Who Matters? with Cindy Wang Brandt #LectioCast

Cindy Wang Brandt joins Daniel again, drawing our conversation into broader spheres of consideration than we might have found otherwise. She reminds us of the importance of children—how this is astounding in the ancient context and a witness to God’s power. We walk through Psalm 71 and hear of a salvation that spans generations and… Read more about Who Matters? with Cindy Wang Brandt #LectioCast

Cindy Wang Brandt joins Daniel again, drawing our conversation into broader spheres of consideration than we might have found otherwise. She reminds us of the importance of children—how this is astounding in the ancient context and a witness to God’s power. We walk through Psalm 71 and hear of a salvation that spans generations and families rather than being mired in western individualism. First Corinthians 13 confronts us with love as the crucial component to flourishing life in the church. And Luke 4 shows us that God can surprise us not only by who has the greatest gifts to serve the church, but also by those who are the beneficiaries of God’s love and grace. The subtext seems to be this: be prepared to be surprised.

Jeremiah 1:4-10 Cindy breaks down Jeremiah’s youthful call in light of her recent work on raising children unfundamentalist. We have to remember that our charge is to listen to whomever God has empowered to speak by the Spirit.

Psalm 71:1-6 A psalm that could be Jeremiah’s: God’s knowledge of a person from the womb. Cindy brings some insight from an East Asian context, taking our focus off of ourselves and helping us situate salvation in a communal and multi-generational context.

1 Corinthians 13:1-13 The proverbial Love Shack of the Pauline corpus. We reorient to this chapter as addressing the exercise of spiritual gifts in the church.

Luke 4:21-30 The age old question: why do the people freak out? Cindy shines some light back on the US from outside: we have our own possessive tribal instincts. How do we adjust our instincts and care for the outsiders? Are we willing for Jesus to go to our neighbors if it doesn’t accrue any benefit to ourselves? In the end, Jesus himself lives out the promise that God makes to Jeremiah and the psalmist: he is delivered by God.

Don’t forget to grab your tickets (for online or in person attendance) for the Clobbercast recording in Palo Alto on February 5!

Cindy’s blog series “Raising Children Unfundamentalist” can be found here. The Facebook group is here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/665348930273216/.

Cindy Wang Brandt is a blogger at cindywords.com and serves on the board of a non-profit fighting global poverty at One Day’s Wages.  She has written for Sojourners, Red Letter Christians, and HuffingtonPost.  Her first book is Outside In: Ten Christian Voices We Can’t Ignore, and is working on her second book on the subject of Raising Children UnFundamentalist. You can join the conversation on progressive Christian parenting, at the Raiding Children UnFundamentalist Facebook group. She’s on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. After 5½ years as a missionary, she is currently living in her hometown in Taiwan.

Daniel Kirk is a writer, speaker, blogger, and New Testament professor who lives in San Francisco, CA. He holds a Ph.D. in New Testament from Duke University and is the author of a pair of books, Unlocking Romans: Resurrection and the Justification of God and Jesus Have I Loved, but Paul? His third book A Man Attested by God: the Human Jesus of the Synoptic Gospels, is off to the printers. He blogs regularly at StoriedTheology.com  (jrdkirk.com). You can follow him on Twitter @jrdkirk and on Facebook at Facebook.com/jrdkirk.