Welcome to the commons cast. We're glad to have you here. We hope you find something meaningful in our teaching this week. Head to commons.church for more information.

Today, we are gonna start a new series called disarming the bible, and we'll get to that in just a moment. But first, last week, we wrapped up a series called tell me more, and that was all about curiosity. Now I'm curious about a lot of things. You might know this about me. If you and I have ever met up for coffee, you know that I take that very seriously.

In fact, I just got this new little device to stir my espresso grinds before I tamp them. I was curious about whether this would be a good investment and make a difference. Verdict, it does. Good investment. Buy 1.

Over the last couple years, I've also gotten into cocktails. But then for our last Team night Bobby wanted me to make some nonalcoholic drinks for the volunteers, and I think this might be my new obsession. First of all, Canada has released new guidelines that suggest 2 alcoholic drinks a week should be your limit hard stop for everyone. Second, I found this recipe for a drink called the billows and thieves. Grapefruit, lime, espresso, and cardamom demerara syrup that I made for the evening, it was good.

By the way, I also made a drink that night with pickle brine. I think that scared some people off, but I promise it was very nicely balanced with the acidified orange juice I made with citric and malic acid. Point is you definitely want to join a volunteer team, and you definitely want to make it to the next team night. Still, of course, our series about curiosity was not just about expected flavor combinations. It's really about how we become curious about each other.

And I think we all recognize that the last few years, perhaps, in particular, have felt very polarized, sometimes for good reason. As I said last week, there are positions and postures and perspectives and Sometimes even people that are not acting in good faith. And so it's okay to have healthy boundaries and not be curious about everything. But I think sometimes the fatigue of that, of protecting those boundaries can slowly numb our curiosity to explore the very valuable perspectives of the people that we know and care about in our lives. And, unfortunately, Social media has done nothing but exacerbate this.

If I can confess something, maybe this is me repenting, but Twitter has always been my favorite social platform. I think it's great, Except lately, they have made some changes. In particular, they have moved to this new for you timeline where instead of Showing you people that you chose to follow, they show you things that you might want to see. And I can absolutely tell you, at least for me, my for you feed has Purposely been designed to infuriate me. And that might seem like a bad move on Twitter's part, but they know it's good for engagement because the one thing that will get you to post is when you are mad.

And so I've been noticing for this for myself. I have not left Twitter yet, But I have removed it from my phone's home screen, and I have definitely consciously chosen to spend less time on Twitter. And I feel pretty good about that, actually, Because I wanna be curious, and that means I want to protect and cultivate that curiosity. I wanna focus my curiosity on my relationships, Not on the black hole of rage tweet spirals. And so, no, I'm not curious about racist or homophobic or misogynistic takes, particularly when they are couched in theological terms because I wanna guard my curiosity for the conversations and the relationships that will challenge me in ways I have not yet fully explored.

As I said last week, there will always be parts of the world that we will struggle to access on our own. And once we acknowledge that, we can start to get really curious about just how Deeply, we need the perspectives of those around us. So in that series, we talked about some of our limits as humans, why we have to work at curiosity. We talked about how curiosity is a vital part of doing conflict well and how conflict itself is actually a deep and important part of lasting relationships, And we talked about the work of listening, how part of listening is more than just information gathering. It's so much more than that.

It's about creating space for each other, not just to be understood, but to be heard, to speak our stories Openly with all of the nuance inherent in tone and inflection and body language and presence, trusting that what our curiosity will make available to us is a new way to see the world through each other's eyes. Now today, we start a new series, and it's called disarming the bible. And already, that sounds hence, and it probably will be. So let's pray before we dive in. God of grace, who continues to lead us toward each other with peace and calm with openness toward what the other might share.

Might we embody your curiosity in our relationships? Might we embrace what we can learn from each other today? Might we trust that we can know you more deeply through each other's eyes? And in that, that we also come to know that our perspective and our experience, our view of the world is valuable, and that we have something to offer, that we are needed here, that ours is a gift we bring into community to be embraced and celebrated. And might that awareness then carry us into today and out into this week with renewed passion and purpose.

As we begin today to talk about the ways that even our most beloved scriptures have at times been used as a barrier for others, Might our divinely cultivated curiosity open us to new lessons, remind us of core truths, and invite us back toward the heart of love that grounds the universe. In the strong name of the risen Christ, we pray. Amen. Today, we begin to disarm the bible. And over the next 4 weeks, we are going to discuss god as love, Our foundational, definitional description of god, that's our focus today.

We are gonna look at inerrancy versus inspiration as a framework for reading the bible. Next This week, we're gonna talk about images of the atonement, the good, the bad, and all the ways our metaphors always show fall short of the work and grace of God. And And then finally, we're gonna talk about how we process the violence in our scriptures. But today, we start with our definitions of God, and we are going to walk through disarming how, who is god, the power of our images, and looking directly at love. But even before all that, let's talk about this phrase disarming the bible because that can go in 2 different directions.

One of the questions that I get somewhat frequently on YouTube and now increasingly from people who have read my books Is why do you talk so much about grace? You don't talk about sin and judgment and wrath and hell nearly enough. You are, R, and this is the phrase that's been used, disarming the bible. Now as someone who writes and speaks specifically from a peace perspective. I would argue that is a good thing.

I do not think that arming or weaponizing the scriptures is ever our goal, But I do understand the point they are making. The Bible makes significant claims on our lives, And we ignore or even diminish those claims to our peril. However, in conversation, what is often revealed is that the disconnect is not so much that we disagree about that reality. We both believe that the Christian faith makes Extraordinary claims on our lives, the disconnect is how we imagine the scope of those claims. See, there are people who want preachers like me to talk about and point out very specific actions and habits, and they want me to get up and say, you should stop doing this.

Or another way to say that would be you should talk about how people who do this are bad, And I deeply, instinctively understand that desire. There is something very comforting about knowing these are the rules, and I am living inside of them. But ironically, even though I don't think the phrasing is Paul. This to me feels very much like disarming the bible because I think the scope of the claims that Jesus makes on our lives Far outstrip any of the very specific claims that a book even as large as the bible could ever make. See, the bible can say this specific thing in this specific time at this specific place is wrong.

The way of Jesus can say, there's a path through life that you can follow, one that will ultimately lead you to life, But it will not come naturally to you, and you will have to search it out for yourself. And once you start down it for the rest of your life, You will continue discover all of the best of yourself, but also all the worst that is in you, all that needs to be put To death every day so you can properly flourish. And that is a much larger imagination for the transformation god wants to work in us. See, as an example, the bible could say something like, don't use the n word. It's racist.

That's good advice. Jesus can say to us, well, that's a good start. But after that, you need to continue to interrogate your assumptions about each other So you can uncover the ways that your implicit bias actually needs to be understood as racism and therefore continually, Constantly challenged until one day you find yourself free from all of it. 1 is good. Absolutely should not use that word.

But the second is what is actually life giving for us. And when it comes to this idea of comforting ourselves by pointing to the rules, We can actually move beyond that to start engaging with the very hard work of allowing Jesus to lead us and change us. So no. It is true. I don't talk a lot about specific sins.

It's too easy. We would all just sit here on Sunday and nod our heads. Instead, we talk a lot about racism and misogyny and all the ways we assume things about each other. We talk about the ways that we have to very consciously choose not to other people who are not like us. We talk about wealth and the pursuit of it and the way that capitalism can very easily take hold of our imagination and convince us that more is Always the goal that bigger and better can come without a cost for those below us on the economic ladder or The planet that sustains us even when we lose sight of it.

We talk a lot about power and the dynamics that it creates, The ways that it can very quickly jump from a structure to a fundamental belief about the value of a human being. We talk a lot about who and what we give our attention to. We talk a lot about peace, not just in the laying down of arms, but in our relationships and our conversations and in our confrontations. And finally, we talk a lot about god. Because I believe that at the end of the day, the most important images in our lives, The way we actually believe got to be will do far more to shape our actions in the world Then the rules that we work to hold ourselves to.

As a thought experiment, let me ask you this. Honestly, what is harder To give 10% of your paycheck to the church or to know that the source of the universe is profoundly generous And that you were made in the image of that goodness, and so you are going to live today and tomorrow and for the rest of your life committed to embodying that generous god in the handling of every resource you encounter with every person you encounter. Trust me. It's tithing that is disarming the Bible because rules only ever hint at a way of being, And it's a way of being that Jesus invites us into. But this is also why When it comes to the other side of disarming the bible, the work of unweaponizing the scriptures, the ways that it has been used to harm, We also need to start with our image of god because who we believe god to be We'll almost always overrule any rules we think we hold on to, but You will also inform the way that we conceptualize those rules.

So here's the question, who is god? Well, god is described in a lot of different ways in the bible. Everything from the name Hashem To the unpronounced tetragrammaton, y h w h, to titles like El Elyon, which means god most Tay or El Olam, which means god everlasting. God has even given the title El Shaddai, which depending on the scholar you means either god the destroyer or god the breasted one. Now just for fun, it probably actually means both depending on where you are reading it.

In Genesis, the title El Shaddai is used almost exclusively, 5 out of 6 times related to fertility blessings given to the patriarchs. And in that case, Shaddai probably comes from the Hebrew word shad, which means breast. But then later, when it's used by Isaiah and Job, for example, to talk about god's might and power, it's probably rooted in the Hebrew word shadad, which means To overpower or plunder. So sometimes in English, you'll see El Shaddai translated with 2 options, god the sustainer or god the almighty. This is the dual meaning that they're referencing there.

More literally, though, it's still god of the breasts or god of destruction, which is quite a range when it comes to the question, who is god? But that's the problem, isn't it? The Bible gives us all kinds of different images to help us make sense of the divine. And that multiplicity itself is important because it reminds us not to turn god into a convenient idol, but it also can feel us feeling a little adrift at times. And this is where, for me, there is a lodestone that we can come back to.

See, I take 1st John 4 as more than just a moniker for god, but instead as definitional for god. This is the passage. Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from god. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love Does not know god because god is love.

Now I'm gonna stake my theology On the idea that this is more than just a cute description, this is actually John's central concept of the divine. Love comes from god because god is love. We know god when we love because god is love, And we miss God when we refuse to love because God is love. So for John, God is the source of all good and life and creativity and beauty in the universe because God is at the core of God's self, love. Now notice here, not loving.

God is not loving As if love was some choice that god could make to turn on or off, as if love was some affect or disposition that god holds toward Us in particular, that's not what he's saying here. No. God is love. And by the way, this is why trinity is really important to me. Not because I think you can gatekeep based on a doctrine that no one can actually honestly Blaine, I mean, we should at least be honest about this, that almost every explanation of the trinity is technically a heresy.

In fact, even the very specific images of god as father, son, and spirit. As beautiful and as important as they are can be pretty limiting at times, but trinity is incredibly important because it hints at the idea of god as an endless dance of gift and reception, a love relationship before there was anything else. In other words, it's trinity that teaches us that god can be love, because trinity shows us a god who could exist as love even on god's own. God is love. God has always been love because god as love is not even dependent on another object to love.

Wrap your head around that one. But there's more because I also think this image of god as love is helpful when we sometimes get a little too anthropomorphic about god. So conceptually, I think we all understand that god is not Some bearded man in the sky. But let's be honest here. It's really hard to let go of that imagination.

Right? I mean, maybe we drop the beard, And we replaced the old man, but at the end of the day, we often still have some form of superbeing in mind. God is like me, but bigger. Maybe you say I am finite, but god is infinite. Good start.

The problem is even in that sentence, infinite is still defined by the limitations we recognize in ourselves now just unconstrained. So it's good and it's true, but it is still an image of god that's basically rooted in our conception of self. God is us as we wish we were. Okay. Maybe we push a bit farther, and we really interrogate our theology.

We get super nerdy and philosophical about it, and we start to say things like god is too big for our conceptions of god. Maybe you would say, okay. If you were to sail out into the middle of the ocean and dip a cup into the water, that cup would contain part of the ocean, but the ocean, It would contain all of the cup and even the boat, so it is with god in us. And I like that. This is what the theologian Peter Rollins calls the image of god as hyperbeing.

Hyper, not as High strung or overactive, but god is beyond or above being, and that's pretty good. Honestly, sometimes that feels like about as far as I can push my brain at times. But then when I come back to this idea from first John that god is love, it Still feels like even that falls a bit short. This is where I like the term from the theologian Paul Tillich. God is not a superbeing.

God is not a hyperbeing. God is the ground of being. Now granted, We are well into speculative theology and philosophy right now. I promise I'll reel it back in in just a moment here, but god is ground of being. It's about acknowledging that maybe even our conceptions of being are too small for god, And then maybe we can only encounter God, not primarily in our thoughts about God, but in our participation in the life of God.

So you encounter god through giving yourself away in love because god is that which you discover in the act of love. And maybe the moment you think that you've lost sight of god because your concept of god has been swallowed up in your attempt to love Well, maybe this is the moment you realize that that is where god has always been all along because god is love, And love is what has made all of this thing that we call a universe possible. Now that sounds a little too woo woo for you. Let me read you John's words here again. Dear friends, Let us love one another, for love comes from god.

Everyone who loves has been born of god and knows god. Whoever does not love does not know God because God is love. That sounds like the ground of being from which all goodness flows to me. And this is why it's really important that we not hold love intention with any other characteristic of god that we read about in the bible. Love is what the scriptures claim as definitional.

So god can be merciful, or god can be angry. God can be frustrated, or god can judge. God can be just, or god can choose instead to be compassionate because god acts Always in whatever way is most loving. Hear this. God is not bound to any secondary attribute.

For example, god is not bound to justice. That's the whole point of the cross. No one gets what they deserve. Love chooses grace over vengeance. Justice is not served because god's self giving is what actually heals us.

Or as the psalmist might say, For as high as the heavens is above the earth, so great is god's love. As far as the east is from the west, So far has God removed our transgressions from us as a father has compassion on his children, so the lord has compassion on all those who fear, Psalm 103. Love overrules even transgression. So There are all kinds of these contradictory emotions and motivations ascribed to God, and God can turn to different actions and responses to humanity, And we see all of them described throughout the scriptures, but whatever god does, god's actions can only ever be an expression of love because that's who god is, which is why I think it's actually really important to keep categories Like wrath and judgment in our religious vocabulary. Of course, a god of love is angered by sin.

Of course, the god of love is upset when we hurt each other or when we damage love's beautiful creation or when we squander love's gifts, But the motivation and the source of God's response to us is always love, and that shapes how we read our scriptures. Look at this famous scary verse from Romans 1. The wrath of god is being revealed from heaven Against all the godlessness and wickedness of people who suppress the truth by their wickedness. This might surprise you here, but my response to Paul is amen. Because as I see it, of course, a god who loves me would reveal god's anger at my godlessness and my wickedness.

A course of god of love hates those things that hurt me and tear at me or that hurt the people near me or that damage my relationship with Creation or that take me farther from the ground of being that is god. But if god's anger at my wickedness is motivated precisely because god loves me, then god's anger can ever only be for me and for my good. Now the problem is if you hold wrath and love as equal attributes of god, There's a very good chance you're gonna read a passage like this as if god is angry at you, not at your wickedness, Even though that's very clearly not what Paul is saying here. See, when we muddy our image of god, That can leave us thinking that god has to be convinced to like us, and that could not be farther from the truth. God loves you because God is love, and therefore, That god is intent on destroying everything that harms you, including your sin.

In fact, in the verse immediately preceding this, verse 17 of Romans 1, Paul starts the section by saying, For in the gospel, the righteousness of god is revealed. The good news is that god is faithful, and part of that Faithfulness is that god's anger is now revealed against everything that tears at us and god's creation. It's 1 section. It's 2 verses here that mirror each other perfectly. God's love is revealed, and therefore, God's wrath is revealed at what hurts.

The problem is some genius took it upon themselves to stick a header in between the 2 verses, Making it look like Paul is making 2 separate arguments implying that these are 2 equally important attributes of god, and that's not the case. God's anger at what harms you is a function of the fact God loves you because that's who God is. So, yeah, math and judgment and anger and justice, these are really important words, But to understand them properly, they need to be subordinate to love in our imagination of the divine. Now still, love is hard to define. Right?

What feels loving to 1 might not to another, And our concepts of love can be twisted. I I think they can even be broken at times. I think we can. I think we should acknowledge the complexity of walking the path of love in the world. It's hard, but thankfully, John has got us here as well.

It's almost as if he anticipates that critique. It's almost as if he knows that the ground of being needs to then be grounded in the human experience for us. And so In the very next verse of John 1st John 4, he writes this, god is love, but this is how God showed love among us. God sent God's 1 and only son into the world that we might live through him. So this is Christianity.

God is the ground of being. That ground is love, and that love looks like Jesus. Now can Jesus tell us what to do in every circumstance we encounter? No. First of all, the Bible will be enormous.

No No one will be able to carry it. Not everyone has biceps like I do. But second, how could the historical Jesus of ancient Palestine ever have spoken in a comprehensible way to all of the particulars of 21st century life. That's not what the Bible is for. The Bible is to point us to Jesus, and it's Jesus who over and over again intentionally and deliberately Keeps trying to steer us away from just the rules toward an internalized ethic of love in our lives.

See, I think Jesus knows that if we get the image of god right as a starting point for our lives revealed in the Christ who is the word of God, then that will shape what we read in the scriptures. It will influence how we interpret the world around us. It will allow the love that grounds the universe to sink deeply enough into our psyche that it will slowly purge every instinct to run from the divine or to present god as something to flee from. And that will then slowly allow us to uncover god everywhere, perhaps even, and maybe even especially in our bibles. Let's pray.

God of love, For all the ways that we have imagined you incorrectly and if we have held competing values up and tried to balance them against Each other, might you, by your spirit, be present to us in this moment, reminding us of who you are. Love, unconstrained and unlimited, love that forms the ground of being, the foundation of the universe and the image that we are created in. God, may that love Begin to shape how we move through the world. Might it begin to convict us of the sin that needs to be ripped out of our lives? May it shape the way we speak to each other and encounter each other and bless each other with your love flowing through us.

May your spirit ultimately guide us first to the path of Jesus and then onto the way So that step by step, one foot after another, your love would lead us back to you. In the strong name of the risen Christ, we pray.