Show Notes
The Christmas story is more than a manger scene—it’s the beginning of the gospel itself. In this special episode, host Derek Vreeland shares the heart behind his brand-new Bible study, Incarnation: Eight Lessons on How God Meets Us, the first in his God in the Neighborhood series.
What You’ll Hear in This Episode:
The behind-the-scenes journey of how this book came to life—two years in the making!
Why John 1:14 (“The Word became flesh and blood and moved into the neighborhood”) sparked an entire Bible study series.
How the incarnation shows us God’s neighboring presence—God with us, not far away.
A walk through the eight lessons, from Old Testament promises to Jesus’ birth, to learning “the unforced rhythms of grace” (Matthew 11).
Why incarnation matters today: before Jesus died for us, He came to us.
Key Takeaways
God’s desire to be with His people from Genesis to Jesus.
The Advent promise of peace, justice, and hope fulfilled in Christ.
What it means for Jesus to be both Messiah and Master.
Living out the incarnation in our own neighborhoods.
Scriptures mentioned in this episode:
Psalm 97
Isaiah 2 & 5
Isaiah 7
Luke 2
John 1:14
Matthew 11:29–30
Books mentioned in this podcast: Incarnation: 8 Lessons on How God Meets Us
NOW AVAILABLE! Order Derek’s new book, Incarnation: 8 Lessons on How God Meets Us here: https://amzn.to/42jSZAs
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Get to know the host: https://derekvreeland.com
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What You’ll Hear in This Episode:
Transcript
Welcome
Back to another episode of Peaceable and Kind, where we are planting seeds of peace and kindness in a world that lacks both.
I am your host, Derek Vreeland, and today’s episode has been.
Quite literally two years in the making.
I cannot wait to jump into this episode.
But before we get going here, let me
invite you to subscribe to peaceable and kind wherever you are listening to this podcast.
Leave a rating and review.
That helps us a whole lot.
And if you are enjoying the kind of Christian content
we’re producing here, feel free to share this episode or a previous episode with friends.
I sure would appreciate it.
All right, well, that is all of the housekeeping kind of things that I have to do.
Let’s jump right into this episode.
I am happy to announce
that as of this week, my new book, Incarnation, Eight Lessons on How God Meets Us is out in the world.
Somebody give me a woo-hoo
This is an exciting day for me.
I have been working on this Bible study series called God in the Neighborhood.
for a few years now, and there’s three books in the series.
The first one got released this week on the incarnation, and I’m so excited about it
This new book, Incarnation, Eight Lessons on How God Meets Us, is a book that I wrote to help people get into the Advent and Christmas mood.
It really is a Bible study.
It’s a Bible study in the sense that I have an opening anecdote or story.
That then leads us into a passage of scripture.
So in incarnation, there are eight passages of scripture
that don’t necessarily explore the incarnation in every lesson.
Rather, what this does is it helps us to
Enter into the story preparing for the birth of Jesus, celebrating the birth of Jesus
And then it ends in the last chapter, which my publisher calls lessons, by the way.
I’ve only written nonfiction books, so I’m used to thinking about these books in terms of chapters
But because it’s a Bible study, my publisher calls them lessons.
So the last chapter or lesson is then now how are we living now that we have received this revelation
that God has come to us in Jesus Christ.
And as a Bible study, it has reflection questions.
and space for you to write notes.
And so I wrote it to be both like an individual devotional
If you would like to just read through incarnation, the questions provided will allow you to reflect on what you’re reading in scripture.
You can jot some notes.
And it’s also a resource that can be used for groups.
I have been writing for over 10 years now, and every book that I write has reflection questions or discussion questions.
Because as a pastor, I am writing books for the church.
And so I love the idea of knowing that small groups or home groups or Sunday school classes
are reading and discussing my books together.
And I’m just filled with so much joy today, so much gratitude.
Because writing can be a very slow and honestly a very lonely process
I mean this project started two and a half years ago when I had an idea.
I had been reading through the message Bible.
This is the modern translation by Eugene Peterson.
I had been reading the message translation in my own devotional Bible reading in the morning during morning prayer
And I follow a two-year Bible reading plan.
And so every two years I like to read a different translation.
And my family had given me a copy of the Message Devotional Bible.
For either Father’s Day or my birthday, honestly, I can’t remember which one.
And so I had that devotional Bible, the message devotional Bible, sitting on my shelf.
So a few years ago, when it was time to start a new translation, I thought, you know, I’ve referenced the message, I’ve used the message in preaching and teaching.
I’ve never just spent daily
time reading the message every day.
As I was reading through the message translation, I began to see
These passages that were just they were beautiful.
Eugene Peterson has the way of pulling out some of the nuance and the beauty of Scripture.
And honestly, some of the phrases that Eugene Peterson uses in the message caused my imagination to run wild
I would read something in the morning and often it’d be just one line or one image from the message and I would think about it all day long
Well, I found myself at a writer’s retreat that my publisher, Nav Press, was hosting out in Colorado Springs.
And I was in that process of reading from the message every day.
And so I pitched the idea of what’s now become the God in the neighborhood Bible study series.
To Dave Zimmerman, who is the publisher at Nav Press, as well as Olivia Eldridge.
She is the editor over all message Bible products
They’ve recently, this summer, released a woman’s devotional Bible using the message.
So at this writer’s retreat, I was talking, it was at the end of the retreat, some people were leaving.
And I was in a conversation with Dave and Olivia, and I said, hey, I’ve been reading through the message like every day for the first time.
And there are some passages in there that I think people have overlooked.
So I asked them, I said, have you ever produced a Bible study for adults that specifically uses the uniqueness of the message translation
And it was funny because they looked at each other and then they looked at me and Dave said, no, I don’t think we’ve ever done that
And I was joking with them, and I said, Dave, Olivia, NavPress owns the message.
This beautiful translation from Eugene Peterson.
And
Nav Press being the publishing arm of the Navigators Campus Ministry, you’re producing Bible studies every year.
But you’ve never done a Bible study using the message?
Now they were in production of a uh short series uh for teenagers using the message, but they had never
Created a whole Bible study just for adults using the message.
So they got excited.
And so I started telling them what I thought.
My original idea
was to start with John 1.
14 in the message, just the first half, the beginning of John 1.
14 in the message, which says
The word became flesh and blood and moved into the neighborhood.
Now John 1.
14 is a very famous verse in the message.
A lot of people
know that verse, but that was the one, that that moving into the neighborhood imagery that sparked the entire idea.
So I told Dave and Olivia, I’d like to create a Bible study, maybe ten chapters, ten lessons that would go from Genesis to Revelation.
Working with this theme of God coming to us, God meeting us, Jesus, the word, moving into the neighborhood.
And they said, you’re on to something.
So they asked me to write up a very brief kind of overview of my idea.
And they took it to their team.
And after meeting with sales and marketing, they came back to me and said, we love the idea.
Not only do we love it.
But we want you to write a series, we’re thinking a three-book series.
So instead of packing everything into just one book, one Bible study, they said, what if you were to create a three-book series?
And I said, hey, I’m I’m up for that.
That sounds exciting.
And so I took the weekend to consider.
how I could take this 10-lesson Bible study and and work it into three books.
And it it just came to me in a flash.
It didn’t take long in wrestling with these ideas.
when I thought, you know, I could really focus in on the heart of the gospel message
And at the very heart of the gospel is the birth of Jesus, the death of Jesus, and the resurrection of Jesus.
And then it just hit me like a flash.
I could do three
books in a series and call them incarnation, crucifixion, and resurrection.
That was the original idea
And I uh I pitched that to them.
I sent them an email and said, I can do a three-book series.
What do you think about these three themes?
And they loved it.
And I was also happy that I pitched those three titles and they did a little bit of um testing that out in the market as well as with their marketing team.
And they said, yeah, go for it.
And so Incarnation, the very first book in this series is here now.
And the second two books, Crucifixion and Resurrection, I have written.
It’s gone through editing.
And they’ll get released early next year.
But I want to talk on this episode a little bit about God with us, the power of incarnation.
Because often when people think about the gospel message, they go to the center, which is the cross, and then they add on to it the resurrection.
And those are essential, those are extremely important.
But the gospel message of how King Jesus saves us doesn’t begin
with his death, it begins with his birth, incarnation.
And so this Bible study, incarnation, certainly has Advent Christmas vibes.
I don’t want you to think that every lesson in this book is specifically about this mystery of incarnation
Because what I try to do is follow the story of Scripture that leads us to the incarnation, that celebrates the mystery, and then draws out the implications.
Now, the overarching theme or the series title is God in the Neighborhood, again drawn from John 1.
And so I’m following the story of Scripture that will lead us to the pivotal moment of the birth of Jesus
But each lesson will take a passage of Scripture in the message translation and work through it.
I like to pull out some of the uniqueness of the message translation.
But after doing the Bible study, the final section in every lesson is called the neighborhood.
So every lesson gets you to dive deep into the scriptures, but then to reflect on your own neighborhood
That is your literal neighborhood and your literal neighbors.
If God has come to us, if God has moved into the neighborhood,
What does it look like for us to live as followers of Jesus in our neighborhood?
Now, let’s get this out of the way.
I continue to use the word incarnation because that’s the title of the book.
But I know that can be somewhat of a technical theological term.
So let me clearly define it.
Incarnation is the
Theological term for God taking on human flesh.
God doesn’t stay distant and far away, but God comes close
Fully entering into human life.
So when we say incarnation, we are speaking about a mystery
It is a mystery because God is eternal.
God is spirit.
Theologians will say God is transcendent.
God is over us
God is not a person somewhere out in the universe.
God is being and essence and life itself.
And so this eternal God, who we believe is the creator of all things, saw us humans in the miserable state we were in.
And let’s be honest, humans tend to make a mess of things, right?
We tend to get our job wrong.
We’re doing a bad job at being human
If you look at the animal world, it’s funny.
Dogs know how to be dogs, right?
Dogs know how to do dog things.
Yes, you can train your dog to be obedient to you, but dogs do dog things, cats do cat things.
I got squirrels just right outside my window, up in the trees around me.
Squirrels know how to be squirrels.
Humans, on the other hand, struggle at being human.
And the story of Scripture is that God created everything to be beautiful.
God created humanity to have fellowship with God.
But then we get three chapters into the book of Genesis and everything goes wrong.
And Scripture does not hide the fact that we human beings tend to make a mess of things
And God was aware.
God saw the mess we were making of things.
And here comes the mystery of the incarnation.
God chose not to stand far away
There are people that believe in a higher power.
They believe in a creator God.
But for some people to think, well, God created everything, but then just vanished.
But this is not the God of the Scriptures.
This is not the God and Father of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
God did not see us in the mess we were in and stay far away.
But God has come to us.
I gotta jump into this podcast episode to let you know I have a new book that’s out.
Incarnation.
8 lessons on how God meets us is available now.
Go order it.
Link is in the show notes.
God came to us in Jesus.
The word became flesh and blood and moved into the neighborhood.
God came to us in Jesus moving into the neighborhood to transform us and the neighborhood.
This is the beautiful message of the gospel that our God loves us, that our God cares about us, our communities, our neighborhoods, and the entire world.
So this is where the gospel message starts.
Yes, you can see the crucifixion as maybe being the climax or the central point of the gospel.
But before Jesus dies for us, Jesus comes for us.
And one of the guiding images that I have used throughout all three books in this Bible study series
is a phrase I picked up from Eugene Peterson.
It’s the phrase, God’s neighboring presence.
I love that phrase, God’s neighboring presence
Eugene Peterson used that in the Message Devotional Bible.
One of the devotionals was written using material from Eugene Peterson
And side note, that was my original title for the entire series.
I wanted to call the series
God’s neighboring presence.
But the marketing folks said that sounds confusing.
And honestly, I tested that series title out with some friends, and it was confusing.
So we went with God in the neighborhood.
It seems to be a little bit more clear.
But I still love that phrase.
So throughout incarnation
You’re gonna see that that phrase, God’s neighboring presence.
God is a neighbor with us.
And Eugene Peterson has the note in the devotional Bible in Zechariah 2.
And this is what I read in the Message Devotional Bible from Eugene Peterson.
Peterson writes: Israel has never been godless.
God has not left.
God is returning to Israel’s neighborhood even as Israel returns to itself because God is with his people.
God’s neighboring presence attends to them.
God likewise attends to us, even when we, like they, have lost our way.
One of the predominant themes of the story that the Bible is telling is God’s desire to be with God’s people.
We see that with the tabernacle in the Old Testament, the Ark of the Covenant in the Old Testament, the construction of the temple, where God’s very presence would dwell in the Holy of Holies.
And in Jesus, this becomes fulfilled.
But it is a predominant theme.
God desired from the very beginning to be with his people
So, this is a theme in both the Old Testament and the New Testament: that God wants to be our neighbor, that God wants to live in our neighborhoods, in us and among us.
So I want to share just a few highlights from Incarnation, not giving away too much, but giving you an overview, a little bit of what this eight-lesson Bible study looks like.
So lesson one is God rules, and we start in the Old Testament.
In fact, crucifixion and resurrection, book two and three, also start in the Old Testament.
Most of the passages that you will look at are in the New Testament, but I want to show the connectivity between Old Testament and New Testament, so each of the Bible studies have a lesson that starts us in the Old Testament
So I wanted to begin incarnation in the Psalms.
So the chapter or lesson, God Rules, is an exploration of Psalm 97
And what we see in the Psalms is that God is everywhere present.
We live in a God-saturated world, even if we don’t see it
And God, the God of Israel, the God of creation, is the king of the nations.
And if you listen to the episode interview I had with Matthew Bates, you’ll understand that this is an important theme in understanding the gospel and getting the gospel right.
is that in the Old Testament, particularly in the Psalms, the Lord, that is the God of Israel, is proclaimed as king.
And so Jesus, as he comes, the word, taking on flesh and blood and moving into the neighborhood, he comes to
Fulfill and embody all that the Old Testament said about God being King.
So Jesus becomes King
and rules and reigns, fulfilling all that Isaiah 97 said.
He rules and reigns as a different kind of king
He’s not a king that comes for conquest.
He’s a king that comes with healing and mercy.
So that’s where we begin lesson one.
Lesson two, we’re still in the Old Testament, in Isaiah.
Because remember, incarnation has Advent and Christmas themes.
And so we’re in Isaiah chapter 2 in lesson 2.
The title is Playing War No More.
And I reflect a little bit in that lesson on the season of Advent and how it teaches us patience and to hold out hope for peace.
Remember at the birth of Jesus, we hear this angelic choir, and what they’re singing is peace on earth, goodwill towards all men.
That peace on earth is not just a sentimental peace, but a true absence of conflict
The peace that the angels sing about at the birth of Jesus is that Hebrew concept shalom.
That is wholeness.
That is everything in order and in its place.
Nothing broken, nothing missing.
Well-being.
And so Advent prepares us for the birth of Jesus, and it keeps us in a posture of patience.
Now, Isaiah 2
In that passage, God promises a future where people will, according to the message translation, play war no more.
And this is, again, the backdrop leading us to the birth of Jesus, the celebration of incarnation.
The next lesson, lesson three, is also in Isaiah 5, looking for a crop of justice.
So, this lesson spends some time talking about the biblical understanding of justice.
Justice for modern hearers or readers sounds like a political slogan, but it really is a Bible word.
And in Isaiah 5, God is speaking to Israel, saying he is looking for justice, he’s looking for righteousness, and he’s not finding it.
And again, this is anticipatory of the ministry of Jesus, because when Jesus comes, he comes to proclaim justice to the Gentiles.
He comes to make all things right.
The next lesson, lesson four, takes us to Isaiah 6, where we discover the prophecy of a virgin who will give birth to a son.
And then in lesson five, we finally get to the birth of Jesus, celebrating that Jesus has been born for us.
That Jesus came for us and our salvation.
The next lesson, lesson six, spends time with what the angels say about the birth of Jesus.
Not only singing about peace on earth and goodwill towards men, but that Jesus is Messiah and Master
Jesus is the Lord and Christ in more traditional renderings of the gospel.
But in the message translation, Eugene Peterson uses the
the Jewish title Messiah, meaning king, and master, which I find helpful
Then two more lessons to go.
Lesson seven is the John 1.
14 passage.
So I spend an entire lesson in John 1.
Focused on that pivotal verse about the word becoming flesh and blood, moving into the neighborhood.
And I call lesson seven, the word in the neighborhood.
Which is not a direct quote from the message translation, but I gave it that chapter title because that was the original title of the original one book Bible study.
Again, if you remember, I pitched this idea of having a single Bible study, one volume going from Genesis to Revelation on the theme of God in the neighborhood.
And in my original pitch to my publisher, I called that Bible study the word in the neighborhood.
So I wanted to include that somewhere in incarnation.
Then the final lesson of incarnation is from Matthew 11.
And there are so many great phrases from the message.
But perhaps what most people know outside of the word becoming flesh and blood and moving into the neighborhood is Matthew 11, 29 through 30.
Where Eugene Peterson uses this beautiful phrase, the unforced rhythms of grace
So let me read this to you from the message, Matthew 11, 29 and 30.
Jesus speaking says, Walk with me and work with me.
Watch how I do it.
Learn the unforced rhythms of grace.
I won’t lay anything heavy or ill fitting on you.
Keep company with me, and you’ll learn to live freely and lightly.
So this is where we end incarnation.
A reflection on what it looks like to learn the unforced rhythms of grace.
Jesus, the word become flesh, the very incarnation of God, came to rescue us, but also came to show us how to live
So Jesus invites us to follow him, to walk in his footsteps, to live as he lived.
And in the message translation, to learn these unforced rhythms of grace.
And Jesus promises that he won’t put anything
Heavy laden on us.
He won’t burden us.
But in following Jesus, because of his incarnation, we learn how to live in freedom
True freedom, that is to live freely and lightly, is not to cast off all restraint.
Some people think to be free means I get to do whatever I want, no rules.
But that turns into slavery, into bondage.
True freedom is found in following Jesus, in confessing with your mouth
That Jesus is Lord, that He is Messiah and Master, believing in your heart God raised him from the dead, and learning to walk in his ways
This is how we discover a kind life, a peaceable life, following Jesus and learning these unforced rhythms of grace.
Well, I’ve been so excited to share with you the content of this new book, Incarnation.
I would love for you to get a copy, and if you’re in a small group or Sunday school class
Talk to the people that are ordering curriculum.
Tell them to check it out.
Incarnation, the first book in this Bible study series, was written for you to help you enter into the scriptures more fully.
And then live this life freely and lightly following Jesus.
Well, thank you for joining me for this episode.
Go in peace and be kind.
This transcript was generated with AI and may contain errors.