Shows / Letters From Home
Letters From Home
We're all a long way from home.
That's the thing the Bible keeps trying to tell us. We're sojourners. Pilgrims. People walking a road we can't see the end of. And the whole canon of Scripture — Moses, the prophets, the Psalms, the Gospels, Paul writing from a Roman prison — is mail for people still on the road. Sent by a Father who has not forgotten where we belong.
Letters from Home is a daily Bible teaching podcast with host Hank Garner. Each weekday, we open one letter and read it slow…
Episodes
Letters From HomeLetter 110 — The Whole Letter: Splanchnon (Philemon)
Paul reaches for the Greek word for the gut three times in twenty-five verses. We walk splanchnon slowly, hear the ledger word in verse 18 as the gospel of…
Letters From HomeLetter 109 — The Address: The Road Back (Philemon)
Everyone in this letter pays something. Onesimus has to go back, Philemon has to receive him, and Paul has to cover the debt. Today the letter asks who you…
Letters From HomeLetter 108 — The Story: Useless, Now Useful (Philemon)
Paul makes a pun on a slave's name and writes a bookkeeper's word into a letter about forgiveness. We walk Philemon phrase by phrase, with Jacob crossing the…
Letters From HomeLetter 107 — The Sender: A Prisoner of Christ Jesus (Philemon)
Paul signs this letter as a prisoner, with a soldier at the other end of his chain. We meet Paul in custody, the household in Colossae, and the plain facts of…
Letters From HomeLetter 106 — The Envelope: The Runaway (Philemon)
A runaway slave carries a letter about himself back to the master he ran from. Week two of Paper and Ink opens the shortest of Paul's letters, one sheet of…
Letters From HomeLetter 105 — The Whole Letter: Parepidēmos (1 Peter 1)
One Greek word sits on the envelope. Parepidēmos, a resident foreigner, appears three times in the New Testament, and the third use takes us back to Hebrews…
Letters From HomeLetter 104 — The Address: Resident Foreigners (1 Peter 1)
Peter's first readers became foreigners without ever leaving home. Today we ask how a believer lives as a resident foreigner without settling in or pulling…
Letters From HomeLetter 103 — The Story: A Deed to a Grave (1 Peter 1)
Abraham had been promised the whole land, and the first piece of it he ever owned was a cave to bury Sarah in. Peter hands Abraham's words to scattered…
Letters From HomeLetter 102 — The Sender: Two Charcoal Fires (1 Peter 1)
Simon Peter denied Jesus three times beside a charcoal fire and was restored beside another one. Some thirty years later he wrote from Rome, which he called…
Letters From HomeLetter 101 — The Envelope: To the Pilgrims (1 Peter 1:1–12)
Season Three opens with a book of the Bible that went out as mail, addressed To the pilgrims of the Dispersion. A fisherman writes to scattered believers in…
Letters From HomeLetter 100 — The Whole Letter: Agapē (1 Corinthians 13 + Season Two)
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Letters From HomeLetter 099 — The Address: What Have You Been Building On? (1 Corinthians 13)
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Letters From HomeLetter 098 — The Story: Fifteen Actions of Love (1 Corinthians 13)
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Letters From HomeLetter 097 — The Sender: A Divided Church (1 Corinthians 13)
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Letters From HomeLetter 096 — The Envelope: The Greatest of These (1 Corinthians 13)
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Letters From HomeLetter 095 — The Whole Letter: Ekcheō (Acts 2)
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Letters From HomeLetter 094 — The Address: Has the Spirit Been Poured on You? (Acts 2)
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Letters From HomeLetter 093 — The Story: Peter's First Sermon (Acts 2)
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Letters From HomeLetter 092 — The Sender: The Fifty Days (Acts 2)
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Letters From HomeLetter 091 — The Envelope: Pentecost (Acts 2:1-41)
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Letters From HomeLetter 090 — The Whole Letter: Anōthen (John 3)
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Letters From HomeLetter 089 — The Address: Have You Been Born, or Been Earning? (John 3)
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Letters From HomeLetter 088 — The Story: Walking with Nicodemus (John 3)
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Letters From HomeLetter 087 — The Sender: The Teacher Who Came at Night (John 3)
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Letters From HomeLetter 086 — The Envelope: You Must Be Born Again (John 3:1-21)
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Letters From HomeLetter 085 — The Whole Letter: Epiousios (Matthew 6)
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Letters From HomeLetter 084 — The Address: Praying Without Noticing (Matthew 6)
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Letters From HomeLetter 083 — The Story: Walking the Six Petitions (Matthew 6)
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Letters From HomeLetter 082 — The Sender: In the Middle of the Sermon (Matthew 6)
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Letters From HomeLetter 081 — The Envelope: Our Father (Matthew 6:5-15)
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Letters From HomeLetter 080 — The Whole Letter: V'hen La (Daniel 3)
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Letters From HomeLetter 079 — The Address: Where Is Your *But If Not*? (Daniel 3)
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Letters From HomeLetter 078 — The Story: The Furnace (Daniel 3)
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Letters From HomeLetter 077 — The Sender: Exiles in Babylon (Daniel 3)
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Letters From HomeLetter 076 — The Envelope: The Fourth Man (Daniel 3)
Support Letters From Home at https://buymeacoffee.com/lettersfromhome or donate via PayPal: paypal.me/authorhankgarner A statue. A furnace. Three young men who…
Letters From HomeLetter 075 — The Whole Letter: Paga (Isaiah 53)
Support Letters From Home at https://buymeacoffee.com/lettersfromhome Donate via PayPal: paypal.me/authorhankgarner The Hebrew verb runs through the chapter in…
Letters From HomeLetter 074 — The Address: Are You in the All? (Isaiah 53:6)
Support Letters From Home at https://buymeacoffee.com/lettersfromhome Donate via PayPal: paypal.me/authorhankgarner The verse says the iniquity of us all was…
Letters From HomeLetter 073 — The Story: The Iniquity of Us All (Isaiah 53)
Support Letters From Home at https://buymeacoffee.com/lettersfromhome Donate via PayPal: paypal.me/authorhankgarner The Servant is despised, rejected, silent…
Letters From HomeLetter 072 — The Sender: The Fifth Gospel (Isaiah 53)
Support Letters From Home at https://buymeacoffee.com/lettersfromhome Donate via PayPal: paypal.me/authorhankgarner Isaiah preached across four kings of Judah…
Letters From HomeLetter 071 — The Envelope: Man of Sorrows (Isaiah 53)
Support Letters From Home at https://buymeacoffee.com/lettersfromhome Donate via PayPal: paypal.me/authorhankgarner Written seven hundred years before the man…
Letters From HomeLetter 070 — The Whole Letter: Devarim (Exodus 20)
In Hebrew, the ten are not called commandments. They are called devarim. Words. And words are different from commandments. In this letter - Aseret hadevarim —…
Letters From HomeLetter 069 — The Address: You Are Reading the Wrong Frame (Exodus 20)
Most of us have been reading the Ten Commandments as a to-do list. As a test. As a standard we are supposed to meet. The Bible calls them words, not…
Letters From HomeLetter 068 — The Story: Ten Words, Walked Slow (Exodus 20)
Ten items. Vertical first, horizontal after. Today we walk each one and notice what the Hebrew is doing. In this letter - The prologue in verse 2 - The first…
Letters From HomeLetter 067 — The Sender: A Mountain That Shook (Exodus 19-20)
The words came out of thunder and smoke and fire. The mountain shook. The people trembled. And God spoke ten words to a people He had just rescued from four…
Letters From HomeLetter 066 — The Envelope: The Ten Words (Exodus 20:1-17)
They are the most famous words in human history. And they are not called commandments in Hebrew. They are called words. In this letter - The historical setting…
Letters From HomeLetter 065 — The Whole Letter: Yada (Psalm 139)
The word for what God does to David runs through the whole psalm. Yada. Intimate knowing. The word for a husband and wife. The word for covenant. The word for…
Letters From HomeLetter 064 — The Address: You Are Not Hiding (Psalm 139)
Most of us have been trying to hide from a God who has never lost sight of us. The exhaustion of hiding from the One who already sees is one of the least…
Letters From HomeLetter 063 — The Story: God Wove You in the Womb (Psalm 139)
The Hebrew yada runs through the whole psalm. Not observation. Not information. Intimate knowing. Today we walk it slow. In this letter - The four movements…
Letters From HomeLetter 062 — The Sender: The Man Who Had a Lot to Hide (Psalm 139)
David wrote this psalm as an older man who had lived a long life and had a lot to hide. Which makes his final invitation — Search me — one of the bravest lines…
Letters From HomeLetter 061 — The Envelope: You Have Searched Me (Psalm 139)
The most personal, most searching psalm David ever wrote. It begins with alarm and ends with an invitation to be searched. In this letter - A slow read of…
Letters From HomeLetter 060 — The Whole Letter: Ear to Eye (Job 38–42)
The shift at the end of the book is between two Hebrew verbs. Shama — to hear. Ra'ah — to see. Job says, I have heard of You by the hearing of the ear, but now…
Letters From HomeLetter 059 — The Address: What If God Gave You Himself Instead of Answers? (Job 42)
Most of us want an answer to our suffering. Job never got one. What he got was God. Would that be enough for you? In this letter - Why the desire for meaning…
Letters From HomeLetter 058 — The Story: Where Were You? (Job 38–42)
The storm rolls in. God asks Job about creation, wild animals, the sea, the stars, Behemoth, Leviathan. Then Job stops talking. Then Job says the line that…
Letters From HomeLetter 057 — The Sender: The Oldest Question (Job)
We don't know who wrote it. We don't know when. But the book of Job is the Bible's most serious wrestling with the hardest question in religion — why do the…
Letters From HomeLetter 056 — The Envelope: God Answered from the Whirlwind (Job 38–42)
For thirty-seven chapters Job has been asking questions. Then in chapter 38, God shows up in a storm — and the answer is not what anyone expected. In this…
Letters From HomeLetter 055 — The Whole Letter: Bara (Genesis 1)
One Hebrew verb runs through the passage. It is used only of God. And it appears three times in the verse where you were made in His image. In this letter -…
Letters From HomeLetter 054 — The Address: Made in the Image (Genesis 1)
Most of us have forgotten we are made in the image of God. Today we ask what changes when we remember, when we treat creation as good, and when we finally…
Letters From HomeLetter 053 — The Story: God Spoke and Saw and Called Good (Genesis 1)
For most of Genesis 1, the only actor is God. Speaking. Seeing. Naming. Then on the sixth day, He makes something in His image, and the story has someone to…
Letters From HomeLetter 052 — The Sender: A Corrective to Egypt (Genesis 1)
Written for people who had spent four hundred years in Egypt believing Egyptian creation stories. Genesis 1 is a corrective, a naming, a Father telling His…
Letters From HomeLetter 051 — The Envelope: In the Beginning (Genesis 1:1–2:3)
The first mail ever sent. Before the road. Before the pilgrims. Before Bethlehem. Season Two opens where the Bible opens. In this letter - A slow read of…