BibleWorm

Episode 142 Acts 2 and 1 Corinthians 12 Pentecost and the Body of Christ

This week we read Acts 2 and 1 Corinthians 12, the story of Pentecost and the body of Christ. We visit the first moments of the birth of the church, rich with imagery familiar from creation and the exodus from Egypt. We try to embrace what it means for a group of people to function like a body, each part precisely designed and wholly dependent on the others.

Episode 141 1 Corinthians 15 Paul and the Resurrection of the Body

This week BibleWorm looks at 1 Corinthians 15, where Paul reprimands the church in Corinth for not believing in bodily resurrection. We wonder whether believing in resurrection is a way of trying to escape the reality of death or an authentic means of coming to terms with the persistence of evil in the world. We wonder why Paul opposes the concept of a spiritual resurrection and ask why it is that bodies matter even in the time to come. Also, we try to imagine the BibleWorm as a cosmic death eater. But Amy bursts the bubble.

Episode 140 1 Corinthians 13:1-13 The Greatest of These is Love

This week BibleWorm reads 1 Corinthians 13, Paul’s famous passage on love as a sort of diagnostic check of our motivations in our attempts to live lives of faith. We talk about love—or lack of love—across the political aisle and about the limits of loves’s patience in the face of injustice. We talk about the importance of doing a serious gut check about where we ourselves are drawn with real love, and the necessity that we lean into that even if our acts of faith may look different than someone else’s. And we wonder what Paul would have to say about social media. Well, actually, we can guess.

Episode 139 Acts 18:1-4 and 1 Corinthians 1:10-18 Unity in the Body

This week BibleWorm follows Paul to Corinth by readings Acts 18:1-4 and 1 Corinthians 1:10-18. We talk about factionalism in our communities and the importance not of uniformity but of commitment to the core principles that hold us together. We think about the human tendency to attach ourselves to our leaders and Paul’s insistence that the Christian community should attach itself only to Christ. And we wrestle with Paul’s contrast between eloquent wisdom and the foolishness of the cross, which alone conveys the power of God.

 

Episode 138 Acts 17:1-9 and 1 Thessalonians 1:1-10 Paul in Thessalonica

 

This Week BibleWorm reads from Acts 17 and 1 Thessalonians 1, where we get to see Paul in action as an evangelist and pen-pal pastor. We consider how our communities might respond if a new guy began attending services and arguing that we had misinterpreted our own texts. We appreciate Paul’s ability to see God moving and working beyond the boundaries of the community he grew up in. We sit with the importance of leading with encouragement, taking every opportunity to remind our community members how precious and brave they are. And, in celebration of Thessaloniki, Amy tells just a little bit of Little Red Riding Hood in Greek.

Episode 137 Acts 3:1-16 Peter and John Heal a Man

This week we’re reading from Acts 3:1-16, in which Peter and James meet a crippled man and restore him to health. We think about evangelism that begins with acts of mercy and turns to preaching the faith only belatedly, once people have responded to compassion. We discuss the power of looking one another in the eye and ponder the miracles that can occur when we move beyond treating one another as transactions to viewing relationships as opportunities for transformation. And we struggle with Peter’s preaching that blames the Jews for the death of Jesus and fails to recognize his own culpability in human violence. Thanks for joining us!

Episode 136 Acts 1:1-14 The Ascension of Jesus

BibleWorm begins our study of Acts with the story of Jesus's ascension in Acts 1:1-14. We talk about the huge transition from disciple to apostle, from learners to teachers of Jesus’s message, and that moment of fear when your charismatic teacher departs on a cloud. We notice that humans both then and now are quite taken by the question of when, regardless of our teachers’ constant redirection. And we sit with the profound and holy power of pause—just pausing to wait for the spirit to move.

Episode 135 Mark 16:1-8 The Markan Easter Story

This week we read the Easter story as told in Mark 16:1-8—a story in which there is no resurrected Jesus and the women run from the tomb in fear. We talk about how the sparseness of this Easter tale resonates with the reality of lived experience, in which the evidence for faith is often hard to come by. We think about the women’s experience at the tomb with its mixture of awe and fear, and wrestle with what to make of their silence. And we find that the story ultimately opens up toward us, as readers and people of faith, inviting us to meet Jesus in Galilee. Will we stay or will we go? That’s what we really want to know.  

Episode 134 Mark 15:16-41 Good Friday BONUS EPISODE

On this special Good Friday episode, BibleWorm explores the story of Jesus's crucifixion in Mark 15:16-41. We talk about the humiliation and abandonment that so often accompanies and exacerbates our suffering, about vessels of God’s holiness breaking open into the world, and about what it means to have supporters out there that you may never know about.

Episode 133 Mark 11:1-21 and 14:1-9 The Triumphal Entry and a Woman's Gift

BibleWorm reads the Palm Sunday text, Mark 11:1-11 with the story of Jesus overturning tables in the Temple added in for good measure. We talk about the symbolism of Jesus riding a donkey and how the shouts of Hosanna mingle praise and desperation. We wonder why Jesus curses a fig tree instead of commanding it to produce figs and wrestle with Jesus’s anger toward the money changers. We also read the story of a woman anointing Jesus with nard in Mark 14:1-9 and marvel at the way Jesus validates her gift to him. We also make some really bad jokes—but you’ve come to expect that by now.