PODCAST · religion
Buzz King: Grace & Joy thru Scripture
by BuzzKing
Buzz King talks about being spiritual in a high tech world that is often hostile toward those who believe. But Buzz is not defense; his is an upbeat approach. He draws on his experience as a reverend, a professor of computer science specializing in 3D modeling and animation, and a hospital chaplain.
Episodes
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Forgiveness for Nineveh
I once met a man in bank near USC who had the same name as me. Our conversation did not get off to a good start, but he ended up coming to my mind years later when I reread the Book of Jonah. We look at this parable, where a reluctant Prophet tries to flee God, spends three days and nights in the...
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Renewing the Temple
A few years ago a massive fire swept from the Rocky Mountain foothills east, burning parts of 3 cities. We look at a biblical rebuilding effort, from Haggai and Zechariah, as the People of God return from exile to rebuild their Temple. We consider what we, as Christians, see as the true…
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Gomer: An Allegory
I once spoke with a man who had done some very evil things in his life. He was wondering if God would ever want to have anything to do with him. We look at a story, an allegory, from the Book of Hosea. It is about Hosea's wife and three children. We see what it teaches us about our relationship...
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The Holy Spirit's Bible
I once visited a woman in the hospital who had requested a Bible. But all I could find for her in the Chaplains' office was a New Testament and Psalms volume. We talk about her reaction to this. We also look at several of the 11 passages from the Book of Psalms that appear on signs on a short,...
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Was it a real angel?
I once visited a man in the hospital who had seen an angel in his room just before dawn. He inspired me to think more deeply about angels - and to write this podcast. We look at several Bible stories that involve angels, primarily one in Judges where an angel appears to Gideon and commissions him...
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Evolving Faith: Who is my neighbor?
I once spoke to a dying man who was a Native American. He reflected on the differences between the Christian notion of forgiveness and the Native American notion. I explained that our notion has shifted, however, over time. We look at how various of our spiritual beliefs have evolved from the...
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Oil, flour, and a dead son: A Metaphor
Not long after moving to the edge of the Mojave Desert as a fourteen year-old, I took a job building a sprinkler system in the desert. I ended up have trouble with the heat - and very much scaring the young woman who, along with her husband, had hired me. We look at the story of Elijah and the...
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Dynamite: Send me
I had a rather short Boy Scout career that ended when I set off some dynamite for fun. We'll look at Isaiah and how he answered the call from God to serve as a prophet. Isaiah ended up the most referenced prophet in the New Testament and perhaps the most impactful prophet of all the Hebrew...
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Old Testament Law: Salvation by Acts?
We consider the common belief that Christ replaced a notion of justification by following the intricacies of Mosaic Law with justification by faith alone. Is this true? What did the Jews of Jesus' day truly believe about being made righteous in the eyes of God? We talk about Jewish man I visited…
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Misinterpreting the Bible: Sovereignty not Predestination
In the third in our series on the Book of Romans, we consider a young man, a Christian, who was badly injured helping others. We look at a part of Paul's letter that has often - and quite wrongly - been used to support the notion of Predestination, that we cannot control our salvation. We explain...
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A Kid with Seizures: Receiving the crown of life
When I was a small child I had seizure-like fits. My parents took me to numerous doctors, and even a few scientists who were studying seizures in kids. They were faithful people - and it made them confidently determined. They never doubted that God would guide them to a cure. We look in detail at...
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Why you are hearing this today
We pick from last week in our discussion of the Book of Romans. We consider a man who was near the end of his life and didn't know if he truly had faith. We consider the Book of Romans, what it has to say about faith, and what its impact has been on Christianity. We look at this question that…
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Occasional Writings: The Big One
We look at the most influential document in the New Testament, outside of the Gospels: Romans. We consider why it is that historically, some scholars and pastors have not liked it, and have considered it to diverge from Jesus' teachings in the Gospels. But we also consider it as an "occasional...
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Living with a Future and a Hope
I once visited a woman who was sick with a chronic condition and had a concern about her ability to continue to serve God with the gifts he had given her. She wondered if her life was over. We look at the theological issue of whether we can earn gifts from God. It's a complex issue with a few...
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On the verge of collapse: Living Forgiveness
When I was a boy, I was confronted by an angry officer with a gun who wanted to arrest me. He thought I had just attacked and badly injured an elderly lady. When he found out he was wrong, he went out of his way to apologize to me and my father. We look at forgiveness in both the Old and New...
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Confusion: The Gate of God
We look at the story of the Tower of Babel, and at its traditional interpretation, along with some newer twists on that interpretation. We consider how this ties in with a story from the New Testament, and how the Tower of Babel, combined with a New Testament slant, tells a very uplifting story.…
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The Kraspedou of God
A man with no home and no family once showed up at the hospital having a seizure. We look at how this man responded to being treated with compassion. We also look at the "sandwiched" stories of Jesus curing the daughter of a rich man and Jesus healing a poor woman. We look at a very special word…
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Lay down our lives: The First Responder
I once met a former EMT who was using a high tech wheelchair because she was an incomplete quadriplegic. She was in the hospital for a test, but was highly traumatized, suffering from a PTSD attack because she was back in a hospital - after having spent months in an ICU after her accident. She…
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Epicurus and Solomon: Under the Sun and Under God
Supposedly, Ecclesiastes was written by Solomon, but in truth it was written 700 years later. I studied Greek philosophy and literature in college at Occidental, long ago. Something stuck with me later: Ecclesiastes was probably written in part as a response to the Greek influence on Hebrew…
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It's Time to Dwell with the Wolf
I used to tease my kids, telling them things that were not real and getting them to believe it, before telling them it was a joke. This backfired when my little daughter refused to eat an ice cream cone that I told her was safe to eat - convinced that I was trying to get her to eat cardboard. I…
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Solomon and Bono
Wendy and I once traveled in Ireland with our kids - when they were quite small. We had some adventures, in particular, a surprise concert at a nearby zoo, by U2. We look at the book of Ecclesiastes, a very enigmatic and literate book that talks about the difficulties of finding true satisfaction...
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Being Fully Christian
I met a young man who considered himself a modern "Gnostic" - and I learned about the dire limitations of his faith. We look at 1st John, a deeply theological letter that strives to set the reader straight on the basic tenets of Christian faith. We look at issues such as Christ being both fully...
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Night Visions: The kingdom that shall not be destroyed
I visited Israel once, and drove the length of the old Unified Kingdom under David and Solomon: about 100 or so miles. We look at the history of the 10 tribes of Israel, the United Kingdom, and the divided kingdoms of Israel and Judah. We consider the tiny size and brief period during when the...
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Pastor Joe's Fire and Brimstone
We consider a couple of prominent Bible passages that superficially seem to back up the "fire and brimstone" sermon that I once heard from a rather strident pastor. But we look at these passages more closely. We consider whether God really is vengeful and violent. We consider an alternative...
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Preserving the Word of God in the Garbage
We consider an ancient landfill found in Egypt - which contains the oldest known New Testament fragments ever found. We look at the very negative view that the ancient Jews had of garbage or refuse of any kind and what this means for God choosing to preserve his most ancient New Testament Word in…
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Esther: Our God will never remain silent
We consider something that I have had trouble conveying in my church and in my podcasts: how we know that we can relax and depend on God to take care of us. We do this by looking at the Book of Esther, an ancient Hebrew story (and not really "history") about a woman who saves the entire Jewish...
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How to Pray: "I bend the knee of my heart"
When I was a boy, a girl went missing while playing Hide and Go Seek with some of us. Her mother ended up offering a prayer, which I later identified, I believe, as the Prayer of Manasseh, from the Apocrypha. We look at the history of the evil King Manasseh from the Kings and Chronicles Books…
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Samson and Kids with Special Needs
When I was a young kid in school, I was exposed to a boy who would probably now be called "neurodivergent". I ended up learning a lot about what it means to be different, but still be made in God's image. We look at Samson, a sinful, arrogant, corrupt, even laughable man who is manipulated by God...
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God vs. Iron
We look at a story from Judges: the female judge Deborah and how her army destroyed the far more advanced army of their enemy. In the Bible, it is an epic of the Iron Age of the Canaanites vs. the Bronze Age of the Israelites. We study both the prose and the poem version of this story. We see how...
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Three Easters: The hand of the Lord my God was on me.
My father served in the Pacific in World War II as a Marine and the leader of a combat unit. We look at three stories of resurrection, of rising from spiritual death: the return of the exiles from Babylon, the rise of Christ after death, and the growth of the Christian church in very recent…
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Palm Sunday: Proclaiming his righteousness to a people yet unborn!
We look at the traditional view of Holy Week, from the triumphant entry into Jerusalem on a donkey, to the gruesome crucifixion, to the glorious resurrection. We note that low point between the ride into the Holy City and the rise of Jesus from death. But we consider a somewhat different view -...
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Canaan and the Bending of Spacetime
I once spoke with a highly educated physicist who was a psychiatric patient. We call her Annie. She talked to me about the Newtonian misconception of gravity as a force, when it really has more to do with the bending of spacetime. We consider the biblical story of the invasion of Canaan, and the...
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They were astonished
I once saw John Wayne in a fancy mens store. I was a boy, and was with an older volunteer who was buying clothing for a kid whose family had no assets. We look at her bold behavior. We consider several passages from the Bible that all tell us how we should behave when living out our faith. We see...
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Paul's "Poem": A Christian Creed for Today
A very successful man who was in the hospital in great pain reminded me of an important Bible passage about humility: the apparent Creed that we think Paul inserted into his letter to the believers at Philippi. We consider Creeds in general, like the Apostles and the Nicene, and then look at this...
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By Paths We Have Not Known
Years ago, when I had an as-yet untreated corneal disease, I had very limited vision. I once accidentally stepped into a coffee cart line in a hospital lobby, and without meaning to, cut off a number of people. I got yelled at loudly - and felt both angry and embarrassed when the woman who yelled...
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A Vision from God: The palace will not be for man
When I was a boy, the cross on the top of my church was covered with gold leaf. We consider the First Temple, Solomon's Temple, which King David declared "will not be for man". We consider an amazing vision of the Prophet Ezekiel: a valley of dried and disconnected bones rising up and reforming…
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A Man Buried in Sand: We ourselves forgive everyone
My wife and I once saw a side-dump trunk tip over and completely bury and crush a car - with a man still inside. It seemed like the perfect example showing that we can die at any time. We look at the Lord's Prayer, its text from the Gospels, what it really meant (as opposed to what we might think...
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Ezekiel's Poo Bread
When I was a boy we used to look for particularly salacious or gross stories in the Bible and talk about them on the playground at recess. My favorite one is the bread that God orders Ezekiel to bake - by cooking it over human poo. We look at the Old Testament purity laws and what they were…
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The (Spiritual) Second Coming: Can we overcome the world?
I once spoke with a young woman who had been badly traumatized in life. She understandably had a jaded feeling about the ability of Christianity to change humanity. We look at two similar stories in the Gospels, about the "Second Coming", or the "Parousia" in Greek. We look at this from the...
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Servant Songs: Scriptural Appropriation?
We look at the four famous "Servant Songs" from Isaiah. We also consider Sister Marie, who was one of my boyhood teachers - and what she told me about the use of Jewish scripture and our relationship to the Jewish people. As it turns out, there is strong disagreement between Christians and Jews…
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Every Good and Perfect Gift: What is Faith?
I once met a man who had lost one foot and had just been told he would lost part of his other foot. He had something to say about how this relates to faith. We look at the age old debate of salvation through faith vs. salvation by acts. We consider a bit of a different perspective to try and see…
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And the Sea gave up the dead
A buddy of mine, long ago, once gave me surfing lessons. I grew up near the ocean and was aware of its dangers. Sure enough, my first time on a board, I ended up under water, spinning, trying to discern up from down. We look at the Book of Revelation, specifically how it uses the Sea as a…
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Christmas Eve: Must we believe in Bethlehem Ephrathah?
I once prayed with a man who was watching his grandmother pass away; she had largely raised him. I prayed for a joyous eternity in the Kingdom. He asked me if the story of Jesus in the New Testament was engineered to match Old Testament prophesy, and therefore, Jesus wasn't really the Messiah...
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The Temple is Gone: The fragmentation of Faith
I came upon a man at the San Francisco airport who was reading his Bible, studying a passage from the New Testament where Jesus speaks of himself as being a Temple. The man at the airport had had a severe conflict with his brother, another Christian, over a Bible translation, and was wishing that...
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A Man With a Shotgun: The former things have passed away
I once walked into my L.A. apartment to discover a burglar leveling a cutdown pump action shotgun at me. We consider the warnings that God sends our way from time to time, reminding us of our mortality. We know that we will die - that this life is very temporary. Are we ready? We look at the…
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I will pour out my Spirit: The slow road to Heaven
I had a student in a class of mine once who had recently been treated for bone cancer in her spine. She was using a cane. She talked to me about faith and Heaven, and the fears she had when she was sick. We discussed the issue of what it means to believe. Today, we look at the Book of Joel, in...
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Giving to the Holy Spirit
I once visited a woman who was almost a hundred years old and was about to die. She expressed some sadness that she had not given enough as a Christian. We reflect on the Book of Acts and the common misunderstanding that the early church was somehow rigidly socialist. We consider the real gift we...
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Rivers of Babylon
We look at the very dramatic Psalm 137. It tells of the fall of Babylon and the longing that the exiles have for their holy city and destroyed Temple. We consider two people I met who reacted in very different ways to the feeling they had been harmed by others. We look at why the Babylonian...
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Grace: Authenticity, Variations, and Units
We look at the spaghetti and butter sandwiches that I ate as a kid in grammar school. We consider Grace. We look at three issues: first, whether it is a real thing or something invented by us or by New Testament writers; second, different variations or applications of Grace in our lives, and 3…
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It's Still a Gift: The Christian as Reprobate
A student once asked me for advice on how he should react to his family, especially his father, who did not approve of him being baptized a Christian. I gave him a lesson that I learned from Acts. In this book, we see "the Way" spread to Jews in Jerusalem and then to Gentiles outward in the Roman...
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ABOUT THIS SHOW
Buzz King talks about being spiritual in a high tech world that is often hostile toward those who believe. But Buzz is not defense; his is an upbeat approach. He draws on his experience as a reverend, a professor of computer science specializing in 3D modeling and animation, and a hospital chaplain.
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BuzzKing
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Frequently Asked Questions
How many episodes does Buzz King: Grace & Joy thru Scripture have?
Buzz King: Grace & Joy thru Scripture currently has 100 episodes available on PodParley. New episodes are automatically indexed when they're published to the podcast feed.
What is Buzz King: Grace & Joy thru Scripture about?
Buzz King talks about being spiritual in a high tech world that is often hostile toward those who believe. But Buzz is not defense; his is an upbeat approach. He draws on his experience as a reverend, a professor of computer science specializing in 3D modeling and animation, and a hospital chaplain.
How often does Buzz King: Grace & Joy thru Scripture release new episodes?
Buzz King: Grace & Joy thru Scripture has 100 episodes. Check the episode list to see recent publication dates and frequency.
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You can listen to Buzz King: Grace & Joy thru Scripture on PodParley by clicking any episode. We provide an embedded audio player for direct listening, and you can also subscribe via your preferred podcast app using the RSS feed.
Who hosts Buzz King: Grace & Joy thru Scripture?
Buzz King: Grace & Joy thru Scripture is created and hosted by BuzzKing.
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