Episode 766
How Radical Love Transforms Our Lives and Society | Ep 766
Welcome good people to the "Daily Bible Refresh," hosted by Rev. Dr. Brad Miller. In this enlightening episode titled "Main Mic," we delve into the wisdom of 1 Corinthians 1:18-31, as rendered in The Message version of the Bible. Centered around the Epiphany season, this episode offers deep insights into the transformational teachings of Apostle Paul, especially as they pertain to upending conventional wisdom and challenging systemic injustices.
Three Key Takeaways
- The Radical Nature of Love: The episode highlights Apostle Paul’s perspective on the cross as a symbol of divine solidarity rather than divine violence. Dr. Brad underscores how this radical form of love seems foolish by conventional standards but has the transformative power to challenge and change the world. In a society driven by profit margins and power politics, choosing radical love and solidarity with those marginalized appears absurd, yet it embodies the true essence of Christ’s teachings.
- Challenging Power Structures: Dr. Brad unpacks how Paul's scripture critiques systems of privilege and power. Paul emphasizes that God chooses those whom society overlooks and exploits, which relates closely to the concepts found in liberation theology. The passage serves as a wake-up call for listeners to reflect on our own complicity in perpetuating social hierarchies. It urges us to take proactive steps in working towards dismantling these inequitable systems, thereby creating a more just and inclusive society.
- Redefining Wisdom: This takeaway challenges the societal norms of what constitutes wisdom. Modern society often equates wisdom with actions and behaviors that perpetuate inequality and injustice. Divine wisdom, as highlighted by Paul and explicated by Dr. Brad, turns this on its head. True wisdom is seen in fostering community over competition, cooperation over domination, and ensuring sufficiency for all rather than excess for a few. Listeners are urged to contemplate whose wisdom they follow and what core values guide their life choices.
Action Steps and Prayer
Beyond engaging with these profound takeaways, Dr. Brad encourages listeners to take concrete action by identifying aspects of conventional wisdom in their own lives that may perpetuate harm or inequality. This could range from promptings on how we spend money to more significant reforms in workplace ethics and community relations. He concludes with a heartfelt prayer, seeking divine guidance to embrace radical love, challenge harmful systems, and foster justice.
Resources
Dr. Brad also offers a practical resource to aid listeners in their spiritual journey—the "ABC 123 Bible Study Guide." Designed to make Bible study accessible and applicable, this resource is available for free at voiceofgoddaily.com.
Tune in tomorrow for another episode of Daily Bible Refresh, where Rev. Dr. Brad Miller continues to make the Bible personal and applicable to your life.
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The "Daily Bible Refresh" is presented each day by Rev. Dr. Brad Miller who has a goal of speaking a bit of the bible into two million ears (one million people) in three years (2025-2028).
He is the author of "The A, B, C-1,2,3 Bible Study Guide" Free to you by clicking HERE.
Brad served as a local church pastor for forty years and has a background in radio and podcasting. Moreover, he is a life-long student of The Bible.
He believes in the words of Jesus that “scripture is fulfilled in your hearing” (Luke 4:21)
The "Daily Bible Refresh" is available seven days a week by 6:00 am ET. The episodes are no longer than ten minutes long and are...
- Understandable: A reading from the New Testament (usually the Gospel) selected from the Revised Common Lectionary using "The Message" translation.
- Relatable: You will have a couple of "points to ponder" from the text which will relate to your life
- Applicable: Every episode includes a way you can take action based on the reading
- A recommended resource to help you go deeper in biblical study and spiritual direction.
- A prayer for your day.
A companion resource to the Voice of God Daily Podcast is the “ABC Bible Study Guide” available by clicking HERE.
The "Daily Bible Refresh" is available every day at VoiceofGodDaily.com on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and all major podcast directories.
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Remember… “All scripture is God-breathed and useful”(2 Timothy 3:16)
Transcript
Hello, good people, and welcome to daily
Speaker:bible refresh brought to you by voice of
Speaker:god daily dot com. I am doctor Brad Miller here
Speaker:to provide you a fresh expression of a daily
Speaker:reading of the bible. We read
Speaker:from we use the revised common lectionary year
Speaker:c. And right now the particular lesson for this particular
Speaker:day is from the epiphany season. That's the season when the wise
Speaker:men came to see the baby Jesus. It's the season of the illumination
Speaker:of of the star. We like to make the scriptures to be
Speaker:understandable. We read it from the new testament the the new testament
Speaker:lesson only from the message version of the bible. Relatable in
Speaker:as much as we offer a few points to ponder to think about
Speaker:regarding the scripture, and applicable, we give you an action
Speaker:point. We have a prayer, and then we do all this in
Speaker:10 minutes or less. Our reading for the day is from
Speaker:1st Corinthians 1 18 through 31,
Speaker:reading from the message. The message that points to Christ on the
Speaker:cross seems like sheer silliness
Speaker:to those hell bent on destruction. But for those on the way
Speaker:to salvation, it makes perfect sense. This is the way
Speaker:God works and the most powerful way as it turns out. It's
Speaker:written. I'll turn conventional wisdom on its head.
Speaker:I'll expose so called experts as shams.
Speaker:So where can you find someone truly wise, truly
Speaker:educated, truly intelligent in this day and age?
Speaker:Hasn't god exposed at all as pretentious nonsense?
Speaker:Since the world and all its fancy wisdom never had a clue when it
Speaker:came to knowing God, God in his wisdom took delight
Speaker:in using what the world considered stupid, preaching
Speaker:of all things, to bring those who trusted him into
Speaker:the way of salvation. While Jews clamor for
Speaker:miraculous demonstrations and Greeks go on on
Speaker:go on for philosophical wisdom, we go right on
Speaker:proclaiming Christ, the crucified. Jews treat
Speaker:this like an anti miracle and Greeks pass it off as
Speaker:absurd. But to us who are personally called by God
Speaker:himself, both Jews and Greeks, Christ
Speaker:is God's ultimate miracle and wisdom all wrapped up in one.
Speaker:Human wisdom is so cheap, so impotent, next to the
Speaker:seemingly absurdity of God. Human strength can't
Speaker:begin to compete with God's weakness. Take a
Speaker:good look, my friends, at who you were when you got called
Speaker:into this life. I don't see many of the brightest and
Speaker:the best among you, not many influential, not many from high
Speaker:society families. Isn't it obvious that God
Speaker:deliberately chose men and women that the culture
Speaker:overlooks and exploits and abuses?
Speaker:Chose these nobodies to expose the hollow
Speaker:pretentiousness of the somebodies. That is
Speaker:quite, that makes it quite clear that none of you can
Speaker:get by with blowing your own horn before god. Everything
Speaker:that we have, right thinking and right living,
Speaker:a clean slate and a fresh start comes
Speaker:from God by way of Jesus Christ. That's why we have
Speaker:the saying, if you're going to blow a horn, blow a trumpet for
Speaker:God. Great passage of scripture.
Speaker:Love this one. It's really about and kind of upending
Speaker:the conventional wisdom of the day when, when Paul wrote
Speaker:this to the Corinthian church, and really it kind
Speaker:of go it it it speaks about and
Speaker:challenges our assumptions about power and wisdom and what really
Speaker:matters in a spiritual journey. Let me give you a couple of
Speaker:points to ponder. One of these is the radical nature of
Speaker:love. Paul's discussion of the cross
Speaker:as foolishness speaks a profound truth.
Speaker:Now love often doesn't make sense by kind of a conventional
Speaker:standard. In our world of profit margins,
Speaker:power politics, choosing radical love and
Speaker:solidarity with marginalized people
Speaker:seems foolish. Yet this foolishness has
Speaker:the power to transform the world, and the cross
Speaker:represents not divine violence, but
Speaker:divine solidarity with everyone who suffers
Speaker:under any form of oppression. Another point.
Speaker:There's a challenge here to the power structures. This
Speaker:passage powerfully critiques systems
Speaker:of privilege and power. Paul speaks of God choosing
Speaker:those who the culture overlooks and exploits.
Speaker:And really what he's doing here is highlighting an aspect of what
Speaker:we sometimes call liberation theology. That is god's
Speaker:preferential option for the marginalized. And this challenges
Speaker:us to examine what we might be what that that we might somehow be
Speaker:complicit in systems that create somebodies over
Speaker:nobodies. And and it calls us really to
Speaker:work towards dismantling hierarchies.
Speaker:One more point, and that is about redefining what wisdom is.
Speaker:What our society often considers wise often
Speaker:perpetuates inequality and injustice. Divine
Speaker:wisdom, however, turns this on its head. True
Speaker:wisdom looks like looks like
Speaker:true, more about choosing community over competition,
Speaker:cooperation over domination, and enough
Speaker:for everyone over excess for a few.
Speaker:And I believe this passage invites us to question whose
Speaker:wisdom we're following and what values truly guide
Speaker:our choices. Here's your action step for the day.
Speaker:Choose or think about or identify at least one way that conventional
Speaker:wisdom in your life might be perpetuating harm
Speaker:or inequality. Maybe it's how you spend your money.
Speaker:Maybe it's what you do at work or at school or with
Speaker:your family or in your community relationships. Choose
Speaker:one concrete action to align more
Speaker:closely with the divine wisdom. This might
Speaker:may mean having a difficult conversation at the workplace
Speaker:about pay equity, gender for pay equity,
Speaker:or or any number of issues that may be going on at the workplace.
Speaker:Or examine your own spending habits or consumption consumption habits
Speaker:or or actively speaking for speaking
Speaker:up for those who are marginalized by society.
Speaker:Be a voice for the voiceless in your community.
Speaker:We're gonna pray in just a minute, but I wanted did wanna let you know
Speaker:about a resource that we have for you. I put this together a
Speaker:couple years ago, and I wanna just give it to you. It's called the ABC
Speaker:123 Bible study guide. And it's really
Speaker:designed to make bible study, reading your bible, and applying it to your life
Speaker:as easy as a b c 123.
Speaker:You can find it at voice of god daily.com. It's there in the
Speaker:show notes, and it's free to you. Please make use of
Speaker:it. Let's pray together. Source of love
Speaker:and justice, we confess we often get caught up in the world's
Speaker:definitions of success and wisdom. Help us to see with new
Speaker:eyes, recognize the sacred worth of those in our whom
Speaker:our society often overlooks, and to find the courage
Speaker:to be foolish again, to love radically and act justly.
Speaker:Give us strength to challenge the systems that harm, wisdom to
Speaker:see beyond conventional thinking, and hearts big enough to embrace
Speaker:all your children, and may we become instruments of your
Speaker:upside down kingdom For the last are first
Speaker:and all are valued in the spirit of
Speaker:revolutionary love. Amen.
Speaker:Well, my name is doctor Brad Miller. It's been a pleasure to be with you
Speaker:here on the daily Bible Refresh,
Speaker:the place where we look to make the Bible applicable
Speaker:and personal to your life. I'll be with you again tomorrow
Speaker:morning. Remember, until then that God's love doesn't run
Speaker:out. His merciful love hasn't dried
Speaker:up. It's created new every morning.
