The New Friend We Can’t Stop Smiling About Part One

Learn more about Operation Christmas Child here.Save 25% off an annual subscription to Dwell here.Our Highest Good is available for purchase here.AccessMore presents Wonder. Live with Lisa Harper. Find out more here.Discover the way ahead at Indiana Wesleyan University. Learn more here. Find your nearest Operation Christmas Child drop off location here. Click here to get a 25% discount on the Dwell Bible App. Today’s conversation on Back Porch Theology was actually recorded in Montana with my dear, dear friends, who are actually more like siblings now, Pastor Levi and Jennie Lusko. We’ve been friends for a while now, but after doing a Christmas tour on a bus last year with our kiddos, we morphed into kind of a blended family and began calling ourselves the Huskos! When you spend weeks together in the equivalent of an extended RV and have to make restroom stops at rural gas stations in the middle of the night in the middle of nowhere, you bond for life, baby! I laughed so hard while we were on the road together, I kept getting stomach cramps. Which of course I hoped would give me a six-pack, alas all our late-night snacks at Buccee’s had a greater effect on my abdomen. Of course, interwoven with all our fun and laughter, Jennie and Levi and I shared some tears, too. Because we’ve all suffered some devastating losses. Real life – and real relationships – include joy and pain. Heartwarming moments and heartbreaking seasons. I know authenticity and Christianity aren’t always synergistic in modern culture, but they sure should be. I think today’s conversation is going to feel like an old pair of Uggs, warm and comfortable. So please grab a cup of coffee or hot chocolate or hot tea, and your Bible, and come hang out on the porch with us. I promise, you’ll fit right in with our slightly whacked, very messy, ride or die family of faith.

Learn more about Operation Christmas Child here.Save 25% off an annual subscription to Dwell here.Our Highest Good is available for purchase here.AccessMore presents Wonder. Live with Lisa Harper. Find out more here.Discover the way ahead at Indiana Wesleyan University. Learn more here. Find your nearest Operation Christmas Child drop off location here. Click here to get a 25% discount on the Dwell Bible App. During today’s conversation on Back Porch Theology Alli and I have the pure joy of asking Dr. Howard – whose PhD is rooted in the New Testament so he’s a smarty-McTarty when it comes to Pauline theology - all kinds of questions about the more complex points and passages the book of Romans. Questions like, How can we reconcile Paul’s doctrine of justification by faith in Romans 3-4 with his view on the Law and good works in chapters 2 and 7? How does Paul’s concept of predestination and election in chapter 8 align with the broader themes of free will and human responsibility in this epistle? How can we explain – better yet model - Paul’s teaching that hope won’t disappoint with our friends, family, co-workers and neighbors who’ve all but lost theirs because of tragedy, hardship, loss, or abuse? And How can we hang onto the joy Paul preaches about while simultaneously leaning into the suffering he frames as part of our faith? One of the things we love most about Dr. Howard is that he delights in making profound theological concepts understandable to people who don’t have a bunch of academic degrees like him and he does that with contagious joy today. So please grab your favorite beverage, a yummy snack and your Bible – unless of course you’re practicing a routine with flaming batons – and come hang out on the porch with us. We’re really glad you’re here! 

Learn more about Operation Christmas Child here.Save 25% off an annual subscription to Dwell here.Our Highest Good is available for purchase here.AccessMore presents Wonder. Live with Lisa Harper. Find out more here.Discover the way ahead at Indiana Wesleyan University. Learn more here. Find your nearest Operation Christmas Child drop off location here. Click here to get a 25% discount on the Dwell Bible App. On today's special episode of Back Porch Theology, I'm hanging out with my dear friend Christine Caine. You'll love listening to her because she has this Australian accent. I always tease her and say she could read the phone book and I'd rededicate my life to Christ. But Chris and I are focusing on Advent, the marvel and the miracle of Advent.You know, for more than a thousand years, Advent has been this really special time that's been set apart in the church calendar, which invites us to pause, to prepare, and to anticipate the arrival of our long awaited Messiah, King Jesus. The season of Advent gives us the time and the opportunity to, to prayerfully reflect on the wonder of Christ's glorious entrance into the world. It's a call to attentiveness. It's an opportunity to prepare the way for the Lord that begins in our own hearts. It's this time when the air around us almost feels thick with the expectation of the dawn of a new day. So I think you're going to love today's podcast. I think it'll help get your heart.

Learn more about Operation Christmas Child here.Save 25% off an annual subscription to Dwell here.Our Highest Good is available for purchase here.AccessMore presents Wonder. Live with Lisa Harper. Find out more here.Discover the way ahead at Indiana Wesleyan University. Learn more here. Find your nearest Operation Christmas Child drop off location here. Click here to get a 25% discount on the Dwell Bible App. During today’s conversation on Back Porch Theology we’re having the biblical equivalent of Nathan’s Famous Hot Dog Eating Contest that takes place on Coney Island every July Fourth. Because while we won’t be trying to gobble 62 hot dogs and buns in 10 minutes like world champion Joey Chestnut did last summer, we are going to attempt to digest some of the major doctrinal themes found in the book of Romans in one single podcast! Speaking of Christian doctrine, Martin Luther - widely known as one of the key leaders of the Protestant Reformation in the 1500s – was a dutiful priest who almost drove himself crazy trying to live a life holy enough to please God. He spent hours in prayer every day, he fasted for so long and so often that it caused severe intestinal problems, and he even practiced self-harm, thinking that the discomfort and pain that resulted from intentionally wounding himself was a necessary penance for his sin. It wasn’t until he taught on the book of Romans that the Holy Spirit opened his eyes to divine grace – to the unmerited favor of Jesus Christ – and that’s what dramatically changed his personal life and gave rise to the Protestant church. Luther described Romans as, “The gate to paradise” because it’s what led him from practicing rote religion to experiencing a real relationship with our Creator Redeemer. We hope today’s conversation opens the gate for some of you to walk into a much closer relationship with Jesus, too. So please grab your favorite beverage a snack and a Bible – if you have one – and come prop your feet up on the porch with us.

Learn more about Operation Christmas Child here.Save 25% off an annual subscription to Dwell here.Our Highest Good is available for purchase here.AccessMore presents Wonder. Live with Lisa Harper. Find out more here.Discover the way ahead at Indiana Wesleyan University. Learn more here. Find your nearest Operation Christmas Child drop off location here. Click here to get a 25% discount on the Dwell Bible App. During today’s conversation on Back Porch Theology we’re getting granular about the divine, salvific grace Paul riffs on early in his letter to the Romans. We’re going to take a long pause in our collective amble down the Romans Road so as to marinate in the concept of justification. We’re going to do an in-depth review of how the sinless life and sacrificial death of Jesus Christ made it possible for rebellious, sin-riddled yahoos like us to be reconciled with a perfectly righteous God. Because all too often we church folk tend to volley multi-syllabic theological terms like “justification” and “sanctification” and “propitiation” amongst ourselves like innocuous doctrinal pickle balls without giving too much thought to the grief and gravitas they represent. In much the same way we blithely wear crosses as mere jewelry or prominently display it in the form of a hip tattoo, forgetting what that Roman torture device – equivalent to a medieval guillotine or modern-day electric chair, which I can’t imagine someone wearing as a fashion statement – represents…that the King of all kings chose to leave His throne in glory, condescend to human form and humble circumstances, only to be betrayed and abandoned by His closest friends and ultimately have stakes hammered into His feet and wrists so He could be suspended in the air like a human shish-kabob while a cruel mob jeered His torture and subsequent murder because Jesus knew His blood was the necessary price that had to be paid in order to justify – to make us right – with God. We’re not going to skip past the hard facts of what He sacrificed for our redemption today y’all because quite honestly doing so mitigates the miracle of our salvation. So please grab a great big mug of strong coffee and your Bible – unless of course you’re in the hot-wax stage of a manicure – and come ponder the audacious kindness of King Jesus on the porch with Alli, Dr. Howard and me.

Learn more about Operation Christmas Child here.Save 25% off an annual subscription to Dwell here.Our Highest Good is available for purchase here.AccessMore presents Wonder. Live with Lisa Harper. Find out more here.Discover the way ahead at Indiana Wesleyan University. Learn more here. Find your nearest Operation Christmas Child drop off location here. Click here to get a 25% discount on the Dwell Bible App. During today’s conversation on Back Porch Theology we’re going to mess with your beautiful minds just a wee bit by flipping to the end of the book of Romans before reading the beginning. But we’re not just messing with y’all to exasperate you like my nephew John Michael loves to do when he teases Missy. I promise there’s a redemptive method to our madness! We’re going to read Romans in reverse because if you don’t understand what Paul’s preaching toward the end of this theologically dense epistle, then the beginning and middle of the letter lose some of their doctrinal oomph. Dr. Scot McKnight, who’s a renowned New Testament scholar, seminary professor, prolific author and who purely by the amazing grace of God has become a Kerygma regular and a friend to Alli, Dr. Howard and me says this about reading Romans in reverse: One quick read of Romans 14-16 reveals the pastoral context of this letter, and no reading of Romans 1-11 that ignores 14-16 will catch the Pauline drift of why he is writing. In other words, our tendency to crush out on chapters 4-8 of Romans – what with all of its low-hanging theological fruit – while ignoring the latter part of Paul’s preeminent epistle is akin to eating the entire basket of tortilla chips before the hot queso gets to the table and then having nothing to dunk in that glorious goo…we’re missing out on the best part! So please grab your favorite beverage and your Bible – unless of course, you’ve got both hands halfway up a gourd in an attempt to DYI Fall centerpieces for your niece’s low budget wedding – and come hang out on the porch with Alli, Dr. Howard and me. We’re as happy as three hungry mice trapped in a cheese factory that we get to hang out with you today. And I apologize for the multiple cheese references but once I hear the word queso my dairy obsession tends to take over!

Learn more about Operation Christmas Child here.Save 25% off an annual subscription to Dwell here.Our Highest Good is available for purchase here.AccessMore presents Wonder. Live with Lisa Harper. Find out more here.Discover the way ahead at Indiana Wesleyan University. Learn more here. Find your nearest Operation Christmas Child drop off location here. Click here to get a 25% discount on the Dwell Bible App. Apostle Paul’s letter to the fledgling Christian church in Rome - which he wrote during the second half of the First Century - has often been hailed as the hub of Christian theology because in it he establishes the foundational walls of biblical orthodoxy. In fact, all you have to do is read the statement of faith listed on a few of your favorite Christian church or ministry websites to discover that the majority of our doctrinal beliefs as Christ followers have been mined from this New Testament treasure trove called the Book of Romans. However, Romans is broader and more nuanced than just a brilliant treatise on humanity’s need for salvation and justification, so we’re kicking off this rollicking adventure through Romans by pulling up on the proverbial nose of the plane for a 30,000-foot view to better understand the historical and sociological context of this profound epistle. So please grab a pumpkin cream cold brew – is it just me, or are coffee shops pulling out the pumpkin drinks earlier now? If memory serves me correctly, those fancy pumpkin flavored coffees didn’t use to debut until September so the whole gourd theme made sense in light of the Fall season, but now they start advertising pumpkin-juiced-java-lattes in July when the back of my thighs are still sticking to my hot car seat and my hair looks like Beetlejuice because of the humidity and it just feels wrong. If we’ve got any Back Porchers who are big dogs in the coffee industry, will you please tell the powers that be to push the pumpkin campaign back a few weeks, y’all – at least until projectile perspiration season is over? Well anyway, regardless of whether it’s squash infused or not, please grab your favorite cuppa Joe or tea, your Bible and a notebook because our excursion through Romans for the next several weeks is going to be chock full of so much good stuff it’ll be hard to hang onto without jotting a few notes! Then pull up your chair and join Alli, Dr. Howard and me on the porch – I can’t overstate how glad we...

Learn more about Operation Christmas Child here.Save 25% off an annual subscription to Dwell here.Our Highest Good is available for purchase here.AccessMore presents Wonder. Live with Lisa Harper. Find out more here.Discover the way ahead at Indiana Wesleyan University. Learn more here. Find your nearest Operation Christmas Child drop off location here. Click here to get a 25% discount on the Dwell Bible App. Today’s conversation on Back Porch Theology is part travelogue, part exegesis, part confessional, and part pinky swear because while we were visiting Ephesus on our trip tracing the missionary journeys of Apostle Paul this summer, I couldn’t help thinking about the Ephesians’ sad, downward spiritual trajectory recorded by John in Revelation chapter two when he describes those early Christians as “doing all the right things outwardly yet losing their first love.” Theologian A.W. Tozer said it well, albeit soberly, when he observed, “For millions of Christians, God is no more real than He is to non-Christians. They go through life trying to love an ideal and be loyal to a mere principle.” As our tour group walked along the rocky paths of those ancient ruins where Paul once preached and Timothy planted a church and John discipled new believers while keeping Mary, the mother of Jesus, company in her latter years, we found ourselves pondering what went wrong. What caused that group of once devoted Christ followers to lose their zeal and exchange a vibrant personal relationship with Jesus for rote religiosity? In much the same way a physical autopsy allows physicians and scientists to gain invaluable data that can lead to new, life-saving medicines and procedures, a spiritual post-mortem exam of how the church at Ephesus lost their first love can provide invaluable data for those of us who are committed to keep our love relationship with Jesus healthy and intimate. There will inevitably be both difficult and dry seasons on the Christian journey, but goodness gracious, I never want to be rightly accused as someone whose love for Jesus has faded and I’m sure you don’t either. So please grab your favorite beverage and a sharable snack – unless of course it’s kale chips, which I will happily abstain from – and pull your chair up on the porch with Alli, Dr. Howard, and me. Today’s going to be a good one, y’all.

Learn more about Operation Christmas Child here.Save 25% off an annual subscription to Dwell here.Our Highest Good is available for purchase here.AccessMore presents Wonder. Live with Lisa Harper. Find out more here.Discover the way ahead at Indiana Wesleyan University. Learn more here. Find your nearest Operation Christmas Child drop off location here. Click here to get a 25% discount on the Dwell Bible App. During today’s conversation on Back Porch Theology Alli and I are delving into a facet of Christoformity – that is being shaped like Jesus – which doesn’t come naturally to either one of us and that is the art of waiting. Now if your wiring tends to be more high-speed like ours and you’re prone to cram a week’s worth of work on your daily to-do lists, please don’t skip out on this episode because not only can I promise it’s going to be a shame-free zone, I can also promise this conversation is jam-packed with encouragement and practical theology about pacing because the biblical context of waiting rarely refers to a complete cessation of activity. In other words, when God’s people waited in biblical narrative it wasn’t remotely stagnant or boring. In fact, both the Old Testament canon and the New Testament canon align the concept of waiting on God with the active posture of expectant hope. There’s a huge difference between spiritual stillness and a lethargic lifestyle, y’all! For Christ-followers waiting is less about drumming our fingers with impatience while we wait on someone who’s running late and more about our souls sighing with contentment and trust as we wait for our Creator Redeemer whose timing may not always match our expectations yet is always perfect! Increasing our capacity to wait on God is congruent with an increased confidence that He's always in the process of redeeming our inherent dignity as imago Dei; He’s always in the process of mitigating the evil that wounds and corrupts humanity; and He’s always in the process of decreasing the gap between the here and now and the Second Advent of Jesus Christ. So please grab a cup of decaf and your Bible, push any mental distractions to the edge of your mind, then take a seat on the porch next to us, prop your feet up and exhale – I have a feeling Holy Spirit’s going to take a load off lots of us today.

Learn more about Operation Christmas Child here.Save 25% off an annual subscription to Dwell here.Our Highest Good is available for purchase here.AccessMore presents Wonder. Live with Lisa Harper. Find out more here.Discover the way ahead at Indiana Wesleyan University. Learn more here. Find your nearest Operation Christmas Child drop off location here. Click here to get a 25% discount on the Dwell Bible App. Today’s conversation on Back Porch Theology is a vulnerable one y’all because we’re tiptoeing into the theology of tears. Crying used to make me uncomfortable. There was so much anger and chaos and sadness in my early childhood before my parents divorced that I subconsciously began using my blanket as a mini cape and tried to be Little Miss Sunshine. The way I figured it, my poor Mom and Dad already had their hands full of so much hard stuff they needed a daughter who was a self-sufficient smiler, not some needy crybaby. I was well into adulthood before I finally understood that my childish conviction that sad equals bad was way off base. Because sincere tears are God’s gift to express emotion where words fail. Those tiny rivers of salt coursing down our cheeks can help wash the debris of spent sorrow from our weary souls. They can even carry big balloon bouquets of sheer joy. And biblical narrative is quite literally soaked with tears. Ruth wept after her husband died and at the idea of being separated from her mother-in-law Naomi, Hannah wept because she was brokenhearted over her infertility, of course Job cried out to God over the death of his children and employees, along with the catastrophic loss of his health and wealth, Jeremiah wept so often over how the Israelites had forsaken the unconditional love of God and were foolishly looking for love in all the wrong places that he became known as the “weeping prophet,” the Psalmists were nothing if not emotionally vulnerable and the Sons of Korah – who were ancient worship leaders – even exclaimed that tears had become their food, Peter wept bitterly when he realized Jesus was right the night before when He soberly declared Pete would betray Him three times before the rooster crowed the following morning, an unnamed woman in the Gospels was so overwhelmed by the kindness and accessibility of Jesus that she washed His feet with her tears, and our Savior himself shed tears during His earthly life and ministry. One of my favorite writers Charlotte...