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Iowa City Church Podcast


Welcome to the Iowa City Church sermon and teaching page.  We know that life can be confusing, and sometime just plain hard.  We believe the best way to live life comes through following Jesus.  These lessons and sermons are designed to be a resource to help you on that journey.  We hope you find them helpful!

Oct 10, 2022

Theologian and New Testament scholar NT Wright tells this story of the time he was the campus chaplain at Worcester College in Oxford, England.

As chaplain he would make it a point to meet all the students each year. In introducing himself, a number of the students would say they probably wouldn’t be seeing much of each other because they, the student, didn’t believe in God.


Wright had a stock reply. He would ask, “Oh, and what god don’t you believe in?

The student would give a puzzled look. So Wright would say, “Describe this god that you don’t believe in.

So the student would describe a god who was distant and uninvolved in the goings on of earth, and who was ultimately angry and upset with people.

Wright would listen, nodding his head. And when the student was done, Wright would reply, “
I’m not surprised you don’t believe in god…I don’t believe in that god either." 

This simple interaction opened up a number of opportunities for NT Wright to talk about how Scripture actually describes God, and it's shockingly different then what social media, memes and TikTok describe!

How would you describe God? Unfortunately, a lot of people hold to untrue images and descriptions of God. Jesus faced this situation with a group of religious leaders.

To help reshape their view of God, he told them three paradigm changing stories about the character of God. The third story Jesus told was about a son who "spit in his Father's face" took his money and ran away, only to have his life fall apart. His life became a total wreck.

If you were the father of that son, what would you do if he wanted to come home? In this story Jesus reveals how God would respond...and it's shocking! According to Jesus, there is no evil or sin God won't forgive. What a scandalous thought!

Is that the God you know? If you want to learn more about who God is, give a listen to part two of Lost & Found.