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 metaphor for the chaos of the world and the power of God. From this we draw the bottom line: the true message of Revelation, written by John of Patmos, based on visions of his from his years of exile on that rocky island.

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 promised by the prophets. We consider the classic passage in Micah that predicts a savior born in Bethlehem. We look at the aspects of this prophesy that some say were used to tailor the story of Jesus' birth. We consider the issue of faith, of believing in Jesus, and how questions like this should impact us.

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 we could, as people of faith, come together as true community. We consider the view that as Christians, we are collectively, like Jesus, the Temple. We look at modern technology, which could be used to create an Internet Temple.

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 issue not of dying, not of going to Heaven, but of the final End Times, what will happen - how this should change our behavior and our mindset right now on Earth.

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 particular at a passage referenced in Acts that says that all people will one day be able to accept God. This serves as a critical motivational factor for Acts: to fulfill an ancient prophecy. We consider the larger issue of who can believe, what it means to believe, and if there are alternative ways to "believe".

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 are supposed to give, the gift that does not involve personal assets. We also consider what it means to lose a loved one who is very elderly.

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 invasion is such a major cornerstone in the history of the Israelites. We consider its use as a metaphor in both the Old and New Testaments. We consider today - and how we should react to betrayal and loss.

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, how to measure Grace. We see that this last issue has a lot to do with the butter in those sandwiches.