Bible Love: A Scripture Podcast

Bible Love Podcast
  • 5.0 (34)
  • Christianity
  • Updated Weekly

Bible Love is a conversation about scripture between Mary Balfour Van Zandt (priest at Church of the Epiphany in Guntersville, Ala.) and Alan Bentrup (priest at St. Martin-in-the-Fields in Keller, Texas).

  1. Jun 18

    How to Become a Deacon: A Conversation on Vocation with The Rev. Deacon CJ Van Slyke

    A woman stopped her in a hospital hallway and said: what you do is not a job. What you do is a ministry. CJ Van Slyke had been a nurse, a licensed counselor, a Red Cross mental health specialist deployed to flood zones, a Haiti mission worker, and a volunteer at a women's overnight shelter. She had been doing the work for years before she had a name for it. The name, it turned out, was deacon. This week Mary Balfour sits down with her friend the Reverend Deacon CJ Van Slyke for a conversation about one of the most ancient and most misunderstood vocations in the church. A deacon is ordained to serve, specifically to carry the needs of the world into the church and the ministry of the church out into the world. CJ describes it as being called to work in the margins, in uncomfortable places, and still finding joy there. Not to fix things. To be present. They talk about what it actually takes to become a deacon, including four years of theological education, a year and a half of discernment, psychological testing, oral and written exams, and an assignment process that CJ compares to joining the military. They talk about immigration advocacy, food deserts, free laundry ministry in a low income neighborhood in Woodlawn, six acres of native plant restoration, and what it means to be the eyes and ears and feet on the ground for a congregation trying to figure out who its neighbors are. CJ said no for a long time. She didn't want people telling her what to do. Then a friend took her to a listening session and she was just in, immediately and completely. That turn, from resistance to recognition, is one the guests in this summer series keep describing in different words. At some point you stop trying to lift the burden yourself and discover it has already been lifted. In retirement, CJ is still on the pastoral care committee, the outreach committee, and the grants committee. She serves at the altar at least once a month. The joy, she says, has not gone away. She hopes it never does. Prayer for Mission (Morning Prayer, the Book of Common Prayer, pg 100) Almighty and everlasting God, by whose Spirit the whole  body of your faithful people is governed and sanctified: Receive our supplications and prayers which we offer before you for all members of your holy Church, that in their vocation and ministry they may truly and devoutly serve you; through our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen. Links mentioned in this episode: - The Rev. Deacon CJ Van Slyke (https://www.ssechurch.org/clergy-staff-1) - Check us out on YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/@biblelovepodcast)

    23 min

  2. Jun 4

    How to Become a Priest: A Conversation on Vocation with the Rev. Paul Roberts Abernathy

    It started with a Presbyterian chaplain who had no agenda. Just an open door, sixty minutes a week, and the grace to let a despairing sophomore be exactly who he was. That gift, given freely in the early 1970s, set in motion forty-eight years of ordained ministry that Paul Roberts Abernathy has never once regretted. This week Alan and Mary welcome Paul to the Bible Love summer series on vocation for a conversation that ranges from a dream on the precipice of a hill, to the difference between discernment and decision making, to what it means to listen so well that people trust you with the stories they carry alone. Paul draws a distinction that has shaped everything: discernment, from the Latin, means to separate and see what choices exist. Decision making means to cut off. Conflate them, he says, and you will make the worst mistakes of your life. Do the first thing honestly, and the second thing tends to take care of itself. We also hear about three confessions of faith in the Gospel of John, why they all happen at moments of gravest disappointment, and what Thomas meant when he said not just "my Lord" but "my Lord and my God." And Alan shares a story from a Race and Reconciliation Commission meeting in South Carolina in 2018, when a nervous joke met a simple sentence: you're here for a reason. Paul remembers the room. Alan has never forgotten the words. Forty-eight years in, Paul Roberts Abernathy is still reading his Bible every day, still finding things he has never seen before, and still listening to whoever walks through the door. Nothing we have been given, he says, has been given to us to keep. Prayer for Mission (Morning Prayer, the Book of Common Prayer, pg 100) Almighty and everlasting God, by whose Spirit the whole  body of your faithful people is governed and sanctified: Receive our supplications and prayers which we offer before you for all members of your holy Church, that in their vocation and ministry they may truly and devoutly serve you; through our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen. Links mentioned in this episode: - The Rev. Paul Roberts Abernathy (https://stmatthewsepiscopal.org/welcome/clergy-staff-vestry) - Check us out on YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/@biblelovepodcast)

    27 min

  3. May 21

    The Resurrection

    Today we talk about Jesus in the tomb in Mt 28.1-20; Mk 16.1-20; Lk 24.1-53; Jn 20.1-25. Five years ago, Alan and Mary Balfour started a podcast during a pandemic because what else were you going to do? This week they wrap up Season 5 with the day that makes everything else make sense. Easter is not just the happy ending after a hard week. It’s the whole point. The cross matters, but without the resurrection, as Alan puts it, pain and suffering and sin win. Easter is the day death loses. That changes everything, including, it turns out, how Christians understand funerals, which are Easter liturgies, and how they understand ordinary Sundays, and how they understand what happens when they die. Season 5 is a wrap, but the summer interview series launches the first week of June, with episodes every other week featuring a bishop, a priest, a deacon, a lay minister, a monk, a nun, and an army chaplain, all talking about vocation and how ordinary people can find their place in ministry. Season 6 returns in August. Thanks for five years. We love you. But most importantly, God does. Links mentioned in this episode: - Lydia of Thyatira (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lydia_of_Thyatira) - Walk-off Home Runs as an Image of Heaven (https://joshnoem.substack.com/p/walk-off-homers-are-an-image-of-heaven) - Dr. Tony’s notes on the crucifixion (https://www.stmartininthefields.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/The-Crucifixion.pdf) - Entering the Passion of Jesus: A Beginner's Guide to Holy Week (https://a.co/d/89u4GX8) - Christ Chronological Bible (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/143364603X) - Check us out on YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/@biblelovepodcast)

    12 min

  4. May 14

    The Tomb

    Today we talk about Jesus in the tomb in Mt 27.57-66; Mk 15.42-47; Lk 23.50-56; Jn 19.38-42. The body has to go somewhere. Two men who kept their distance while Jesus was alive step forward when he is dead. Joseph of Arimathea, a member of the council that condemned him, goes to Pilate and asks for the body. Nicodemus, the man who first came to Jesus by night in John 3, arrives with spices. Both of them are staking something real on a dead man. Both of them do it anyway. This week Alan and Mary Balfour sit with the burial narratives and with the day the church has historically done the least with: Holy Saturday. It is the only day in the liturgical year with no Eucharist. The tomb is sealed. The women who followed Joseph and watched where the body was laid now wait, spices prepared, unable to finish the burial until the Sabbath ends. But Holy Saturday is not only absence. The Apostles' Creed says he descended to the dead, and the tradition of the harrowing of hell takes that line seriously. The icons show Jesus standing at the broken gates of Hades, grasping people by the wrist, not the hand, because the dead cannot reach for him on their own. He pulls them out. The salvation is entirely his doing. It is one of the most complete images of grace in the entire Christian tradition. Good Friday deals with the past. Easter Sunday begins the new creation. Holy Saturday is the day in between, the theology of waiting, which turns out to be where most of human life actually lives. This episode releases on the Feast of the Ascension. Next week brings the resurrection, and the close of the season. Readings for next week: Mt 28.1-15; Mk 16.1-11; Lk 24.1-12; Jn 20.1-10 Links mentioned in this episode: - Jesus’ descent into hell iconography (https://www.orthodoxroad.com/christs-descent-into-hell-icon-explanation/) - Dr. Tony’s notes on the crucifixion (https://www.stmartininthefields.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/The-Crucifixion.pdf) - Entering the Passion of Jesus: A Beginner's Guide to Holy Week (https://a.co/d/89u4GX8) - Christ Chronological Bible (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/143364603X) - Check us out on YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/@biblelovepodcast)

    15 min

  5. May 7

    The Cross

    Today we’re joined by Dr. Tony as we talk about the central moment of the Christian faith. We talk about Jesus and the cross in Mt 27.15-56; Mk 15.6-41; Lk 23.13-49; Jn 18.38-19.37. All four gospels bring you to the same hill, the same cross, the same Friday. And then each one tells you something the others don't. This week Dr. Tony works through the crucifixion narratives, and the conversation keeps returning to a simple but demanding question: what is each gospel writer trying to show you about what is happening on this cross, and why does it matter that they don't all show you the same thing? John frames the crucifixion as simultaneously atonement and enthronement. Jesus is the Lamb of God, dying on the very day the Passover lambs are slaughtered, and he is the king lifted up and exalted, just as he said he would be. "It is finished" means both that a life has ended and that a mission has been completed. John holds both things at once and will not let you separate them. Luke gives you two prayers. The first is for the people killing him. The second is an act of complete trust spoken into what must have felt like complete darkness. And somewhere between those two prayers, a man dying beside him asks to be remembered, and receives the only explicit promise of paradise Jesus makes to anyone in any of the four gospels. No works. No baptism. No time for reform. Pure grace, with nowhere left to hide from it. Matthew and Mark give you the cry of dereliction. My God, my God, why have you forsaken me. Dr. Tony opens up what it means that Jesus, for the first time in his life, could not feel the presence of God, and why that detail is the most painful thing in the entire Passion narrative, and also, read against the whole of Psalm 22, not the last word. Readings for next week: Mt 27.57-66; Mk 15.42-47; Lk 23.50-56; Jn 19.38-42 Links mentioned in this episode: - Dr. Tony’s notes on the crucifixion (https://www.stmartininthefields.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/The-Crucifixion.pdf) - Rembrandt’s painting, The Sacrifice of Isaac (​​https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sacrifice_of_Isaac_(Rembrandt)) - Why Did Jesus Have To Die, by Adam Hamilton (https://www.abingdonpress.com/product/9781791040611/) - Entering the Passion of Jesus: A Beginner's Guide to Holy Week (https://a.co/d/89u4GX8) - Christ Chronological Bible (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/143364603X) - Check us out on YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/@biblelovepodcast)

    29 min

  6. Apr 30

    The Trial

    Today we talk about denial, abandonment, and Jesus on trial in Mt 26.57-27.14;Mk 14.53-15.5; Lk 22.54-23.12; Jn 18.13-38. Jesus is handed from one authority to another. Religious leaders to Pilate. Pilate to Herod. Herod back to Pilate. The proceedings are chaotic, the charges keep shifting, and through all of it Jesus is almost entirely alone. This week Alan and Mary Balfour work through the trial narratives across all four gospels, and the differences between them turn out to be as instructive as the agreements. Each writer frames the proceedings through a distinct lens, and paying attention to what each one includes, and what each one leaves out, opens up the story in ways a single account never could. Peter's denial runs alongside the hearing the whole time, and the fact that all four gospel writers include it is worth pausing on. The early church preserved the story of its most prominent leader's worst moment and built it into the center of the Passion narrative. That decision says something important about what the gospels are actually trying to do. But the heart of the conversation this week is the loneliness of what Jesus endures. No supporters. No character witnesses. No one in the room on his side. Alan and Mary Balfour reflect on what it means that Jesus experienced this kind of abandonment, and why that matters to anyone who has ever felt completely alone. Jesus's faithfulness to God in his darkest moment is not a distant theological proposition. It is a word spoken directly into human suffering. Readings for next week: Mt 27.15-56; Mk 15.6-41; Lk 23.13-49; Jn 18.38-19.37 Links mentioned in this episode: - Zita of Tuscany (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zita) - Education for Ministry (https://theology.sewanee.edu/education-for-ministry/) - Entering the Passion of Jesus: A Beginner's Guide to Holy Week (https://a.co/d/89u4GX8) - Christ Chronological Bible (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/143364603X)- Check us out on YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/@biblelovepodcast)

    19 min

  7. Apr 23

    The Garden

    Today we talk about Jesus, the disciples, and the Garden of Gesthemene in Mt 26.36-56; Mk 14.32-52; Lk 22.40-53; Jn 18.1-12. After the supper, Jesus goes to a garden. He asks his disciples to watch with him. They fall asleep. Three times. This week Alan and Mary sit with the Agony in the Garden and the arrest, one of the few sequences that appears in all four gospels, and when all four gospels agree on something, that is worth paying close attention to. Each account tells the same story through a genuinely different lens, and the differences turn out to matter as much as the agreement. Matthew, Mark, and Luke show you a Jesus in real anguish, asking if the cup can pass, returning again and again to a prayer he has to work through. John shows you something else entirely: a Jesus who arrives at the garden already resolved, who steps forward to meet the soldiers, says "I am," and watches them fall to the ground. We also talk about what happens when the swords come out, and what Jesus says and does about it. One disciple swings at a servant and takes off his ear. Only Luke tells you Jesus healed it, right there in the middle of his own arrest. And then Alan addresses something that sits just underneath this whole passage: scripture is sometimes used to justify armed conflict, and Jesus's own words and actions in this garden push back on that directly. War may sometimes be necessary. It is never of God, and it is never for God. This episode releases on the feast day of Toyohiko Kagawa, a Japanese Christian social reformer and pacifist from the early twentieth century. A link to learn more about him is in the show notes. Readings for next week: Mt 26.57-27.14;Mk 14.53-15.5; Lk 22.54-23.12; Jn 18.13-38 Links mentioned in this episode: - Toyohiko Kagawa (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toyohiko_Kagawa) - Entering the Passion of Jesus: A Beginner's Guide to Holy Week (https://a.co/d/89u4GX8) - Christ Chronological Bible (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/143364603X) - Check us out on YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/@biblelovepodcast)

    19 min

  8. Apr 16

    The Meal

    Today we talk about feet washing, the last supper, and everything that happened on Maundy Thursday in Mt 26.17-30; Mk 14.12-26; Lk 22. 7-30; Jn 13.1-35. Three of the four gospels give you a table, bread, a cup, and the words that have echoed through Christian worship for two thousand years. John gives you a basin and a towel. This week Alan and Mary sit with all four accounts of the night before the crucifixion and ask what it means that the gospel most saturated with Eucharistic imagery is the one that leaves the institution out entirely. We talk about the foot washing as John's enacted interpretation of what the meal means, why Luke places a dispute about greatness immediately after Jesus says this is my body given for you, and what "and it was night" is actually telling you when Judas walks out the door. But the conversation keeps coming back to what the Eucharist is actually for. Alan describes it as a fueling station. Mary talks about what it means to say someone's name when you place bread in their hands. And a story about two little girls at the communion rail, one of whom broke her wafer in half and gave it to her friend, turns out to say more about what Jesus intended than a lot of theology does. We receive so we can share. We get fed so we can feed. The Maundy in Maundy Thursday is not the footwashing and it is not the supper. It is the commandment: love one another as I have loved you. Everything else is in service of that. Readings for next week: Mt 26.17-30; Mk 14.12-26; Lk 22. 7-30; Jn 13.1-35 Links mentioned in this episode: - Peter Williams Cassey and Anna Besant Cassey (https://prayer.forwardmovement.org/calendar/peter-williams-cassey) - Entering the Passion of Jesus: A Beginner's Guide to Holy Week (https://a.co/d/89u4GX8) - Christ Chronological Bible (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/143364603X) - Check us out on YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/@biblelovepodcast)

    19 min
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Bible Love is a conversation about scripture between Mary Balfour Van Zandt (priest at Church of the Epiphany in Guntersville, Ala.) and Alan Bentrup (priest at St. Martin-in-the-Fields in Keller, Texas).

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