Weird Bible Stories Part 6: Balaam and the Donkey

In this last of our series on "Weird Bible Stories," pastors Erica and Steve delve into a strange little story from the wilderness days of the people of Israel in the book of Numbers.  An enemy king is afraid of the Israelites, and so he pays a prophet-for-hire to do his bidding and speak a curse on them.  But when the prophet for hire, a guy named Balaam, is on the way to speak his paid message, he ends up having a rather frank conversation with his own donkey!  It's not just a story about a talking animal--it's a story about the power of words to speak life or death, and about the living God who doesn't do the bidding of paid prophets like a magic genie.  As outlandish and odd as this story is, it meets us today in a culture where religious voices are easily co-opted to say whatever the powers of the day want them to say, where talk is cheap, and where we need to recover a sense of the power of words.  Join us for this conversation and listen in!