Eden Teachings Podcast

In Jonah 3, we see that Jonah does the bare minimum of what God asked him to do, doesn't even mention God in his gospel presentation, goes in reluctantly and angry, and the entire city repents.What is going on here? Remember, Jonah is satirical. This passage shows 1) How little the mission of God depends on us, but it does still seem to depend on us…? and 2) God is not static. He responds to faith and repentance. He changes his mind (yup, that's what it says).Somehow, God's will of the “renewal of all things” will come to pass. Somehow, the timing of His will is determined on the work and intercession of His image bearers. And somehow, God changes his mind. Maybe we can't really understand Him like we thought we could? And maybe that's for the best?Teacher: Will SolomonText: Jonah 3** Sorry for the audio quality

In Jonah 2, we wrestled with the reality that Jonah may have been just paying lip service; not really repentant of his tribalism and racism and disobedience.And while the author is not clear, in the context of the entire book, it would seem Jonah is simply regurgitating (no pun intended) Scripture. Especially when you juxtapose his story with Jesus' similar storm stories in the gospels.It seems the author is leaving us with a question to ponder for ourselves: In our prayer life, are we reluctantly paying lip service? Or as the maxim goes: “going through the motions”?Or is there earnest struggle, honesty, and ultimately trust, that is grounded in a real relationship with Jesus?Teacher: Brittni RatliffText: Jonah 2

Jonah 1 is a sobering passage because he is depicted as a human who is fully bought into the serpents lie — you don’t need God.  In fact, you’re better off without him.  You can have the life you want without God.Jonah has lost the plot.  He has heard the screams of Nineveh, and chooses to run the other way.  Instead of partnering with God to put the world to rights, he descends further and further into madness.  And a deformation takes place in his soul.Teacher: Caleb SprinkleText: Jonah 1

Jonah has long been misunderstood as the focus is put more on Jonah being swallowed by a great fish. Because of this, a fight has broken out within the church over 1) did this actually happen, 2) if you don’t believe it happened as it is laid out, then you don’t believe in the authority of the Bible. This is the wrong starting place. If we focus on the things the author chooses not to focus on, then we miss the entire point of this beautifully crafted, satirical, literary masterpiece.Teacher: Caleb SprinkleText: Jonah 1.1-3••••••Music: Replay by Qlowdy https://soundcloud.com/qlowdymusicLicense: Creative Commons — Attribution 3.0 Unported — CC BY 3.0Free Download / Stream: https://audiolibrary.com.co/qlowdy/replayMusic promoted by Audio Library: https://youtu.be/Ggm961-u__8

In contemporary Western Christian culture, most people engage the Bible by themselves. Typically referred to as “quiet time,” there is richness and beauty to be gained from a time of personal reflection on the Scriptures. However, that method has not been the norm throughout most of Church history. For the majority of Church history, people heard the Scriptures read aloud in a group or saw Bibles displayed graphically in their churches.Reading the Scriptures alone is beautiful, but the Bible is aimed at shaping and organizing a community of Jesus followers, of kingdom people, to put on display the wisdom and love of God in real, practical, and powerful ways. It was designed to help communities of people to see the world a certain way and to live in the world a certain way.Teacher: Caleb SprinkleText: Various

The Bible is not a book; it’s a library. And it was written thousands of years ago, in three different languages, by dozens of different authors and in multiple genres of literature. As you would expect, it can be very hard to understand at times, and we can easily get lost or turned around as we work through it.But by reading the teachings of Jesus, it becomes clear that if we misunderstand Scripture it can do great damage to our souls and society. Jesus himself spent a lot of time correcting common misreadings of Scripture. But the reverse is also true: If we understand what thelibrary of Scripture is saying to us, it can enlarge and enrich our lives in profound ways.But for that to happen, we need study.Teacher: Will SolomonText: Various

In the Bible, the word for "Remember” is used 352 times in the scriptures. When its variants are counted, that number jumps to more than 550. In John 16, Jesus promised his apprentices that the Holy Spirit would remind them of his words. But to do that, we have to have Jesus’ words in our memories! God’s part is to bring the right Scripture to our minds at the right time, but our part is to build an inner library of key passages for the Holy Spirit to access day and night.All of us are prone to spiritual amnesia — to forget what we need to hear again and again. Memorization and repetition trains the mind to focus and anchors the soul. We hear over and over “I love you. You are mine.” We need this like we need air to breathe and food to eat.God has spoken his Word of life to us. That’s His part. Our part is to remember.Teacher: Caleb SprinkleText: Various

In our current day and age, we read things quickly, scanning and scrolling, and mainly for information. But the Scriptures were not designed for fast reads and immediate understanding. They were meant to be meditated on. Scripture assumes you will come back to it over and over; it does not give up its secrets that easily. The goal is not information, but formation. To become the kind of person who thinks God's thoughts after Him; who sees the world the way He does. Because if we really believe the author is in the room with us, then ultimately, Scripture is a means to a deeper relationship with Jesus.Teacher: Brittni RatliffText: Various

Historically, there are four practices the church has done that we believe are essential to life with God in the Scriptures:01 Reading through the entire Library of Scripture02 Meditating on the Scriptures (Lectio Divina)03 Studying the Scriptures04 Putting the Scriptures to MemoryWe believe you should aim to find a healthy diet of all four practices over the course of your life and apprenticeship to Jesus.  Finding balance helps us be able to wisely and humbly understand Scripture and the story it tells, and to be able to find ourselves in that story.Teacher: Caleb SprinkleText: Various

The Biblical authors actually believed that wisdom (or HOKMAH) and knowledge of what is actually true and going on in reality can be found in a person.  That God himself is the access point for all reality, and salvation is that awakening to reality. By living under the authority of the Bible, we are living under the authority of God himself.  In not doing so, we therefore live in conflict with reality itself.  We live out of alignment with how things actually are.  And we suffer the tragic results in our soul and in our society.  The choice is clear.  It is the wisdom of God that leads to flourishing, or the wisdom of human autonomy, of the self, that leads to chaos. Do you really want to trust yourself?  Teacher: Caleb SprinkleTexts: Various

Everything in our culture screams quick, fast, efficient. But the Bible is the opposite. It’s designed for the reader to go slow, with ongoing consideration for a lifetime. It's designed to be meditated on.We delight in what we meditate on, and vice versa, we meditate on what delights us. In the process, we become like the things on which we give our attention to.And so Bible's ideal reader is one who digs deep, who returns to the text over and over, who journeys with the Spirit through all questions, doubts, frustrations, and ultimately trust. One who meditates.Teacher: Caleb SprinkleText: Various

Human beings are wired for story. We are narrative animals. We can’t help but ask the questions who are we? What does it mean to be human? We cannot function without some story to make sense of reality. So the question is not are we religious or have a story. The question is what story do we live by? And how do we know we are living by the right story? This is where the Bible comes in.The Bible tells a better story to all other stories. By following the story of the Bible, you begin to find yourself in the story it is telling, and in doing so, we come into alignment with reality and God Himself. Teacher: Caleb SprinkleText: Various

This past Sunday, we started a new teaching series on Scripture, exploring what it is, and what it is not. Scripture is NOT:- A systematic theology, or theological reference book- A moral handbook- A "devotional grab-bag"We see a lot of problems surface when we approach the Scriptures in these three ways. So for us, we believe the Bible (or Scripture) is a library of writings both divine and human, that tell a unified story, leading us to Jesus. But are the words in this strange, ancient library still relevant? Do they still mean anything to us today?To Jesus, the Bible is trustworthy. To Jesus, the Bible has authority. The scriptures were designed to be read for formation. To shape us into the image of Jesus. In this library, we find life. In this library, we find a new way to be human.Teacher: Will SolomonTexts: Various

In the West, many people have deconstructed from their "Christian upbringing" because they are seeing a wide gap in what Christians "believe" and how they actually act. The root cause for this gap is how the gospel is being preached today. The gospel has been ripped away from the story the Scriptures are telling, and reduced to a simple formula to get people out of hell. This inevitably produces consumers of Jesus' merit, rather disciples of Jesus' way.But to understand why Jesus dies, and what exactly God is up to in the world, we need to not skip the 39 books of the Old Testament (Israel’s story). Because Jesus very much saw his coming and death as a climax to their story. Without Israel's story, Jesus' life, death, resurrection, and ascension doesn't make much sense. Teacher: Caleb SprinkleTexts: Various

Many have chosen to focus on the gore of the crucifixion. But when we read this scene, this isn’t what the gospel writers choose to focus on. Certainly, it’s sobering what was done to Jesus. But the focus was not blood and guts, but his enthronement. The focus is how God became king. At the center of allegiance and apprenticeship for Jesus is a cross, a Roman torture device meant to cause excruciating pain and slow suffering death. For Jesus, apprenticeship to Him looks like what He did: "take up your cross and follow me. "Teacher: Caleb SprinkleText: Mark 15

In this passage, Jesus is arrested and put on trial. There's much that could be said in this narrative, but specifically what's striking is the way Mark contrasts how Jesus handles suffering verses how the disciples did. For Jesus, suffering led to honest prayer and ultimately trust.  For the disciples, it led to betrayal and fleeing.   When suffering comes, where will you turn?  Will you do what you can to control your life, or will you yield and trust?  Will you curse and abandon God, or will you show up honestly in prayer, giving God your feelings, desires, and ultimately your trust? Trusting God is not a cheesy “Christian t-shirt”, or callous words given to those suffering in order to spiritually bypass real pain; it's a new way of being on this side of the resurrection.   Trusting God in suffering is, in fact, the way of Jesus.  Teacher: Will SolomonText: Mark 14. 27-72

This past Sunday, we looked at the Last Supper.  It was in the final meal with his disciples that Jesus gave us one of His greatest gifts to the church: Communion.  It was here that Jesus modeled life around a table, with Him at the center.  And every time we participate in this meal, we share in His life, and recommit to Him and to each other.   And while this was done in the context of a meal around a table, Communion does not look like that in the modern church.  So what happened?  How did it transform from a joyful meal to a somber moment with crackers and juice?Teacher: Caleb SprinkleText: Mark 14.12-26

This past Sunday, we looked at the entirety of Mark 13.  Many have taken this passage to be a proof text for the end times, as if Jesus was laying out a scene by scene movie of what will happen.  This interpretation, though relatively new in the scope of church history (i.e. the 19th century), has become the dominating view of modern Evangelicalism.   And unfortunately, it's created a lot of fear and panic among Christians.  It's led to a justification for war in the Middle East because "God is on Israel's side” and it "has to happen" for the end to come.  Or, we spend our days trying to predict the end of the world, and we live with a fearful, escapist mentality and don't see what we do now as important as a way to care for the poor and contribute to human flourishing, or we don't see the need to care for the earth because it's “going to all burn anyway”.   But what if Jesus wasn't talking about the end times?  And what if his intention wasn't to create fear for the present, but hope for the future?  Teacher: Caleb SprinkleText: Mark 13

In Mark 12, Jesus is being interrogated from the leaders of his day as they are trying to trap him in his words and either start a revolution against Rome, or side with the oppressor.  Jesus does neither, and instead challenges them on where their allegiance actually lies. It's a scathing discourse, one that challenges us in our own allegiances.  Jesus says the leaders have misunderstood the Scriptures and the power of God, and their vision of reality and the future is off.   What we think about the future informs how we live in the present.  And how we live in the present ultimately shapes the future, for better or worse. Teacher: Caleb SprinkleText: Mark 12

In the final week of his life, Jesus enters Jerusalem to pronounce judgement on the Jewish leaders who were supposed to shepherd God's people.  Instead, they were extorting the poor, making a mockery of the temple, and making it impossible for Jews (and Gentiles) to know the One true God.   Jesus came as the true Shepherd; one who does not exclude the marginalized or outsiders from the presence of God, but brings the presence near.Teacher: Will SolomonText: Mark 11.12-25

At Eden, we believe that how we live together matters as much as our beliefs and convictions. And so, we are shaped by an ancient practice, used by communities of Jesus followers for nearly 2000 years, called a Rule of Life. The meaning of Rule comes from the Greek word for trellis; a tool designed to enable a grapevine to get off the ground and grow upward, to become more fruitful and productive.In the same way, a Rule of Life is a schedule and set of practices and relational rhythms that create space for us to be with Jesus, become like Him, and do as He did.  It is how we practice the way of Jesus, together. Teacher: Caleb SprinkleText: John 15

There’s an ancient proverb that says, “If you want to go fast, go alone, but if you want to go far, go together.”You can’t follow Jesus alone. Not you shouldn’t; you can’t. The way God does this work of healing is through healthy relationships, through familial love. Why? We are both hurt at the deepest level by relationships, and we are healed at the deepest level by relationships.Teacher: Caleb SprinkleText: Various

Jesus of Nazareth once said, “In this world, you will face trouble.” (John 16v33). Suffering comes to find all of us — the loss of a loved one, a cancer diagnosis, the breakdown of a relationship …   And over time, emotional pain accumulates in our soul.We carry our history in our body and live our past in our present; and all too often, our unhealed emotional pain sabotages our spiritual formation into people of love. When pain and suffering come knocking on our door, what do we do?Teaching SlidesTeacher: Caleb SprinkleTexts: Various

We take a look at what Jesus said is wrong with the world: sin. Now, “sin” is an emotionally loaded word for a lot of people.  You may hear it and instantly feel a kind of inner allergic reaction. But sin is just the word Jesus used to name a reality that all the brightest minds agree on – ancient, modern, spiritual, scientific, Western, Eastern – pretty much everyone agrees that something is off in the human heart.So, a key aspect of our spiritual formation is healing from sin done by us, to us, and around us.  And like any good doctor, Jesus doesn’t just want to just deal with the symptoms, but the disease itself.Teaching SlidesTeacher: Brittni RatliffText: Various

For those of us who desire to be formed to be like Jesus, we don’t start with a blank slate! We’ve already been deformed. Not into the beauty of Jesus but into the ugliness of sin and shame. Therefore, to some degree, all formation in the Way of Jesus is counter-formation.   To be formed to be like Jesus will require an intentional, thoughtful, conscious way of life to counteract the many forces that mal-form our soul.  To organize our days around intentionally following Jesus and finding deep joy in our everyday lives with him.Teaching SlidesTeacher: Caleb SprinkleTexts: Various

Who are you following? Everybody is following somebody. Or something. Put another way, everyone is a disciple. The question isn’t, “Are you a disciple?” It’s, “Who or what are you a disciple of?”We explore in this session what Jesus had in mind for discipleship (or apprenticeship), along with looking at the forces that work on the human soul that "conform [us] to the pattern of this world" (Romans 12:2).Teaching SlidesTeacher: Caleb SprinkleText: Various

This passage is not about wealth, though Jesus had a lot to say about money; this is a story about your heart.  What is it that is keeping you from fully taking on the yoke of Jesus and experiencing life to the fullest as he put it?  For this man, it was his money.  For us, it could be all sorts of things.   What is the thing? From Ben Witherington: Mark is making clear that the demands of discipleship to Jesus go beyond the demands of the Law. The ultimate test of obedience, then, is seen as the willingness to assume the yoke of discipleship to Jesus.Teaching SlidesTeacher: Brittni RatliffText: Mark 10.17-31

Typically, the "Triumphal Entry" (i .e. Palm Sunday) is depicted as a happy scene.  The gospel writers would say otherwise.  As Jesus approaches Jerusalem, he weeps.  He weeps because he knows that while the people hail him as king, they want a violent overthrower, not what Jesus was offering.  They wanted a god of their own making, not God himself. They wanted the benefits of the Kingdom without the rule and wisdom of Jesus. They wanted the kingdom without the king. Here and now, we run the same risk of wanting Jesus to fit our mental maps of reality, morality, etc, rather than letting him speak for himself. It's his way, or our way. Which way will you choose?Teaching SlidesTeacher: Caleb SprinkleText: Mark 10.46 - 11.11

In this passage, we see a debate between Jesus and the Pharisees on the topic of divorce.  Typically, this passage becomes an air-tight theology on divorce, but this is not the aim of this passage.  Instead, He uses the conversation about legal divorce in the 1st century to expose and rebuke the Pharisees for exploiting and demeaning women.   Jesus is not giving a full discourse on divorce.    He’s trying to protect women who are being used and abused, and he is declaring that life in God’s kingdom protects the vulnerable. While Jesus is addressing a specific case study here, in the whole of the Scriptures, there are, however, reasons where divorce may be an option.  Divorce is never easy, and God’s will is fruitful marriages where partners yield to one another in love and service, AND also for the vulnerable to be cared for and given a voice and freedom from evil.Teaching SlidesTeacher: Caleb SprinkleText: Mark 10.1-16

Mark 9.42-50 is arguably one of Jesus' tougher teachings. Where generally this passage has become a doctrine about hell,  Jesus is after something more pressing for the present.  The way we live now matters. We have real power in the words we say and actions we do to push people away from Jesus, or to bring them to him.  Hell is not just a future reality, but a present one too.  With our words, we have power to release hell on earth and bring cursing on people, and Jesus says it would be better if we drowned than to push people away from him (Mark 9.42).It's a sobering teaching, but an important one for all of us who call ourselves followers of Jesus.  Are we living lives that compel people to follow Him, or push them away?  Teaching SlidesTeacher: Caleb Sprinkle Text: mark 9.42-50

The kingdom of Jesus is an "Upside-Down Kingdom". Meaning, His kingdom does not look like the kingdoms of the world. Power is not through taking, but giving. Not by wealth, status, or influence, but through becoming a servant. Jesus refuses to play into the structures of power and influence of His day... and He still won't. Real status in His Kingdom comes by being a servant of all.Teaching SlidesTeacher: Brittni RatliffText(s): Mark 9.30-41 & 10.32-45

The Great Commission is spiritual warfare." - Michael Heiser.In this famous, and regularly misapplied, story of the transfiguration, we see Jesus declaring turf war against the gods of darkness. And when we follow Jesus, we are called to bring that same light into dark places. But in order to do that, we must let the light break into the dark places in us. Teaching Slides Teacher: Caleb Sprinkle Text: Mark 9.1-29

In Movement 02 of Mark's biography, we see the disciples wrestling with what it means for Jesus to be king. In this story, Jesus challenges their (and our) understanding of king, and gives his famous call to what it means to be his apprentice: "deny yourself, pick up your cross, and follow me".Teachings SlidesTeacher: Caleb SprinkleText: Mark 8.22-38

Listen along for tips and suggestions on how to implement the prayer practice into your rule of life.Slides

In the middle of a prayer about heaven invading earth, and cosmic war against evil, Jesus tells us to ask God to give us our daily lunch. To pray to BIG prayers, but to make sure we pray the small ones too. Because both matter to God. Charles Spurgeon once said "asking is the rule of the Kingdom". So why do so many of us struggle to ask God for things? Does God really care about our actual lives? And how do we explain unanswered prayer and His perceived silence in our lives? Teaching Slides Teacher: Caleb SprinkleText(s): Matthew 6.9-11 & Luke 11.5-8

As a general rule, you can gauge the intimacy in a relationship by how comfortable you are being alone together in the silence. Early on, relationships are full of words and activity. As you grow closer over time, there are still words and activity, but you also come to deeply enjoy just being with each other.While we never mature beyond any of the four stages of prayer we are exploring in this Practice, the further we progress in prayer, the more we desire to speak to God, to listen to God, and to just be with God, or what has come to be called “contemplation,” based on 2 Corinthians 3v18.Teaching slidesTeacher: Brittni RatliffText: 2 Corinthians 3:12-18

Do our prayers really matter to God? Isn't He just going do whatever He wants regardless of whether I pray? Or do our prayers somehow bend the arc of human history towards the Kingdom of God? Teaching slidesTeacher: Caleb SprinkleText(s): Matthew 6.9-10; John 16.23-24

There comes a point in our relationship to God where we desire not just to speak to him, but to listen. To hear his voice. As Jesus said in John 10v27, “My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me.” This is a Spirit- generated desire in the heart of a disciple of Jesus. Learning to sift through all the “voices” in our head and to discern how God is speaking to us is a key task of discipleship.Teaching SlidesTeacher: Will SolomonText: John 10.1-5

Eden Church and Uncommon City in St. Pete, Florida are partnering together for the Prayer Practice. Week by week. Question by question.Meiko and Simone Seymour from Uncommon City, and Caleb Sprinkle and Brittni Ratliff from Eden Church sit down to reflect the first four weeks of the Prayer Practice, how they sense it is integrating into the life of their communities, and talk about what didn't make it into their sermons.Church Websites:Eden ChurchUncommon City

Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working.”   James 5.16If we are honest, confession is usually seen as a drag.  It’s the slow song at the dance that usually people skip to go refresh their drinks until the good stuff starts back again.  But if it’s the abundant life in Jesus you want, the life to the fullest in the kingdom, then confession is a part of the deal.  But it’s a really good part of the deal.    Teaching SlidesTeacher: Caleb SprinkleText: Luke 11.1-4

In this teaching, we explore the second movement of prayer: talking with God. Praying pre-made prayers is a beautiful way to pray. It’s where we start our prayer journey, and it’s a place we revisit all through our lives. But at some point in our life of prayer, we desire to pray our own words to God — to share what’s on our mind, our heart. Our pain, our joy, our hopes and fears. We can’t help but desire to interact with God in a more authentic, personalized way.Teaching SlidesTaught by Caleb SprinkleText: Luke 5.5-12

Our earthly humanness is defined by yearning, longing, and desire.  You have been hard wired to adore.  Just look at what presently may have your mind, heart, affections.  But oftentimes, it may feel difficult to adore God this way.What would change if you realized that God first adored you? And that his baseline disposition towards you is one of  compassion.Teaching SlidesTaught by Brittni RatliffText: Luke 11.1-4

In this session, we explore the first stage of prayer: talking to God. When the disciples asked Jesus, “Teach us to pray,” in Luke 11, Jesus replied, “This, then, is how you should pray: “‘Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name...’” He gave them a pre-made prayer, or what some call a liturgy, to pray to God.Teaching SlidesTaught by Caleb SprinkleText: Luke 11.1-4

Mark writes about the feeding of the 5000... and the 4000? Was this a mistake, or is Mark purposely writing two similar but different feeding narratives to make a point about who Jesus really is? Taught by Caleb SprinkleText(s): Mark 6.30-44 & 8.1-21

In this short but strange story in Mark, we are left with a litany of questions. Did Jesus purposely dismiss someone in need of help? Was he being racist towards this woman? Is there something else deeper going on? What if Jesus learns something fundamental about his mission... from a Canaanite woman (an "enemy of God" in the Jewish imagination)? Wait... can Jesus learn things???Taught by Caleb SprinkleTexts: Mark 7.24-30 & Matthew 15.21-28

How do you measure your spiritual formation? Is it based on the amount of times you read your Bible in a week, or how long you prayed or didn't pray this week? Or how about your schedule to serve the poor or share the Gospel? What if Jesus had a different metric? What if He was way more interested in whether you are becoming like Him (I .e. a person of love as defined by Him)?Taught by Will SolomonText: Mark 7.1-23

By far, Jesus walking on water is one of the most popular stories of the Bible. In it, he encourages his disciples to not be anxious or afraid. Why is it that we have such an allergic reaction to that?  Because Jesus words are modern day blasphemy when anxiety is the worst it's ever been in human history. But what would it look like if we took Jesus up on His own word and trusted him with everything?Taught by Caleb SprinkleTexts: Mark 4.35-41 & 6.45-56

What does it look like for the Kingdom of God to break in?  The "untouchable" are touched and loved.  The dead are brought back to life.  A man from the upper echelon of society and a woman from the lowest part of society are on equal playing ground.  A place filled with people full of hope, trust, and expectancy in Messiah Jesus.   Taught by Caleb SprinklePassage: Mark 5:21-43

Have you ever wondered why Jesus spoke in parables? So did his disciples. As a master artist, Jesus was not concerned about communicative clarity; he wanted to be known. He wanted people to dig deep and follow Him. In Mark 4, Jesus gives the parable of the four soils, which is less about "who's in; who's out", and more an invitation to how will we respond to Jesus' words and life? With cold indifference? Or as an apprentice, who is willing to let the gardner do His work of pruning in us?

What do the Scriptures really say about Satan, demons, and spiritual evil? Taught by Caleb SprinkleTexts: Mark 3:12-15 & 20-35; 5:1-20