Best Ronald P Byars Podcasts (2025)

Legitimate self-interest easily gets swollen out of its proper proportions. Judgment isn’t an antiquated notion that needs to be put on the shelf. The words “Judgment and Grace” stand alone. The rest is commentary.By Ronald P. Byars

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What my mother told me. 10:39

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16d ago10:39

10:39

Maybe it’s not just about how to get to heaven.By Ronald P. Byars

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Missed the Funeral 10:23

23d ago10:23

10:23

The deceased was wakened when he heard his own name.By Ronald P. Byars

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The very architecture of our souls requires that there be seasons of lament. 11:14

1M ago11:14

11:14

In the shedding of tears there is healing.By Ronald P. Byars

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The Risks of Liturgical Indifference. 11:58

1M ago11:58

11:58

Capturing the imagination in a multisensory fashion, to orient our love and our longing.By Ronald P. Byars

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Liturgical Testimony to a Cosmic Redemption 11:58

2M ago11:58

11:58

Jesus did not say. “Think this in remembrance of me” or “Feel this” or “Do this if you have time,” or “Make this really ‘special’,” but simply “Do this.” Just do it. Do this unrelenting testimony to the great homecoming banquet, the “renewal of all things.”By Ronald P. Byars

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How easy it is to get the Eucharist wrong. 10:30

2M ago10:30

10:30

The apostle Paul describes the Eucharist at work in three dimensions: past, present, and future. It turns to the past “On the night when he was betrayed.” It embraces the present: “Do this. . .” It looks to the ultimate future, “until he comes.”By Ronald P. Byars

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Evaluating Our Loyalties 10:10

2M ago10:10

10:10

Jesus attracted a lot of people who thought joining his parade might elevate their status. There were enough of them that Jesus felt that it was his duty to let them know where he was headed, and where they would be headed if they should sign on.By Ronald P. Byars

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Anxiety, Deception, and Idolatry 10:53

2M ago10:53

10:53

Authoritarianism manipulates people’s fears and anxieties. It promises a redemption that is not in human hands to give.By Ronald P. Byars

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Doctrine 10:53

2M ago10:53

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Doctrine needs to be pondered over a lifetime. One reflects on it as one grows and changes, with the various seasons and experiences of life providing a series of new perspectives, each one possibly revealing an insight not accessible earlierBy Ronald P. Byars

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Real Presence 11:27

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11:27

While it might give information, the sermon is not about giving information. It’s meant to be more like an encounter. The sermon drawn from the text can become a sacramental vessel by which the Christ revealed in scripture becomes manifest among us.By Ronald P. Byars

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What motivates people to worship? 10:41

3M ago10:41

10:41

No matter how threatening the times, worship always centers us in a framework of hope.By Ronald P. Byars

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Liturgical Essentials: Bath, Book, Meal, and Attentiveness to the poor. 11:31

3M ago11:31

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When the apostle Paul met with the leaders of the Jerusalem church and received their blessing and acknowledgement of his calling to minister to the Gentiles, Paul recalled that, “They asked only one thing, that we remember the poor, which was actually what I was eager to do” (Gal 2:10).By Ronald P. Byars

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You can baptize with sand. 11:31

4M ago11:31

11:31

Those responsible for planning and leading worship need to know a little more than that!By Ronald P. Byars

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Embracing Ritual 10:42

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Recognized or not, ritual is basic to human life, not something primitive to be left behind as we learn to live more and more in our reasoning heads.By Ronald P. Byars

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Spiritual death 10:42

4M ago10:42

10:42

Sometimes it feels embarrassing even to say the word “God” seriously in certain circles.By Ronald P. Byars

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The cultural authority once granted to the church has been withdrawn. 10:42

5M ago10:42

10:42

To prioritize trying to save our institutional life at any cost is a worthless endeavor if it leads us to be embarrassed by the very faith that God called the church into being to preserve and advance.By Ronald P. Byars

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Atheist? 10:50

5M ago10:50

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Archbishop William Temple said that, “If you have a false idea of God, the more religious you are, the worse it is for you—it were better for you to be an atheist.” We’re living in times when, given all the options in play, it might be that to be an atheist may be the better choice.By Ronald P. Byars

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We have a soul-sickness problem that manifests as a language problem. 10:43

5M ago10:43

10:43

Maybe the church can rejuvenate its mission in the world by majoring for a while in careful listening. It may be that what the world needs most is a people dedicated to hearing.By Ronald P. Byars

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The power of Evil. 10:43

5M ago10:43

10:43

Jesus’ confrontation with demonic powers has been validated, his struggle vindicated. The written story of Jesus’ ascension makes use of naive images that serve a purpose so long as we don’t get hung up on aerodynamic details.By Ronald P. Byars

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Basic values require a sound foundation. 10:43

5M ago10:43

10:43

For people of faith, the foundation lies in our perception of who God is.By Ronald P. Byars

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The Holy Trinity 10:44

6M ago10:44

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The Muslims have my sympathy. Those who find themselves hung up on the arithmetic of one and three have my sympathy. The atheists have my sympathy. But the God who is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit lays claim to something else: my heart, and soul, and mind.By Ronald P. Byars

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Why the church? 11:20

6M ago11:20

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The church is nothing less than a priestly community whose purpose is to represent, as best as it can, something of God’s deep interest in the welfare of the whole human family.By Ronald P. Byars

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Doubt doesn’t have to be cynical. 11:20

6M ago11:20

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I’d like to think that Thomas is using doubt as a tool with which to dig deeper. Doubt plays a role for people who work in any serious discipline. It can serve to test what we think we know.By Ronald P. Byars

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The kingdom of God is about justice, but justice is elusive in history and often thwarted. 11:01

6M ago11:01

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Anyone who preaches, or listens to sermons, has discovered that the text for last Sunday’s sermon and the one for this Sunday’s sermon may seem to point in opposite directions. Last Sunday’s text: grace. This Sunday’s: Judgment. Human beings tend to be uncomfortable with ambiguity. . . .By Ronald P. Byars

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A traveling Bible study for some whose faith has been shaken. 11:01

7M ago11:01

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The authoritative voice one may learn to discern in Scripture is often drowned out by the sheer abundance and volume of other voices. But it hasn’t gone silent. Jesus’ voice always does the same thing: clears some things up; unsettles others. If you pay attention, Jesus’ voice, interpreting Scripture, wakes you up.…

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“’In the afterlife,’ Maud May told me, ‘God’s got a lot of explaining to do.’” 11:01

7M ago11:01

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God, viewed cross-wise, reveals God’s self not as relating to the world in dominating power, but rather as a God become present to the world in weakness, in vulnerability, in sharing the all-too-familiar status of victim.By Ronald P. Byars

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The eucharistic prayer in the newer service books highlights the central affirmations of the Christian gospel. 10:34

7M ago10:34

10:34

Praying the Great Thanksgiving at Communion led me, over time, to reflect more deeply about eschatology, about which seminarians learn a little and then try to forget lest they be mistaken for fanatics!By Ronald P. Byars

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The anticipation of heaven’s refuge did not reject the hope of a cosmic redemption, but gradually pushed it to one side. 10:34

7M ago10:34

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“In scripture’s images of a heavenly banquet, we are led to a big-picture redemption, a cosmic resurrection, a transfiguration of heaven and earth, where God’s expansive generosity will be realized in the reign of Christ, whose embrace reaches to me and mine, but not only to me and mine!”By Ronald P. Byars

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Adam and Eve had persuaded themselves that God might not be playing fair with them. 10:34

8M ago10:34

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Adam and Eve did what’s so easy to do: They followed their impulses, naively abandoned their trust as though trust were just a trick meant to deceive them. So, they reached out for that one off-limits thing that would prove to be, sooner or later, a terrible blend of heaven and hell.By Ronald P. Byars

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Faith is, in some sense, always a mystery. 11:38

8M ago11:38

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“It does not take much exposure to religious extremism to find oneself sufficiently repelled as to want to distance ourselves, to shake the dust off our feet, to stalk off and leave it all to those Christians who seem to have kidnapped the God we thought we knew.”By Ronald P. Byars

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“I have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now,” says Jesus. 10:38

8M ago10:38

10:38

“I have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now,” says Jesus. The Holy Spirit speaks to the church; and we find ourselves rejecting some ideas that seemed like sure-enough certainties for centuries. The divine right of kings, trashed. Slavery, discarded; race-based privilege no longer credible. Male domination, rejected. Caste syste…

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Why Does Love So Often Elude Us? 10:47

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“I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate...I can will what is right, but I cannot do it. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do.” (Rom 7:15b, 19)By Ronald P. Byars

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Disenchantments 10:13

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“Growing up is, very often at least, a series of disenchantments.” As childhood gives way to adolescence, and adolescence to young adulthood, we’ve got to figure out what to do with that early naiveté.By Ronald P. Byars

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Judgment and Love go Hand in Hand 10:46

9M ago10:46

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It’s easy to critique other tribes, other nations; but the prophets did what wasn’t expected and isn’t easy.By Ronald P. Byars

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An Easter Visitor 11:06

9M ago11:06

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He told me that it made no sense for me to be preaching about the resurrection to this young, well-educated congregation.By Ronald P. Byars

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The Shock of Faith: It’s Nothing Like I Thought it Would Be 10:34

9M ago10:34

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It was almost as though I had begun to hear a divine voice speaking to me in, under, and between the written words.By Ronald P. Byars

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Fairest Lord Jesus, Ruler of All Nature. . . 11:35

9M ago11:35

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Austin Farrer argued that “while theologians of the late Middle Ages primarily looked in the scriptures for propositions and modern theologians have looked there to sort out what is historical, we should be looking for images.”By Ronald P. Byars

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Walking on Water 10:53

10M ago10:53

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One of the persistent questions about the New Testament is what to make of the stories that describe Jesus doing things that require the reader to suspend disbelief.By Ronald P. Byars

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Preach the Hard Texts 9:05

10M ago9:05

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Sitting in that space between scripture and the tumble of the world, it seems the most rewarding sermons tend to be on the most difficult texts. Perhaps they are most often the most rewarding because they require the deepest dives into the text, the most artful wrestling of how to perceive and understand these things, both in themselves and in how …

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Same Words; Two Languages 9:50

10M ago9:50

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By Ronald P. Byars