This is part 8 of the Read the Bible For Yourself. The Book of Psalms is an eclectic collection of poetry that you can use to connect to God. In today’s episode you’ll learn about the different kinds of psalms, who wrote them, and how Hebrew poetry works. The goal, as always, is to equip Read more about 541 Read the Bible for Yourself 8: How to Read the Psalms[…]
This is part 7 of the Read the Bible For Yourself. The Bible contains a treasure trove of wisdom literature that can help you navigate the ups and downs of life. Today you’ll learn how to read and understand the books of Proverbs, Song of Songs, Job, and Ecclesiastes. Proverbs and Song of Songs teach Read more about 538 Read the Bible for Yourself 7: How to Read Wisdom Literature[…]
Let’s face it, suffering is a major problem for those of us who believe in a good and powerful God. How do you answer skeptics who challenge your belief in God because of the gratuitous suffering endemic in human history? In this episode we’ll explore some answers to this question offered by several worldviews before Read more about 397 Why Christianity 10: Suffering and Evil (Jerry Wierwille)[…]
What do you do when everything is stripped away? You find out who you really are. In this sermon you’ll see what happened in ancient Judah when the Babylonians besieged Jerusalem, ultimately resulting in utter destruction, humiliating shame, and forcible deportation. Although our times today can’t really compare to the level of suffering these people Read more about 387 God Is Enough (Sean Finnegan)[…]
This is the second part of a conversation where Jerry Wierwille challenges Brandon Duke’s soul-making theodicy. In particular, Wierwille raises the following questions: Why is hiddenness and epistemic distance considered a necessity for moral development considering the biblical examples where people experienced God and still retained their ability to make real moral choices either to Read more about 365 Challenging Soul-Making Theodicy 2 (Brandon Duke, Jerry Wierwille)[…]
In our last two episodes, Brandon Duke laid out his way of answering the question of why God allows so much suffering in our world. He did so by putting forward a modified version of the late John Hick’s soul-making theodicy. In this episode, Jerry Wierwille pushes back on a few issues with soul-making, preferring Read more about 364 Challenging Soul-Making Theodicy 1 (Brandon Duke, Jerry Wierwille)[…]
In part one, Brandon Duke laid out some of the important groundwork for thinking about how a good and powerful God might have a world capable of experiencing immense amounts of evil and suffering. In our conversation today, we’ll delve further into the idea of soul-making to explain why suffering like death, damage, decay, and Read more about 363 Why God Allows Suffering 2 (Brandon Duke)[…]
If God is so good and powerful, why is there so much evil in our world? Although you might retort, “It’s because humanity fell into sin and we are all suffering the consequences.” Such an answer merely pushes the question back one step, since God is the one who determined just how fallen our world Read more about 362 Why God Allows Suffering 1 (Brandon Duke)[…]
Scott Shay is an interesting man. He’s a succesful business man and banker who co-founded a bank in 2001. He even has a TEDx talk where he spoke on Wall Street on the theme, “More Banks, Fewer Problems.” However, he’s also an orthodox Jew who is passionate about his faith. In this interview we talk Read more about 298 Orthodox Jew Defends God, Bible (Scott Shay)[…]
Like Job, the book of Ecclesiastes wrestles with anomalies to the general principles of wisdom contained in much of the bible. Sometimes our world functions in chaotic and unpredictable ways. Sometimes the race is not won by the swift, nor the battle by the strong, nor bread harvested by the wise, nor riches acquired by Read more about 296 Ecclesiastes: Meaningful Life (Victor Gluckin)[…]
The Hebrew Bible contains different kinds of wisdom literature. For example, wise sayings in Proverbs typically express general principles, providing guidance for what to do when the world is working the way it’s supposed to. However, Job deals with just the opposite issue. What happens when you do everything right and still face extraordinary loss Read more about 295 Job: It’s Complicated (Sean Finnegan)[…]
It’s all too common today to hear someone criticizing God along the lines of, “I could never worship a God who does that.” The critiques of God that are most growing in strength today relate to morality rather than logic, science, or society. One classification of these criticisms relates to God allowing seemingly pointless suffering, Read more about Why You Can’t Judge God[…]
Bill Schlegel, professor and cofounder of The Master’s University extension program in Israel (IBEX), was studying the phrase “Son of God” and came to understand the term did not correlate with the traditional “God the Son” teaching, but instead meant God’s heir, the king he has designated to rule the world. Although he had taught Read more about Interview 31: Master’s University Prof. Finds Son of God, Loses Job (Bill Schlegel)[…]
Is it ever right to end someone’s life early? If so, under what conditions? In this episode we turn to the bible to sort out a Christian position on euthanasia. Drawing on the inherent dignity God has invested in each person by making us in his image and the fact that God claims sovereignty over Read more about Off Script 36: Killing the Suffering: A Christian View of Euthanasia[…]
In this episode, we pick up the conversation where the last lecture in my Apologetics class left off. We review six reasons the bible gives for suffering as well as how to face pain and hardship. By looking at Jesus and Paul, we see that God did not spare either of them from adversity. Jesus Read more about Off Script 19: More on Why God Allows Suffering[…]
Historical Jesus 15: Crucifixion One of the most significant events in all of human history, Jesus’ crucifixion was at once a supreme miscarriage of justice while, at the same time, the supreme illustration of God’s love to humanity. We’ll join Jesus from the Garden of Gethsemane, agonizing in prayer before his God, to his arrest, Read more about Podcast 39: Crucifixion (Historical Jesus 15)[…]