For Christians, the question of how we can be saved has too often been framed as a future question: how can I know I’m going to heaven when I die? But the Bible just doesn’t talk enough about going to heaven when we die for us to justify making that the baseline of our assurance of salvation.

Instead, the Bible talks about our assurance in terms of what God has done in the past and is now doing in the future; namely, he has become a human being in space and time so that he can - in the middle of human history and on the planet earth - die the death we should have died and rise from the dead to take away the barrier between us and God, and that he gives us this salvation in concrete, objective ways.

These concrete applications of his salvation are his word, which regardless of how we feel announces to us that he loves us for the sake of his son, Jesus Christ, and his sacraments, which are physical, objective promises of salvation to us. I might sometimes doubt, I might sometimes not understand the Bible like I should, I might sometimes do things that are sinful, but what never changes is that God’s word announces my salvation and my baptism into Jesus really happened.

Hosts: Aaron Mueller and Chuck Rathert

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For the past three hundred years it has seemed obvious to many modern Westerners that cataclysmic, global floods are impossible, and so the biblical story of the great flood has been seen as a legendary myth highlighting the vindictive judgment of the Bible’s angry God.

But this assumption fails to acknowledge the existence of great flood narratives spread throughout the ancient world - from the Cheyenne in North America, to the Chinese, to the Mesopotamians. How could all these different groups tell such similar stories? Is this a coincidence? Or instead does there remain in the collective memory of all these people groups the flood event described in Genesis 6-9?

This last option seems more likely than the myth that modern, scientific man is more right than the remembered and recorded experiences of all these ancient peoples. But the larger question is not, did the flood happen? But, what does the flood mean? And in the Bible, the great flood happens because the creator God simultaneously refuses to tolerate sin, and also loves to create salvation from that destruction. Like the Red Sea crossing, God drowns those who hate him, but saves - through that same water - those who trust him. The culmination of this truth is the redemption given to those who believe in the death and resurrection of Jesus, in the water of baptism.

Hosts: Aaron Mueller and Chuck Rathert

Subscribe to the show at https://cacg.saintjamesglencarbon.org.

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The question of whether Christians should go to church or not can only be answered by answering the question, are Christians the church or not.

Once again, Western-style individualism blocks us from even understanding the nature of the problem. The Bible insists that our highest value comes not from our individuality but from how our individuality flourishes in community. By ourselves we have no way of overcoming our personal weaknesses, but in community others cover up these weaknesses with their strength, as we do for them.

Unfortunately, Christians in America tend to be more individualistic than biblical: the notion that we can be Christians on our own outside of the Christian church creates a personal atmosphere of isolation and ignorance, but embracing the strange and scary reality of Christian community leads to flourishing and knowledge.

Hosts: Aaron Mueller and Chuck Rathert

Subscribe to the show at https://cacg.saintjamesglencarbon.org.

To comment on this episode, visit https://saintjamesglencarbon.org/cacg-ep89.