Digging in Deeper: Ephesians 2:8-9

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“For you are saved by grace through faith, and this is not from yourselves; it is God’s gift – not from works, so that no one can boast.” (CSB – Read the chapter)

Okay, I know I’ve talked about it several times – more than any other series I’ve reviewed since I’ve been doing this – but I just can’t help it. It was so good, and now it’s over. Rarely has a show received the amount of cultural acclaim that Ted Lasso has achieved. People are begging its creator, Jason Sudeikis, to bring it back for another story arc. And they are doing this not simply because it was so very good, but because of the good it introduced to the culture over its three-season run. And yet this past Wednesday, the series officially came to an end. And as much as it pains me to say this, I hope that ending remains. Let’s talk one more time about why the show was so good, and why it could have been even better.

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Morning Musing: Exodus 4:27-31

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“Now the Lord had said to Aaron, ‘Go and meet Moses in the wilderness.’ So he went and met him at the mountain of God and kissed him. Moses told Aaron everything the Lord had sent him to say, and about all the signs he had commanded him to do. Then Moses and Aaron went and assembled all the elders of the Israelites. Aaron repeated everything the Lord had said to Moses and performed the signs before the people. The people believed, and when they heard that the Lord had paid attention to them and that he had seen their misery, they knelt low and worshiped.” (CSB – Read the chapter)

When you don’t have the rhythm or melody of a song, it’s really hard to understand and enjoy it. It makes it harder for other people to enjoy it too. I remember once when I was playing drums for my high school jazz band – and in a competition no less! – and I flipped the beat. I had had my hi-hat foot chomping along on the 2 and the 4, and suddenly I was riding hard on the 1 and the 3. Or, if you’re not a music person at all, I messed up big time. The whole band nearly fell apart, and would have but for our director’s quick thinking and directing like we were a concert band until I could get the beat back in the right place. In a similar sort of way, it’s hard to understand and apply passages of the Scriptures – especially in the Old Testament – when we don’t have their rhythm down. Let’s talk a bit about the rhythm of these verses, and what it might look like to incorporate them into our lives.

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Morning Musing: Exodus 4:24-26

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“On the trip, at an overnight campsite, it happened that the Lord confronted him and intended to put him to death. So Zipporah took a flint, cut off her son’s foreskin, threw it at Moses’s feet, and said, ‘You are a bridegroom of blood to me!’ So he let him alone. At that time she said, ‘You are a bridegroom of blood,’ referring to the circumcision.” (CSB – Read the chapter)

One of my favorite Monty Python movies is “Now for Something Completely Different.” It’s just a string of sketches, each one totally different from the last. Every time they switch from one to another, something completely random comes across the screen and one of the comedy troupe members looks right at the camera and says, “And now for something completely different.” This story would fit rather snuggly in that category. It seems to come totally out of left field and doesn’t make a lot of sense. Let’s talk about what may be going on here, and how it fits in the larger story.

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Morning Musing: Exodus 4:18

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“Then Moses went back to his faither-in-law, Jethro, and said to him, ‘Please let me return to my relatives in Egypt and see if they are still living.’ Jethro said to Moses, ‘Go in peace.'” (CSB – Read the chapter)

One of the less exciting classes I Took in college was one called Form and Analysis. We spent an hour three mornings a week looking at different classical pieces to learn about some of the rules composers tended to follow when writing their works. One of the things all composers do is to introduce a musical theme toward the beginning of the piece and then spend the rest of the time developing and refining it. What we are seeing here is God introducing some themes that are going to be developed throughout the story. Let’s talk through what some of these are and why they matter.

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How to Be Free

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This Memorial Day Weekend we took some time together to reflect on the incredible gift of freedom we have been given by the sacrifices of those brave men and women who have served in our various armed forces. Their gift is a precious one indeed. The question we wrestled with is how we can be honor their gift. With some help from the apostle Paul, let’s explore that together.

How to Be Free

One of the more badly cliched ideas floating around out there about freedom is that freedom isn’t free. As cliched as the idea itself may be, though, it is nonetheless true. Freedom always has a cost associated with it. That cost has to be borne by someone. If you were not the one to pay it yourself, then it was paid by someone else. That’s simply the nature of freedom. It never exists on its own terms. It is consistently provided by someone else. 

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