The Shield ONLINE
Teachings, messages, vital life learning, irrelevances, and other musings about the Bible from The Salvation Army's Captain Roger McCort. Life has few guarantees, but here's one: You will find something new or interesting in every message or you can reach out to me and I will provide you with additional new and interesting facts, free of charge. Guaranteed.
- Update frequency
- every 6 days
- Average duration
- 32 minutes
- Episodes
- 356
- Years Active
- 2018 - 2025
Bible Horror Stories: Hush, Little Baby (rev)
We live in a world full of violence and pain. Our culture celebrates retribution and preemptive strikes - the destruction or at least submission of our enemies as payback for what they have (or might…
Bible Horror Stories: Ghost Story
This week, the Return of Horror Stories from the Bible continues with a tale of ghosts or demons responding to a call from King Saul. Why would Israel's first king turn his back on the commands of Go…
Bible Horror Stories: Family Aflame
It's that time of year: Horror Stories of the Bible return to help lead us up to the celebration of all the saints who came before us. Today we delve into the twisted story of a man who was able to s…
Salting the Manure
Sure, the Beatitudes make a nice little framework for a life of faith in Jesus. Maybe I'll work on them sometimes, you know, like a church-related hobby. But we wouldn't want to go all in on them, wo…
Please Persecute Me?
Is there any way to look at being made to suffer at the hands of others that could be considered any kind of a blessing? And yet, Jesus offers us this wild saying that says we are blessed when we are…
Wage Peace
"In the real world, that stuff [that Jesus said] doesn't work."
This was said to me by a pastor friend as we discussed the importance of following the Way of Jesus as he laid it out. Our disagreement …
Pure
Purity and holiness sound like terribly boring religious concepts requiring us to lead dull lives enclosed in harsh boundaries, deprivation, and perfection. When we screw up, we're out, right? ZAP go…
Have Mercy
Sometimes people suck, and when they do they should be held up for ridicule and contempt and mockery... Oh, wait. That's what we DO, but is that what Jesus asks of his followers? Is it the example Go…
In Sync and Hungry
Now that we've spent a few weeks talking about being blessed, let's talk about what the word BLESSED means and how it may not be exactly what we've been thinking it is.
Then let's talk about the deep…
Meekness, Not Weakness
Just because things rhyme, that doesn't mean they are the same. If you use a cat for a bat, you'll never get a hit, and if you wear it as a hat, you'll probably regret it. And yet we tend to mix up m…
Hurts
Today we start with a lesson in the obvious: Life hurts. There are wounds which we need to tend to or they will fester and drive us to self-destructive means of altering or covering the pain because …
Unclench
What does it mean to be poor and why would Jesus claim that this is some kind of blessed state? Why do we allow anxiety to drive us to cling to things we could release? What makes THIS the thing Jesu…
Heart
"Guard your heart," declares scripture, "for everything you do flows from it."
But what does that mean and what should we be letting in or keeping out of our hearts? It's not like Jesus left us a chec…
The Beginning of the End of the Beginning of the Beginning of the Story
What happened with Paul and the others? Did they get to Rome? What happened? What do we know? Did Luke wrap up all the loose ends in his story? And what does any of this mean for us in the modern wor…
Living the Mission
There's a little story towards the end of the book of Acts that most people slip past quickly, noticing only the unusual story about a snakebite. But this is the beginning of Luke's conclusion to the…
Foul Weather at Fair Haven
They were sure this was going to work, but everything fell apart in an instant and they were plunged into chaos.
How often has something similar happened to each one of us? There is a secret to unders…
Being an Agent of Light
Good day. Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to seek out pockets of evil scattered across the world and deal with them. You and your Mission:Possible team will be given light that will …
Can Anything Good Come From Nazareth?
Did you know that chapters and verses weren't part of the Bible's original texts? We've added that stuff in. In some ways, that's a blessing; in others it's a curse. We may be able to find things eas…
Aggressive Doves
There is a passage in Acts 25 where Paul doesn't say a word - he doesn't even appear until the last sentence - but his witness has been so consistent that it drives people to want to speak with him, …
Higher Authority
In a world dominated by Empire, can a poor man from a distant province get justice from the highest authority in the world? Yes, he can!
That's not exactly what's happening here, though, is it?
Or is i…