Episode Details

Chris Breslin—Year A Lent 2–5

Welcome to the Gospel Reverb podcast. Gospel Reverb is an audio gathering for preachers, teachers, and Bible thrill seekers. Each month our host, Anthony Mullins, will interview a new guest to gain insights and preaching nuggets mined from select passages of Scripture in that month’s Revised Common Lectionary. The podcast’s passion is to proclaim and boast in Jesus Christ, the one who reveals the heart of God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. And now onto the episode.

Anthony: Hello friends, and welcome to the latest episode of Gospel Reverb. Gospel Reverb is a podcast devoted to bringing you insights from Scripture found in the Revised Common Lectionary and sharing commentary from a Christ-centered and Trinitarian view.

I’m your host, Anthony Mullins, and it’s my delight to welcome our guest, Reverend Chris Breslin. Chris is the founding pastor of Oak Church in Durham, North Carolina. He earned a Master’s of Divinity from Duke Divinity School where he teaches or serves as a precept teaching assistant. He works to keep the church small, local, and weird. Chris, thanks for being with us. Welcome back to the podcast. It’s been a few years, so we would like to have our memories refreshed about you, your story, and especially what has you experiencing delight these days.

[00:01:27] Chris: Thanks Anthony. It’s so good to be with you and thankfully it hasn’t been a few years since I’ve seen you in person.

[00:01:34] Anthony: That’s right.

[00:01:36] Chris: Yeah, in terms of things that are giving me delight these days. This is the in-between time when we’re taping this, and so we are getting ready for a baseball season ahead. I coach two of my sons.

I am hand copying Matthew’s gospel as I work in a New Testament class. And this is a practice commended to me by a friend, JR Briggs. And it’s amazing how much more you soak in familiar words when you have to slow down enough to faithfully copy them. Also gives you some respect for earlier manuscript scribes.

And listening to records. I know if I’m, like, in a good place and joyful and healthy if I’m listening to music and not just podcasts. And especially if I’m listening in a way that I have to get up and flip the record every 20 minutes or whatever. So, I’m listening to Bob Dylan’s biography …

Anthony: Oh, come on.

Chris: … that I found at a thrift store in awesome shape. I’m listening to MJ Linderman. I’m on the Train, big indie record from last year; Getting Killed by Geese. Loving that. The band is Geese. The record is Getting Killed. So Getting Killed by Geese.

Anthony: I love it.

Chris: And Mavis Staples has an awesome covers record. Just awesome, beautiful stuff. So those are giving me delight right now.

[00:03:25] Anthony: As you write down Matthew, what’s been maybe the epiphany that you’ve had as you’ve been doing this?

[00:03:36] Chris: Yeah. It’s interesting doing it along teaching. I’m working with Professor Brittany Wilson in an interpretation of New Testament hybrid course, and so you’re reteaching kind of themes of the gospel, but to do it slow and to realize man, this teaching, Jesus as teacher, Jesus as new Moses is such a theme. And when you get into handwriting Matthew 5, 6, 7, you realize, man, this is a really long discourse and rich and beautiful, but just again, the practice is a little bit of an antidote to skimming or just grabbing little aphorisms or chunks. And so, it really does re-immerse you in some beautiful words.

[00:04:37] Anthony: We know each other, we’re friends, which I’m very grateful for you and especially your guidan