Outloud Bible Project Podcast
Mike Domeny, actor, author, and founder of Outloud Bible Project (outloudbible.com), reads the Bible out loud in a conversational and approachable way so you can read the Bible like it makes a difference! This isn't simply an audiobook version of the Bible! Every episode offers helpful context so you won't get lost, and a brief takeaway to help apply that reading to your life.
Want to invite Mike to read Scripture at your event or gathering? Visit outloudbible.com.
Starting with episode 279, the Scriptures quoted are from the NET Bible® https://netbible.com copyright ©1996, 2019 used with permission from Biblical Studies Press, L.L.C. All rights reserved
Outloud Bible Project Podcast
Living Outloud: Matthew 12-16
Mike and Kelsey discuss the recurring themes from Matthew 12-16 that reveal Jesus' priorities and challenge our modern understanding of discipleship.
- Reading large portions of scripture reveals overarching themes we miss when focusing on isolated stories
- Jesus defines family as "whoever does the will of my Father in heaven"
- The kingdom parables illustrate that God's kingdom is worth sacrificing everything to obtain
- American Christianity often markets Jesus as a life-enhancer rather than teaching His actual call to die to self
- The true gospel isn't about improved circumstances but about Jesus absorbing God's wrath on our behalf
- We should reassess what we're living for and align our priorities with Jesus' values
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Check out outloudbible.com for helpful study resources, and to discover how to bring the public reading of God's word to your church, conference, retreat, or other event.
Welcome back to the Out Loud Bible Project podcast. This is Mike and another segment of Living Out Loud, where we're not just hearing what the word says. We got to talk about how to do it, we got to obey what it says and to that end, I'm joined again by my wife, kelsey. Hello, kelsey is a wonderful teacher and very wise when it comes to scripture and applying it, and your vulnerability and your transparency in telling stories and letting that connect with people is super powerful and important. Thanks.
Speaker 2:Glad you're, here. That was so nice of you to say.
Speaker 1:I like words. It's public, that's nice.
Speaker 1:Well, it's actually funny you say that about words because I have some words here from some listeners who have sent us little bits of well. The podcast platform calls it fan mail, sends us little messages. Our listener from Rochester, new Hampshire, sent us a message saying I like this Friday Out Loud Bible Plenty to think about Thanks. And a listener from York, maine, said just listen to the first episode of Living Out Loud with Kelsey and clap emoji, clap emoji, clap emoji. You two are amazing and are easy and compelling to listen to. This is the perfect venue for you. Keep following God's prompting. You are an inspiration.
Speaker 2:Oh wow, which is very generous and encouraging.
Speaker 1:So thank you for reaching out. You can always reach out through the podcast episode description. There's a little link there that says send Mike a message.
Speaker 2:But we don't know who you are.
Speaker 1:But yeah, when you do that, we don't it's anonymous. We know where you're from. But yeah, when you do that, we don't it's anonymous.
Speaker 1:We know where you're from and it's one way, and it's one way we can't respond, which is it's fine if that's what you want to do. The message is very encouraging. If you would like a response from us, though, I would recommend going to outloudbiblecom, and there's a contact page. You can contact us there if you want to kind of a back and forth about something. But and I'm glad to be starting this segment I think it's an important growth step for all of us, as we're learning to hear God through his word. So this past week on the podcast, we covered five chapters of Matthew.
Speaker 2:Five chapters.
Speaker 1:Matthew 12 through 16. It's right in the middle of the book of Matthew. This is like the meat of it.
Speaker 2:Right Within even these five chapters of Matthew, I've probably heard 30 sermons on various stories or sermons or teachings of Jesus, because there's the feeding of the 5,000 is in here, peter and Jesus walking on water is in here. The kingdom parables are in here, if you're going to make a Jesus movie.
Speaker 1:This is a lot of your content.
Speaker 2:There's a lot of scenes of the Chosen pulled from the middle of Matthew. There's just so much in here and on any given Sunday sermon or social media post or whatever, you're kind of pulling out one, or maybe there was two and then three between the two episodes. This week is seeing not just one isolated episode that. Listen, the Word of God is so deep you can dive into one verse and never come back up for air. Right. But seeing instead of just one verse or one story or one teaching, reading it in this larger context, revealed for me some themes that came up over and over, like there's some overarching, continued, repeating themes that really showed me oh, this is what Jesus cares about, because he brings it up over and over again in different contexts and in different ways. This is something Jesus really cares about. And so reading or listening to studying these larger chunks like massive pieces of scripture, instead of diving in on one focus, letting it just be like, wow, these overarching themes, these things that are repeated, must be something that's important for us to lean into.
Speaker 1:Part of why we want to have this Living Out Loud segment is to kind of model a really good way to study the Bible, where it's like, all right, let's actually take a pretty big chunk of scripture and there are times when we drill down on certain verses or certain teachings. But let's also consider, okay, what strikes you kind of on the bigger level, what's repeated, what really seems to be a main point, because those are the sort of things that can get lost when we just take it, you know, five minutes, 10 minutes at a time.
Speaker 2:And you lose the forest for the trees, yeah exactly.
Speaker 1:So what theme do we see is heavily on Jesus's mind in this section?
Speaker 2:And this is just what stuck out to me. So if you're listening to these episodes and something else comes up for you, then that like lean into that theme that the.
Speaker 2:Holy Spirit's like hey, you should probably like hear this from me, but for me what came up over and over is this idea that his family is right outside and he says whoever does the will of my father who is in heaven, he is my brother and sister and mother. Whoever does the will of my father in heaven? And so that clues in for me, like let's okay, then what's the will of the Father in heaven? Right? And that story then gets unfolded throughout the rest of these five chapters, in chapter 13,.
Speaker 2:We have so many of these parables that I love these kingdom parables, but the one that really sticks out to me are the hidden treasure and the costly pearl. So in 13, coming in verse 44, the kingdom of heaven is like a treasure hidden in the field which a man found and hid, and from joy over it he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field. He sells everything that he has to buy that field. Because what we're hearing from this is that the kingdom of heaven, the will of the father, knowing Jesus, like following Jesus and seeking the kingdom, is so much better than anything else on the planet.
Speaker 1:Even being related to Jesus.
Speaker 2:Like there is nothing familial relationships, possessions, hopes, dreams, desires, our plans like none of it compares to the kingdom but we don't really live like that's true. Do we Like in our society we really hold on to our comforts and we love our dreams and we love our hopes and we love our desires and we love our things and we love our relationship? Like, how much are we really actually willing to give up for the kingdom and do we believe that the kingdom is so much better than whatever we're giving up?
Speaker 1:That's the hard thing to swallow. There is really a sense of we kind of equate the comforts and the blessing. We call them blessings. I think that in and of itself is telling of a little bit of a disconnect there. But we consider these things to be signs of hey, we're doing pretty well, yeah. But do we have those things because we are following Jesus or do we have those things because we live in a fairly affluent culture that has those things?
Speaker 1:We see Jesus drawing lines, even though it was 2000 years ago, even though it was an agricultural society for the most part, even though a lot of his followers were poorer people. We find the rich and the connected and there's a big gap there, there's a big obstacle there that Jesus is saying like hey, like he never condemns wealth or comfort, but there has to be a willingness to give it all up and not to be a sufferfest. It's just that if you don't think that's worth it, then you don't have a right understanding of what you would gain by giving it all up and following me. I'm not asking you to just go and suffer and be poor and homeless and be poor and homeless. I'm asking you to see your things and see your life the way I see them, with the heavenly perspective, with the perspective of like. What is the kingdom of heaven actually like? And it should be a no brainer. We don't understand that. It's like. I don't know what that means. That's why he's telling us these parables.
Speaker 1:That's why he's like I know you don't understand this. I'm going to put it in some terms that you might be able to understand. You might be able to envision. Everyone envisions wow, what if I found buried treasure? Wouldn't that be awesome? He's like yeah, so imagine yourself finding buried treasure and you look inside. It's like, whoa, this is so much money. I'll sell everything I got to buy the land because what I find in the land is so much more valuable than anything I possibly have now. Can you imagine that? It's like, yeah, kind of, yeah, I can kind of picture that. Okay, we need to do that spiritually with our lives, with our dreams, with our connections, with our. Yeah, when it comes down to money, yes, with our money, with our comforts, and go at the kingdom of heaven with that same level of oh man, I am confident of the value of what I'm going to gain, so much so that everything I have now really doesn't impress me much.
Speaker 2:Yeah, the story, the overarching story I was seeing unfolds, continues in the beginning of 15 with the prophecy that Jesus says from Isaiah applies to the generation he's speaking to. Isaiah's prophecy says these people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. In vain they worship me, teaching as doctrines the precepts of men. It goes all the way to the end of 16, where we ended this week's readings, where Jesus says if anyone wishes, in verse 24, if anyone wishes to come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me, For whoever wishes to save his life shall lose it. But whoever, what will a man be profited if he gains the whole world and yet forfeits his soul? Or what will a man give in exchange for his soul?
Speaker 2:We really have to be willing to give up what we want and what we see in front of us and what the world around us says we should chase after and what the world around us says is good. And we really have to be willing to look at our culture and accept. Like some of these things are just cultural, and that's what's taking me back to 15. Like there isn't some of these things that even the American church again, because that's what we're in, that's what we can speak to, that's our experience. There's some things like even in the American church it's like that's really not what Jesus teaches, that's really not what following. He points out some of the ways that this comes through in our church culture.
Speaker 1:And he is speaking as a pastor of a mega church in the heart of the Bible Belt. Okay, so he knows what he's talking about and he shares his wrestling with pastoring a mega church in the heart of the Bible Belt. Because it's like wait, this isn't even what Jesus modeled for us. It's like why is this church so big? But he's saying this sort of American Christianity comes through in asking people to accept Jesus as their Lord and Savior and he'll change your life. It's like okay, first of all, in the Bible there's nothing that says that we need to accept Jesus as anything Like that's not a term that's used. It's like all right, jesus, I accept you. Like that's. You know, jesus says die to yourself and follow me, give up everything and give me your life. And it's like well, that's a bit more of an ask than just accepting him and just the idea of like he'll make our lives better. In some ways, that is true, I mean, our lives are much better for following Jesus, especially on the eternal scale. But I think and David Platt doesn't go here, but I have heard a thought question of like, okay, what about 9-11? Actually, this episode is airing around the same time as 9-11.
Speaker 1:In America we had 2001, the World Trade Center attack, right, and someone posed this question how would you evangelize, how would you help someone become a Christian at the top floor of the World Trade Center five minutes before the powers collapsed? It's not the gospel if it isn't true for them six minutes later. Right, because if Jesus is going to give you peace, well, no, that doesn't happen for that person. He gives you a mission and a vision for your life and a purpose for your life. Frankly, no, that person did not have that. What is the gospel If it doesn't hold up in an untimely death five minutes later, then it's not the gospel. The gospel is Jesus made it possible so that the wrath of God doesn't fall on you. He absorbed that. And if you say that Jesus is Lord, then Jesus, his death, has absorbed the wrath of God on your behalf and you can have eternal life instead of eternal death. Okay, that's the gospel. That's true for a person.
Speaker 2:And so the majority of the time we're sharing the gospel and it's not five minutes before the building we're in is going to collapse most of the time, right? So we take that and we're like, ah, but that doesn't sound good enough, like it doesn't sound good enough to just like look forward to eternal future. So I'm going to also tell this person and Jesus will make your life better, right, and we start making extra promises that Jesus doesn't make himself Right, because Jesus.
Speaker 2:We start making promises to people to make the gospel sound better to them. Right Because Jesus, we start making promises to people to make the gospel sound better to them Right, because what he said in Matthew 12 through 16 is a tough sell.
Speaker 2:And what that really reveals in us is that we don't believe Matthew 12. We don't believe that the kingdom of God is worth giving up everything else for. So just having eternal life quote is just having eternal life isn't enough to convince someone to follow Jesus, so we need to make it sound really good too.
Speaker 1:Right, lower the step to get in and just say accept Jesus as your Lord and Savior. But why should I do that? Well, let me tell you here's the benefits of that.
Speaker 2:But wait, there's more. We make like an infomercial. Yeah, we're like trying to be like salesmen or something.
Speaker 1:It's real tricky because it's not like those things are wrong or bad or outside of God's character.
Speaker 2:My life is better because I have Jesus.
Speaker 1:And I do have peace in trials.
Speaker 2:I do have a better life. I am glad I have Jesus, but in a lot of ways life is harder following him than if I wasn't following him on the side of eternity. Right, this side of eternity is harder in a lot of ways, yeah, and that's what he said.
Speaker 1:He said you're going to suffer, not like if you suffer, but when Any good thing that we get from him is only by his grace. It's not because he owes us anything, oh hello, like he doesn't owe us anything. He already humbled himself and so we get eternal life. That's the deal. Is that still enough? According to Jesus in the parables, that is enough. The way he sees eternity, the way he sees time and the world and our lives, is like oh, you have no idea how good of a deal this is for you. I don't need to give you anything else, and you should be thrilled that this is even possible.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And if we live in our lives in such a way that we feel like we need more in this vapor that we're living, that betrays our idea of what eternity and what the kingdom is truly like.
Speaker 2:So I think that for me, I'm coming out of this week kind of reanalyzing what do I want, what is it that I'm working for right now, what is it that I kind of walk through life wishing I had? And how am I presenting the gospel to people, how am I sharing what Jesus does for your life? Like kind of just reanalyzing, asking these questions in light of how Jesus speaks of the kingdom, in light of what Jesus seems to prioritize, and I've just got to do some soul searching of like, where are my priorities not lining up with his priorities, and then just die to that, like we've just we just have to die to it. We just have to let those priorities die and prioritize first and foremost the things that Jesus prioritizes.
Speaker 1:Are we living for the benefits of a life with Christ or are we living in response to his sacrifice, the fact that we have life in the first place? I think that's a question we should wrestle with, and we've got a few days until the next episode to do it. Just some light thinking, light conversations today on Living Out Loud. Thanks for joining us here and we'll see you next time.
