Welcome to the last episode of our podcast series called Upside-Down Christmas. We’ve been working our way through the Gospel of Luke and asking how Jesus turns things on their heads. That is, how he takes conventional wisdom and conventional ways of doing things and turns them, well, upside down. And we’ve finally reached the end of our journey with the resurrection of Jesus in Luke 24. And perhaps of all the things we’ve talked about the resurrection of Jesus is the thing t

Welcome to our podcast called Upside-Down Christmas. We’ve been working our way through the Gospel of Luke one chapter at at time looking at the way the birth, life, ministry, and now the death of Jesus turns the world upside down. Chapter 23 tells the story of the trial, crucifixion and burial of Jesus. And one of the threads that runs throughout this chapter is the question of deserving. What is it that the people deserve? When the people bring Jesus to Pilate, Pilate finds

When the disciples were told that one of them would betray Jesus, Judas had already taken the money in exchange for handing over him to the authorities. Of course, Judas was one of Jesus’ disciples who had been with him for the life of his ministry. And he was there around the table. But the other disciples didn’t know. They were wondering if Jesus wasn’t making some prophesy about them—about one of them. They were nervous that it was them. And you can imagine that this is ho

It wasn’t uncommon to see someone making a spectacle at the offering box. Maybe it was a ring with a jewel—very valuable—and they’d tell of how it had been in their family for generations, but that now it was being given to the Lord and to his temple. And maybe they were sincere; but many of them were just doing it for show. They wanted to be in the spot light. They wanted not to just be generous but to have a reputation of generosity. Many donors—it was less about the donati

I don’t know if you’ve ever really read the bible or if you’ve really read the parables that Jesus tells—but the Sunday school, children’s versions, the sanitized, cutesy things—that’s not the parables of Jesus. And the parable of the tenants in Luke 20 is not a nice parable. Welcome back to the Upside-Down Christmas podcast where we’re walking our way through the Gospel of Luke, looking at how Jesus turns things upside down with his life and ministry. And in this case, Jesus

In Luke 19, there’s this story about a man named Zacchaeus, and if you’ve been around children’s ministry stuff at any church for long enough, you know that they wrote songs about Zacchaeus. I didn’t grow up in church, but I like those songs—not only because they are fun, but because they show the upside-down nature of the kingdom of God. Welcome back to our Upside-Down Christmas podcast. It’s an Advent series where we’re working our way through the book of Luke one chapter a

Welcome back to our Upside-Down Christmas podcast where we’re looking at the life and teaching of Jesus in the gospel of Luke—one chapter at a time—and we’re seeing how he turns all our expectations on their heads. In chapter 18, he does this by telling a parable. “Two men went up into the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee, standing by himself, prayed thus: ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other men, extortioners, unjust, adulterer

There’s lots of stories in the gospels about Jesus healing people, and some of the most prominent people who needed healing were lepers. Welcome back to our Upside-Down Christmas podcast, where we’re looking at Jesus and how he takes all the things we think we know and turns them on their heads. And we’re doing that by working our way through the gospel of Luke, just one chapter at a time. And listen, we can’t cover everything, so you should go and read the chapter for yourse

Welcome back to our Upside-Down Christmas podcast where we’re looking at how Jesus turns things on their heads throughout his life and ministry, and in his teaching, as well. And today, we’re in Luke 16. Now Jesus has been telling a lot of parables in these last chapters, and today’s is no exception. This one we usually call the parable of the rich man and Lazarus. Now the story goes that there were two men—Lazarus, who was poor and lived at the gates of the second man, the r

The parable of the prodigal son is a pretty famous one. Now, that word prodigal, it’s not what you might think. It really means someone who spends recklessly, or profligately. That’s why the younger son is called that, and he is usually the focus of our attention when we think of this parable. But it might better be titled the parable of the two sons. Welcome back to our Upside-Down Christmas podcast where we’re walking through the gospel of Luke looking at how Jesus turns th

Jesus is really getting into the parables now. We’re looking at chapter 14 of Luke’s gospel. And this is a part of our series Upside-Down Christmas where we see how Jesus turns things on their heads. This one is called the parable of the wedding feast. Now he told a parable to those who were invited, when he noticed how they chose the places of honor, saying to them, “When you are invited by someone to a wedding feast, do not sit down in a place of honor, lest someone more di

When Jesus starts talking about the kingdom of God, things never go the way you would expect. I’m so glad you’re joining us for our Upside-Down Christmas podcast where we’re looking at the life and ministry of Jesus through the book of Luke. We’re in chapter 13. And in this chapter, Jesus starts telling parables about the kingdom of God. “What is the kingdom of God like? And to what shall I compare it? It is like a grain of mustard seed that a man took and sowed in his garden

Jesus starts off chapter 12 with an upside down kind of pronouncement. He says, “Nothing is covered up that will not be revealed, or hidden that will not be known. Therefore whatever you have said in the dark shall be heard in the light, and what you have whispered in private rooms shall be proclaimed on the housetops.” (Luke 12:2-3) Now, that’s a little confusing on the face of it; but when you read the rest of the chapter things start to make sense. By the way, this is day

One of the things you gather from the gospels is that the Jewish people of Jesus’ day had a really firm grasp on their uniqueness as the people of God. They were God’s chosen people and they were meant to be—and were—distinct from the peoples of the surrounding nations. In their zeal for purity and separateness from these peoples, they began to think of themselves as “better-than” or “higher-than” or something like that. Many of them—and mostly we’re talking about the religio

Hey, hey! And welcome back to our podcast called “Upside Down Christmas” where we’re tracing the theme of the kind of upside down nature of the kingdom of God. And we’re doing that by just going chapter by chapter through the book of Luke. Today we’re in chapter 10. And I urge you just to follow along, not just by listening; but go and read the chapter for yourself, because we’re really just scratching the surface of what’s there. Today we’re looking at the parable of the Goo

I’m glad you’re here joining us for our Upside Down Christmas podcast where we’re looking at how Jesus turns things on their heads. And we’re doing that by looking through one chapter of Luke’s Gospel for the season of Advent; today, we’re in chapter nine. And chapter nine is full of these types of things that we’ve been talking about, so much so that you could write a lot of podcasts on them. So I just want to focus on this classic teaching of Jesus—perhaps the most “upside

Welcome back to our Upside Down Christmas podcast. We’re working our way through the gospel of Luke—one chapter a day—and we’re tracing this theme of how Jesus turns everything upside down with his life and ministry. And today, we’re looking at chapter 8. Now, if you’re familiar with the life of Jesus, you’ll probably know that he had a bunch of disciples that followed him around. And it’s true that these were his closes followers whom he entrusted with his ministry. But ther

There are few things worse to imagine than losing your child. And for a poor widow, this was doubly painful. You see, that widow would have been entirely dependent on her son to care for her. Women couldn’t just go get a job and there were no state benefits for people in her position. So the death of her son—that personal grief was compounded by the loss of her only security in society. But Jesus was going to change all of that. Today is day seven of our Upside Down Christmas

If there was ever an upside-down kind of teaching from Jesus, it’s the beatitudes. “Beatitude” just means something like “blessed” or “happy.” And that’s what makes it so weird, actually. Because Jesus is saying blessed is this person or happy is that person. But then the people he identifies that way are not the people you’d expect. This podcast series is called Upside Down Christmas. And we’re working our way through the Gospel of Luke one chapter at a time, and just reflec

Hey I’m glad you’re back for our podcast. We’re in Luke chapter five and we’ve been tracing out the upside down themes in this third gospel. And it’s all a part of our Upside Down Christmas series for Advent. And chapter five is great because it shows us how some of the first disciples were called. Maybe you remember that Peter, James, and John (and Andrew, too)—they were all fishermen. And there’s this scene where Jesus comes to the shore, and he gets into one of their boats