Extra Credit Podcast

Cameron Combs
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Midweek Bible study at Colonial Heights Church. Artwork by Scott Erickson (scottericksonart.com) cameroncombs.substack.com

  1. 2D AGO

    The Powerlessness of God

    Suffering and Power 2 Timothy is a tender letter. It is written from a jail cell by a man who knows he is not long for this world. Paul’s heart is opened wide to Timothy throughout. The letter begins: “To my dear son, Timothy,” and concludes with: “Do your best to come quickly to me.” Paul needs his dear son by his side because most everyone else has deserted him. He’s lonely and in need… …and yet the letter is packed full of powerful statements that are meant to encourage Timothy to remain strong in the faith even amidst his fear, doubt, and shame. We get strong, quotable lines like: “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. Now there is in store for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will award to me on that day…” (2 Tim. 4:7—8). These are the two, seemingly antithetical, themes in the letter: suffering and power. Paul’s suffering is a cause for concern for those that follow his teachings. His imprisonment is shameful. It almost seems like an argument against the truth of the gospel message that he proclaims. If the man Jesus Christ is enthroned in heaven at the right hand of the Father and has been made Lord and Judge of all, then why is Paul suffering in prison? We often don’t allow these two notes to ring out very clearly in our reading of 2 Timothy, but they are the very dynamism of the letter. This dynamism is captured in back to back verses—one we like to quote and the other we often forget. In 2 Timothy 1:7 Paul writes, “...for God did not give us a Spirit of cowardice but rather a Spirit of power and of love and of self-discipline.” That’s a Hallmark card if there ever was one. But we don’t let Paul finish his thought. He continues, “Do not be ashamed, then, of the testimony about our Lord or of me his prisoner, but join with me in suffering for the gospel, according to the power of God…” (2 Tim. 1:8). God has given Timothy the Spirit of power and, therefore, he ought not be ashamed that Paul is in prison and about to die. In fact, precisely because Timothy has the Spirit of power, he should actually join in with Paul in suffering for the gospel. To have the Spirit of power results in suffering. The Spirit and Power? Paul is using the word “power” in a way that is almost unrecognizable to us. Typically when we hear the word “power” what comes to mind are things like domination, control, and the sword. “Power” is a term we usually associate with masculinity. The same problem we addressed last week with election and predestination is sneaking in again: the problem of abstraction. If the concept of power remains abstract it can be defined any way one likes. We think we know what power is like and then when we are told that God’s Spirit gives power, we assume we know what that means. What is needed is a concrete definition of power. What does the power of this God look like? Think of two well-known texts: Zech. 4:6 “‘Not by might nor by power, but by my Spirit,’ says the Lord Almighty.” God’s work in the world is not accomplished by worldly power, but by the Spirit. God’s Spirit and worldly power are not compatible. Now think of Acts 1:8 “But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” The Spirit is God’s own power. But the power the Spirit brings is a power to suffer. The Greek word here for “witnesses” is “martyria.” The power the Spirit gives is a power for martyrdom. The Weakness of God Paul repeatedly makes the point that God’s power is revealed in weakness. 1 Cor. 1:18–25 18 For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God…20 Where is the wise person? Where is the teacher of the law? Where is the philosopher of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? 21 For since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not know him, God was pleased through the foolishness of what was preached to save those who believe. 22 Jews demand signs and Greeks look for wisdom, 23 but we preach Christ crucified: a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, 24 but to those whom God has called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. 25 For the foolishness of God is wiser than human wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than human strength. “The weakness of God” is a striking line we easily miss if we are in a hurry. What is the weakness of God? We can mishear him if we think he’s saying something like: “God is so powerful that even his weakness—if there were such a thing—would be stronger than human strength.” That is to explain the text away. Let the words Paul actually wrote shock you. The weakness of God is his power, and God’s power is mightier than worldly power. What is the weakness of God? It’s the cross. As St. Maximus says, “The one who knows the mystery of the cross and the tomb, knows the reasons of things.” The power of God is Christ suffering on the cross. And it is this power that is at the heart of creation. The death of Jesus in weakness is God’s power, but it is not controlling. It is not dominating. It is not “masculine” in the sense we discussed above. But, Paul says, to those whom God has called it is the power of God. Gregory of Nyssa explains it this way: the crucifixion is the greatest demonstration of God’s power because in dying on a cross God is showing that he can even do something that is opposite to his nature. God is so powerful that he can become weak. This truth is grasped more easily by those who are in the midst of suffering. Listen to Dietrich Bonhoeffer describing the weakness and powerlessness of God from his own prison cell: “[God] is weak and powerless in the world, and that is precisely the way, the only way, in which he is with us and helps us. Matt. 8:17 [“he took our infirmities and bore our diseases”] makes it quite clear that Christ helps us, not by virtue of his omnipotence, but by virtue of his weakness and suffering. Here is the decisive difference between Christianity and all religions. Man’s religiosity makes him look in his distress to the power of God in the world…The Bible directs man to God’s powerlessness and suffering; only the suffering God can help. How is it that God’s suffering and God’s powerlessness help us? Is it that he pretends to be powerless or that he feigns suffering? No. Think of the striking difference between the Synoptic Gospels and the Gospel of John. The Gospel of John is vastly different from the other three Gospels in many ways, but one of the primary differences is in the way it characterizes Jesus’ suffering. In the synoptics Gospels while Jesus is praying in the Garden of Gethsemane he is in anguish and sweating great drops of blood: “Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me. Nevertheless, not what I will but your will be done.” (Luke 22:42, Matthew 26:39). In John’s Gospel what does Jesus pray? “Now my soul is troubled, and what shall I say? Father, save me from this hour? No! For this reason I have come!” (John 12:27) From the cross in Matthew and Mark Jesus cries out, “My God, my God why have you forsaken me?” But in John’s Gospel he says, “It is finished.” It seems that in the synoptic Gospels we get agony where in John’s Gospel we get triumph. But the point is not that Jesus was play-acting, or that his suffering was not genuine. The point is that the suffering is the triumph. His anguish is his glory. His cross is his throne. His weakness is his power! God’s power is revealed in the weakness of Jesus. And this power in weakness is shown just as much in his birth as in his death. To be born is to be totally at the mercy of life happening to you. It is to “suffer” in the technical sense. But precisely by accepting this suffering he transforms it and generates new life from inside the suffering. Jesus accepts suffering and even death precisely so that he can create resurrection life for us in the midst our sufferings. And now we can see a bit more clearly what God’s power is like. It is not dominating, controlling, or “masculine.” It is the power to give life. It is much more like the power of a womb. Many early Christian writers often compared God to a breastfeeding mother. God’s power is a power that nourishes and generates life rather than merely taking life. St. Augustine often described God’s power as “maternal love, expressing itself as weakness.” A womb is powerful. Not in a dominating or controlling way, but in a generative way. It creates new life. When we conceive of power we usually think of power as the ability to take life. But true power is found in the ability to give life. Jesus’ power is much more like the power of a womb. He accepts the suffering of this world and by accepting it into himself he brings it into the divine life and then changes it for our good. Jesus metabolizes our suffering into the life of God in order to bring his divinity to bear on our suffering. Jesus died. He allowed that happen to him. That was truly weakness. But by that weakness he transformed death from the inside out. He changed death into a way of life and love. In his weakness he is strong. The Spirit Dwelling Within Us When we think of God’s power we think of the force that can get us out of jams—a force that acts on my life and on my circumstances from the outside. But God wants something else for us. He doesn’t merely want his power to act on our lives from the outside, he wants his power to be at work in our lives. This is why Paul tells Timothy in 1:14 that he is to “guard the truth that has been entrusted to you by the Holy Spirit who dwells within us.” The Spirit of God is the power of God.

    58 min

  2. FEB 19

    Election and Predestination (in Christ)

    Last week we looked at the non-rivalrous, non-competitive posture the church is to have to the world. The church is called to be for the world not against it. In 1 Timothy 2:1—5 Paul says that there is one mediator, Jesus Christ, who died for the entire world, and it is through this mediator that the church is called to make petitions, prayers, intercession, and thanksgiving for all people. Why? Because “God wills that all people be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth.” But this focus on the universality of God’s desire for all people to be saved seems to bump up against another idea in the Pastoral Epistles—namely, that God has an elect group of people, the church, and he has chosen them before the beginning of time. 2 Tim. 2:8–10 8 Remember Jesus Christ, raised from the dead, a descendant of David—that is my gospel, 9 for which I suffer hardship, even to the point of being chained like a criminal. But the word of God is not chained. 10 Therefore I endure everything for the sake of the elect, so that they may also obtain the salvation that is in Christ Jesus, with eternal glory. Why does Paul use the word “elect” here instead of “the entire world”? The word “elect” means chosen. It carries a notion of choosing among options—this one instead of that one. Think of being at the grocery store picking out produce. Election seems to be opposed to universality. Does God will that all people should be saved or does he actually have a special group of chosen people? Does God preordain the destinies of individuals? Does he have a group of people he has chosen to save and another group he has chosen not to save? My hunch is that many of us don’t really know what to do with the election or predestination passages in Scripture. Th thought of God choosing some people for salvation and others for damnation doesn’t sit well with most of us. But those passages are there and occupy a central place for Paul. Here’s just one example: Ephesians 1:4–5 4 For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. 5 In love he predestined us for adoption to sonship through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will. What jumps to mind for most people is the specter of Calvinism and Double Predestination. John Calvin Calvin’s doctrine of election arises from his observation that not everyone in the world has the gospel preached to them, and even of those that do, many do not respond in faith. He combines that observation with his interpretation of Scripture and comes to the conclusion that from eternity God has predestined some to salvation and others to destruction. “All are not created on equal terms, but some are preordained to eternal life, others to eternal damnation; and, accordingly, as each has been created for one or other of these ends, we say that he has been predestinated to life or to death.” (Calvin, Institutes, III.21) God’s predestination is done by God’s “Absolute Decree.” God doesn’t choose people based on his foreknowledge of their merit or the works that they will do. If he did, it would not be a free gift of grace but something we earned. This is why election takes place “before the foundations of the world” (Eph. 1:4). As Paul says in 2 Tim. 1:9 “[God] saved us and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works but according to his own purpose and grace, and this grace was given to us in Christ Jesus before the ages began…” There is no distinction, then, between those individuals elected to salvation and those predestined for destruction. It is based solely on God’s omnipotent, free will. This seems to make God into an arbitrary tyrant. Calvin deals with these problems by saying that God’s will, by the fact that he wills it, is good and right. In other words, what right does the clay have to say to the potter, “Why have you made me like this?” Karl Barth The Swiss theologian Karl Barth introduced a major corrective to the Calvinist doctrine of election. In short, Barth’s doctrine of election is radically christocentric—everything centers on Christ. “The doctrine of election is the sum of the Gospel because of all words that can be said or heard it is the best: that God elects man; that God is for man…It is grounded in the knowledge of Jesus Christ because He is both the electing God and the elected man in One. It is part of the doctrine of God because originally God’s election of man is a predestination not merely of man but of Himself.” (Barth, Church Dogmatics, II.2, p. 3) Barth insists that the doctrine of election must be understood as gospel—as good news. He rejects any understanding of the doctrine of election that isn’t grounded in the knowledge of Jesus. If the gospel is central to understanding God’s election, then we have to begin with Jesus if we want to think rightly about election. For Barth, we have a true view of God only when we get to know him in the face of Jesus. If you want to know who God is—and therefore what election means—you have to look to Jesus. There is no God behind the back of Jesus of Nazareth. In other words, the God who elects is fully revealed in Jesus. Jesus Christ is the God who elects. There’s no other hidden, unknown God above or higher than Jesus that does the electing. If we are talking about God we are always also talking about him. He is the image of the invisible Father. Iff anyone has seen him, they have seen the Father. No one has seen the Father, but Jesus, God’s one and only Son, has made him known. Jesus is the “Electing God.” But—and here’s the key—Jesus is not only the God who elects, he is also the one elected. He is both the “Electing God” and the “Elected Man.” He is both truly God and truly human. For Barth the problem with Calvin’s understanding of election is that it is too abstract. The God doing the electing is an abstract, hidden, and unknown God. But God is not abstract. He is perfectly revealed in the life of Jesus of Nazareth. The image of the potter and the clay has to be completely reworked now in light of the Incarnation. Jesus is both the potter and the clay in one person. He’s the potter who has become the clay in order to save it. Jesus For Us and With Us I think Barth’s doctrine of election helps us make more sense of our seemingly conflicting passages in 1 and 2 Timothy. Is election God arbitrarily choosing ABC but rejecting XYZ? Or should we begin our thinking about election by talking about God’s choice made in Jesus Christ to be for all humanity? If Barth is right, then God has elected all humanity in the act of the Incarnation. By becoming human, God has united himself with the entire human race. Christ is the elected human being and “in him” we are also elected. Jesus is the man who so radically joined himself with sinners like you and me that for the Father to raise Jesus from the dead he would have to take us along with him. With this in place let’s reconsider a few passages: 2 Timothy 1:9–10 [God] saved us and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works but according to his own purpose and grace, and this grace was given to us in Christ Jesus before the beginning of time… The grace was given to us where? In Jesus Christ. When was it given? Before the beginning of time. Put otherwise, before the beginning of time God decided (elected!) to be God this way. He elected to God for us in Jesus Christ, laying his life down for the sake of the world. That’s God’s election. Ephesians 1:4 For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. Chose us where? In Christ. This isn’t a blind, arbitrary choice made above or behind Jesus. Election happens in Jesus, not simply for him. When was it given? Before God created anything he elected to be the God revealed in Jesus of Nazareth. 1 Timothy 2:3–4 This is good, and pleases God our Savior, who wills all people to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth. God has elected to be the God who loves all people to the point of death on a cross. In Christ—the one elect man—God wills the election of all humanity. Robert Jenson, summarizing Barth, puts it like this: “God has chosen and determined Himself from all eternity to be man for [all] men.” As Paul says in 2 Timothy 2:13 “…if we are faithless, he remains faithful, for he cannot deny himself.” Your election is sure precisely because it does not depend on you, but it is made “in Christ.” Our salvation depends not on our faith but on God who is faithful even when we are faithless. Paul gives us this striking line: “for he cannot deny himself.” This means two things. First, God in his character and nature is faithful to the faithless. He can’t deny this about himself. This is who he has elected to be. For him to act unfaithfully would be for him to deny himself. But second, and more mysteriously, if God denied us he would be denying himself because he is the one who has elected to be joined to us from before the beginning of time. We are his body and he is our head. If he denied you—even if you were faithless—he would be denying himself. I’ll leave you with Barth at his best: “God is none other than the one who in his Son elects himself. And in and with himself elects his people.” (Barth, Church Dogmatics, II.2) In other words, Jesus refuses to be God without you. That’s good news. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit cameroncombs.substack.com

    53 min

  3. FEB 12

    The Church: Being-for-the-World

    What relationship is the church to have with the world? Many versions of Christianity assume that the church and world are locked in a metaphysical fight to the death. One will win, the other will lose. But the church is not in a competition or duel with the world. Jesus says he will build his church and the gates of hell will not prevail against it. The only competitive relationship the church has is with the powers of hell. “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son…” God is for the world. God loves the world so much he created the church. The fundamental posture of the church is a being-for-the-world rather than a being-against-the-world. The first is intercessory, the latter is competitive. This way of framing the issue is something I learned from Dietrich Bonhoeffer. We’ve spent quite a lot of time with Bonhoeffer’s thought recently. But this is good and right because last Wednesday—February 4—was his 120th birthday! We did not properly celebrate last week (though I’m sure you all celebrated privately). So, in honor of Bonhoeffer’s birthday, we spent time with his lecture notes on 1 Timothy 2:1—7. Here’s the text from 1 Timothy: 1 I urge, then, first of all, that petitions, prayers, intercession and thanksgiving be made for all people— 2 for kings and all those in authority, that we may live peaceful and quiet lives in all godliness and dignity. 3 This is good, and pleases God our Savior, 4 who wants all people to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth. 5 For there is one God and one mediator between God and human beings, the human being Christ Jesus, 6 who gave himself as a ransom for all people. This has now been witnessed to at the proper time. 7 And for this purpose I was appointed a herald and an apostle—I am telling the truth, I am not lying—and a true and faithful teacher of the Gentiles. Bonhoeffer’s notes on 1 & 2 Timothy come from a class he taught in the summer of 1938. The lecture notes are handwritten and titled, “Exercises in the Pastoral Epistles.” Here are his notes on 1 Timothy 2… Verse 1. Once Timothy is exhorted toward true teaching, Paul speaks of prayer. It is a deeply rooted predicament of the church-community that it repeatedly forgets that the privilege of prayer has been given not only for its own sake but for the sake of the entire world. “Christ came into the world…” (1:15). That the church-community is rescued from the world does not mean that it should despise the world; instead, it means that its task is to intercede for the world. Precisely because those who have been rescued from the reign of the world truly know the world (“all people”), they are bound with the world in a new manner. Prayer and the preaching of the gospel serve the world according to the will of God in Jesus Christ. The church-community that denies its responsibility toward the world, toward “all people” (v. 1), and withdraws into itself denies the gospel and its commission. The church-community of saved sinners must moreover learn that from now on its prayer cannot be limited to petitions concerning its own affairs, but that genuine prayer extends far beyond that. 1. Petitions—in the beginning, this is the proper attitude of the child. 2. Worship, whose gaze is not upon our own needs but on God’s majesty and glory. 3. Intercession—entreating for other, by right of the church-community’s priesthood. 4. Thanksgiving for everything. In this fullness, congregational prayer belongs to all people, without any privilege for the pious over the unbelievers, friends and enemies. How could the church-community of Jesus ever withhold prayer from the enemies who need it in a special way? In the church-community’s prayer, all that is human becomes one, without distinctions, one before the grace of God. The fact that the church-community should and can see every person, whether powerful or despised, as in need of God’s grace makes it completely free and fearless in its encounter with people and takes away any contempt for humankind and all hatred. Because I am “to pray for all people,” I therefore cannot despise or hate any person; [otherwise] my prayer is a lie. Only in this way does the church-community remain what it is, a church-community of sinners saved by God’s grace. Because all humankind needs the prayer of the church-community, this holds true for kings and those in power as well. As human beings they are the objects of intercession. Whether they are Christians [or] persecutors (Nero), they are human beings, poor sinners in need of salvation and grace. Here, too, Paul always sees the human being behind the office. The church-community should bring petition, worship, intercession, thanksgiving for all people before God, even for enemies! That authorities must be mentioned in particular is necessitated by the fact that the church-community tends to despise and condemn those in power, especially in times of oppression. But this holds true, even for authorities: Petition = that is, for true order and government, justice and truth. Worship = that is, despite enemies and despite the powers that be, do not forget the one who alone has power. Intercession = that is, to ask for salvation and grace for those who are in sin, whose conversion would mean much for many people. Thanksgiving = that is, for the order and power that remains, as well as for the attack of the enemy under which the faith of the church-community endures. The church-community is not particularly called to pray for political-worldly objectives. Rather, the aim of this prayer also serves the church-community. The final objective cannot be that the world should remain in its worldly nature and be happy; the aim of God in the world is always God’s church-community. That which is done by God on earth is done ultimately for the sake of the church-community of Jesus Christ. The church-community, for its part, does everything to win the world for salvation, and that means nothing other than to serve God. But it is able to do this only when it leads a “quiet and peaceable life, in all piety and dignity” (The love of God and neighbor?). The church-community asks not for turbulent times of battle but for quiet and rest. Undoubtedly, God may bless even times of battle, but these are also times of temptation that the church-community does not ask for, for it knows how many fall by the wayside in such times and how difficult the ministry of true piety and dignity is in such times. So much prayer gets lost here, prayer for the oppressors becomes hard for the church-community, and much danger lies in this shortcoming! In a time of chaos the orders of the Christian life dissolve; the temptation to disorder and the frenzy of battle become so grave, shattering the measure of [reverence, respectfulness) and inflicting harm on the church-community. Verse 3. Such prayer for all people is pleasing to God, since God’s salvatory will embraces all people. From this it becomes clear that the content of prayer is the salvation of all people, including kings and authorities. The church-community asks for salvation and knowledge of the truth for all people, that is, for conversion. Verses 5ff. God’s salvatory will is unlimited; no person should be privileged over another person, for they are all human beings, and God is the one and only God, who is above everyone, to whom everyone must be converted. Therefore, pray for all people because they have the same God as you, even if they practice idolatry. There is only one mediator between God and human beings (!) who is there for everyone and who alone is able to save, the human being (!) Jesus Christ. He has given himself for all to be saved and has instituted the preaching of this. Now is the time of proclamation. The apostle has become the teacher for the nations. The universal preaching of salvation corresponds to the universal prayer of the church-community. This needs to be said in particular (against the genealogists who break open the differences among people,) against the teachers of the law who desire to erect boundaries between the pious and sinners, and who claim for themselves a privilege with God. The gospel belongs to all people because it belongs to sinners. How and if the universal salvific will of God will be achieved is no longer the objective of proclamation. Unaffected by this secret (which can easily lead again into “controversies, debates”), proclamation is to be issued universally, preaching law and judgment to those who transgress and the gospel to sinners. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit cameroncombs.substack.com

    1h 3m

  4. FEB 5

    Authority and the Problem of Power

    Pillars That Make Shared Life Possible We are moving outward in concentric circles from the center of the church (the eucharist), to ordained ministry, to sociality within the church mediated by Christ, and now to the structures of authority within the church. Talking about power and authority is messy business. People get hurt in church—sometimes inadvertently, other times deliberately. But I’m convinced that the most dangerous thing to do is avoid talking about it. We are in desperate need of different ways of thinking and talking about authority within the church to help us recover a healthy understanding of authority. In 1 Timothy 3:14—15 Paul says that the church is the pillar and support of the truth in the world. Pillars are precisely about structure. They bear the weight of the building so that there is room inside for common life. When we hear the word “authority” we immediately think of someone exerting control over others. Our minds move quickly to abuses of power and how to prevent it. Of course this is important to consider, but it’s not a helpful starting point for reflection. It’s like being inside a building and only able to think about how the whole building might collapse at any moment. That’s going to create unnecessary anxiety and paralyze you from actually getting on with life. The place to start is with Jesus. How does God’s authority and power work according to him? In Mark 10 James and John come to Jesus and ask him if they can have the seats at his right and left hand when he comes in his kingdom. They are asking for positions of power and authority. Jesus tells them that these positions are already appointed. But when the other disciples hear about this they become indignant. So, Jesus calls them all together and says, “The rulers of the gentiles lord it over them, but not so among you. Whoever wants to become great among you must be one who serves. And whoever wants to be first must be the slave of all. For the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve and give his life as a ransom for many” (Mark 10:35—45). True authority, according to Jesus, is authority that serves. Jesus’ authority empowers others, lifts them up, and makes shared life possible. Just like pillars, those with authority are supposed to provide structure to the building, bearing the weight—the responsibility. The way the power of the world works is to make those beneath you bear the weight. “Lording it over” others is a way to exert authority so that they will be the pillars that make your life of luxury possible (think of Pharaoh). The difference between Jesus’ way and the world’s way is seen in who bears the weight? Who acts as the pillars? In the church it should be those with the greatest amount of power who bear the most weight (i.e. the elders, bishops/overseers, pastors/priests, deacons, etc.). One other thing to notice in Mark 10. When James and John ask if they can sit in the positions of power in Jesus’ kingdom, Jesus does not say, “Oh those don’t exist in my kingdom.” He doesn’t say, “Well, it’s actually a round table.” He doesn’t say, “There actually is no way to be great in the kingdom.” Rather, he says that if you want to become great you must do it this way: you must become a servant. Jesus doesn’t say, “Oh I’m not Lord!” Rather, he says, “I am the Lord, as one who serves.” Jesus does not reject authority structures, but he forces us to reshape and reimagine them in the way of the cross. The Question of Hierarchy There is a right and wrong way to hear this. These authority structures in church are often understood as a sort of “religious hierarchy” where the bishops, pastors/priests, deacons, etc. have greater access to God and his presence because they are closer to the top of the hierarchy. The assumption is that there is a fullness at the top of the hierarchy that gets lesser and lesser as you move down. In this (mis)understanding God is located at the top, so the higher up you are the closer to God you are. And the power of God flows first to those at the top of the hierarchy and then down from there like spiritual trickle-down economics. We have to reject this. The economy of God is infinitely better than Reagonomics. The economy of God is founded on the infinite, inexhaustible, and unfathomable riches in Christ Jesus. If we’ve really met God in the face of Jesus Christ then we know that he does not simply occupy the top of the hierarchy, but that in Christ he has also become the servant of all—bending down to humanity to wash feet. The deep theological truth here is that God is not just another being among others on the hierarchy of being. Rather, he is Being itself. He is the one who is creating and sustaining the entire hierarchy. He undergirds it all and gives being to it all. And, as we see in Christ, he means to fill all things on the hierarchy with himself. He is making the whole hierarchy to be himself because in the end Christ will be all and in all. In this understanding, no one is closer to God and his power than anyone else. God is the Source of Life of all he has made. Christ is fully present at all points on the hierarchy. But this does not create a bland, barren, cookie-cutter equality where everything becomes identical and loses its uniqueness. Christ means to fill all things with himself in order to make them uniquely what he’s called them to be so that they can play their unique part. It may be more helpful for us if we flip the picture on its side. Rather than thinking of the hierarchy as a ladder stretching up and down vertically, picture it as the keyboard of a piano stretching horizontally. A piano has higher and lower notes, but none of the notes are more important than the others. All the notes are unique and have their part to play making music. The first notes played in a song don’t have more of the song in it. They clue you in to what song is being played because they “lead” or “initiate” the song, but they themselves are not the whole song. We do need some to be leaders—to “initiate,” to “go first”—simply so that the whole song can be played. Order and structure are unavoidable in music. You can’t play all the notes of the song and sing all the words all at once. It is no different with our shared life in the church. The question is not whether power, authority, and structure will happen in the church, but whether or not it is done faithfully to the Lord who is a Servant. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit cameroncombs.substack.com

    50 min

  5. JAN 29

    Between Me and You: Christ the Mediator

    Perhaps the most famous line in either First or Second Timothy comes in 1 Timothy 2:5, “There is one God, and so there is one mediator between God and man, namely the man Jesus Christ.” We can easily see the importance of this line, but when we consider it within the context of Paul’s letter to Timothy it can be hard to see how it fits in with the rest of the argument. Yes, Christ is our mediator with God. He has reconciled us to God. He has made peace between us and God. Important? Yes. But is it central? Paul’s letters are his instruction to Timothy on how to handle human relationships within the church. Paul puts it bluntly in 1 Timothy 3:15 “[I am writing this to you] so that you may know how one ought to behave in the household of God, which is the church.” What does Christ as the one mediator between God and humanity have to do with how we conduct ourselves in church? As it turns out, this little line is the heart of all of Paul’s instructions to Timothy. The key is to see that Christ’s mediation is not only vertical (me and God) but also horizontal (me and you). Think of 1 John 4 says about the relationship of the “vertical” and “horizontal”: “If anyone says, “I love God,” and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen” (1 John 4:20). There is no vertical dimension of Christ’s mediation without the horizontal dimension. T.F. Torrance was the first theologian to help me begin to think through what it means to say that Jesus is the one mediator between God and humanity. Torrance calls it “the double movement” of the incarnation: Jesus is (1) God to us and (2) us to God. But it was Dietrich Bonhoeffer who helped me think through the horizontal dimension of Christ’s mediation. In Life Together he begins by contrasting two different kinds communities, or two different ways of relating to others. There is the Self-centered relationship/community (marked by what he calls “Human/Emotional Love”) and the Christ-Centered relationship/community (marked by “Spiritual Love”). This is the passage from Life Together we discussed in class: “Christian community means community through Jesus Christ and in Jesus Christ…We belong to one another only through and in Jesus Christ.” “Among human beings there is strife. ‘He is our peace’ (Eph. 2:14), says Paul of Jesus Christ. In him, broken and divided humanity has become one. Without Christ there is discord between God and humanity and between one human being and another. Christ has become the mediator who has made peace with God and peace among human beings. Without Christ we would not know God; we could neither call on God nor come to God. But without Christ we also would not know our brother, nor could we come to him. The way to them is blocked by our own ego. Christ opened up the way to God and to our brother one another. Now Christians can live with each other in peace; they can love and serve one another; they can become one. But they can continue to do so only through Jesus Christ. Only in Jesus Christ are we one; only through him are we bound together. He remains the one and only mediator throughout eternity.” “In the self-centered community there exists a profound, elemental emotional desire for…immediate contact with other human souls…This desire of the human soul seeks the complete intimate fusion of I and You…in forcing the other into one’s own sphere of power and influence.” “Self-centered love loves the other for the sake of itself; spiritual love loves the other for the sake of Christ. That is why self-centered love seeks direct contact with other persons. It loves them, not as free persons, but as those whom it binds to itself. It wants to do everything it can to win and conquer; it puts pressure on the other person. It desires to be irresistible, to dominate.” “Spiritual love, however, comes from Jesus Christ; it serves him alone. It knows that it has no direct access to other persons. Christ stands between me and others. I do not know in advance what love of others means on the basis of the general idea of love that grows out of my emotional desires. All this may instead be hatred and the worst kind of selfishness in the eyes of Christ…Contrary to all my own opinions and convictions, Jesus Christ will tell me what love for my brothers and sisters really looks like.” “Because Christ stands between me and an other, I must not long for unmediated community with that person. As only Christ was able to speak to me in such a way that I was helped, so others too can only be helped by Christ alone. However, this means that I must release others from all my attempts to control, coerce, and dominate them with my love. In their freedom from me, other persons want to be loved for who they are, as those for whom Christ became a human being, died, and rose again, as those for whom Christ won the forgiveness of sins and prepare eternal life…I must allow them the freedom to be Christ’s. They should encounter me only as the persons that they already are for Christ [or: I must meet the other only as the person that he already is in Christ’s eyes]. This is the meaning of the claim that we can encounter others only through the mediation of Christ. Self-centered love constructs its own image of other persons, about what they are and what they should become. It takes the life of the other person into its own hands. Spiritual love recognizes the true image of the other person as seen from the perspective of Jesus Christ. It is the image Jesus Christ has formed and wants to form in all people.” “[Spiritual love] will not seek to agitate another by exerting all too personal, direct influence or by crudely interfering in one’s life…It will be willing to release others again so that Christ may deal with them. It will respect the other as the boundary that Christ establishes between us; and it will find full community with the other in the Christ who alone binds us together. This spiritual love will thus speak to Christ about the other Christian more than to the other Christian about Christ. It knows that the most direct way to others is always through prayer to Christ.” The question for us is whether we will allow Christ to mediate our relationships—not only with our enemies, but also with those closest to us. Will we seek direct and unmediated contact with them or will we trust them to Jesus’ hands? Will we grow impatient with them or trust them to Jesus’ timing? Are we so invested in our ideas of what we want them to be that we cannot release them to Jesus and allow him to make them what he’s called them to be? Will we interrupt his work in their lives by crudely interfering or will we give Jesus the space to shape and form them? Only when we allow Jesus to mediate our relationships with others will we ever really know them because he is their life This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit cameroncombs.substack.com

    58 min

  6. JAN 22

    The Everyday, Humdrum, Holy Work of God

    In 1 Timothy 4 Paul reminds Timothy that he was commissions into ministry “by Spirit-filled utterance [prophecy] and with the laying on of hands by the council of elders.” Again in 2 Timothy 1 Paul encourages Timothy to “fan into flame the gift of God, which is in you through the laying on of my hands.” This is the beginning of the sacramental ritual of ordination. This ritual is “sacramental” because it not only authorized Timothy for his particular ministerial responsibilities but it also granted the very gift of the Spirit needed to fulfill those responsibilities. A “sacrament” is a sign that accomplishes what it signifies. The Lord’s Supper is a sign of our communion with God through Christ, but it is not merely a sign. When we partake in the Supper the reality of our communion with God is actually taking place. In other words, Jesus is really present in the bread and the cup. This is how the earliest Pentecostal fathers and mothers viewed Communion. In the Communion meal we are not just remembering the past event of Jesus’ death that took place two centuries ago. Rather, as we partake of this meal Christ really communes with us. He is mysteriously present as the Savior, Healer, Spirit-Baptizer, and soon-coming King. Chris Green provides tons of historical examples in his book Pentecostal Theology of the Lord’s Supper. I’ll include just a few of my favorites here. D.W. Kerr (General Council, 1916) The [Weekly Evangel] report of the 1916 General Council of the Assemblies of God includes a lengthy treatment of a sermon preached by D.W. Kerr in preparation for the Communion celebration that closed the meeting. Repeatedly, the article—recounting Kerr’s remarks—emphasizes the present-tense effectiveness of the Supper. ‘This meal is intended not only for our spiritual, but for our physical benefit. Here is good news for the sick. You are invited to a meal for your health. As you are eating in faith you can receive healing for your body. If you cannot use the past tense and say ‘By His stripes ye were healed’, turn it into the present tense and declare, ‘By His stripes I am healed’. You say perhaps ‘I hope to be healed’. What time in the future will you be healed? God brings the future down to the present tense.’ …[Kerr says] the feast points both back, to Christ’s death, and forward, to his return. However, participants’ focus must remain always on the Supper’s ‘distinct present aspect’… ‘Here is the present tense of Calvary. We have come to a place of freshness, the result of Calvary. What is it? Life and life more abundant!…There is nothing old or stale about this memorial feast, the fruit of the vine is not old, the shed blood is not aged, the bread is not stale, the Lord’s body is not a mere thing of the past, the way is new and living. The thing most striking about the character of the feast is its presentness, not its pastness or its futureness. It has a present aspect, there is a sign of warmth, the blood is not cold and coagulated but flowing fresh from the wounded side of Jesus, ‘recently killed and yet living’. Myer Pearlman (Pentecostal Evangel, 1934) “[The meal] consists of the religious partaking of bread and wine, which, after having been presented to God the Father in memorial of Christ’s inexhaustible sacrifice, becomes a means of grace whereby we are inspired to an increased faith and faithfulness to Him who loved us and redeemed us.” E.N. Bell (Weekly Evangel, 1916) In response to a reader’s question about the possible benefits of taking the Supper, sometime editor and frequent contributor E.N. Bell provides a detailed explanation of his view of the Sacrament, complete with a brief overview of four historical positions. Catholics, he says, believe that the bread when it is blessed by the priest is ‘transmuted into the literal living body of Christ’, so that ‘in partaking we actually eat the body of Christ and literally drink His blood, and so get eternal life by partaking of the supper.’ Bell rejects this teaching. He rejects the doctrine of consubstantiation, as well, which he attributes to the Episcopalians. The third position, proposed by ‘the noted theologian Zwingle’ [sic], understands Communion as ‘simply a Memorial Feast,’ in which ‘the only good received in partaking [is] in bringing vividly to memory the truths of Christ’s atoning death.’ In this view, as Bell understands it, neither Christ’s body nor his blood are present at the Table, but are only ‘remembered and appropriated.’ Bell acknowledges some truth in this position, but he finally rejects it, too: ‘It lowers our view of the Lord’s Supper and makes it a thing too common.’ The fourth stance Bell attributes to Calvinists, especially Presbyterians, who maintain, he says, that the elements remain unchanged, but Christ is truly, spiritually present to the celebrants. Having provided this overview, Bell ventures his own view: “There is a good deal of truth in this spiritual view. In fact there is some truth in nearly every view of it. But I do not believe the physical Christ is present in the bread nor in the cup. I believe the loaf is still real bread and the cup still only the fruit of the vine. I believe it is a memorial, for Jesus said, ‘This do in MEMORY of me.’ But it is more than a memorial feast. Jesus is there in the Spirit to bless, quicken, uplift and heal; but what benefit the partaker will receive depends on his spiritual discernment; his faith and his appropriation from the spiritually present living Christ.” Elizabeth Sisson ("Our Health, His Wealth,” 1925) “Ah! Not more truly in that hour, happily called ‘Holy Communion,’ in that service, blessedly named ‘the Lord’s Supper,’ are the emblems of the Saviour’s broken body and shed blood, passed around, than is the SUBSTANCE always being passed to us. ‘You may feast at Jesus’ table all the time.” …She insists that what is needed is “Sacramental living; for it makes continually holy, common things.” Recovery of “sacramental living” is key, I think, to the work God has called us to do in participating in building Christ’s church. “Sacramental living” as Sisson says, makes everyday, humdrum life holy. This is what God means for us. He does not intend for us to live life always waiting on the next wild experience, but for our lives to be integrated sacramentally into his life. God means to sanctifying all aspects of our lives and to fill all things up with the life of his Son. The sacraments teach us that, even though it is harder to track, most of God’s work is in the mundane. As a sacrament the Lord’s Supper trains our vision: Jesus Christ is really present in this ordinary meal of bread and wine. And what is revealed in this meal is the essence of every meal. God means for every meal to become communion with him and our neighbors. The sacrament of ordination (laying on of hands) trains us to see that in the calling of minsters, God is revealing the “priestly essence” of all callings. Every vocation is to be “priestly” at its heart. Done in service and love for the life of the world. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit cameroncombs.substack.com

    57 min

  7. JAN 15

    The Eucharistic Life

    Paul writes to his young protégé Timothy to “command certain people not to teach false doctrines any longer.” Paul does not ever clearly explain what these false teachers were teaching (Timothy doesn’t need him to). Throughout the two letters we primarily get little hints and insights into the situation by the way Paul talks about the effect these teachings have in the church-community. However, there are two passages in which we get a bit more of the picture regarding the content of the false teaching. In 2 Timothy 2 we learn that they are teaching that the resurrection has already happened, and then in 1 Timothy 4 we hear that they are a “pro-abstinence” group. They teach that people should abstain from marriage (sex) and from certain food (diet). This is almost certainly grounded in some brand of gnostic teaching that asserts that the material creation is corrupt and will spiritually pollute you if you partake in it. Paul strongly refutes this in 1 Tim. 4:3—5: 3 They forbid people to marry and order them to abstain from certain foods,which God created to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and who know the truth. 4 For everything God created is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving, 5 because it is consecrated by the word of God and prayer. The problem was not so much that this heresy was technically imprecise, but that it led to sick living. In fact, it distorts the very heart of what it means to be human. Paul reminds Timothy that everything God created is good (Genesis 1) and has been given as a gift to be received with thanksgiving. The word Paul uses for “thanksgiving” is eucharistia. This, of course, quickly became the language the church used to refer to the Lord’s Supper. In Comunnion we receive with thanksgiving the gift of Christ’s body and blood. Paul says that everything God has created is good and it is consecrated when we receive it with thanksgiving—not because our thanksgiving magically changes the nature of things. Our prayers of thanksgiving are not a hocus pocus spell that magically make unclean things clean. Rather, as Luke Timothy Johnson says, our thanksgiving blesses God by recognizing that all things came from him and that all things are to be returned to him. Without the human thanksgiving the world still belongs to God, but it is not made “known” that it belongs to God. Without our thanksgiving (eucharist) there is no mutuality or reciprocity between the creation and the Creator—there is no relationship. The business of thanksgiving, of eucharist, is priestly work and so it is human work. All humanity is called to be priests, recognizing the goodness of God in all of creation and offering it back to him in thanksgiving and praise. No one has made this case more poignantly than Alexander Schmemann in For the Life of the World: To be sure, man is not the only hungry being. All that exists lives by ‘eating.’ The whole creation depends on food. But the unique position of man in the universe is that he alone is to bless God for the food and the life he receives from Him. He alone is to respond to God’s blessing with his blessing. The significant fact about life in the Garden is that man is to name things. As soon as animals have been created to keep Adam company, God brings them to Adam to see what he will call them…Now, in the Bible a name is infinitely more than a means to distinguish one thing from another. It reveals the very essence of a thing, or rather its essence as God’s gift. To name a thing is to manifest the meaning and value God gave it, to know it as coming from God and to know its place and function within the cosmos created by God. To name a thing, in other words, is to bless God for it and in it…God blessed the world, blessed man, blessed the seventh day (that is, time), and this means that He filled all that exists with His love and goodness, made all this ‘very good.’ So the only natural reaction of man, to whom God gave this blessed and sanctified world, is to bless God in return, to thank Him, to see the world as God sees it and–in this act of gratitude and adoration–to know, name, and possess the world. All rational, spiritual, and other qualities of man, distinguishing him from other creatures, have their focus and ultimate fulfillment in this capacity to bless God, to know, so to speak, the meaning of the thirst and hunger that constitutes life… The first, and basic definition of man is that he is the priest. He stands in the center of the world and unifies it in his act of blessing God, of both receiving the world from God and offering it to God–and by filling the world with this eucharist, he transforms his life, the one that he receives from the world, into life in God, into communion with Him. The world was created as the ‘matter,’ the material of one all-embracing eucharist, and man was created as the priest of this cosmic sacrament. It is not accidental, therefore, that the biblical story of the Fall is centered again on food. Man ate the forbidden fruit. The fruit of that one tree, whatever else it may signify, was unlike every other fruit in the Garden: it was not offered as a gift to man. Not given, not blessed by God, it was food whose eating was condemned to be communion with itself alone, and not with God. It is the image of the world loved for itself, and eating it is the image of life understood as an end in itself. To love is not easy, Mankind has chosen not to return God’s love. Man has loved the world, but as an end in itself and not transparent to God. He has done it so consistently that it has become something that is ‘in the air.’ It seems natural for man to experience the world as opaque, and not shot through with the presence of God. It seems natural not to live a life of thanksgiving for God’s gift of a world. It seems natural not to be eucharistic. The world is a fallen world because it has fallen away from the awareness that God is all in all… Man was to be the priest of a eucharist, offering the world to God, and in this offering he was to receive the gift of life. But in the fallen world man does not have the priestly power to do this. His dependence on the world becomes a closed circuit, and his love is deviated from its true direction. He still loves, he is still hungry. He knows he is dependent on that which is beyond him. But his love and his dependence refer only to the world in itself. He does not know that breathing can be communion with God. He does not realize that to eat can be to receive life from God in more than its physical sense… For ‘the wages of sin is death.’ The life man chose was only the appearance of life. God showed him that he himself had decided to eat bread in a way that would simply return him to the ground from which both he and the bread had been taken. ‘For dust thou art and into dust shalt thou return.’ Man lost the eucharistic life, he lost the life of life itself, the power to transform it into Life. He ceased to be the priest of the world and became its slave. The eucharistic life is what is lost in our world. We ate of the one tree that was not given by God as a gift to us. We ate of the one meal that was not in communion with God. But this is the gospel promise: in Christ God has given us a new meal that restores that communion. It is Christ’s very body and blood. It is the Lord’s supper. It is Eucharist. To eat of it is to be established in the communion of creation with its Creator because Christ, in his very person, is the communion of Creator and creature. As our great High Priest he has restored us to our original vocation as a kingdom of priests called to gather up the world around us and offer it back to him consecrated by our thanksgiving (eucharist) in Christ. In other words, through Jesus Christ creation becomes what it was made to be: very good. Our calling as members of Christ’s body is a priestly calling. It is, as Schmemann says, for the life of the world. Priestly work is work done on behalf of others. We worship, we offer our thanksgiving, for the sake of the world around us. This is the eucharistic life established in Christ. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit cameroncombs.substack.com

    1h 4m

  8. JAN 8

    How To Spot a False Teacher

    “Sound teaching strengthens, while sick teaching weakens…sick teaching leads to sick holiness.” -Dietrich Bonhoeffer Sick Teaching, Sick Holiness Gordon Fee argues that the primary purpose of Paul’s Pastoral Epistles is not to establish church order or provide a “church manual” for church governance. Rather, Paul’s purpose in writing to Timothy is to thwart the false teachers that have gained sway in the house churches of Ephesus. Paul can hardly go a chapter without writing about sound teaching/doctrine. The Greek word for “sound” that Paul uses is hygiano. Timothy is to devote himself to hygienic teaching, or teaching that is healthy and leads to health. The false teachers are unaware of the fact that they are promoting what Dietrich Bonhoeffer calls a “sick teaching” that “leads to sick holiness.” In Paul’s words, it is a teaching that “spreads like gangrene” (2 Tim. 2:17). The difficulty is that Paul calls out the problem of sick teaching without really spelling out the nature or the content of such teaching. The reason is obvious. The letter was written to a lifelong companion, who would not have needed such instruction. Timothy is Paul’s “child in the faith” so the entire truth of Paul’s gospel (as we see it in Ephesians, Galatians, and Romans) is taken for granted. We have to pay close attention to see the marks of what Paul considers sick teaching and sick holiness. Marks of Sick Teaching What are some of the signs Paul gives to be on alert for to spot sick teaching? How do we spot gangrene? * An addiction to controversy and vain speculations (1 Tim. 1:4) * Legalism/Moral rigorism (1 Tim. 4:3) * Their teaching is driven by fear not motivated by love (1 Tim. 1:7—8, see St. John Chrysostom’s second homily on 1 Timothy) * Conceited (1 Tim. 6:3) * Quarrelsome and argumentative (1 Tim. 6:3) * Abusive/harsh language (1 Tim. 6:3) * An unhealthy attachment to their own opinions (1 Tim. 1:4, 1 Tim. 6:3—5) * Sincere (1 Tim. 4:2) The heart of the difference between sick and healthy teaching is a theme that is never far from Paul’s mind when he mentions these characteristics we’ve just listed. It comes down to freedom, fear, and love. In 2 Tim. 3:6—8 Paul a comparison to the false teachers at Ephesus and two out of the way characters from the book of Exodus. He writes, 6 They are the kind who worm their way into homes and gain control over gullible women, who are loaded down with sins and are swayed by all kinds of evil desires, 7 always learning but never able to come to a knowledge of the truth. 8 Just as Jannes and Jambres opposed Moses, so also these teachers oppose the truth. Jannes and Jambres are names given to two of the magicians in Pharaoh’s court that match Moses blow for blow with magic. Aaron throws his staff on the ground and it turns into a snake, but the magicians can match it. Moses turns the waters into blood, but again Pharaoh’s magicians mimic the sign. In the Old Testament the magicians are not named, but it is a part of the tradition of Jewish midrash to give names to the nameless. By “at least 150 B.C. the Egyptian magicians had been narrowed to two brothers and given the names Jannes and Jambres. By the time of Paul this tradition had become common stock.” This was a battle of power and authority; the authority of Moses, given him by God, and the authority of the magicians. But there is a stark difference in the way the two are wielding this power. Moses used his authority for the sake of liberating the Hebrew people while Jannes and Jambres used their’s to keep the people enslaved. As Chris Green once put it, “How do I know whether I’m speaking so that it’s God’s authority happening or merely my own authority? When I speak with God’s authority you are freed, but when I speak on my authority you are bound to me.” This is the heart of what makes the false teachers teaching so sick: its end goal is enslavement and subjugation to the false teachers. This is not always the easiest thing to discern, but the question has to always be this: is this teaching freeing me or is it dominating me? The Swiss theologian Karl Barth is famous for saying that all of God’s commands are actually permissions, they are “musts” in service of a “may.” And this, Barth says, is what sets God’s command apart from all others: God’s commands are always liberating not enslaving. Think of all God’s creation commands in Genesis 1. “Let there be light” is a command but it is also permission. By the command it permits the light to do what it does. It is a command that gives rise to freedom. God does not dominate, we dominate. God liberates. God doesn’t want slavish obedience, he wants the free obedience of his Son to come out of us in the power of the Spirit. Sick teaching is always driven by fear, the fear of enslavement and domination, and ultimately the fear of death (remember, they are “lovers of money”). But healthy doctrine births love in the hearts of those who hear it because it sets free. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit cameroncombs.substack.com

    57 min
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Midweek Bible study at Colonial Heights Church. Artwork by Scott Erickson (scottericksonart.com) cameroncombs.substack.com

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  • Creator
    Cameron Combs
  • Years Active
    2025 - 2026
  • Episodes
    107
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    © Cameron Combs
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