<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone wp-image-635 size-full" src="https://content.hegetsus.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/Headline-1-2.png" alt="How did the story of a man who taught and practiced unconditional love become associated with hatred and oppression for so many people?" width="1800" height="384" srcset="https://content.hegetsus.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/Headline-1-2.png 1800w, https://content.hegetsus.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/Headline-1-2-300x64.png 300w, https://content.hegetsus.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/Headline-1-2-1200x256.png 1200w, https://content.hegetsus.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/Headline-1-2-768x164.png 768w, https://content.hegetsus.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/Headline-1-2-1536x328.png 1536w, https://content.hegetsus.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/Headline-1-2-1400x299.png 1400w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 1800px) 100vw, 1800px" />
How did the story of a man who taught and practiced unconditional love, peace, and kindness; who spent his life defending the poor and the marginalized; a man who even forgave his killers while they executed him unjustly — whose life inspired a radical movement that is still impacting the world thousands of years later — how did this man’s story become associated with hatred and oppression for so many people? And how might we all rediscover the promise of the love his story represents? Those are the questions at the heart of He Gets Us. 
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We’ve done a lot of homework on our culture. We researched how people feel about each other and what they think about Jesus and Christianity. We’ve connected with thousands of people of various faith traditions and those who claim no religion. We spoke to all kinds of people — different backgrounds, religious beliefs, and, yes, political affiliations. And this is what we’ve learned: From politics to sexuality and religion, so many of us feel like our values, beliefs, and identities are under attack by the ideological “others” around us. Many perceive those who differ with them on issues of justice, dignity, and humanity as not just wrong or misguided but also as evil. As enemies. We often see these “others” as close-minded, selfish, hypocritical — and if we’re honest, many of us respond in kind. 
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The more ideologically defensive we become, the more we are willing to sacrifice things like kindness, patience, and the respect and dignity of others for the sake of victory — the righteous ends justifying the dehumanizing means. And it’s tearing us apart. We experience it in politics, in the workplace, in schools, and even in churches. And at the heart of the conflicts is a fundamental disagreement about what it means to be good. 
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Throughout our shared history, Jesus has represented the ultimate good that humankind is capable of aspiring to. And though some no longer believe in God, most are still compelled by the idea of a person capable of unconditional love for others despite their differences. But many of us simply cannot reconcile the idea of that person with the way our culture experiences religion today. Whether it’s hypocrisy and discrimination in the church, or scandals both real and perceived among religious leaders, or the polarization of our politics, many have relegated Jesus from the world’s greatest love story to just another tactic used to intensify our deep cultural divisions. 
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How did we get here? And what might we learn from the example of Jesus to help move beyond the  animosity we feel for one another? How can we rediscover the life and teachings of Jesus, the world’s most radical love activist? That is our agenda at He Gets Us: to move beyond the mess of our current cultural moment to a place where all of us are invited to rediscover the love story of Jesus. Christians, non-Christians, and everybody in between. All of us.
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He Gets Us is a diverse group of Jesus followers with a wide variety of faith journeys and lived experiences. Our work represents the input from Christians who believe that Jesus is the son of God as well as many others who, though not Christians, share a deep admiration for the man that Jesus was, and we are deeply inspired and curious to explore his story. We look at the biography of Jesus through a modern lens to find new relevance in often overlooked moments and themes from his life. If you’d like to join us, you’re invited. Below you’ll find several resources to explore the story of Jesus for yourself.

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Our hope is that you see how Jesus experienced challenges and emotions just like we have. We want to provide a safe place to ask questions, including the tough ones.

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A new way to explore the story of Jesus’ life and teachings.

Yeah. He really did.
We don’t always use the word “struggle” to describe Jesus. But maybe we should.
Because his life wasn’t just about sermons and miracles. It was also about pressures and pain. Grief. Exhaustion. Being pulled in every direction. Sound familiar?
Jesus didn’t live in a peaceful, easy world. He lived under a powerful empire that watched and controlled everything. A society that misunderstood him. Friends who didn’t always show up. Systems that didn’t bend for anyone, especially a working-class carpenter from the sticks (Nazareth wasn’t exactly a booming metropolis).
Jesus knew burnout. Anxiety. Loneliness. Seen as a threat for challenging the existing social and political order, Jesus experienced government oppression. He lived under Roman occupation—a regime that taxed the poor into deeper poverty, silenced protest with violence, and used public executions to keep people in line. It was a system that protected the powerful and punished those who called for justice. He faced betrayal from friends and suffered sleepless nights and the crushing burden of carrying other people’s pain as well as his own.
He got tired.
He got overwhelmed with emotion.
He wept.
He asked God hard questions.
Jesus knew the crushing weight of everyone’s expectations… and he knew what it was like to feel completely alone. He knew what it meant to care deeply in a world that didn’t always care back. But he didn’t numb out. He didn’t self-medicate. He didn’t shut down. He stayed present. Jesus kept pursuing and practicing compassion.
But, so what? Is any of this relevant thousands of years later? Well, consider this: so many of us today are dealing with similar issues. Inflation and an uncertain job market may have you feeling burned out. Perhaps you are one of many Americans working multiple jobs to keep your family afloat. The aftermath of social distancing, coupled with social media, has radically changed our interactions, leaving some to feel more disconnected and alone than ever.
Some of us feel that politics aren’t fair, while others still feel hurt about things that happened in the past. So, what’s the solution? We won’t pretend we have the answers, but Jesus left clues about how we might manage. If you could simplify his teachings and methods to a singular idea, it would be this: that everyone deserves to live good, full lives.
He didn’t want to see others struggle and barely scrape by, he wanted everyone to thrive. He desired a world that was just and equitable for all. He dedicated his life to this idea. With that in mind, maybe his way of handling life’s hardships can help us deal with ours.

Did Jesus struggle?

6 Jacob’s well was there, and Jesus, tired as he was from the journey, sat down by the well. It was about noon. 

He got overwhelmed with emotion. 

John 4:6

33 He took Peter, James and John along with him, and he began to be deeply distressed and troubled. 34 “My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death,” he said to them. “Stay here and keep watch.” 

He wept. 

Mark 14:33-34

35 Jesus wept. 

He asked God hard questions. 

John 11:35

46 About three in the afternoon Jesus cried out in a loud voice, “Eli, Eli,[a] lema sabachthani?” (which means “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”). 

Matthew 27:46

We’re taught that greatness is defined by our status, achievements, and the amount of recognition we receive. But Jesus had a different idea. He exemplified and taught others that greatness was beneath the surface. That true greatness is defined by the content of our character, hearts, and willingness to serve others. 
What does it mean to be great? We spend so much of our lives chasing greatness—trying to be successful, admired, or the best at what we do. But does that kind of greatness ever truly satisfy? Jesus showed us a different way. He didn’t seek status or power. Instead, he measured greatness by love, humility, and sacrifice. He cared for the overlooked, served those in need, and willingly put others before himself. He showed us that the greatest thing we can be is a humble servant—willing to give, to sacrifice, and to lift others up.
What if we pursued that kind of greatness? What if we measured our lives by how we care for others rather than what we achieve? In this video, we explore what true greatness looks like—and why it might just change everything.

Do we have greatness all wrong?

Our friends at the Bible Project put together a 9 part video series designed to introduce the main beliefs of what it means to be a follower of Jesus through a study of the overarching storyline and themes of the Bible.
While He Gets Us focuses on the story of Jesus’ life on Earth, this series explores the basics of the Christian faith. There are videos clarifying what Christians mean when they use terms like God, Heaven and Earth, Gospel, sacrifice and atonement, salvation, and the Holy Spirit. It explores the origins of the Bible too.
We like this series because it explains basic Christian beliefs in a self-paced journey that clarifies Christianity for skeptics, Jesus followers, and everybody in between.
For more information on Bible Project, please visit: https://bibleproject.com

A unified story that leads to Jesus

The Bible is a collection of books, all of which emerged from the history of ancient Israel. It is the most influential book in the history of Western and much of Eastern civilization. People have a lot of opinions about the Bible’s message, but let&#8217;s just start with what it is. In this video, you&#8217;ll get a condensed history of how the Bible came into existence and the different forms of the Bible in the Catholic, Orthodox, and Protestant Christian traditions.
We’ll also look at what the Bible says about the Bible. In 2 Timothy 3:15-17, the author Paul describes the entirety of Scripture (which, at the time of writing, would have referred to the Old Testament/Hebrew Bible) as being “breathed out by God” (verse 16). Your translation may say “inspired by God.” The Greek word used here is theopneustos, which literally means “God-breathed.” This is how the biblical authors viewed the Hebrew Scriptures—as God-breathed. And the apostle Paul believed that within this divinely-inspired literature, we can find the salvation that comes through Jesus (verse 15).
Though the Bible includes many different books, it is one unified story. The Hebrew Bible tells one story that leads to Jesus (Luke 24:27), and the New Testament continues that story and describes Jesus and his followers advancing his Kingdom on Earth. And this compelling story has transformed the lives of millions of people, transcending time, age, gender, and culture.
So what is this story? We’ll take a look at that next!

Part 1: What is the Bible? A brief history of one of the most influential books in history

“In the beginning, God…” (Genesis 1:1)
Both the prelude and beginning to the story of the Bible begin with God.
The God portrayed in the Bible isn’t always easy to understand. No matter how good it might sound, there isn’t an analogy that works perfectly. (Sorry, “sun,” “water,” and “three-leaf clovers”!) But what if we could better understand what it is that we can’t understand?
In this video, we will explore the complex identity of the God of the Bible and see how it all leads to Jesus.
In this reading, you’ll look at several different verses in the Bible describing God (the Father), Jesus, and the Holy Spirit.

Part 2: God What do Christians mean when they say “God?”

The story of the Bible begins with God creating the Heavens and the Earth (Genesis 1:1).
What comes to your mind when you think about Heaven? Clouds, angels, eternal singing, and pearly gates? Maybe a place where all of your dreams come true or you live in a mansion on a street paved with gold?
What comes to our minds when we think about Heaven is oftentimes largely influenced by culture and the popular imagination. But what does the Bible actually teach about Heaven? And what is Heaven’s relationship to Earth? Understanding the biblical view of Heaven and Earth is incredibly important in grasping the story of the Bible.
In this video, we explore the surprising biblical view that Heaven and Earth are meant to overlap and see how Jesus is on a mission to bring them together once and for all.

Part 3: Heaven and Earth Most of what we think about heaven is not actually in the Bible.

As we continue in the story of the Bible, an important theme shows up on the first page. The Bible teaches that humanity was created in the “image of God” (Genesis 1:26-27). But what does that mean?
This video on the image of God traces the idea of humans as co-rulers alongside God, commissioned to develop the world and its resources. How has this human vocation been compromised by our selfishness and evil, and how did Jesus open up a new way of being human through his life, death, and resurrection?
Let’s take a look!

Part 4: Image of God Did you know the Bible says God looks like you… or vice versa?

Humanity was created in the image of God, and God tasked humanity with using their own creative power and imagination to spread order and beauty into all of creation. But they rebelled against God and chose to define good and bad for themselves, spreading chaos and disorder throughout creation.
But there is hope. In chapter 3 of Genesis, we read about a mysterious promise of a future deliverer who would one day come to confront evil and rescue humanity.
The story continues, and in this video on the Messiah, we trace this promised “snake-crusher” (Genesis 3:15) through the family of Abraham, the messianic lineage of David, and ultimately to Jesus, the Messiah who defeated evil by first letting it defeat him.

Part 5: Messiah The Bible follows the story of a promise made and the man Christians believe fulfilled it.

At last the story reaches its climax. And in his Gospel account, Matthew introduces Jesus as the long-awaited Messiah—the “snake-crusher” promised in the early pages of the story.
But Jesus wasn’t what the people were expecting.
In this video, we trace the origins of the word “gospel” and see how it ties the story of the Hebrew Bible together with Jesus and his announcement of God’s Kingdom. The Gospel is the declaration of a new kind of king who has come to usher in God’s Kingdom rule on Earth. Jesus brought God’s rule and reign to the world in a very upside-down way, which is the best news humanity could ask for.
As part of the Scripture references, you’ll find Matthew chapter 5. This chapter is part of what is commonly known as the “Sermon on the Mount.” In Jesus’ most famous sermon, he speaks about life in his upside-down Kingdom. As you read, consider the ways Jesus’ Kingdom is different from the kingdoms of this world.

Part 6: Gospel of the Kingdom What is the good news, and why do Christians believe it?

In what might seem like a surprising twist in the story, Jesus is killed. (Spoiler alert: he comes back to life!)
But why did Jesus have to die? God is on a mission to remove evil from his good world, along with all of its corrosive effects. And he wants to do it in a way that does not involve removing humans.
In this video, we’ll explore the theme of sacrifice and atonement. We’ll look at how God “covers” over human evil through animal sacrifices and see how that ancient ritual ultimately points to Jesus and his death and resurrection.
In the Scripture References below, you’ll read through several passages written by New Testament authors about the meaning of Jesus’ death.

Part 7: Sacrifice and Atonement The story of Jesus includes his death, but it doesn’t end there.

As the biblical story continues, the book of Acts tells the story of the earliest followers of Jesus. Throughout the book, we see the Spirit of God guiding and directing Jesus’ followers.
But remember, this is not the first time God’s Spirit appears in the Bible.
“In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters. And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light.” (Genesis 1:1-2)
Throughout the Bible, the Spirit of God is described as animating, sustaining, empowering, and transforming. 
In this video, we’ll explore the original meaning of the biblical concept of “spirit” and what it means for God’s Spirit to be personally present in all of creation.
Ultimately, the Holy Spirit was revealed through Jesus and sent out into the lives of his followers to bring about the new creation. And when the biblical authors look forward to the fulfillment of God’s promises in the new creation, they envision a world permeated with the Spirit of God.

Part 8: Holy Spirit What do Christians mean when they talk about the Holy Spirit?

At the beginning of the story, humans are presented as creatures of Earth and of Heaven. God makes humanity from the dirt, but then he exhales his divine breath (Spirit) to bring the creatures to life (Genesis 2:7). God also appoints humanity to rule over all creation as his image (Genesis 1:26-28) and even invites them to share in his eternal life by eating from the tree of life (Genesis 2:16).
But of course, that’s not what happens. Humanity joins in a cosmic rebellion and forfeits their access to eternal life (Genesis 3), and they become corrupt and violent (Genesis 4, 6, 11). So the biblical story doesn’t begin with humanity falling from perfection. Rather, it begins with a lost opportunity, or as the apostle Paul puts it, “humanity falls short of the glorious status God purposed for them” (Romans 1:23 and 3:23).
From this angle, the rest of the biblical story is about God raising up a new human who will be his eternally faithful partner in ruling the world. And this is fulfilled in Jesus. This is why the apostle Paul calls Jesus the true “image of God” (2 Corinthians 4:4) and “the last Adam&#8221; (1 Corinthians 15:45). His death and resurrection established him as “the new humanity” who rules with God over Heaven and Earth (Ephesians 1:19-21).
And those who trust in Jesus are invited to share in his new humanity through the Spirit that he is breathing upon his people still today (Romans 8:9-11). This is what it means to live as followers of Jesus in the world today: advancing the upside-down Kingdom and spreading the new creation throughout the world through the power of the Spirit.
And our hope is in the future day when the new humanity will join Jesus in the new creation and God’s ultimate purposes for creation will be fulfilled.
The end of the story is only the beginning.

Part 9: The New Humanity We conclude by unpacking one of the most challenging concepts in the Bible

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It’s probably not a stretch to say we all want to be happy. But right now, it seems most of us aren’t. At least not totally. To be precise, 97% of the thousands we asked across America are sick of something.

He Gets Us spent weeks traveling across the country trying to find out why — why we’re so divided, anxious, isolated, and frustrated. We don’t have all the answers, but we started to suspect that our discontent could be tied to the fact that so many of us pursue fulfillment and flourishing by pursuing greatness. And that shouldn’t come as a surprise. This country was built on the pursuit of greatness. The American dream is all about bootstrapping your way to success and happiness and fulfillment. We want to build successful businesses, pad our reputations and our bank accounts, and make it to the top. That’s the proven recipe that will make us happy and content, right?

But the dream isn’t panning out. We talked to people all across the country from every walk of life. We sat down with people who have made it to the top and people who are climbing back from rock bottom — and we’re pretty much all sick, at least a little. So, are we aiming at the wrong thing? Jesus seemed to think so.

If you rewind the clock to 2,000 years ago, you start to see that, like us, people carried all sorts of discontent around with them, and, like us, they desired greatness. There’s this moment in the Bible where Jesus’ disciples were arguing about which of them was the greatest, and when they asked Jesus to settle the argument, he flipped the definition of greatness on its head. He said the greatest is the one who is humble — the one who serves. For Jesus, it wasn’t about getting to the top; it was about lifting others up. And this humble service that Jesus was talking about? It was also his response to the discontent he saw all around him.
So, what’s at stake here? If Jesus is right about this, following him in pursuing his version of greatness, there’s a potential that not only will we help other people overcome their discontent, but we also might find we’re pursuing something that doesn’t come up empty — a greatness that actually leads to fulfillment.
DIVE DEEPER:

97% of us are sick of something. Are we sick of the same things?

Jesus went searching for the dissatisfied. What if we did the same?

Is our pursuit of greatness leaving us dissatisfied?

Despite our pursuit of success and greatness, many still feel unfulfilled, suggesting that the traditional path to happiness may be flawed. By redefining greatness through humility and service, as Jesus taught, we may discover a fulfillment that transcends status and ambition.

Explore whether the pursuit of greatness leads to fulfillment or dissatisfaction.

Is our pursuit of greatness leaving us dissatisfied? - He Gets Us

Is our pursuit of greatness leaving us dissatisfied? 

Is being great, as our society defines it, really that great? Or, is greatness quite the opposite of what we think it is? In this video, we explore how Jesus redefined true greatness and what it might mean for us. All of us.

What is greatness?

24 A dispute also arose among them as to which of them was considered to be greatest. 25 Jesus said to them, “The kings of the Gentiles lord it over them; and those who exercise authority over them call themselves Benefactors. 26 But you are not to be like that. Instead, the greatest among you should be like the youngest, and the one who rules like the one who serves. 27 For who is greater, the one who is at the table or the one who serves? Is it not the one who is at the table? But I am among you as one who serves.

Luke 22:24-27

33 They came to Capernaum. When he was in the house, he asked them, “What were you arguing about on the road?” 34 But they kept quiet because on the way they had argued about who was the greatest.
35 Sitting down, Jesus called the Twelve and said, “Anyone who wants to be first must be the very last, and the servant of all.”
36 He took a little child whom he placed among them. Taking the child in his arms, he said to them, 37 “Whoever welcomes one of these little children in my name welcomes me; and whoever welcomes me does not welcome me but the one who sent me.

Mark 9:33-37

While all eyes were on the Superdome for the Big Game, we turned our gaze with New Orleans’ own Jon Batiste and his Love Riot to uncover stories of greatness in the Ninth Ward. NOLA is often defined by resilience, but we found something even deeper—the kind of greatness that sees a need and responds with the kind of love, leadership that leads to transformation.
From the graffiti-covered walls of BMike’s studio to the classrooms of Carver High, from the bridges of the 9th Ward to the sacred steps of the Second Line, we met a community that refuses to be defined by tragedy. Instead, they create, teach, and rebuild—not just for survival, but for a future where greatness is measured by how we care for one another.

A Greatness Story: New Orleans’ 9th Ward

The Bible is the most influential book in human history, but what is it exactly? Our friends at Bible Project put together this 19 part video series that introduces the Bible and its unique design, various genres, and unified story.
The Bible can often seem like a weird ancient book that many people use to say different things. These things can even sometimes lead to using the Bible to oppress or hurt others or the world. And on top of the confusion, reading the Bible can also be tedious and confusing, so most of us just stick to the parts we know and understand.
While He Gets Us focuses on the story of Jesus’ life on Earth, this series explores all of the sections of the bible, its literary styles, characters, parables and more. It explores the origins of the Bible too.
For more information on Bible Project, please visit: https://bibleproject.com

How to read the Bible

The Bible is a collection of books, all of which emerged from the history of ancient Israel. It is the most influential book in the history of Western and much of Eastern civilization. People have a lot of opinions about the Bible’s message, but let&#8217;s just start with what it is. In this video, you&#8217;ll get a condensed history of how the Bible came into existence and the different forms of the Bible in the Catholic, Orthodox, and Protestant Christian traditions.
We’ll also look at what the Bible says about the Bible. In 2 Timothy 3:15-17, the author Paul describes the entirety of Scripture (which, at the time of writing, would have referred to the Old Testament/Hebrew Bible) as being “breathed out by God” (verse 16). Your translation may say “inspired by God.” The Greek word used here is theopneustos, which literally means “God-breathed.” This is how the biblical authors viewed the Hebrew Scriptures—as God-breathed. And the apostle Paul believed that within this divinely-inspired literature, we can find the salvation that comes through Jesus (verse 15).
Though the Bible includes many different books, it is one unified story. The Hebrew Bible tells one story that leads to Jesus (Luke 24:27), and the New Testament continues that story and describes Jesus and his followers advancing his Kingdom on Earth. And this compelling story has transformed the lives of millions of people, transcending time, age, gender, and culture.
So what is this story? We’ll take a look at that next time!

Part 1: What is the Bible? A brief history of how this small library of books written over hundreds of years became the most influential document in history.

The Bible is a really large book made up of the Old and New Testaments, which themselves are made up of many books. There’s a lot of ancient history, poetry, and letters written across the span of 1,500 years. On top of that, there’s a cast of hundreds of people over this period of time. Who can keep it all straight?
It can be easy to get lost, not only because it’s an ancient text but also because the book is large and complex.
Despite this variety and diversity, the Bible shows a remarkable unity. The most dominant type of literature in the Bible is narrative. The Bible opens with “in the beginning,” and the second to last paragraph concludes with “and they reigned forever and ever.” Narrative makes up 502 chapters—or 43 percent of the text. That’s nearly half the Bible! On the other hand, poetry makes up 33 percent of the Bible (387 chapters).
Although the Bible is diverse and may appear fragmented at first, it ultimately presents itself as a unified epic narrative that leads to Jesus. There is one main plotline weaving the different books and stories together.
Once you grasp this core storyline and how all the books fit together, you can open the Bible at any point and you’ll know right where you are and what’s going on.

Part 2: The Story of the Bible If you want to read the Bible for yourself, start with the narrative.

The Bible is a collection of many books telling one unified story from beginning to end, but all those books were written in different literary styles.
First and foremost is narrative. It makes up a whopping 43 percent of the Bible! 33 percent of the Bible is poetry, and then the rest of the Bible (24 percent) is written in prose discourse.
Most books have a primary literary style, like narrative for example. But then embedded within the narrative, you’ll come across poems or parables or collections of laws. Every book is a unique combination of literary styles.
Reading the Bible wisely requires us to learn about the ancient literary styles used by the biblical authors. These writers expressed their ideas and claims through a variety of different types of literature, and this video will explore why it&#8217;s important to distinguish them so we can better understand the message of each book.
There&#8217;s one more unifying feature of biblical literature that’s really important and really cool, and that is what we’ll explore next.

Part 3: Literary Styles in the Bible How to read the poetry, ancient law code, and narrative storytelling, and letters in their original context.

Each time period and culture produces its own unique kind of literature. In order to read the Bible well, we need to keep in mind the ancient Near Eastern context and the type of literature produced in this period of time.
The Bible is written as ancient Jewish meditation literature, and it’s meant to draw readers into a lifelong journey of reading and meditation. The Bible is designed as a multi-layered work, offering new levels of insight as you reread it and allow each part to help you understand every other part.
In Psalm 1, we read about the ideal Bible reader. It’s someone who meditates on the Scriptures day and night. In Hebrew, the word “meditate” means literally to mutter or speak quietly. The idea is that every day for the rest of your life you slowly, quietly read the Bible out loud to yourself. And then you go talk about it with your friends and family, pondering the puzzles, making connections, and discovering what it all means. And as you let the Bible interpret itself, something remarkable happens. The Bible starts to read you. Because ultimately, the writers of the Bible want you to adopt this story as your story.

Part 4: The Bible as Jewish Meditation Literature We tackle the challenges of reading ancient Eastern literature in a modern Western context.

Nearly half of the Bible is written in narrative. So in order to understand the Bible more fully, it’s important that we learn how to read this style of writing. With biblical narrative, we are not watching security footage of these ancient events. We’re reading an artistic, literary representation of the story of Israel. The goal isn’t just to tell us about something that happened, it’s also to discern the meaning of these events.
A key element in biblical narrative is the plot—the arrangement of characters and events to convey a message. The Bible uses plot embedding, meaning there are multi-layered biblical storylines.
Level 1: One overall storyline of the Bible. 
Level 2: The multiple movements of that overall storyline. 
Level 3: The hundreds of individual narratives that make up each of these movements.
All of these individual events are framed within a larger context that exists within an even larger context. All of this context gives these events deeper meaning. A single story’s meaning is only determined by the relationship of all its elements to the whole text.
How the authors frame the story and what details they choose to emphasize all help to convey what they are trying to communicate to the reader.
In this reading, pay attention to the plot of the story of Gideon. Notice how the short scenes, like Gideon and the fleece, are combined with other scenes to create a larger plotline. As you read, do your best to trace the conflict and resolution through the entire plot. How does this help you see the message the author is trying to get across?
In this video, we’ll explore these concepts and more.

Part 5: Plot in Biblical Narrative Understanding how ancient authors used plot differently than we do today.

Most of us think of characters in the Bible as either sinners or saints, good or bad. At least that’s how Bible stories are often presented to children. In this video, we’ll explore the ways biblical authors present characters as more complex and morally compromised than we usually imagine.
Biblical authors use characters as vehicles for their message primarily through showing rather than telling. A narrator’s comments about a character are fairly rare in biblical narrative (such as physical appearance, as in Joseph’s looks, Saul’s stature, Esau’s hair, etc.). Additionally, direct characterization is extremely rare in the Bible (such as describing someone as evil, good, righteous, wise, foolish, etc.). Biblical authors give you the outline of a character, but you have to fill in the rest based on what you read in the text.
For example: 
&#8211; Esau is hairy, meaning that he’s “outdoorsy,” primitive, and behaves like an animal. 
&#8211; Eli is old and blind, meaning he is literally and relationally blind, since he ignores the rebellion of his sons. 
&#8211; Saul is tall and David is short, emphasizing their contrasting characters. Saul imposes himself from above, and David humbly allows God to exalt him from below.
Characters’ names also often indicate their role in the story. 
&#8211; Saul = “the one asked for” 
&#8211; Abram/Abraham = exalted father / father of a multitude 
&#8211; Israel = struggles with God 
&#8211; Adam = humanity
Biblical narrators prefer to show people’s character rather than tell you an evaluation. Instead of moralizing about characters’ decisions, biblical narrators simply show you the decisions and consequences of characters’ decisions and allow you to ponder the significance.
God is the only character who continues through every movement of the biblical narrative from beginning to end, and this tells us something about the purpose of these stories. The fundamental purpose is to reveal God’s character, identity, and purposes in history.

Part 6: Character in Biblical Narrative Explore the sophisticated ways the Bible gives shape to its characters

Every story has to take place somewhere, and very often, locations have a special meaning or significance evoked by events that already took place there. Biblical setting utilizes both place and time. As the biblical story develops, places begin to take on a symbolic/meaningful significance based on what has happened there.
Example: Garden of Eden &gt; the east &gt; Babylon: The human spiral of sin and selfishness moves from the garden to Babylon, as we see in Genesis 1-11.
&#8211; Adam and Eve are banished “to the east” (Genesis 3). 
&#8211; Cain is banished “to the east” (Genesis 4). 
&#8211; People move “to the east” to build Babylon (Genesis 11:1-2). 
&#8211; Babylon becomes a superpower in the story, eventually exiling the family of Abraham. 
&#8211; Egypt, Moab, the wilderness, Bethlehem, and Jerusalem all become loaded with more and more meaning as the biblical story develops.
You can tell which events are most meaningful to the author’s message by what gets the most “air time.” For example, Mark chapters 1-10 cover around three years, and chapters 11-16 cover seven days in Jerusalem—30 percent of the story for just seven days! Additionally, there are other meaningful periods of time in the Bible. For example:
&#8211; Increments of 40 represent periods of waiting and testing (e.g. Noah in the boat, Moses’ time on top of the mountain, the spies’ time scouting the promised land, years wandering in the desert, Elijah’s journey in the desert, and Jesus’ journey in the desert). 
&#8211; Three days and nights 
&#8211; 70 days/years
In this video, we’ll explore how biblical authors use setting in the narrative to either meet the reader&#8217;s expectations or mess with them. Paying attention to location and time in biblical stories can unlock deeper layers of meaning.

Part 7: Setting in Biblical Narrative Every aspect of every story tells an even deeper story - even the place and time.

Design patterns are one of the key ways the biblical authors have unified the storyline of the Bible. Individual stories across the Old and New Testaments have been coordinated through repeated words and parallel themes.
One of the most important design features of biblical narrative is repetition. This technique creates patterns that guide the reader’s focus and help them know where to look for meaning. By following a word or phrase that is repeated significantly in a story or section of text, we can better decipher or grasp the main message of the text (For example, notice how the word “good” is used in Genesis 1).
Repeated words can unite a whole string of stories, but this kind of unifying technique can work in different ways too. Sometimes entire stories or scenes are designed to repeat elements of other stories. This involves not only repeated words but also parallel narrative patterns, themes, and sequences. For example, the “see and take” pattern shows up with Adam and Eve (Genesis 3), Abraham and Sarah (Genesis 16), and David and Bathsheba (2 Samuel 11). The “salvation through waters” pattern appears in creation (Genesis 1), the flood narrative (Genesis 7-8), and the exodus from Egypt (Exodus 14).
In this video, we’ll take a look at these patterns and more to see how they highlight core themes of the biblical story.

Part 8: Design Patterns in Biblical Narrative When something is repeated, it’s important.

The Gospel narratives have two main goals: 
1. To faithfully represent the story of Jesus—that the crucified and risen Jesus of Nazareth is the Messiah of Israel and the true King of the world. 
2. To persuade the reader to acknowledge Jesus as Lord and become his disciple.
The four authors frame Jesus’ story in a unique way for distinct purposes. Each author has carefully edited, arranged, and designed the core stories about Jesus to emphasize unique facets of Jesus’ character. So what do each of the accounts emphasize?
Matthew portrays Jesus as a greater-than-Moses figure who fulfills the promises of the ancient Scriptures and whose resurrection has enthroned him as the King of Heaven and Earth.
Mark emphasizes the mystery and misunderstanding caused by Jesus’ announcement of the Kingdom of God. He shows Jesus as the unexpected Messiah and highlights the paradox of how the exalted Messiah can only be recognized in the humbled, crucified Jesus.
Luke highlights how Jesus brings the Gospel to the nations. He shows that Jesus is empowered by the Holy Spirit to fulfill the Old Testament promise that God’s salvation would reach beyond Israel to include all nations.
John introduces Jesus as Israel’s God become human, presenting signs that demonstrate the truth of his messianic claim and his offer of eternal life for any that will trust in him.
The Gospel authors deeply believed that Jesus rose after death and fulfilled the ancient story told in the Hebrew Scriptures. And they proclaimed that joining in this belief and following his teachings would change our lives forever! The Gospel accounts are persuasive texts that invite the reader to consider their own relationship to Jesus the Messiah.
The Gospel narratives offer the earliest accounts of Jesus’ life and teachings, but how often do we really take in their literary artistry from beginning to end? How can we reconcile the fact that there are four accounts with differing stories? This video is all about learning to understand and respond to these unique books!

Part 9: The Gospel The climax of the story, but not the end.

Jesus was a master teacher. Some of his most well-known teachings are told in short stories called parables. The four Gospel accounts—Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John—tell the “good news” that God’s Kingdom has arrived on Earth through Jesus. Jesus himself announced the Kingdom of God through his famous teaching called the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-7). This same sermon is preached “on the plain” in Luke chapter 6. Jesus also brought God’s Kingdom into reality through his healings, miracles, and the creation of a renewed family of Israel.
One of the most common ways that Jesus communicated was through stories, or in Greek, parabole. Parables can often be seen as illustrations or explanations relating to morality or religious truth. This assumes that there is a basic abstract idea that the parables help to illuminate, but this doesn’t capture how and why Jesus used parables. Parables are more than short stories.
The parables are beautiful and entertaining, but they are often cryptic. How can we read parables in a way that leads to understanding? That’s what this video is all about. You’ll be introduced to key concepts and passages that will guide your own exploration of the parables of Jesus.

Part 10: Parables How a master teacher used short stories to change the world.

Thirty percent of the Bible is made up of ancient poetry. That’s a lot! Poetry is everywhere in the Bible, and some biblical books are entirely poetry. Most of the Hebrew prophets wrote masterful poems, and the majority of God’s speech in the Bible is represented as poetry. It’s also very common in biblical narrative for the story to pause while a character breaks out in poetic song.
Nearly all human cultures with a common literature have ways of separating functional, utilitarian language from intentional, expressive, and artistic language, namely, poetry. And all cultures develop unique patterns of poetic speech or conventions for how poetic speech works. For example, metered rhyme is a feature of classic Western poetry:
Roses are red, violets are blue, 
Sugar is sweet, and so are you.
And a haiku, a traditional Japanese style of poetry, uses specific line length and syllable structure—three poetic lines and the numbered syllable pattern: 5-7-5.
An old silent pond… 
A frog jumps into the pond, 
splash! Silence again. 
&#8211; Matsuo Bashō
The Ancient Israelite poetry found in the Bible doesn’t fit any kind of master system like meter (though some think so). However, the Israelites were aware of a certain kind of speech that was poetic, dense, and distinct from normal speech. They even have vocabulary for it.
“Song” (Hebrew, shir / shirah) 
Exodus 15:1: “Then Moses and the Israelites sang this song…”
“Psalm” (Hebrew, mizmor) 
Psalm 3: “A mizmor of David.”
“Lament” (Hebrew, qinah) 
2 Samuel 1:17: “David lamented this qinah over Saul and Jonathan.”
These compositions show a unique, cultural form of Hebrew poetry, not a formal system but a series of characteristics.
1. Rhythm: Hebrew poetry is shaped into a line-rhythm or verse. It is not metrical (based on syllable counts); rather, it’s a form of free verse poetry. 
2. Terseness: Hebrew poetry is concise, using as few words as possible to communicate as much as possible. 
3. Parallelism: This refers to the correspondence and relationship of one verse or line to another.
Poetry is a rich and artistic form of human communication, but it is often the most difficult to read. In this video, we’ll explore the unique characteristics of biblical poetry, so you can discover its beauty and power for yourself!

Part 11: The Art of Biblical Poetry How ancient writers wielded a powerful artform.

Metaphor is our fundamental way of thinking and perceiving the world. We use conceptual categories based on familiar experience to describe unfamiliar and complex realities. They provide the framework for how our minds make sense of the world around us, and they govern all of our thinking and language.
Every culture has its own way of developing metaphors and imagery unique to their history and experience. Similarly, biblical poetry draws on a core cultural understanding of the world from which the poets develop images and metaphors.
Basic conceptual metaphors are not the unique possession of a poet, but rather of the poet’s culture. And the creative poet will adapt these basic metaphors in unexpected directions, creating new ways of conceiving reality.
The rich metaphors in biblical poetry are rooted in images from earlier biblical narratives. That’s how metaphors work in the Bible. You need the narratives to understand the poetic images, and the images reveal deeper meaning in those narratives.
The best way to become familiar with the basic conceptual metaphors used in the Bible is to meditate on the Torah (i.e. the first five books of the Bible). The Torah provides the basic conceptual world in which biblical imagery makes sense, especially Genesis 1-11.
For example: 
1. The ideal state is a mountain, garden temple (Genesis 1:8-10; Exodus 15:13, 17; Joel 2:1-3; Psalm 48:1-3). 
2. Danger and death are found in the chaotic waters, but safety and life are found in the the river of Eden (Genesis 1:2; Psalm 18; Psalm 69; Isaiah 17:12-15). 
3. The ideal state of shalom, or peace, is humanity living among the animals (Genesis 1:28-30; Deuteronomy 32:20-24; Hosea 2:18-19; Isaiah 11:6-9). 
4. God’s ideal for creation is found in the garden of Eden (Psalm 1:1-3; Psalm 92:11-15; Jeremiah 17:5-8; John 4:13-14). 
5. Covenant and marriage are ways that God talks about his relationship to his people (Jeremiah 2:2; Hosea 2:2-5, 8; Hosea 3:1-5; Revelation 21:1-3).
Understanding how metaphors are used in the Bible is an essential tool for reading biblical poetry. Any time someone references one thing to describe another thing, they are using metaphorical thinking whether they realize it or not. Metaphors are everywhere in the Bible and in our everyday speech. In this video, we’ll explore this crucial aspect of biblical language.

Part 12: Poetic Metaphor How the Bible uses symbolism in nature to tell a deeper story about God and humanity.

There are 150 poems broken up into five sections. The first two sections explore the complicated story of David and his royal family. The third section focuses on the tragedy of Israel’s exile and the downfall of David’s royal line. And the fourth and fifth sections rekindle the hope for the Messiah, a new temple, and God’s Kingdom on the other side of exile. Then the book ends with a five-part conclusion, praising God for his faithfulness.
Each poem has been expertly crafted and intentionally placed within the book to create a storyline from the book’s beginning to its end. At the beginning of Psalms, there’s a short introduction, Psalms 1 and 2, which lays out the main themes of the entire book by reviewing the biblical storyline—God’s original intent for humanity, humanity’s disobedience, and God’s promise of a future human, the seed of the woman, who will come and defeat evil and restore the world.
Psalms is an invitation to a literary temple where you can meet with God and hear the entire biblical storyline retold in poetic form. The poems have been designed for a lifetime of slow rereading and reflection—these prayers and laments and songs of praise are meant to become ours. They’re poems for exiles who are learning to live by God’s wisdom and seek God’s justice in the world as they hope for the coming Messiah and the Kingdom of God.
In this video, we’ll explore the design, shape, and main themes of this marvelous book, which was crafted to be read from beginning to end.

Part 13: The Book of Psalms Deep dive into the Bible’s largest poetry collection.

The books of the Hebrew prophets are some of the most challenging books of the Bible to read and comprehend, but they are also some of the most beautiful books! Learning to read them takes some effort, but it is totally worth it.
The fifteen prophetic books are a mosaic collection of narratives, poems, and essays that represent the message of the Israelite prophets. These collections have been expertly crafted over a long period of time, and they were eventually integrated into the larger collection of the Hebrew Bible.
Here are some fun facts about the prophetic books:
1. The prophetic books take up as much page space in the Bible as the entire New Testament (27 percent). 
2. Jesus and the apostles constantly quoted from the prophets to explain how Jesus was bringing Israel’s story to its fulfillment (77 times in the Gospels and 98 times in the rest of the New Testament).
The prophets are the bridge between the past story of Israel and the covenant and the future story of God’s rescue plan for the world through Jesus.
Each prophetic book has a unique design and organized flow of thought, but it’s rarely chronological. Reading the prophets is a lot like listening to a symphony. There’s an opening introduction to all the main themes, but then the work is broken up into multiple movements or sections. But if you pay attention, you’ll hear the key themes being repeated and developed throughout the book, and then you’ll begin to see how all the parts fit together.
Key insights from the prophets:
1. God loves justice: Israel had been called to a higher level of justice than the surrounding nations, especially in the treatment of their land and the poor (See Isaiah 1:10-20). 
2. God gets angry at evil: The prophets give a lot of space to God’s exposure of evil among Israel and the nations. It can be intense, but it reveals how much God cares about the goodness of his world (see Hosea 13). 
3. God has hope for our world: God refuses to let Israel’s sin get the last word, so all the prophetic books contain profound images of future hope and restoration for God’s people and for the entire world (see Isaiah 11:1-9).
In this video, we’ll learn how these prophetic books contribute to the storyline of the Bible and why it’s worth learning how to read them more attentively. Let’s take a look!

Part 14: The Prophets How to read some of the most challenging books in the Bible .

What is biblical wisdom literature? Technically, this term can describe the entire Hebrew Bible (see Psalm 119:98-99; 2 Timothy 3:15), but wisdom literature also refers to a specific group of books connected to two things:
1. King Solomon 
&#8211; Proverbs 
&#8211; Ecclesiastes 
&#8211; Song of Songs (Song of Solomon)
2. The themes of wisdom, the “good life,” and the fear of the Lord 
&#8211; Proverbs 
&#8211; Ecclesiastes 
&#8211; Job
Though biblical wisdom literature is connected to these specific themes and the work of King Solomon, the main ideas are rooted in the narratives of Genesis and, specifically, in the garden of Eden in Genesis 1-3 and the story of Abraham. These stories introduce and unpack the core concepts of good and bad, blessing and curse, death and life, and the fear of Yahweh.
The wisest king of Israel, King Solomon, is associated with three books of the Bible: Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and the Song of Songs. Each book offers a unique perspective on how humans can rule with wisdom and the fear of the Lord.
Each of these books takes Solomon’s story as a universal paradigm, an Adam and Eve story, so that his failure reenacts all humanity’s experience. These books focus on universal questions like:
&#8211; How can humans access the good life of Eden that comes as a gift from God? 
&#8211; How can humans learn to live by the wisdom and the fear of Yahweh in all of life’s diverse seasons and circumstances? 
&#8211; How can we process the failure of wisdom, the limits of mortality, and God’s inscrutability in our search for wisdom and life? 
&#8211; Is there any hope for humanity to truly embrace God’s wisdom and live by it?
In this video, we’ll briefly explore how the message of each book fits into the overall story of the Bible.

Part 15: The Books of Solomon An introduction to Biblical wisdom literature.

Entire sections of the Bible are devoted to describing strange dreams or visions that reveal something vital to humans in the story. These visions uncover God’s realm and change how the visionary sees their earthly circumstances. The biblical word used to describe these is translated as “apocalypse.” But these passages often get misunderstood because of our current understanding of what an apocalypse is.
In contemporary culture, the words “apocalypse” or “apocalyptic” refer to the catastrophic end of the world. The dictionary definition of the English word describes it as, “the complete and final destruction of the world, as described in the biblical book of Revelation,” or “an event involving destruction or damage on an awesome or catastrophic scale” (Random House Unabridged Dictionary).
This is not what these words mean in the Bible, and this popular definition leads us to drastically misunderstand and misread apocalyptic literature. In the biblical definition, the word literally means “to uncover,” or to “reveal.” It’s what happens when someone on Earth is exposed to the heavenly, transcendent reality of God’s realm, transforming their view of everything. We see these apocalypses all throughout the Bible, like the prophet Isaiah’s vision of God’s throne room (Isaiah 6) or Paul’s vision on the road to Damascus (Acts 9).
A biblical apocalypse is a moment when God reveals himself in such a way that the observer is overtaken by a divine vantage point on a person’s life or human history. These moments almost always involve altered states of consciousness (dreams, visions) as a result of ascetic practices (fasting, meditating, prayer, isolation). In these moments of heightened awareness, the person comes to realize that their current situation or environment is actually permeated with divine presence and power. In an apocalyptic moment, Heaven joins Earth in the mind and heart of the visionary, and they are able to see reality in a way that others do not or cannot.
Reading apocalyptic literature can be difficult. These passages are filled with strange images, poetic language, and symbolism. The key to understanding biblical apocalyptic literature is to look at the literary design that’s introduced in the book of Genesis and developed throughout the rest of Scripture. We’ll explore this and more in this video!

Part 16: Apocalyptic Literature Strange dreams that ancient writers record in scripture.

If you have ever tried to read the Bible from the beginning, you may have noticed that at 69 chapters into the story (at Exodus 19 to be exact), the story slows way down to make room for the laws given to ancient Israel. And there are over six hundred of them! Why are they in the story? Are Bible readers supposed to follow them or respond to them in some way? And how do they relate the New Testament part of the story when Jesus shows up?
These are huge questions that we will explore in this video, but here are some helpful starting points:
1. The Old Testament is not a law book. Rather, these laws given to Israel constitute the terms of their covenant relationship with the God who rescued them from slavery in Egypt. The covenant ceremony is found in Exodus 19-24, where we find the 10 commandments, plus 42 other commands that illustrate the principles of worship, justice, and community life that Israel was to follow. 
2. These laws were given to appoint Israel as a “kingdom of priests” (Exodus 19:4-6), a contrasting community that would represent God’s presence and character to the surrounding nations. 
3. The covenant was consummated as God prepared a miniature Eden to inhabit when he took up residence among his people (i.e. the tabernacle in Exodus 25-31, 35-40). 
4. As the story picks up again, we find a pattern of narratives alternating with sections of more covenant laws. And these narratives usually involve the Israelites breaking the covenant laws they just received! This begins with the story of the golden calf (Exodus 32-34), then the rebellion of the sons of Aaron (Leviticus 9), the worship of the goat idols (Leviticus 17), and then the constant rebellion of the Israelites in the wilderness (Numbers 11-21).
This pattern is part of the Torah’s communication strategy, which is to show that these laws offered ancient Israel a way to live by God’s will, but they consistently failed. This is why Moses’ final speeches to the Israelites in Deuteronomy 30-32 predict their ultimate failure and exile from the promised land. Moses also says that God would have to recreate their hearts if they were to ever be God’s faithful covenant partners. There’s a lot to unpack here, but these hundreds of laws are part of the way that the Torah’s storyline points forward to the same future that Israel’s prophets announced (see Jeremiah 31 or Ezekiel 36-37). It’s only when humanity is renewed by God’s creative Spirit that we are able to truly love God and trust his wisdom.
This is the story that Jesus was stepping into when he said that he came to bring the Torah to its fulfillment (see Matthew 5:17-48), and that loving God and one’s neighbor fulfills the Torah (see Matthew 22:34-40). And this is the same story carried forward in the work of the Spirit among Jesus’ followers (see Galatians 5:13-23). So the laws actually play a crucially important role in the biblical story, but it requires a macro view to see how it all fits together and leads us to Jesus.

Part 17: Biblical Law You know that part we usually skip? Let’s explore how it fits in the story.

The New Testament letters are some of the most accessible parts of the Bible. They were written by early Christian apostles (or representatives of Jesus) who were appointed to spread the good news about him to the ancient world. And they are addressed to a &#8220;you,&#8221; which makes any reader feel like they are being directly spoken to by the people who were closest to Jesus. What could be better?
But if you read these letters at any length, you know that they are full of sections we may experience as inspiring (Paul&#8217;s bit about the foolish wisdom of the cross in 1 Corinthians 2), puzzling (Paul&#8217;s discussion of hairstyles in 1 Corinthians 11), or off-putting (Peter&#8217;s depiction of obedient slaves and wives in 1 Peter 2-3). Passages like these remind modern readers that these letters are ancient texts written in a language and culture vastly different from our own.
However, it&#8217;s precisely by honoring the historical context of the New Testament letters that we can learn how to wisely read them and see how they can speak a powerful message to our own time and place. The apostles were heralds of the good news of Jesus as the risen King of the world, and they believed this message had the power to transform people and whole communities (see Paul&#8217;s exposition of this theme in Colossians 1-3 and Ephesians 2-4). But because they lived in the first-century Roman world, the specific cultural issues and challenges they wrote about are not identical to our own.
This means we need to learn about life in the ancient Roman empire to gain a deeper understanding of why the apostles said what they said. We also need to search each letter to understand what circumstances in each church community prompted the writing of the letter in the first place. Once we see that Paul&#8217;s letter to the Romans was written to a church divided along cultural and racial lines, or that Peter&#8217;s letter was sent to churches facing shame and persecution for following Jesus, we can better interpret these letters.
In these letters, we get to watch the apostles navigate the challenges of their day with the good news that the risen Jesus is the King of the world. And if Jesus is still King of the nations, we must address the unique issues of our own time and culture with the same message. And who better to guide us than the people who surrounded Jesus himself? The ancient words of the apostles, when they&#8217;re read in historical context, are full of divine wisdom to guide followers of Jesus in every generation.
A baseline skill in reading the letters is to read them as a unified whole. This reading will be through one epistle—but don’t worry, it’s a short one! While reading, look for any explicit statements about the purpose of the letter or the situation that motivated the author to write the letter.

Part 18: New Testament Letters The cultural context of First-century letters.

Have you ever tried reading the letters in the New Testament and found yourself lost or asking, “What on earth is Paul talking about?” You’re not alone! Even the apostle Peter found Paul’s letters difficult to read (see his comments in 2 Peter 3:15-16). But with an understanding of the literary context, you can learn to read these letters with more wisdom and insight.
It’s important to remember that in the first-century world, most people did not read, so the apostles designed these letters to be read aloud (see Colossians 4:16 and 1 Thessalonians 5:27). The letters would have been read by the people who delivered them, like Phoebe in Romans 16:1-2 or Tychicus in Colossians 4:7 and Ephesians 6:21. They read more like written speeches, which actually gives us a helpful angle on how to read them.
The apostles adopted and adapted the common first-century letter format by beginning their letters with a greeting, a prayer of thanksgiving, or a blessing. They usually packed this introduction with the key words, ideas, and themes that they planned to develop throughout the letter.
Once you get into the main part of the letter, there are a few skills that you can hone to help you make sense of the meaning:
1. Learn to break the letter down into smaller sections and paragraphs. Think of these as the basic building blocks, each with its own main idea. 
2. Start tracking with repeated words and ideas within each paragraph. You can then trace those words that link the many paragraphs together. 
3. Take notice of the key transition words that link all the paragraphs together, words like “therefore,” “because of this,” or “however.”
Before you know it, you’ll find yourself tracing the thread of the main idea throughout the letter from beginning to end. These letters are not a random collection of theological ideas. They are carefully crafted speeches, written in letter form, that develop a coherent set of ideas from beginning to end. It takes effort, but if you’re diligent, you’ll find yourself reading the New Testament letters with more insight than ever before.

Part 19: New Testament Letters How to read the first letters written to the early Church by followers of Jesus.

By Caleb, guest collaborator for He Gets Us
Americans are obsessed with greatness. We celebrate it. We desire it. We expect it. If we aren’t achieving it, we’re failing.
And it’s not a bad thing. It can be healthy to encourage, even push kids to do and be their best — to tell them they can be anything they want with enough effort. And as children, we often start a lifelong celebration of elite athletes and our popular performers and presidents, seeing a future where we can expect to be just like them.
For me, and many others like me, expecting greatness makes me feel inadequate in a bunch of different areas of my life. And there’s this deep desire inside to do more, and have more, and be more than my peers. And when I don’t experience that, I feel like I’m failing. And when enough people feel that, the whole country starts to feel like it’s failing. I think that’s what might be happening to us right now.
Why are we obsessed with greatness? And why does something that seems like a good and healthy pursuit feel so bad?
It seems like greatness is something Jesus had a lot to say about. Like most people, I have a complicated relationship with religion and church. But after my conversation with Nicole Martin, I get the sense that we often define greatness all wrong.

Interview: How did Jesus actually show us true greatness?

18 At that time the disciples came to Jesus and asked, “Who, then, is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?”

2 He called a little child to him, and placed the child among them. 3 And he said: “Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. 4 Therefore, whoever takes the lowly position of this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. 5 And whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me.

Matthew 18:1-5

36 “Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?”

37 Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’[a] 38 This is the first and greatest commandment. 39 And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’[b] 40 All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”

Matthew 22:36-40

The Parable of the Good Samaritan

25 On one occasion an expert in the law stood up to test Jesus. “Teacher,” he asked, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?”

26 “What is written in the Law?” he replied. “How do you read it?”

27 He answered, “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind’[a]; and, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’[b]”

28 “You have answered correctly,” Jesus replied. “Do this and you will live.”

29 But he wanted to justify himself, so he asked Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?”

30 In reply Jesus said: “A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, when he was attacked by robbers. They stripped him of his clothes, beat him and went away, leaving him half dead. 31 A priest happened to be going down the same road, and when he saw the man, he passed by on the other side. 32 So too, a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. 33 But a Samaritan, as he traveled, came where the man was; and when he saw him, he took pity on him. 34 He went to him and bandaged his wounds, pouring on oil and wine. Then he put the man on his own donkey, brought him to an inn and took care of him. 35 The next day he took out two denarii[c] and gave them to the innkeeper. ‘Look after him,’ he said, ‘and when I return, I will reimburse you for any extra expense you may have.’

36 “Which of these three do you think was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of robbers?”

37 The expert in the law replied, “The one who had mercy on him.” Jesus told him, “Go and do likewise.”

Luke 10:25-37

13 Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.

John 15:13

Discontent by the numbers: Are we all sick of the same things?

17 He asked them, “What are you discussing together as you walk along?”

They stood still, their faces downcast.

Luke 24:17

59 The chief priests and the whole Sanhedrin were looking for false evidence against Jesus so that they could put him to death. 60 But they did not find any, though many false witnesses came forward.

Finally two came forward

Matthew 26:59-60

56 Many testified falsely against him, but their statements did not agree.

57 Then some stood up and gave this false testimony against him:

Mark 14:56-57

51 With that, one of Jesus’ companions reached for his sword, drew it out and struck the servant of the high priest, cutting off his ear.

Matthew 26:51

23 Then Jesus said to his disciples, “Truly I tell you, it is hard for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of heaven. 24 Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.”

Matthew 19:23-24

It seems we live in a time marked by discontent. Each day some basic part of existence becomes more complicated and difficult, something new pops into frame that layers on anxiety, broken relationships tax us, sickness eats at us, politics discourage us, the financial and emotional costs of living weigh us down. Does any of that resonate with you? If it does, that means one of two things. Either this miraculously found the one person that feels this way, or (and we’re betting on this second option) it resonates because many of us share the experience. In a time of polarization and division, common ground is hard to find. What if we can find unity in our shared discontent?
This is not a new thought—we stole this one from Jesus. We noticed that a very strange mix of people would all flock together around him—tax collectors, sex workers, religious elite, fishermen, zealots, rich, poor, sick, healthy—on paper they had no business sitting together or getting along. But they all joined Jesus at the dinner table. Why? Our working theory is that they all shared one thing in common: they desperately wanted something about their lives to change. They were each sick of something.
And Jesus caught a lot of flack for sitting at a table with this mix of people, especially the part of the mix that others wouldn’t sit with. His response was so simple: “It is not the healthy but the sick who need a doctor.” And if you look at his life, Jesus played the role of doctor without hesitation at all times. He was always hanging out with people who felt sick whether it was with physical ailments or more hidden conditions affecting the heart and mind. And that got us thinking: what are we most sick of today, and what can we learn from Jesus that could maybe move us in the right direction?
To tackle the first part of the question, we sent out surveys and took a road trip across America and sat down with people to ask this question: what are you sick of? The responses made it clear: we are sick of a lot. You can take a look at the numbers here, but listen to these first hand responses:
I’m tired of being tired, I just want to be as active as I was 10 years ago.
I’m sick of chronic pain.
I’m sick of not being able to get a job that’s paying to train you, but companies don’t want to hire you if you have no experience.
I am sick of groceries being so expensive.
I am sick of divisive politics.
The gun violence around my house. I hear at least two shots everyday.
I am sick of everyone complaining. I just want everyone to be excited about life. Even on the bad days.
I’m sick of myself.
I&#8217;m sick of lots of things. Probably too many to list.
These are personal answers, but if you’re anything like us, as you read these, you start to see a bit of your own story in them, a piece of your own sickness, a piece of our collective sickness. And we think it’s fair to say we are sick, not only because we share the sentiment, but because this discontent affects our communities and relationships often as much as it affects us personally. So we might feel sick, but we’re sick together.
Where does that leave us? Well for starters, we’re in good company. If you feel sick, you are not alone, it seems that most of us do. And two, if you feel sick, then you are exactly the type of person Jesus sought out and exactly the kind of person he tailored his message for. How he lived and what he taught functions as a great model for how we can help each other respond to the things that are weighing us down.
We’ll end with this. Jesus knew people felt sick and he offered some help. He outlined a whole framework for a healthy kind of living, a way to fight the different sicknesses, in a speech now known as the Sermon on the Mount. We’ve talked about pieces of the framework before—pieces like “love your neighbor”, “love your enemy”, “do not judge” or “turn the other cheek”. But it’s how he ended the Sermon on the Mount that gives context to what this framework really does for us. He ended with a story about a man who builds a house on the sand and a man who builds a house on the rock. In this story, the rains come and streams rise on both houses, though only the house built on the rock survives the storm. A friend of ours, Ian Simkins, said it well, “Jesus is honest about the human condition. He doesn’t paint a flowery picture, suggesting that following him means life will become a walk in the park. The rain, wind, and floods will come. Hard times will come our way. We will encounter great, unexpected difficulties in our lives. The way of Jesus doesn’t lead you out of hardship, but through it.”
What are you sick of, and how could Jesus’ example help us move forward?

We’re all sick of something.

14 As he walked along, he saw Levi son of Alphaeus sitting at the tax collector’s booth. “Follow me,” Jesus told him, and Levi got up and followed him.

15 While Jesus was having dinner at Levi’s house, many tax collectors and sinners were eating with him and his disciples, for there were many who followed him. 16 When the teachers of the law who were Pharisees saw him eating with the sinners and tax collectors, they asked his disciples: “Why does he eat with tax collectors and sinners?”

17 On hearing this, Jesus said to them, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.”

Mark 2:14-17

24 “Therefore everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock. 25 The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house; yet it did not fall, because it had its foundation on the rock. 26 But everyone who hears these words of mine and does not put them into practice is like a foolish man who built his house on sand. 27 The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell with a great crash.”

Matthew 7:24-27

What would happen if we went out of our way to spark conversation with those we don’t know? How would our lives be impacted? We interviewed strangers on the street to learn how they interact with their neighbors. Some of their responses may surprise you or hopefully give you a valuable first step toward breaking out of your comfort zone and engaging with those you ordinarily wouldn’t.

How Do You Talk to Your Neighbors?

We’re taught that greatness is defined by our status, achievements, and the amount of recognition we receive. But Jesus had a different idea. He exemplified and taught others that greatness was beneath the surface. That true greatness is defined by the content of our character, hearts, and willingness to serve others. 

Jesus told his followers that there was no love greater than being willing to lay down one’s own life for their friends.

Jesus told his followers that there was no love greater than being willing to lay down one’s own life for their friends. This kind of sacrificial love may seem rare these days, but maybe that’s because it takes time to fully recognize it. Josh and Kyle reflect on their decades of friendship and the times when they’ve been there to support each other &#8211; both in the everyday things and in matters of life and death.

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