the previous episode. Taking some of the rhetorical questions at legitimate face value turns out to be a productive line of conversation.