Five errors to drop from your Easter sermon
- Is Golgotha the same mountain where Abraham was to sacrifice Isaac?
A host reads a listicle of 'five errors to drop from your Easter sermon' and the group mocks most of the entries: not saying Jesus was 33, not explaining the apparent absence of a lamb at the Last Supper solely by calling Jesus the ultimate Passover lamb, and not over-focusing on suffering. A listener-style question prompts a real discussion: is Golgotha the same mountain where Abraham was to sacrifice Isaac? The hosts land on 'the Lord will provide' as the mountain's given name, remain unsure of the geography, and joke that Isaac would never trust a camping trip again. A longer exchange debates whether Good Friday services that manufacture gravitas become theater that misses Jesus versus genuinely sitting in what he endured.
More on Suffering
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Midlife-crisis faith questions: when suffering gets close to home
- Which of God's promises can I count on as mine when people are free to refuse them?
The hosts name the first cluster of midlife-crisis faith questions: when the broken world's weight lands close to home, believers ask whether God is really good even when they cannot see it.
From No. 556 · A Christian Mid-Life Crisis
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Suffering, character, and the weed-whacking analogy
- Is suffering and going through hard things worth the good that comes out of it?
The host engages Emma's core doubt: is suffering worth the good that comes out of it? God isn't buying perseverance by hurting people — human suffering is reality, and he can use it for good; it's more call to repentance than punitive lesson.
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Why people ditch God
- Why do people ditch God?
Reading a Christian Post article by Robin P. Shoemaker, the hosts work through three reasons people leave faith: bad events that wreck a life, bad representatives of the faith, and bad morals that collide with sexual freedom.
From No. 505 · Because of Fussy and Fuzzy
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Temptation four: avoiding suffering and failure — "Dan, let me ask you directly"
- Are you tempted to avoid suffering and failure?
Ben reads the article's fourth temptation — avoiding suffering and failure — and asks Dan directly whether he's tempted by it. Dan and Mike both say no.
From No. 429 · Following the American Jesus