The Surprising Stories of Jesus: The Good Samaritan, Part 2

Jesus’ story of the Good Samaritan asks more than we might expect. Compassion that is real moves us to act, even toward people we’ve been taught to resist. And the parable points beyond itself to Jesus, the one who was beaten and left for dead so that God’s compassion would reach all people.

Pastor Steven walks through the layers of this parable, from the way the kingdom reshapes who belongs to God’s people to the unexpected turnarounds that Jesus points to in the Hebrew scriptures. The story calls us to go and do likewise.

The Surprising Stories of Jesus: The Good Samaritan, Part 1

Jesus tells the story of the Good Samaritan in reply to a lawyer who wants to test him, and the story runs deeper than the familiar moral about helping people. Luke places it right after Jesus sets his face toward Jerusalem, where his path leads to the cross. The lawyer asks what he must do to inherit eternal life, and Jesus answers with the two great commands: love God, and love your neighbor as yourself.

The lawyer then asks, “Who is my neighbor?” Jesus answers with a story about a man beaten and left for dead on the road to Jericho. A priest and a temple assistant both pass by. Then a Samaritan, a people the Jewish listeners despised, stops, feels compassion in his gut, and gives extravagant care. That kind of compassion, Pastor Steven says, is the first step toward the life Jesus calls us to. Next week he picks up the rest of the story.

The Surprising Stories of Jesus: Visions of the Inbreaking Kingdom

Matthew 13 gives us eight short stories, and each one is a vision of the kingdom of God. Many in Jesus’ day expected that kingdom to arrive through political upheaval and the overthrow of empire. Instead, Jesus told provocative stories that planted seeds and changed how people saw what God was doing.

The first four, told to the crowds by the lake, show how the kingdom works. It is generously expansive, like seed scattered everywhere. It is patient and strategic, letting wheat and weeds grow together. And it starts small and hidden, like a mustard seed or a bit of yeast, before growing into something no one could have imagined.

The next four, told to the disciples in the house, show how the kingdom reorients our lives. A net sorts good from bad. A merchant sells everything for one pearl. A man reorders his life for hidden treasure. A homeowner joyfully throws open his storehouse to all.

The invitation is to sit with these stories, recognize the kingdom at work, and receive it.

The Surprising Stories of Jesus: The Sower

A farmer flings seed everywhere: on the road, among rocks, into thorns. No careful farmer works this way, and that's the point. In Matthew 13, Jesus tells the parable at the heart of all his parables, picturing God's word scattered with abundant generosity into all the wrong places.

For Jesus' first listeners, seed carried deep roots in the Hebrew scriptures, from God's promise to Abraham of countless descendants to Isaiah's faithful remnant. Jesus is announcing that everything Israel had been waiting for, justice, peace, healing, and renewal, is arriving in him. The seed is being sown now, and hearts respond in different ways. Some never let it in, some receive it with excitement but no roots, and some are choked by worry and wealth. But those who hear, see, and understand become good soil that yields a harvest a hundred times over.

The invitation is to come to these parables with open eyes and receptive hearts, asking God to show us what his kingdom is like.

The Surprising Stories of Jesus: Week 1

Jesus could have explained his kingdom with a lecture. Instead, he told stories. This opening message sets the framework for the series: Jesus the one-of-a-kind king, the kingdom he brings, and the parables he told to describe it.

In Luke 4, Jesus announces good news to the poor, echoing Israel's hope of Jubilee and declaring it has arrived because he is here. We see the same king at Zacchaeus' table and with the Samaritan woman, lives transformed after one encounter. His kingdom broke every expectation: the last become first, power shows up in sacrifice, and all are welcomed to the table. To stir people toward that reality, Jesus drew on the stuff of everyday life, much as Judges 9 used a parable of trees choosing a king to expose a ruler hungry for power.

Over the coming weeks we'll explore parables of kingdom, grace, and judgment. They were never pep talks or children's stories. They were meant to provoke us and flip our assumptions about God. Come ready to be surprised.

Job: Trusting God's Wisdom in Suffering

The book of Job isn't really about Job, Steven argues, it's about whether God can be trusted to run the world well, even when the innocent suffer. Job loses everything without cause, and his friends, operating on the ancient assumption that suffering always signals hidden sin, spend chapter after chapter accusing him of wrongs he never committed. Job insists on his innocence and demands an explanation from God. When God finally speaks from the whirlwind, he never explains why Job suffered. Instead he reveals the staggering complexity and wisdom behind how he governs creation, wisdom far beyond what Job, or any of us, could grasp. The book's point isn't to answer why we suffer, but to show that what we need most in suffering isn't an explanation, it's comfort, and a trust in God's wisdom and goodness even when we can't see the full picture. Steven closes by pointing to Jesus as the true innocent sufferer, who endured suffering he didn't deserve, voluntarily, out of love, so that suffering itself would one day be undone.

The Big Song You Might Have Missed

Every "greatest songs of all time" list misses one, Steven argues: the Song of Songs, a book of Hebrew love poetry so esteemed that ancient rabbis called it the holiest book in the Bible, even as its meaning has puzzled readers for centuries. Steven walks through the different ways scholars have tried to interpret it, as literal romance, allegory, drama, or collected wedding songs, before settling on a simple image: think of the book like an onion, with layers worth peeling back one at a time. The first layer is the plainest, God takes human love, desire, and intimacy seriously, and gives us poetic language for it. The second layer is analogy: that same passionate longing echoes the way Scripture describes God pursuing his people, as a bridegroom, a faithful partner, a lover who woos. The third and deepest layer is where the sermon lands, that the Song of Songs isn't just about human romance but an invitation into the staggering reality that God doesn't just love us out of obligation, he delights in us, wants us, and longs for us the way lovers long for each other.

Proverbs closes not with a summary statement but with a poem, an acrostic hymn to a woman who works with her hands, cares for her household, invests wisely, and reaches out to the poor. Steven makes the case that this isn't meant as a literal blueprint for wives to imitate, but a portrait of Lady Wisdom herself, the same figure who has called out to readers since the book's opening chapters, now embodied in full. Reading the poem closely, Steven points out something striking for its ancient context: the husband and children barely appear, because the woman herself, wisdom herself, is the point. The sermon's invitation is to take up wisdom as a lifelong partner, however messy or overdue that beginning might feel, trusting that wisdom moves us toward the good of others and becomes a stabilizing force in every area of life. Steven closes by pointing to Jesus as the fullest embodiment of that wisdom, the one in whom the fear of the Lord and the way of God are made complete.