Unpacking Truths
Dive deep into God's word and unpack divine truths for today's life journey. In a world where everyone is seeking, join us as we guide you to find hope and power in God's timeless wisdom. If our discussions spark questions or ideas, reach out to us at UnpackingTruths@LOCChurch.com. Don't forget to Like, Share, and Subscribe, allowing us to continue helping people unpack God's truth for their lives! Hosted by Pastor Kendall Koenig and Pastor Maureen O'Connor of Light of Christ Church in Algonquin, IL.
Unpacking Truths
Scripture's Transformative Power: Our Favorite Bible Verses
Ever felt the burden of pride or struggled to control a sharp tongue? You're not alone. Join Pastor Kendall and me, Pastor Mo, as we share personal tales of scripture's profound influence on our lives. Kendall reflects on his upbringing in a Lutheran community, where humility and responsibility were deeply woven into his fabric, thanks to teachings from Proverbs and Luke. Meanwhile, my journey through the teachings of Psalm 141:3 and James 1:19 sheds light on how scripture can be a guiding force in taming one's speech and temper.
Together, we explore the transformative power of biblical metaphors, focusing on the tender imagery from Isaiah that redefines our understanding of God as a comforting parent and partner. We challenge traditional notions with Isaiah 56's evolving perspective on inclusivity, offering a more open stance on love and acceptance. Our conversation aims to showcase the scriptures as living, dynamic texts that comfort, challenge, and ultimately reshape our perception of love, belonging, and faith. So grab your coffee, open your hearts, and join us as we unpack these timeless truths.
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So we want to thank you for joining us, those who are listening and those who are watching us. Pastor Kendall and I are going to be diving deep today into scriptures that have been life transformative for us on a personal level, and so we know that the Bible is moving and breathing and worked in our lives in some pretty incredible ways, and so we're excited to share these stories with you today.
Speaker 2:I'm Pastor Kendall and I'm Pastor. Mo. Welcome to Unpacking Truths, where we dive deep into God's timeless truths for our lives today.
Speaker 1:Grab your coffee. Open your hearts and your minds. Come take this journey with us, as we unpack God's truths. Kendall, why don't you kick us off?
Speaker 2:You know, mo, as we were talking about this, we were talking a little bit about how we grew up with Scripture, and so I want to start there that for me, I really grew up in an experience where I was cocooned, I like to say, within the church. I grew up where my dad was a Lutheran school teacher and then principal, and we attended that church. So I went to a Lutheran grade school, both on my parents' side. Their families were all very active in the church. So I really grew up cocooned within a Christian community, and so scripture was just always around, and didn't you go?
Speaker 1:to a Christian high school too. Oh yeah, I, and didn't you go to like a Christian high school too? Oh yeah, I went to a Lutheran grade school, lutheran high school, lutheran college Lutheran seminary straight through.
Speaker 2:So I like to say if anyone was brainwashed in Lutheranism it was me.
Speaker 1:Him and Martin Luther are like this tight.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, really, we were buds, but part of what that did, though, is I mean people, some people who have had that experience really felt repressed by it, or oppressed by it, or like, oh, I had to, I didn't experience it like that, it felt like put upon them.
Speaker 2:No, yeah, mine felt. It felt a wonderful, safe place. It was a place that encouraged me to grow and develop. So there was a sense that when I was exposed to scripture, I radiated towards it, I was drawn to it because it felt life-giving. It seemed to be the foundation that all the people around me were living their lives, and their lives looked pretty good to me. So it made sense. So I want to share just two that well, share one. I'll start with one that I heard my grandpa say a lot. Okay, a verse from Proverbs, and I heard my grandpa say it a lot. His favorite verse was pride goes before the fall. And my mom would like to say that my grandpa was proud of his humility, but he was one who was like well, you don't put yourself.
Speaker 1:There's irony in that. There's huge irony in that. Huge irony in that. Let me boast about how humble I am, yeah.
Speaker 2:But for me that was a scripture that, as I saw him live his life, I saw in my family that shaped me and that it was like you didn't put yourself forward and say, well, I'm the best, because when you started doing that sort of that bravado, that showmanship, well, you're bound to go falling off, you're bound to have a mistake.
Speaker 1:So you're like did you think about it, though, as in your teen years? Like I might boast. I should boast. Right now I want to boast, but I'm too nervous I might fall afterwards. You know, I think it was by that point it was just in my bones You're competitive, oh, I'm very competitive, absolutely. I can see you being like yeah, right there, take it, oh Doyle's rule, like one of those things. Yeah.
Speaker 2:No, for me it was like, yeah, you push so hard to win, but then you didn't.
Speaker 1:You didn't but then you like go over and you did a great job Exactly.
Speaker 2:Exactly. Yeah, that's exactly what it was, because you don't want to get puffed up, because that won't that'll mess you up You're, you're setting yourself up for failure. So so that was one that it wasn't sort of life-changing down the road, but it was very life-shaping early on.
Speaker 1:Okay, that's cool. What was another one?
Speaker 2:You said you had two. Yeah, the other one is one that I heard my mom quote a lot and I actually thought it was in a different place. Scripture, but the one my mom Luke 12, 48, from everyone to whom much has been given, much will be required. To whom much is given, much is required. And that was very much, in some ways, a scripture that shaped myself, my brother, my sister, our family's life. That my mom would just say, hey, god's given you a lot, make something of it. So there was this huge sense of expectations to not just take stuff for granted, not to take it easy, that you pushed hard, you worked hard, you studied hard, because God has given you these reasons. God's given you a good family, so push forward with that. God has given you a good mind, so be good. In school there was always this sense of to whom much is given, much is expected. So it probably was some of the old school Protestant work ethic sort of thing, but it was also just—.
Speaker 1:And did she then give you your list of chores after she told you that Probably that may have been the lead into that.
Speaker 2:It might have been. She may have played that card once or twice, but it really just set for my siblings and I, I think this high standard that we're called to do the best with what we have. But also but it also wasn't just about us because we also saw in our parents' lives of service to others. So there was this sense if you've been given a lot, you also need to make an impact in the world.
Speaker 1:So you felt this sense of accountability that you had to live out of.
Speaker 2:Yes, yeah.
Speaker 1:I've been blessed, and now how do I use that to bless?
Speaker 2:others yeah.
Speaker 1:Okay, cool. So what about you? What's?
Speaker 2:a scripture too, that it shaped you or changed you.
Speaker 1:Yeah well, there's lots, but you know, pastor Kendall and I kind of talked about the difference between him being cocooned right in this whole Lutheran Christian upbringing and you know I was Episcopalian Irish Catholic right A lot of my family mostly Irish Catholic, so we were kind of Christers for the most part, like we went on Christmas and Easter and funerals and weddings.
Speaker 2:There you go, all the essentials.
Speaker 1:Yes, but growing up I did go to a Lutheran school because the Catholic kids looked sad. They looked more sad than the Lutheran ones. So off to the Lutheran school I went, and they actually sent me there, just because in the public school there were 30 young boys and two girls. Oh boy.
Speaker 1:So, they were like, and off to the parochial school you go, and so yeah, so I remember, you know, thinking that God was there and yet not really looking at Scripture like it was anything that was powerful or impactful. And maybe that was because my upbringing in the Lutheran school was Missouri Synod nothing against Missouri Synod, but there is a place and a space for women, and I remember that really being pushed along with some other things that I didn't agree with when I was younger and didn't make sense with, hey, this is who God is.
Speaker 1:And then so it just didn't make sense. They could never answer the questions the way I thought they should be. That felt right. So it wasn't until later in life that I really started trusting scripture, reading it, kind of challenging God with it and using it to better myself. Like God, if you are who you say you are, and this word is real and it moves and breathes like let's do it, let's see, show me right.
Speaker 1:And so it was almost that kind of approach and I have been. I don't know if it's gifted and or just I have a very sharp tongue right and it's. You've shared that with me.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so I can say things that can be incredibly hurtful. I'm quick-witted with it and yet I know how impactful words are. So some of the first scripture I dived into had to do with the way I speak with others, right, and so some pretty big ones. For me was Psalm 141.3,. Take control of what I say, o Lord, and guard my lips, and I literally pray that one still. Whenever someone is talking and I know it's about to come, I feel it bubbling up inside and.
Speaker 1:I'm like, oh, take control, lord, guard my lips. And so you know there's that one. And then, out of James 1, 19, be quick to listen and slow to speak, slow to become angry, because human anger does not produce what God desires. And so, just recentering myself with that and once again I use that even while people are speaking, and I know it's about to come, like I'm about, you know, it rises up in me. Right, there's such a when we don't know who we are in Christ, it's so natural to want to defend ourselves. And so I think that the scripture just helps me to know, like, what this person is saying and what this person thinks about you in this moment does not define who you are, and you know, I'll tell you who you are, right, god's saying to us, I'll tell you who you are right, god's saying to us, I'll tell you. And so these kind of help recenter me to that truth and keep my mouth shut.
Speaker 1:I think the Holy Spirit just it is nothing less than a miracle that my mouth stays shut sometimes. Trust me, yeah.
Speaker 2:You know, mo, as you were saying that, you know we came from very different experiences or backgrounds but have both found the power in Scripture to shape us. And you're right, it is a living word. I've never seen it as sort of like dusty old stuff. I mean, yeah, I'm intrigued with the historical, but I really read it to hear God speak.
Speaker 1:Absolutely.
Speaker 2:And one of the other ways, though, that God has used his word to really shape and mold my life and I talked about this in a men's event a year ago is that for me, it's not just individual verses of scripture that do that, but it's also figures from scripture that I often look at going like oh boy, kendall, you're in a Jonah moment. You are scared with where God's calling you and you want to run the other way.
Speaker 1:And you know, and so for me.
Speaker 2:I have often looked at my life through those you know, through a Jonah moment or an Elijah moment, or a Moses moment or a David moment, and and and so the women?
Speaker 1:You didn't name any women. Where are my Deborahs? Maybe Esther, as a queen, I have power, and how am I going to use it?
Speaker 2:For such a time as this, absolutely with Esther, and that has been a powerful one for me to go like. Hold it.
Speaker 1:Maybe I'm called to this at this moment and God's positioned me here in the way that he positioned Esther, and it's not always comfortable right, and you're risking your life in that moment.
Speaker 2:She was scared out of her wits in that moment, but she stepped up to the plate profoundly so. For me that's also the power of scripture. How God has used it to shape and mold me and change me, is to just give me the lens of those biblical figures. So that's where I just always say to people first thing to do if you're not familiar with the Bible, rather than starting at the beginning and just trying to read through and everyone will get bogged down in Leviticus, go grab a children's Bible and read through that.
Speaker 2:Great pictures Read through one that just tells all the stories, because those stories are so powerful and those begin to shape. I mean the David and Goliath, all of those things are just profound ways that God can use to speak, and continues to speak into my life today and change me.
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely yeah, it's reading the Old Testament. I love it. I think we should just tell people like, skip Leviticus. Yeah Well, I don't think there's any issues with skipping over some of that stuff, but really seeing your, I love that. You said you talk about seeing yourself, right.
Speaker 2:In the story.
Speaker 1:And I think that's what, that's why it's so divinely inspired because we do come and those stories come to our mind right when we need them most to help shape us.
Speaker 2:We believe that's the Holy Spirit. It's what I was talking about on Sunday, I think, prompting us or bringing passages to mind for that. You know there is also for me, and I'm not always sure why, but some of the poetry in Scripture, some of the ways that things are or the metaphors that are used. There is one metaphor in the Old Testament that is just buried in Isaiah. Isaiah 40 to 55 is some of my favorite section.
Speaker 2:But in this line about sort of the coming Messiah, the one God will send, isaiah uses this phrase a bruised reed he will not break and a dimly burning wick he will not quench.
Speaker 2:And there is that when I read that verse and I knew it was part of some of the pointing forward to the messianic promises and pointing forward to Jesus that that is one of those verses that continues to shape me, to see the tenderness of Jesus to that dimly burning wick that has shaped. When God puts people in front of me as a pastor but also just as a guy, that I want to treat each person possibly as a dimly burning wick and I don't want to be the one to squelch that out. Right that there may be a bruised reed, and my words, if I'm not careful with them, could snap them over Absolutely. And so it has really led me to see the tenderness of Jesus and that call inside of me to treat others with a sense of care and tenderness as well. So that's one of the verses also, that just that image, that metaphor just is so powerful in me, and I'm not sure why, but it just resonated for me.
Speaker 1:I love that and I see, when you talked about it, when I heard it, I almost thought of it more so in alignment with like a loving father which is probably needed, like a loving parent.
Speaker 1:And when you talk about Isaiah, there's so many beautiful images of God as mother as well, right, this mother who feeds all her children and brings them to her breast and protects them, and so just some really powerful metaphors that can be life transforming, especially in relationships with others. And as we talk about relationships with others, I remember coming across this scripture when I was married and ironically it speaks into God being our husband. So, as a woman, from a female perspective, it came out of Isaiah as well 54.5,. For your maker is your husband. The Lord Almighty is his name. The one of Israel, the Holy One of Israel, is your Redeemer.
Speaker 1:And so to me that was so powerful, because I think sometimes as a woman, as a wife, unconsciously we want our husbands, or expect our husbands, to become our redeemer, right, like? You're supposed to make me feel beautiful, you're supposed to make me feel protected, you're supposed to, you know, make sure we're financially okay and I'm saying most of the time it's unconscious, right and our husband, people, humans, we all lack some things, we all have character flaws, and so I think sometimes we can be, as husbands, I'm sure, get frustrated with their wives.
Speaker 1:We can get frustrated, and I think for me it was a beautiful reminder that I already have a savior and the one who will know, the one who will save and the one who will redeem me all the time and and make me feel beautiful and make me feel protected and remind me that I'll be cared for, is God and so powerful? Yeah, and it's. And I've really, you know, brought that scripture up to other women too, as they're going through some difficulties with their, their husbands. Um, because it's not fair also to their husbands. Right for us to put that on broken humanity, that you're supposed to, and it's not healthy, because then we give our power away. I'm giving my power to someone else who is broken, you know, and comes out of this context where we're not perfect, we're not whole. We all come out of our own stuff and so, yeah, we put it in the right place, back with God. God has that power.
Speaker 2:I love that, mo, and I think that's, you know, just a beautiful and powerful verse of.
Speaker 2:and those are the places where you know we experience God's Word speaking deep into those longings in our hearts, those holes in our hearts, those hurts in our hearts, and that's the power of God's word and that's why you and I both love it, that's why we want other people to spend time in it and in all the variety of ways that they can, through devotionals, through scripture, because Scripture can comfort us, scripture can challenge us, you know, to keep our mouth shut. Or you know, in James, humble yourself. I've had to take that one and hear God speak to me through that one at different times. But also Scripture has at times. I know I've had the experience and I'll share one where I've come upon Scriptures that I hadn't seen before and it has sometimes reshaped some of my thinking and I've got one of those I want to share and you know I wrestled throughout my quote, unquote career as a pastor, trying to understand the issues around homosexuality in Scripture, and because there's so much in scripture that speaks clearly, speaks against that, and so I really struggled with it.
Speaker 2:I was drawn with the compassion of Jesus for the welcome of all, but I also struggled with the tension of the scriptures of that, and probably five, seven years ago I stumbled upon these verses in Isaiah, chapter 56, and that really that shaped my view in a different way, and I'll just read that. It says do not let the foreigner join to the Lord, say the Lord will surely separate me from his people, and do not let the eunuch say I am just a dry tree. For thus says the Lord to the eunuchs who keep my Sabbaths, who choose the things that please me and hold fast to my covenant, I will give in my house and within my walls a monument in a name better than sons and daughters. I will give them an everlasting name that shall not be cut off. Thus says the Lord. God who gathers the outcasts of Israel, I will gather others to them besides those already gathered.
Speaker 1:Wow, that's so powerful. And that literally speaks into yeah, who were considered the outcasts, sexually and within society.
Speaker 2:At that time. I mean you go back to Leviticus 23, and it says if you were someone who was sexually outside the norm, you were excluded from the temple. If you were a eunuch, you couldn't go into the temple. And so I mean you see that in the Old Testament, you see it in places in Paul in the New Testament, but in this vision in Isaiah. Isaiah had this vision that God was saying no, there'll come a time when all are welcomed in that, those things that you thought were so crucial.
Speaker 1:Or that's God's ideal kingdom right? Yes, that we pray for.
Speaker 2:That are welcomed in.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And so and it came from me one of those scriptures that said there is a welcome for those who, uh, maybe, are different, that have been excluded. And and I I had I'd seen that in circum. I mean, you see that in the way that Jesus kept reaching out to all the people who are on the fringe, but you never saw that specifically re regarding those who are sexually different. And yet here in Isaiah I stumbled upon that and it really was part of the shaping and help causing me to look at that whole idea differently and with a much more open stance and a welcoming stance.
Speaker 1:I love that and you know, as we pray often, right the Our Father, thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven, and that Isaiah vision is a vision of God's kingdom, of what it means to see the beauty of God's creation and all of diversity and to know that God is so loving beyond our understanding and saying make a space that's welcoming and open and seeks to have a relationship with all of us. And that's beautiful.
Speaker 2:Is there a scripture that, along the way that there?
Speaker 1:are so many scriptures.
Speaker 2:You want to share one more?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'll share one more, and this one I often use it to kind of Apparently I have to be checked often because I'm like it usually has to do with other people and me kind of like quenching my ego a bit, but it comes out of Philippians 2, 3. And me kind of like quenching my ego a bit, but it comes out of Philippians 2, 3. Don't be selfish, don't try to impress others, be humble, don't think of yourself as better than others, and that's so important to me because you know, especially depending on who's talking, and you know if you're arguing with your kids or whatever, going back and forth, of course, you think, not that you think you're better, but you definitely think you're right, and so you know that back and forth. And what does it mean for me to not? I think it's so important, especially this one. What does it mean for me to not try to use language that maybe is hyperbolic, or try to make myself look better or defend myself, even right?
Speaker 1:Like these people whoever I'm with there, it's God sees them with the same passion and love and desire, like they are just as valued as an important to God, and so that helps my perspective. And like how I talk to others or treat them or, um, or learn from them, like open up myself enough even to be like because there's so many times when I've let that drop that that person has transformed me in some pretty big, powerful ways, because I was able to finally get out of my own head and listen to them and hear them, and so that was really powerful for me. And I think just even in scripture you talk about the big story and I see God continuously working through those we are so often most uncomfortable with to bring us to a space of healing and a deeper connection with God, and that's kind of how I think God works. So, yeah, it's pretty powerful. So I thank you so much for just sharing that journey and we hope, um, we know that all of you listening as well come from different backgrounds, right? Whether it's like pastor Kendall's or more like mine. We'd love to hear you share some pretty powerful scripture that has impacted your life, or big stories or characters. Please leave a comment. Share, share this If you think anyone else can get something good out of it as we continue to unpack these truths, and don't forget to submit some questions If you have any questions you'd like us to unpack and talk a little bit about and dive deeper into.
Speaker 1:So take care and thank you for tuning in. Thanks for joining us on this episode of unpacking truths. If anything that we discussed sparked any ideas or you have any questions, we would love for you to go to unpackingtruthscom, or you can also email us at unpackingtruths at locchurchcom.
Speaker 2:And don't forget to like, share or subscribe to the podcast, because you doing that allows other people to connect to this content and grow with God as well.
Speaker 1:Until next time, we hope you know that you are loved.
