Geocaching Scripture Josh McDonald

Tell my brothers to go to Galilee. Jesus gives some very simple directions after the extremely unsimple event of the resurrection. Yet the disciples can't quite figure out how to follow. Fear? Disbelief? Disobedience? Yep, probably all those. We'll look at this extremely slow trip to Galilee in our latest episode.

Have you ever been in a really bad storm? The kind where you wonder if the house might blow away or a flood might carry you off? The disciples were in the midst of a brutal storm that night and they go to find the one guy who's supposed to be in charge – and He's taking a nap! Let's dig into this story, and the delicious details throughout and see if we can't figure out why Jesus was – apparently – snoozing on the job.

We look at the story within a story of Mark 5 – the raising of Jairus's daughter and the woman with the issue of blood. The detail that connects them is the number 12. Mark seems to draw an analogy between this woman lost to her community and this girl lost to life. "You are a daughter" – Jesus speaks these life-altering words of resurrection and restoration. Tune in.

We kick off season five with a discussion of a political slogan that sneaked into some of Paul's writing. Against the iron backdrop of the Roman Empire, Paul reminds us of the kingdom that will have no end. In his encouraging letter to the community in Thessalonica, Paul talks with them about the great final "Day of the Lord" in which no political structure will stand, and he parodies a Roman slogan in the process. We also briefly reflect on the political slogans we remember through the years. 

"Marry a prostitute..." Among the strange things that God asked prophets to do in the Old Testament, this has to be in the top three. Hosea and Gomer's bizarre marriage becomes a powerful symbol of God's love for Israel – unfaithful and unworthy as she might be. The story, again, is that our "worthiness", like Gomer's worthiness, comes from God, not from us. Therefore the reality – you are worthy, you are mine – is unshakable. 

"Immeasurably more than all we can ask or imagine..." This one often gets taken out of context, and might be applied to requests for Instagram followers or the latest new TransAm (whatever your generation might be). But we look closer at the setting of this passage, which is right within a hymn of praise telling us about who God is, not what we can get from Him. We talk about the importance of interpreting scripture in its details along a theme, and not retrofitting the context to whatever we're looking for at the time. This, and we discuss the importance of knowing if God or Ben Franklin wrote a popular phrase.