Sing Love Louder with Amy Orth: Recent Episodes
Amy Orth
A biweekly podcast for those who have been turned off or turned away by the religious legal system and want to engage with the exciting, all inclusive, new song of Jesus.
This week, we take a look at the Old Testament passages that traditionally have been cited as justification for excluding sexual minorities—those in the LGBTQ+ community.
This week, we begin our look at how patriarchy and nationalism, along with the holiness and purity codes of ancient Israel, not only affected people of differing races and ethnicities, but also sexual minorities in the ancient world as well, and how those themes worked together to form boundaries that marginalized and excluded them from their communities and from approaching God, boundaries that are still used to exclude LGBTQ+ people to this day.
Jesus set the trajectory of Scripture toward radical inclusion. In his embrace and elevation of women, he showed us that patriarchy and gender hierarchy are not his way. Women not only have a place at Jesus’ table, but they also have a vitally important role in his church today. They have a voice that needs to be heard.
Have you ever wondered why the setting of so many of the gospel stories is around the eating of a meal? What was it about sharing a meal together at the table that demonstrated such a powerful message for Jesus and yet angered so many of the religious leaders? Join us as we begin our series looking at who Jesus welcomed to his table.
In the religious world, “the word” usually refers to what is thought to be a divine word—"the word of God”. It denotes the sacred scriptures of a particular religion; revered writings that have been set apart by that religion as divinely inspired. Only Christianity makes the claim that Jesus of Nazareth was The Word of God in the flesh. Christians acknowledge our Bible as the word of God, but we are also called to believe Jesus when he says he is the Living Word, that he is The Word of God to us above all other words.
The resurrected Jesus says his kingdom has been launched. He says it’s growing here and now and that all are invited to come and be a part of it. The question is, will we allow his love to realign our thinking? Will we allow Jesus to lead us in a new way of being human?
Value, love, trust, and commitment are all a part of the relational bond Jesus invites us to be a part of—a bond the biblical writers call “covenant”.
Jesus invites us to see "family" in a new way. This new way of seeing is illustrated beautifully in one of Jesus’ most well-known parables—the story of a father and his family—The Parable of the Prodigal Son.
Jesus gives us a new way to see our Creator God, and this new way of seeing can impact how we see everything else.
For the New Testament authors, the resurrection of Jesus was revolutionary and life changing. What does it mean for us today?
The life, death, and resurrection of Jesus is the “good news”—the “gospel”. It is the fulfillment of the biblical story. But the “good news” of Jesus doesn’t stop there. The resurrection of Jesus is the beginning of something new, a present reality and a future hope.
Jesus is God’s grace in person, his reaching toward us from the beginning with the gift of his kindness, his forgiveness, and his compassion, not because of anything we have done to earn it or deserve it, but simply because he is our Creator, Father, God, and we are his beloved image-bearing children.
Today, we hear the words "righteousness" and "sin" used to describe all kinds of people and actions. As always, Jesus' interpretation challenges our thinking on the subject.
Love is foundational to our Creator God's design and purpose for his creation, and it was the cornerstone of Jesus' message. What did he mean by it?
The symbolic creation story tells us that humans were created in the image of our Creator, chosen to carry his image and likeness—his light, his love, and his life. That’s who we were created to be, but does the story also tell us why wewere we created—the reason or intention behind it?
Jesus not only reveals the Image of our Creator God, but he also shows us who we are. Through him, we find our true identity, our “oneness” as Image-bearing children of the Creator, and also, our “uniqueness” as a part of the colorful diversity of the human family and the beauty of creation itself.
Light is a spiritual symbol in the Bible, but it also has meaning within most religious and spiritual belief systems. On the literal level, it represents one’s ability to see clearly, but symbolically, it is also associated with life, wisdom, goodness, truth, hope, and divine presence. Jesus told His followers that He is the light of the world. What did He mean?
What we believe about the image of our Creator God impacts how we interpret the whole biblical story. In fact, our concept of God influences almost everything about how we live our lives. Jesus' words and actions caused the disciples to re-think everything they thought they knew about their God, to rethink what they thought he wanted from them, and to rethink what it looked like to reflect his image into the world. What about you? What are your thoughts about the image of our Creator God?
Just like the disciples, when the story God has been telling in the Bible is reinterpreted through the lens of Jesus, our eyes are opened to see things we had never seen before, all our assumptions and expectations are challenged, and everything we thought we knew about God, about ourselves, and about how we view others and the world around us, is radically changed.
"Let every heart prepare Him room..." Room in our hearts? How does that fit with the story God has been telling in the Scriptures and what does it have to do with "peace"?
As the Old Testament story tells us, and many of our Christmas carols remind us, even in the midst of the Earth’s darkness, there is an Everlasting Light; a hope and a promise of a true King who is to come. Read, watch, or listen to the next episode of the Sing Love Louder vlog at singlovelouder.com and join the conversation.
Christmas is just around the corner and we'll soon be hearing our favorite Christmas carols being played wherever we go. If we take the time to listen, these carols can give us an overarching picture of the grand story being told in the Hebrew Scriptures, our Old Testament. It turns out, it's a story that's been pointing to Jesus from the beginning!
Religious traditions can be beautiful and God-honoring, but when they exclude or devalue others, they miss the message of Jesus and His church.
The Bible is one of the most controversial books of all time. We all seem to view it through our own lens, but is it possible to view the Bible from a different perspective?
Jesus brings "new wine" to His listeners and it challenges them to "think differently" about the religious legal system.