PODCAST · religion
The Commentary
by Grace Presbyterian Church
THE COMMENTARY is a weekly conversation about vision, worship, and life at Grace Presbyterian Church.
Episodes
-
154 - Myth Became Fact
This Spring at Grace, we are reading Till We Have Faces, the final — and, according to Mark, best — novel by C. S. Lewis. In this episode, Mark shares with Cameron some of his tips for reading the novel, short cuts that should help readers pick up on the deeper layers. The most important of these...
-
153 - Protestants in a Post-Literate Culture
It’s an old theory that has recently gotten a facelift: the era of print literacy has come to an end, superseded by an age of screen time and short attention spans. Neil Postman’s class Amusing Ourselves to Death looks ever more prophetic, leading Times of London journalist James Marriott to...
-
152 - Forbearance
One of the most humbling things that’s happened to Cameron since the publication of his first book of poetry, titled Forbearance, came when former poet laureate Ted Kooser posted one of the poems with a note saying he wished he’d written it! In this episode, Mark asks Cameron about that…
more -
151 - Cathedral Thinking
The Commentary is back — and we’re on a mission to recover the generational mindset of the Church, something we might call “Cathedral Thinking.” Spurred by an essay on this topic, Cameron and Mark ask what lessons the cathedral builders of old can teach us, not just about ecclesiastical...
-
150 - Raising Kids to Get Grace
If we raise our kids to be rule-followers, they may very well grow up to follow the world’s rules rather than God’s. That’s the problem with mere moralism. On the other hand, part of raising children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord involves teaching them … well, the rules. In this...
-
149 - Longing for More Community Groups
This year Grace launched a new approach to our small group ministry, which included a name change to better reflect the mission: small groups are now Community Groups. We’re at the half-way point for this semester’s plan, so Mark and Cameron decided to compare notes on how the new groups are…
more -
148 - The Democratization of Faith
If the democratization of media in the digital age has overthrown the gatekeepers in journalism and politics, what impact is it having on the Christian faith — particularly when it comes to ecclesiastical authority? When push comes to shove, who should I listen to, the elders of my own...
-
147 - Heresies and Christianities
One man’s heresy is another man’s Christianity — especially if the man in question is a modern historian. In this episode, Cameron and Mark contrast the approach to early Christian history within the Church to the methodologies of the contemporary academy. Are all claims to be Christian equally...
-
146 - Reading the Word
Last time, Mark and Cameron discussed the “end of reading” as a cultural crisis. This week they’re back to talk about its potential impact on the Church. To interpret the Scriptures well, and to be steeped in them to such an extent that our prayer and discipleship are shaped by them, we have to…
more -
145 - The End of Reading?
There’s a crisis in the headlines: students arriving at even elite colleges are overwhelmed at the thought of having to read … entire books. Is this apparent decline in literacy something Christians (as “people of the Book”) should be concerned about? In this episode, Cameron and Mark discuss why...
-
144 - The Music & Drama of Scripture
Grace just hosted an extraordinary conference with Dr. Dan Brendsel, the author of Answering Speech, and in this episode Mark shares a selection of his favorite moments from the event. You’ll discover how music — from pop songs to symphonies — illuminates the relationship between Scripture and...
-
143 - Dealing With Enemies
Think you don’t have any enemies? Maybe you’re fortunate — or perhaps you’re in denial. The Psalms say plenty about enemies, and not all of it is comfortable to read, let alone pray! In this episode, Cameron shares some of the challenges of praying the Psalms in the twenty-first century, while…
more -
142 - When You Have To Make A Sacrifice
If you’re going to follow Christ, then you’ll have to make some sacrifices. But talking about sacrifice is so much easier than having to do it! In this episode, Cameron asks Mark how to prepare for those inevitable moments when you have to make a sacrifice.
-
141 - The First 500 Years of Church History
It may be ancient history, but it’s relevant to so many questions we’re still asking today. That’s why Grace’s new adult Sunday School class is taking a deep dive into the history of the first five centuries of the church, from the Apostolic Era to the Council of Chalcedon and the fall of the…
more -
140 - Answering Speech
Over the summer at Grace, we’ve been reading Dan Brendsel’s Answering Speech, a profound — and practical — guide to the life of prayer. In this episode, Mark and Cameron share some of their favorite insights from the book. They also talk about Grace’s upcoming event with the author coming up on...
-
139 - From Jerusalem to Ephesus
The Commentary is back! Cameron and Mark are back in the studio, reflecting on lessons from Grace’s three-year journey through the Gospel of Matthew — and looking forward to a new adventure: a study of Ephesians. But first, to get acquainted, we’re exploring the beginnings of the church in…
more -
138 - Two Preachers, One Text
For three years, Mark has been preaching through Matthew’s Gospel — and so has his friend Luke Le Duc, pastor of Wheatland Presbyterian Church in Lancaster, PA. In this episode, Mark asks Luke about the greatest challenges, surprises, and insights this experience has prompted. Consider this a...
-
137 - Transcendence and Longing
In this episode, Mark talks to Maestro Delta David Gier, music director of the South Dakota Symphony Orchestra, about the lessons in transcendence and longing we can learn from artistic “God-seekers” like the composer Gustav Mahler. Particularly in our increasingly isolated and tech-mediated...
-
136 - Spiritual Lessons From The Writer's Workshop
In this episode, Mark and Cameron share some of the lessons learned while getting their degrees — not in theology, but in creative writing! For Mark, the memory is almost a quarter century old, while for Cameron it’s current, but in both cases our hosts have discovered spiritual lessons from the...
-
135 - Wakefulness
Cameron is back, and he has some questions about the Olivet Discourse, particularly the way that Jesus calls us to “stay awake.” In this episode, he and Mark unpack the meaning of that term, and explore the new perspective it lends to how we should wait for Christ’s return. Instead of being...
-
134 - Work and Leisure
Work isn’t a necessary evil, and leisure isn’t synonymous with idleness. These are just two of the myths busted in this episode. Mark talks to Worldview Academy executive director Mike Schutt about how thinking rightly about work and leisure help us improve the way we do both. Along the way, they...
-
133 - It Takes Faith To Be An Atheist
Worldview thinking is a method of examining the underlying assumptions we all make in forming beliefs. In this episode, Mark talks with Worldview Academy co-founder Jeff Baldwin about an unexpected topic: the faith required to be a consistent atheist. We all take some things for granted, even…
more -
132 - Three Myths That Shape Your Thought
Unexamined assumptions have a powerful effect on your thinking, not because they’re convincing but because cause they are invisible. In this episode, Mark and Cameron discuss three assumptions — the myth of majority rules, the myth of progress, and the myth of nature — that don’t stand up to...
-
131 - Reaching the End of A Good Confession
THE COMMENTARY is a weekly conversation about vision, worship, and life at Grace Presbyterian Church. Since 2019, Mark has led a class line-by-line through the Westminster Confession of Faith. All the recordings are available as A Good Confession. As the end approaches, Cameron asks Mark why he...
-
130 - Impressionist Eschatology
At the beginning of a new sermon series on the Olivet Discourse, Mark suggested that biblical prophecy is a lot like an impressionist painting: it’s designed to be interpreted only from the proper distance. In this episode, Cameron and Mark explore this comparison and ask how it might be helpful...
-
129 - Living With Death
“All men are mortal,” or so the syllogism goes. But that’s easy to forget in the modern world, where the realities of suffering and death are concealed behind euphemisms and often hidden from sight. As Christians we acknowledge that death is inevitable — “it is appointed unto man once to die” —…
more -
128 - The Tomb and the Temple
In this short episode at the beginning of Lent, Mark shares from the latest volume of Jonathan Gibson’s series of liturgies for daily worship, O Sacred Head Now Wounded, and then follows up with a recording of his reflection from this week’s Ash Wednesday service at Grace.
-
127 - What Are Sermons For?
Is it a lecture? Is it a TED talk? Is it an entertaining bit of folksy wisdom? People have all sorts of ideas about what a sermon is, and what it’s for — most of them quite wrong! In this episode, Cameron and Mark talk about the sermon as an act of worship, one of the ordinary means of grace.…
more -
126 - The Order of Worship
Your commenters are back! When people visit Grace, one of the unique features they often comment on is the Order of Worship, a multi-page printed booklet that contains our liturgy for the service, including music, prayers, texts, and all the usual announcements you’d expect to find in a church...
-
125 - Taking Census of the Senses
For the final episode of 2023, something a little more light-hearted than usual: Cameron and Mark review their personal bests (and in some cases, worsts) of the year through the lens of the five senses: sight, smell, hearing, taste, and touch. Prepare to enter a little too deeply into the minds…
more -
124 - Finding Your Place
Mark and Cameron grasp toward a theology of "place" in this episode, looking at the way human beings are situated in places throughout Scripture and trying to apply the duties and joys observed there to our own quest to find a place in the world. As we increasingly work outside the office and…
more -
123 - O Come, O Come Emmanuel
Following up on our last episode, Cameron and Mark talk about the experience of using Jonathan Gibson’s liturgy for daily worship O Come, O Come Emmanuel during the season of Advent. What is a book like this for, and how is this new volume different from the earlier one, Be Thou My Vision?
-
122 - Expecting Jesus
As we begin the season of Advent, Cameron poses a question: Is it quite right to describe this season as a time of “longing,” or would a better way to think of Advent be to to consider it a season of expectation. In this episode, he and Mark distinguish between longing and expectation, discuss…
more -
121 - Faith, Power, and Plan
Mark’s recent sermon on the cursing of a fig tree in Matthew 21 left some unanswered questions about prayer, faith, and how the power of God relates to the plan of God. In this episode, he and Cameron return to the passage to consider an interesting point: when Jesus claimed that with a little...
-
120 - Enemies of the Novel
It’s hard to write a great novel these days, and those who manage find that the public isn’t exactly waiting with bated breath. In his recent book The Novel, Who Needs It? critic Joseph Epstein catalogs a list of what he terms “enemies of the novel.” In this episode, Mark tries to convince…
more -
119 - Anti Social Media, Or "Ad Mundus!"
Earlier this week, Cameron made the momentous announcement that he was deactivating his social media accounts — something many of us have thought about, though few carry it out. In this episode, Mark (who hasn’t followed suit) asks about Cameron’s reasoning, and together they discuss whether…
more -
118 - Tradition Without Traditionalism
Tradition may start as a supplement to Scripture, but it has a tendency over time to serve as a replacement. At the same time, since tradition amounts to interpretation passed down through time, its presence is inescapable. In other words, you’re going to have a tradition. The question is, what...
-
117 - Monergism or Synergism?
One of the most fundamental questions when it comes to salvation is: “Who does the work?” Is salvation entirely a divine effort, or are we called upon to contribute — and if so, how much? In this episode, Cameron and Mark unpack the distinction between monergism and synergism, and how it relates…
more -
116 - Work, Risk, and Calling
In this episode, Mark speaks to Worldview Academy co-founder Jeff Baldwin about work, risk, and the sense of calling. A longtime friend, Jeff takes a unique approach to risk, and as provost of Worldview at the Abbey, he’s counseled many young people at the start of their professional lives on how...
-
115 - And So We Are
When he was invited to a chapel service at Bethlehem College and Seminary in Minneapolis, Mark spoke on 1 John 2.28-3.3. Between the text and some reminiscences about grad school days, he explored the relationship between how God names things and what they are. In this episode, we share that…
more -
114 - The Journey to Adoption
Cameron and his wife Jenny are new parents, and in this episode they talk to Mark about the challenges and the rewards of their journey through infertility to adoption. Sometimes hardship opens our eyes to the struggles of people all around us. It also compels us to rely on God when we have no...
-
113 - Room to Grow
If you’d asked at any point over the past few years what the greatest need of our church was, one of the top answers would have been room to grow. We’ve needed a larger space to meet, and now we have one. Grace has only been in the new digs for a little over a month, but already we have seen both...
-
112 - Forming A Forgiving Church
The Commentary is back after our summer break, and Mark and Cameron tackle an essential topic inspired by Grace’s study of Matthew 18: the challenge of forming a forgiving church. For individual believers to practice the forgiveness we’re called to, we need a community that supports this...
-
111 - Warm Welcomes and Hard Farewells
In this episode, Mark checks in with Grace’s new associate pastor Dan Reed to hear about the back-to-back experience of graduating from seminary one day and being ordained and installed as a teaching elder the next. Then he joins Cameron in the studio to talk about the passing of Tim Keller, and...
-
110 - Retreat, Retrieve, and Return
If we’re going to restore what is lost in our world, first we may need to withdraw from the skirmish and go in search of it ourselves. We retreat in order to accomplish the retrieval, always with a mind to return to the world for the restorative work. In this episode, Mark and Cameron talk about...
-
109 - Learning to Read
As people of the book, Christians have a special relationship to the art of reading. In this episode, Cameron quizzes Mark with a lightning round of questions about whether audiobooks count as reading, if it’s okay not to finish books you’ve started, and what to use when you need a makeshift...
-
108 - Longing for Transcendence
“Young people are longing for transcendence.” Are they, though? And what exactly does transcendence mean? In this episode, Mark and Cameron take a shot at naming the longing that drives so many people to search for deeper, more historically grounded experiences of the Christian faith. A lot of us...
-
107 - Talking About Our Vision
In this special episode, the first of Mark’s five VISION TALKS are collected in a single recording. These live recordings focus on the building blocks of Grace’s vision: the centrality of worship, church-planting, our unique DNA (longing for more grace, more depth, and more community), why our...
-
106 - The Cost of Grace
Inspired by Cameron’s re-reading of Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s classic The Cost of Discipleship, this episode revisits the concept of “cheap grace.” If we’re saved by grace apart from works, it’s tempting to think that what we do is, at best, of secondary importance — and, at worst, of no importance…
more -
105 - The Death (and Resurrection) of God
The crime of Christianity, in Nietzsche’s view, was its renunciation of life. He declared God dead and sought to sweep away the continuing influence of Christian morality. But as Cameron argues in a recent essay published on his site Conversant, the resurrection offers a powerful response to this...
We're indexing this podcast's transcripts for the first time — this can take a minute or two. We'll show results as soon as they're ready.
No matches for "" in this podcast's transcripts.
No topics indexed yet for this podcast.
Loading reviews...
ABOUT THIS SHOW
THE COMMENTARY is a weekly conversation about vision, worship, and life at Grace Presbyterian Church.
HOSTED BY
Grace Presbyterian Church
CATEGORIES
Loading similar podcasts...
Frequently Asked Questions
How many episodes does The Commentary have?
The Commentary currently has 152 episodes available on PodParley. New episodes are automatically indexed when they're published to the podcast feed.
What is The Commentary about?
THE COMMENTARY is a weekly conversation about vision, worship, and life at Grace Presbyterian Church.
How often does The Commentary release new episodes?
The Commentary publishes regularly with 152 episodes available. Check the episode list for the typical release schedule.
Where can I listen to The Commentary?
You can listen to The Commentary 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 The Commentary?
The Commentary is created and hosted by Grace Presbyterian Church.
URL copied to clipboard!