BibleWorm

29/06/2026

In this week's episode of our Disputing with God series, we turn to the story of Jesus and the "Canaanite" Woman in Matthew 15:21-28. We struggle with Jesus' apparent dismissal of the woman as being beyond the sphere of his ministry, marvel at the woman's persistence that seems to broaden Jesus' understanding of his own mission, and bristle at the cost she must pay to receive healing for her daughter.

We hope you'll listen!

This week we’re continuing our summer series on “Disputing with God” with the story of Jesus’s encounter with a Syro-Phoenician woman as told in Matthew 15:21-28. This story makes us comfortable in a lot of ways, as Jesus appears to ignore the pleas of a foreign woman, who Matthew refers to ...

22/06/2026

In this fifth episode of our Disputing with God series, we wrestle with Psalm 88, the Bible's most unrelenting lament psalm. How do we engage with a God who sometimes ignores our cries? And what does it mean that the Bible gives us the script to do so?

We hope you enjoy!

This week we continue with our summer series “Disputing with God” with Psalm 88, the Bible’s most unrelenting lament psalm. The speaker cries out to God from the depths of the pit, lamenting about the pain, suffering, and isolation that makes their life seem like a walking death, even accusing...

18/06/2026

In the fourth installment of our Disputing with God series, we consider Jonah 3:1-4:11. While this story is often read as a humorous critique of prophets, what if we take seriously the fact that the Ninevites, the people God forgives in this story, will go on to destroy Jonah's entire civilization less then 50 years later? For us that raises the question of the cost of compassion.

We hope you'll give it a listen!

This week we continue with our summer series “Disputing with God” with the story of the prophet Jonah in Nineveh as told in Jonah 3:1–4:11. While we have often read Jonah as a comedic parody of Israelite prophecy, this time we explore what happens if we take Jonah’s concerns about God’s me...

08/06/2026

This week in our Disputing with God series, we look at what happens to the concepts of mercy and justice when you can't disentangle the righteous from the wicked. We hope you enjoy!

This week we are reading one of the Bible’s most famous disputes with God – Abraham's insistence that God should have mercy on S***m for the sake of its righteous, found in Genesis 18:16-33. Now, we love mercy as much as the next guy, but this time around we wrestled with the profound entangleme...

03/06/2026

Here's the second installment of our Disputing with God summer series, looking at the ways God and Israel come to accept one another as they are. We hope you'll give it a listen!

This week we continue with our summer series “Disputing with God,” picking up where we left off last time with the story of the repair of the relationship between God and Israel after the incident of the Golden Calf, as told in Exodus 33:1–23 and 34:1–9. God is at first so angry about the Go...

25/05/2026

The first episode of our summer series Disputing with God is out today! We hope you'll give it a listen!

In this first episode of our summer series on Disputing with God, we are reading the story of the Golden Calf, Exodus 32:1-20 and 30-35. We’ve read it together before, but the regular lectionary stops us pretty early in its unfolding ... and we found that moving farther into the story directed our eyes not to the Israelites or to God, but to the space between them–their relationship, still fairly new and fragile. And you know what else is right between them–our man Moses, holding the tablets, trying to reach in both directions at once. What’s left after this kind of rupture? What's possible?

In this first episode of our summer series on Disputing with God, we are reading the story of the Golden Calf, Exodus 32:1-20 and 30-35. We’ve read it together before, but the regular lectionary stops us pretty early in its unfolding ... and we found that moving farther into the story directed our...

23/04/2026

We're excited to announce our 2026 Summer Series: "Disputing with God"! This 7-part series explores biblical texts in which people enter into dispute with God, whether to protest God’s judgment, appeal to God’s mercy, or accuse God of wrongdoing. What emerges is a complex dynamic between humans and God, who learn to dispute with one another while remaining deeply committed to their ongoing relationship.

The series will include our usual liturgies (by Teri Peterson) and Bible studies (by Bobby), which will be released weekly with the early edition of the podcast. See the attached pdf for details.

We hope you'll join us!

12/02/2026

Proof of life! We spent the most wonderful, grounding 3 days learning and praying with 20 or so outstanding pastors in Wewoka, OK. So many things are wrong in the world right now, but this was just right. Thank you to the Omaha Presbyterian Seminary Foundation and Tricia Dillon Thomas for making it happen. Until we meet again!