Episode 6 | Four Loves, Three Sacraments, Two Pukes, and an Alien

My favorite episode yet!

1. You Asked for It (Q&A from Congregants & Listeners)

a) Is God an alien? (Richard Dawkins thinks so!)

b) Who are the Nephilim?

2. Sermon Discussion

(a) Revelation 3: On Jesus' warning about spitting the church of Laodicea out of its mouth (bad puke) unless repent of their self-reliance (good puke)!

(b1) James 4: On the meanings of love(s)—loving God as a friend and loving your spouse as an embodied sacrament!

(b2) Mark 10: On marriage as a covenant and sacrament, Jesus' assertion that God does not recognize divorce in the way the state (and many of us) do, and the claim that certain second marriages are adulterous.

3. Offerings

(a) From C.S. Lewis's The Four Loves

(b) Jane Austen: Persuasion

Send your questions for "You Asked for It" to offpulpit@gmail.com

For article referenced, "Fifty Shades of Hell: When Sex Becomes Sexuality, Communion Becomes Consumerism," see the following link: toomanywords.substack.com/p/fifty-shades-of-hell

*One correction: During the discussion about the Nephilim, I mentioned that in Hebrew 'Elohim' is the word for God (El) with the plural ending (ohim), so it is translated God or gods depending on context. But in Genesis 1:1, the plural noun (Elohim / אֱלֹהִ֑ים) takes a singular verb (bara / בָּרָ֣א), suggesting that this "God" who "created the heavens and the earth" is in some sense both plural and singular, in the same way he depicts his image being when he says, "Let us (pl.) make man (sg.) in our (pl.) image (sg.)...So God created man (sg.) in his own image (sg.)...male and female he created them (pl.) (Gen. 1:26-27). This grammar of plural God who is singular in being and act, present in the very first verse of Scripture, lays the foundation for the ultimate Trinitarian revelation of God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. All that to say, I misspoke and for some reason said the singular verb was "is" (the verb of being) when I referenced Genesis 1:1--and it obviously isn't!

"You shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you odd."

—Flannery O'Connor