Many believe there is 400 years of silence between the Old and New Testament. My guest today is Professor George Athas, director of research and senior lecturer in Hebrew, Old Testament, and Early Church History at Moore Theological College in Sydney, Australia. He’s the author of Bridging the Testaments, which covers four major periods, including Read more about 557 Bridging the Testaments (George Athas)[…]
Scholars and pastors regularly point to specialized “technical” language in Paul’s epistles to make the case that Paul was intentionally subverting Roman power by applying to Jesus terms that the ancients commonly applied to the Caesars. My guest today has done the hard work of analyzing the inscriptions, coins, and material remains of several key Read more about 555 Was Paul Really Subverting Caesar? (Clint Burnett)[…]
This is part 10 of the Read the Bible For Yourself. We’ve taken our time working through the Old Testament, section by section. Before we tackle the New Testament and look at the Gospels, we need to talk about the time between the Old and New Testaments. In the gap of roughly four hundred years, Read more about 543 Read the Bible for Yourself 10: Key Background for Reading the New Testament[…]
This is part 21 of the Early Church History class. In the fifth century Christians waged a theological civil war that ended in a massive church split. The issue was over the dual natures of Christ. How was he both divine and human? Did he have a human soul and a divine soul? Did his Read more about 503 Early Church History 21: The Dual Natures Controversy of the Fifth Century[…]
Have you ever heard someone say that Jesus’ contemporaries were wrong about the kingdom of God, because they conceived of it in political terms? I’ve heard Christian thinkers suggest that Jesus’ notion of the kingdom was entirely apolitical and that the disciples were foolish to assume that the kingdom had anything to do with national Read more about Is God’s Kingdom a Political Revolution?[…]
Kenneth LaPrade lives in El Paso, Texas, on the border between the United States and Mexico. His wife is Mexican and many of the folks in his house church are from Mexico. In such a context, immigration is always a touchy subject, but lately some Christians have baptized certain political rhetoric and presented it as Read more about Interview 42 Christian Solidarity vs. Polarizing Politics (Kenneth Laprade)[…]
This is part five in our series on responding to your questions and comments. In this Q & A episode, we address two commenters who responded to Off Script 34: Killing the Unborn (A Christian View of Abortion). Dan Fitzsimmons responds to Candace who inquired why Dan would vote against capital punishment but not against Read more about Off Script 46: Should Christians Outlaw Abortion? (Q&A)[…]
This is part three in our series on responding to your questions and comments. In Off Script 28: Seeking a Christian View on Refugees and Immigrants, we concluded on the basis of several scriptures in the Old Testament as well as the Great Commission that Christians should welcome refugees into their countries. In response to Read more about Off Script 44: Should We Ban Muslim Immigrants? (Q&A)[…]
Welcome to our series answering your questions and responding to some of your comments. We’ve been saving these up and over the next few weeks, we’ll address a number of them. We’ve decided to do these in individual episodes, so if you’re not interested in the topic, you can just skip it and listen to Read more about Off Script 42: Hillary Clinton, a Dead Moose, and Christians Discussing Politics (Q&A)[…]
This is part two of our discussion about Charles Mathewes’ Washington Post article, “White Christianity is in big trouble. And it’s its own biggest threat.” Check out part one here. In this episode we consider gun control, immigration, the death penalty, and treatment of the poor in an effort to understand and respond to evangelicalism’s Read more about Off Script 41: Guns, Immigrants, and White Evangelicals[…]
While scrolling through Facebook, I came across Charles Mathewes’ Washington Post article, “White Christianity is in big trouble. And it’s its own biggest threat.” At first reading, I was infuriated at what I felt were unfair criticisms, but after I thought about it, I realized what an opportunity this article presented. It collects together no Read more about Off Script 40: Roy Moore, Gay Wedding Cakes, and White Evangelicals[…]
In this sprint through British church history, you’ll learn about King Henry VIII and his staggering Act of Supremacy when he pulled the Church of England out of Catholicism and appointed himself the head of the church. After Henry’s death, England swayed back and forth as Henry’s successors adopted Protestantism then Catholicism then Protestantism again. Read more about 125 The Reformation in Britain (Five Hundred 9)[…]
Did you know that Christianity spread to Asia in the first century? At one time the Church of the East was bigger than the Roman Catholic Church. Although often overlooked, this part of the world is critical to our understanding Christianity in the last five hundred years. Our guest lecturer, Matthew Elton, guides us through Read more about 124 Asian Christianity with Matthew Elton (Five Hundred 8)[…]
Zooming out, this episode casts a wide net to summarize how the movement started by Luther, Zwingli, and Calvin affected Europe over the next century. We’ll see how the Reformation took root in Germany, Scandinavia, and the Netherlands while simultaneously failing to find fertile ground in France, especially among those in power. Lastly, we’ll consider Read more about 122 Reformations on the Continent (Five Hundred 7)[…]
Like all kingdoms, God’s kingdom is political in nature. As a result, the kingdom requires allegiance from its citizens. By examining Jewish messianism and Roman political sensibilities, you’ll come to better see how early Christians prioritized their allegiance to the age to come over their local and national allegiances. This is lecture 9 of the Read more about 100: Kingdom Allegiance (Kingdom of God 9)[…]
On January 27, 2017, President Trump issued Executive Order 13769, called “Protecting the Nation from Foreign Terrorist Entry into the United States,” in which he banned immigration from seven countries, including Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, and Yemen. This unpopular order caused much controversy throughout the US and led to significant litigation, delaying it’s Read more about Off Script 28: Seeking a Christian View on Refugees and Immigrants[…]
The 19th century philosopher, Friedrich Nietzsche, believed that our desire for success, money, or love really went back to our “will to power.” Whereas other philosophies focused on calibrating our internal state to accept reality, Nietzsche focused more on conforming reality to our desires. Although it’s terribly out of fashion to admit one desires and Read more about Off Script 26: Worshiping Power[…]