Introduction
For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.
This podcast is about salvation. Yours. Mine. Ours.
I was inspired by the AM radio preachers I’ve heard again and again in Appalachia and the Southern United States. Y’all, the AM radio preacher is alive and well.
A minute here. A minute there. Devotionals and reflections abound. Almost all of these broadcasts dealt with the subject of salvation and how the listener could attain it.
Salvation is all.
It is fundamentally individual.
It is the work of Jesus Christ in the heart of the penitent soul.
It is the reason for the Gospel story.
If it cannot lead to the salvation of your eternal soul, then it is not of Christ.
Simple. Powerful. Even beautiful.
And deeply troubling.
I love these broadcasts. I love the fervor and passion. I love the devotion to Jesus that they reflect. And yet.
And yet, they terrify me. And not in the way that the preachers might hope…scaring me straight into the loving arms of Jesus. No, they scare me away from the church. They make me fearful of Christ and his Gospel. They make me fearful of this world and the next.
And that, y’all, is no way to be.
But they do make me wonder. They make me wonder about salvation. What is it and why does it matter?
Once, long ago, a friend challenged me to define salvation. For whom? From what? And in the moment, I couldn’t. I cannot commit to the hellfire and brimstone of my AM radio kin. I cannot commit to the radical individualism that such a world view demands. Either we are in this thing together or we’re not in it at all. And that matters…cosmically.
So, I’ve been searching for an answer to the question of salvation. As a liberal, progressive, or left-of-Jesus Christian, how do I understand salvation? And can I preach it?
Each podcast episode will be five minutes long. It will be about Jesus, the Gospel he proclaimed, and what is or is not salvation.
And because I find it beautiful, it will in the spirit of AM radio. Lo-fidelity. Don’t try to fix your sound. This is on purpose.
Once a week, I will share my thoughts on salvation, what it is, and how we get there. So let’s begin, shall we?
Episode 1
This is the Lo-Fi Gospel Minute, a five-minute podcast about eternity. I’m Tripp Hudgins.
For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.
The first time I was saved, I was standing at the end of a driveway in a Florida suburb. I was alone. I was lonely. I stood at the end of the driveway and asked Jesus into my heart. I was afraid of hell for some reason. I wasn’t raised to fear hell or God or anything, to be honest. But there I was, the product of my southern culture. I also remember that nothing happened. I didn’t feel any better or any worse. I just felt silly.
I also remember that there was an older woman (a retiree?) who taught a Bible study out of her living room. She used those old felt boards. I’m sure she was concerned for the salvation of all of us young miscreants in the neighborhood.
And then there was the time I went to church with a friend. I was 12 or 13 and there was an altar call. I went forward, and they prayed over me. I accepted Christ that day, too. As far as I can recall, no one ever contacted me. It was a show and the handful of us who came forward were the unwitting actors.
I was never part of a youth group.
I never went to church camp.
I remember arguing with friends about salvation, what it was and who it included. Somewhere along the line, I stopped believing in eternal damnation. I was fearful that I would not lead a good life and that God would disapprove in some way, but eternal damnation made no sense to me. Not for me. Not for my loved ones. Not even for my enemies.
For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.
Those words still haunt me. That threat. Believe in the unbelievable or burn forever. There is hubris in a theology that promises salvation from God.
But that’s not salvation, is it? It doesn’t even begin to scratch the surface of what salvation is.
If God saves us from anything,
God saves us from a world that demands our eternal damnation.
God never gives up on us.
Ever.
Not even in death.
That is the nature of God’s love seen in Jesus Christ.
And that’s just the beginning. We are just getting started.
My name is Tripp Hudgins. Thank you for joining me this week on the Lo-Fi Gospel Minute, a five minute podcast about eternity.
An Introduction