I once spoke to a young schizophrenic man who talked to me outside, after it had rained. I was about to sit down on a very wet bench when he did something very kind. We look at the Gospel of Luke, the Gospel that has a number of unique parables in it, including the Good Samaritan. We look at the traditional interpretation, and we look at a more theological interpretation. Then we look at the impact that this schizophrenic man had on me.
Jul 06, 2025•24 min•Ep. 230
When I was a professor, I once had a French student accuse me of Xenophobia, of giving her a bad grade simply because she was French. I was quite worried that this could explode into a serious problem, as universities want students to be happy and do not want claims like this making their way into the press. I ended up putting my mother on the phone and letting her talk to this student. The interesting part is that my mother was French. We look at the Book of James. We examine whether it was tru...
Jun 29, 2025•24 min•Ep. 229
When I was a young guy, I bought my first car with a steering column lock. It locked up on me - with a key in the ignition - as I was taking a freeway curve at 75 miles an hour. I went off a small cliff. Yes, I said a quick prayer to God. We look at Jeremiah, Isaiah, and a Psalm to learn just what we should be doing with our lives BEFORE we turn to God for help.
Jun 22, 2025•23 min•Ep. 228
I once spoke with a man who had been undergoing treatment for cancer, but who was at the end of effective treatments. It was time to let go, and as he put it, welcome the Kingdom of God. But he had an adult daughter who was going through an extremely difficult time - and he wanted to be there for her. So he had decided to continue treatments so that he could live a bit longer - even though he would suffer. We look at the issue of "theology", what it is, and what it means to truly understand Scri...
Jun 15, 2025•20 min•Ep. 227
I picked citrus with migrant workers when I was a boy. They were paid partly by being given food in the field, which they insisted on sharing with me - who wasn't supposed to get any of that food. They also picked the tops of my trees, to keep me safe. We look at the Book of Lamentations, and a passage that focuses on the harsh impact on children as a result of the Babylonian invasion and slaughter. We consider just what it means to be giving, especially to children, and who are most likely to g...
Jun 08, 2025•22 min•Ep. 226
I once visited a recently retired reverend whose wife had just left him and who was terminally ill with heart disease. We talked about Paul's thorn in his side, and how this reverend was unable to handle the huge thorn in his side. We consider the way that God created us: imperfectly, with imperfect lives. We see that humility is the product of suffering, and that it has a number of major benefits, ones that greatly outweigh the benefit of having our thorn removed.
May 31, 2025•21 min•Ep. 225
I once got to know a young woman who was an addict and who required a series of high risk surgeries. Because someone slipped her drugs the night before one particular surgery, the outcome was horrific. We look at the Book of the Covenant in Exodus and some words of advice to a new king in Proverbs - and then we consider the issue of how our society does or does not protect vulnerable people.
May 25, 2025•21 min•Ep. 224
My father's father was a burglar in World War I and served in the trenches for two years. He came back home very mentally ill and lived on the street in Quebec for the rest of his life. My dad's mother raised my father alone. When she was close to death, she gave me the only thing she had from her childhood, a cherished possession. In doing so, she taught me a lesson that we see in Paul's writings and in the words of Jesus.
May 17, 2025•21 min•Ep. 223
I once ditched a boring "team building" academic meeting to hang out for a bit with a bunch of jail prisoners. One of them was a man who had been incarcerated for sleeping in the snow on someone's private property. He was planning a Bible study session with the rest of his Christian inmates. In this podcast, we look at Paul, who also proselytized while in prison - and quite successfully. We see what this means when it comes to living not for the things of this world, but for the joy of God's wor...
May 10, 2025•23 min•Ep. 222
Quantum physics tells us that we understand very little about the physical matter that makes up the universe, the way we proceed through time, and the nature of events in the universe. We consider Tony the ant, who lives in an anthill, bringing carrying huge crumbs of unidentifiable organic material back to the anthill. The most important and powerful people who live in this world, who live in the Kingdom of People, are like Tony the Ant when he manages to bring back a piece of pure dark chocola...
May 04, 2025•23 min•Ep. 221
We look at Proverbs and Ecclesiastes, and at how I managed to get BuzzKing.com as my domain. We see that Proverbs and Ecclesiastes both tell us about the importance of having a good name. They also tell us that it is important that we, as believers, remember that we represent the Church at all times. We need to protect our good name - and the good name of the Church. We also see that there comes a time - at death - when all that we might have obtained by corrupting ourselves in this life disappe...
Apr 27, 2025•23 min•Ep. 217
I once sat with a woman in her nineties who was on comfort care. Her adult children could not be there because they were out of the country, so I was with her. She ended up telling me why she had no fear whatsoever of death - and it had to do with Easter. We take a bit of a biblical survey, looking at both the literal version of the Easter story, and at the more personal side of the resurrection story. We see that getting caught up in defending the resurrection from a scientific perspective miss...
Apr 19, 2025•23 min•Ep. 219
Luke tells us that Jesus died at a place called The Skull, from which we derive the Latin word Calvary. I once saw a skull of a Pueblo Indian. The goal of the display was to show us that the Pueblos ground corn with sandstone, and so when they ate cornmeal, they also chewed on grit, thus wearing down their molars. But to me, the skull reminded me that real people - long dead - once lived in those cave dwellings. Jesus chose his death at The Skull to tell give us the most important advice ever of...
Apr 18, 2025•19 min•Ep. 220
We look at the two times in my life that I have encountered donkeys, once as a boy on the edge of town, and once in Santorini, Greece. These incidents remind me of the two biblical qualities of donkeys, and why this makes the donkey the perfect animal for Jesus to ride into Jerusalem. We also look at why Jesus was not the savior that many people in Jerusalem were hoping for, and this reinforces why he was indeed on a donkey. We look, as well, at the Old Testament prediction of a king on a donkey...
Apr 13, 2025•23 min•Ep. 218
I taught 3D modeling and animation at my university. I had a student who apparently was on the autism spectrum, and one day I knocked his notebook computer off his desk onto the floor - and he did not react. We look at a figure from the Old Testament, one of the fathers of the Israelite people, Joseph, who was sold into slavery by his brothers. There is a theory that he was also on the spectrum. We look at what we can learn about faith, forgiveness, and achieving all we can as we strive to serve...
Apr 06, 2025•24 min•Ep. 216
We look at the construction of the Tabernacle in Exodus - and at a man whom I once drove behind as he bounced along on three wheels and a broken rim. His determination to make his journey, to get to his meeting place, reminds us of where God is truly located, where God lives. We also see that although history has assumed that the Israelites and Jews thought that they had to be in the Temple to be with God, their beliefs were not so different than ours, or of that man throwing up sparks as he dro...
Mar 30, 2025•23 min•Ep. 215
When I was 15, there was an Earthquake that did a lot of damage in Southern California. A fish store that I frequented had all its aquariums land on the cement floor. It was a huge failure, a loss for the owner. We talk about one of the biggest failures in the Bible, Peter denying Jesus after Jesus had wanted him to serve as the rock upon which he would build his church. Peter did rise up, however, and do just that. He overcame his failure. But he was also executed, we believe, for his trouble. ...
Mar 23, 2025•25 min•Ep. 214
We look at the long-standing mystery of whether Paul the evangelist ever made it all the way to Spain - and we look at Buzz making it to Spain, but hardly behaving the way Jesus would have. We consider the historical data that supports the theory that Paul spread the Word in Spain. We look at what Paul had to say about forgiveness in Romans, the letter to the church he wanted to visit on his way to Spain...
Mar 16, 2025•23 min•Ep. 213
We look at Noah's ark - the story that is eerily similar to older, polytheistic flood stories. We consider the act of God destroying all of humanity, due to its total corruption, but showing enough mercy to allow a remnant to survive. We look at a natural disaster, a much smaller flood, that happened in Colorado, and how such natural phenomena remind us of our vulnerability, our dependency on God. We note that in the flood story, the Ark is engineered by God to very specific details: height, len...
Mar 09, 2025•25 min•Ep. 212
My mother identified strongly as French. Thus, when my best friend's mother lent me Voyage to the Center of the Earth to read, she immediately took me to get the real version: the original French. We look at the story of these adventurers and their naivety. We also look at Proverbs, Chapter 2, and a speech to a son by a father, who is trying to teach the son about the importance of gaining wisdom and living the way God wants us to. We see the hidden relationship, as detailed by my friend's mothe...
Mar 02, 2025•22 min•Ep. 211
When I was a boy, my father ran a car shop with a buddy of his I called Uncle John. One day Uncle John taught me about torque wrenches and - more importantly - leverage. We talk in this episode about the reasons that a Christian gives, and the constrains on our practice of giving. We also talk about why giving is very much like the leverage we get from a torque wrench with a very long handle.
Feb 23, 2025•25 min•Ep. 210
Wendy and I were once in Istanbul. We were pursued aggressively by a Turkish carpet salesman who was desperate to make a sale, given their terrible economy. We look at Psalm 23, traditionally used at funerals and memorial services by Christians. But this Psalm is not about saying goodbye to a loved one. We look at what Psalm 23 is truly about - and why it reminds us of this relentless carpet salesman.
Feb 16, 2025•23 min•Ep. 209
I once had dinner with Sony Bono. I did not write about this dinner contemporaneously and am only now talking about it more than forty years after this occurred. So, I might have some of the details wrong. The Bible is also not a contemporaneous document. There were also some reasons for the authors to twist or exaggerate parts of the story - they were telling us about faith, not about the literal details of ancient history. So what do we make of this? How does this impact our understanding of t...
Feb 09, 2025•25 min•Ep. 208
I have had both my corneas replaced with transplants. My left eye was repaired successfully with one graft, but my right eye proved very problematic. We look at the Israelites returning from exile in Babylon, only to find their farmlands in very poor shape and one oppressor (the Babylonians) replaced with another (the Persians). Malachi tells the People of God that they must be patient, that they must put their full trust in God. I had to live with only one eye working for some time. The Israeli...
Feb 02, 2025•22 min•Ep. 207
When I was a grad student at USC years ago, I came across a man lying on his back. He appeared to have been killed with a shotgun blast to his chest. We look at the mistake this man made in his life, how he did not learn the lesson of Augustine and of Solomon, and that is to make sure that what we create in life is only good. This leads us to understand why there appears to be a paradox that a good God would somehow create evil.
Jan 26, 2025•23 min•Ep. 206
We look at the heavy duty use of numerical symbolism in the Old and New Testaments. We examine specific numbers and what they meant. Then we address the bigger question: why the preoccupation with numbers? What about our preoccupation with things like mathematics, art, and literature? What about our preoccupation with video games and social media? What of this is good? What did God intend? Where do we find safety?
Jan 19, 2025•25 min•Ep. 205
When I was a young guy working in San Francisco as a computer programmer at an insurance company, I decided to do something a bit unethical to help my mother's claims get paid. I made a one character programmer error, though, that would later make me realize that God had been speaking to me. We look at 1st Peter and Romans, and we talk about what it means to truly strive toward perfection, to be like God as much as possible in this life. We also see that society today has even lower standards of...
Jan 12, 2025•24 min•Ep. 204
When I was in college, I had a friend with a schizophrenic mother. She thought that God had commissioned her to write a sort of new New Testament, or what we cruelly called the "New and Improved Testament". We look at the story of Adam and Eve - and why it is both a clear allegory and a sort of very literal story. We look at why my friend's mother never had to learn the lesson that Adam and Eve failed so badly at learning...
Jan 05, 2025•23 min•Ep. 203
Some years ago, a sixteen year-old from Kansas accidentally slid on the ice and slightly damaged my parked car in Boulder. I had a terrible interaction with his father who angrily blamed his son for being careless. Then some weeks later I got a call from this farmer father... We look at a few Bible passages that tell us about just how a believer should behave. We also look at the issue of how we interpret the Bible. ----more----
Dec 29, 2024•22 min•Ep. 200
I had a friend when I was a kid. His name was Miguel and he was adopted off the streets of Tijuana. No one knew when he was born. The same is true of Jesus, in truth. We look at the evidence that suggests that Jesus was born on some other day than Dec. 25 - and we look at why we don't care about this...
Dec 24, 2024•16 min•Ep. 201
