Craving Answers, Craving God

The Gospel is the proclamation that God has triumphed over sin and death through the work of Jesus. Every Christian sermon has to proclaim this Gospel by announcing the death and resurrection of Jesus. Since the whole text of Holy Scripture centers on Jesus' death and resurrection, every sermon has to explain, illustrate, and apply the sermon text. The job of the sermon is not merely to explain and instruct in good theology, but to explain and apply the text itself. And while the question of whether or not the sermon should apply the text by telling people what to do is sometimes controversial in churches that believe in salvation by grace through faith alone, applying the text not by giving rules but by applying the Gospel is mandatory. In other words, the Gospel is not just news that sins are forgiven, it's also the good news that Jesus is Lord of the universe, and now we are free–by the power of Jesus–to be the humans he has redeemed us to be. Hosts: Aaron Mueller and Chuck Rathert Subscribe to the show at https://cacg.saintjamesglencarbon.org. To comment on this episode, visit https://saintjamesglencarbon.org/cacg-ep120.

The Bible makes it clear that the Holy Spirit is still active in the life of Christ's church. But what does this mean, and how does this look? For some, the Holy Spirit speaks directly in a miraculous way; for others the Holy Spirit guides by opening doors. How do we know that what we're hearing or being led to do is coming from the Holy Spirit? By judging the message or compulsion on the basis of God's Word. So it's not just the big events that are the Holy Spirit speaking; even the small messages–like being moved to read God's Word, to pray, to love someone else at personal expense–are clearly coming from outside fallen human nature. It's important to remember that the Bible–God's Word–is primary. What God says in holy scripture is binding on all people everywhere for all time. This is different from a personal prompting of the Holy Spirit, which is not universally applicable to all people at all times. So, as Paul says, the spirits must be tested to see if they are in line with God's Word. Hosts: Aaron Mueller and Chuck Rathert Subscribe to the show at https://cacg.saintjamesglencarbon.org. To comment on this episode, visit https://saintjamesglencarbon.org/cacg-ep119.

Scripture–in some ways–is a reflection of God's mind, which means that understanding Scripture can never be completely mastered. Like a big city, there is something new and unexplored around every corner for the reader. In other words, reading the Bible is a great adventure of exploration and discovery. The main foundation of solid biblical interpretation is to read it as the Word of God. Humanity sits under God, so his Word must sit in authority over us. This means that the meaning of the text must come from the text, not imposed upon it from outside. The temptation of all Christian denominations is to map their theology on to the text of Scripture, using the Bible as a series of proofs for their own correctness. But this is turning our theology or thoughts in “sacred scripture”, not allowing the real sacred Scripture to speak for God. One key to checking our own theological and cultural biases in the attempt to allow God's Word to speak for itself is to read it in community. Hearing what people from different backgrounds hear when they read Scripture helps us read and hear Scripture from outside our own echo chamber. Practically speaking, correct biblical interpretation depends on reading the Bible not as isolated sayings, verses, or stories, but as one complete story, and we cannot understand any story–especially the story of Scripture!–outside of the whole story. And the importance of understanding the historical background of the text is also vital to correctly interpreting it. This takes work–digging into the cultural and historical backgrounds of the text means learning from scholars who study the backgrounds of the Bible. But this will keep us from making the Bible mean something it doesn't, turning it into a decontextualized inspirational message to me. Hosts: Aaron Mueller and Chuck Rathert Subscribe to the show at https://cacg.saintjamesglencarbon.org. To comment on this episode, visit https://saintjamesglencarbon.org/cacg-ep118.

For Christianity, marriage is much more than a convenient way to order society and build and protect families. Marriage is at its heart a reflection of two deeper theological realities: first, it reflects the eternal relationship that the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit have. In other words, God has given his human creatures the gift of marriage so they can look like the Trinity, bearing God's image in the husband-wife relationship. And second, marriage reflects the love Jesus has for his church. Because of this, marriage takes on a significance that far exceeds its romantic possibilities, or its economic or social utility. God wants us to remain faithful to our spouses because he is a faithful God. There are times when the Bible permits divorce–in cases of adultery, abandonment, and (many in the church agree) physical abuse. But outside of these cases, God expects husbands and wives to practice love and faithfulness for each other. Hosts: Aaron Mueller and Chuck Rathert Subscribe to the show at https://cacg.saintjamesglencarbon.org. To comment on this episode, visit https://saintjamesglencarbon.org/cacg-ep117.

For lots of Christians knowing when they were saved is very important, and knowing the date they were baptized or the date they first believed becomes a way to assure themselves of the security of their relationship with God. There are two questions behind this issue: first, am I saved because of a decision I've made or a decision God has made. Chuck and Aaron talk about how our salvation is completely founded on God's decision to rescue us, and even when our initial realization of the truth of the Gospel resulted in what looked like us deciding to believe in Jesus, it was really God working in our hearts to give us the faith to believe. And the second question: am I saved in one moment or is it a process? So many people have a different experience–some were baptized when they were infants and have never stopped believing the Gospel, some were baptized, drifted away from faith in Jesus, and then came back to him over time and or in one dramatic moment, and some were never baptized but as adults became converted to Christianity, again either in one moment or as a result of an apparent process. And while all these experiences are difficult, one thing remains the same–those who have been saved by Jesus have spiritual life now. The best way to tell if you are physically alive is not to look at your birth certificate but to check your pulse, and the best way to know if you are a child of God is whether or not you have faith in his son Jesus. Hosts: Aaron Mueller and Chuck Rathert Subscribe to the show at https://cacg.saintjamesglencarbon.org. To comment on this episode, visit https://saintjamesglencarbon.org/cacg-ep116.

Prayer, with Bible reading, is a conversation with God. But sometimes it seems that God isn't listening to our prayers. Is this an illusion of our lack of faith, or is perhaps God not really listening? The Bible sometimes talks about God not hearing prayers, but how does this work for an omniscient God–isn't it impossible for him not to hear everything everyone is saying, whether to him or anyone else? The key is in the way the Hebrew language uses the word for “hear”. It doesn't just mean receiving the audible sensation of sound; it means listening to and responding to something someone says. So, when the Bible says God does not hear the prayers of those who are opposed to him, it means he won't respond to them. But for Christians, whether or not we feel like God hears and responds to our prayers or not, he does. He wants a relationship with us, and promises always to communicate with us. Hosts: Aaron Mueller and Chuck Rathert Subscribe to the show at https://cacg.saintjamesglencarbon.org. To comment on this episode, visit https://saintjamesglencarbon.org/cacg-ep115.

One of the reasons Jesus called himself the Son of Man is the name's vagueness. The title can simply mean “human”; this is the way the prophet Ezekiel seems to be using it during the many times he refers to himself in this way. There is no possible way this seemingly innocuous usage could land Jesus in trouble with the authorities. But on the other hand, the title “Son of Man” probably mainly refers to a very important prophecy in Daniel 7, where one “like a son of man” comes and stands before God, and God gives him dominion and power so that all the nations serve him - a kingdom that will never pass away. This strange personage is a human (“like a son of man”) but is also worshiped (“all peoples…should serve him”). Jesus knows that he is truly human, but he uses the title Son of Man to emphasize that he is more than that - he is also the one true God who is worthy of worship. Hosts: Aaron Mueller and Chuck Rathert Subscribe to the show at https://cacg.saintjamesglencarbon.org. To comment on this episode, visit https://saintjamesglencarbon.org/cacg-ep114.

Because love is not primarily an emotional disposition toward someone else but is instead about self-sacrificial actions, trust is baked into such a relationship. We come to know and love someone precisely by trusting in that person enough to get close enough to live in intimacy with them. This sort of relationship intentionally reflects the inner life of the Trinity, where the three persons of the divine Oneness completely love and trust each other. Unfortunately, in human relationships, sometimes the sin which colors any relationship mars the trust which maybe once defined a relationship. The love might be there, but in such a case the trust has been damaged. This should, however, be seen as a weird, suspended state of a broken relationship, with the goal to be restoring the trust which makes the loving relationships whole again. The model for this is Jesus, who loved us so much he won our trust in him. Hosts: Aaron Mueller and Chuck Rathert Subscribe to the show at https://cacg.saintjamesglencarbon.org. To comment on this episode, visit https://saintjamesglencarbon.org/cacg-ep113.

All the statistics point to an increase in acts of aggression and violent crime in our society. But why is this happening? Secular thinkers used to opine that religion exacerbated violence; the theory being that commitment to absolute truth would cause people to insist that their viewpoint must be adhered to and that violence would be the tool most readily used by close-minded bigots to force others to change. But the twentieth-century gave the lie to this notion - instead of the religious zealots being the violent ones, it turns out that the atheists and pagans (from Lenin to Stalin to Hitler to Pol Pot to Mao) have been most guilty of acts of violence and that frequently against people of religion. In other words, secularism seems to be less of a bulwark against violence than it is a foundation for it. But why would this be? Chuck and Aaron discuss how belief in absolute truth creates the possibility of rational discourse as a tool to persuade others, but a lack of belief in God lends itself to an abandonment of the hope of using logic as a means of personal contact. This makes education hopeless, and the only tool left for personal persuasion is power. The end result, unfortunately, has all too frequently been violence. For Christians, the hope of peace can only be found in the God who personally took on the violence of this world but didn't respond in kind, who absorbed the physical terrorism of the Roman Empire, absorbed it, and loved in return. If Christians can model for our culture what it means to live in the God who eschewed violence for self-sacrificial love, and if Christians can recommit to the truth which comes from the God who is the Truth Incarnate and persuades others with relational love instead of force, then the Christian church can become a paradigm for how the world can run on peace and not violence. Hosts: Aaron Mueller and Chuck Rathert Subscribe to the show at https://cacg.saintjamesglencarbon.org. To comment on this episode, visit https://saintjamesglencarbon.org/cacg-ep112.

For Christians, any discussion about any topic must begin and end with the Bible, because if God is God we cannot afford to deny him the final word. When it comes to topics upon which the prevailing culture diverges from what God says in the Bible, the temptation for Christians is to accommodate its teaching to meet the current mood of the cultural moment, but this is at its heart an attempt to be God instead of him, believing in him when he agrees with us but dismissing him when he doesn't. The Bible's teaching on sexuality is clear - God has designed humans for one of two actions: either a lifelong, covenant-committed relationship between one man and one woman, or faithful celibacy. God calls us, when we commit any sexual desires or behaviors that do not fit into this pattern, to repentance, forgiveness, and the promise of being fulfilled in Jesus' love for us. Because all humans are sinful all humans struggle against this command, but whether the sinfulness we struggle against is opposite-attracted desires and actions or same-sex desires and actions, the promise of the Gospel that there is no sin the blood of Jesus cannot cover holds true! Hosts: Aaron Mueller and Chuck Rathert Subscribe to the show at https://cacg.saintjamesglencarbon.org. To comment on this episode, visit https://saintjamesglencarbon.org/cacg-ep111.

What does it mean when someone wears a cross? What if that person is a Christian, or a non-Christian? Is it ever wrong to wear a cross? There are roughly two answers to this question. First, since the cross serves as a symbolic reminder for Christians that the creator God is not a distant divinity, but a flesh-and-blood human who died to rescue his creation, the cross should be worn with faith in Jesus and reverence for the great lengths he went to in his mission to save us. But second, there still remains a value to the symbol of the cross, even when worn in unbelief. The very fact of its existence as jewelry stands as a witness to the unbelievable subversion of worldly political powers by the self-sacrificial power of God. In the Roman Empire, the cross was a tool of subjugation, of the public humiliation of those who dared oppose the power and claims of Caesar. The whole point of the cross was propaganda - if you dare oppose the Emperor you will be stripped naked, hung up in the middle of your town for all to see, and slowly killed by a symphony of pains and deprivations; in other words, it was designed to be deeply shameful. That Christians took this symbol of the death of a slave and co-opted it as the symbol of their God who became a suffering slave to defeat the evil powers that be and rescue his people from sin is historically astounding. And if the one who wears the cross necklace does not believe in this message (while incredibly important for the eternal destiny of that particular person), the power of the symbol itself can still not be undermined. In this sense, the wearing of the cross as decoration or jewelry serves as a constant reminder to a culture which would like to forget it, that Jesus is Lord and no amount of effort to stamp him or his kingdom out will ever be successful - truly, the gates of hell cannot prevail against it. Hosts: Aaron Mueller and Chuck Rathert Subscribe to the show at https://cacg.saintjamesglencarbon.org. To comment on this episode, visit https://saintjamesglencarbon.org/cacg-ep110.

An idea frequently heard from contemporary Christians is that the Bible is God's “love letter” to humanity. But is this true? And if it is, why does so much of the Bible not read like a love letter? In this episode Chuck and Aaron discuss the question of the Bible's genre and its relationship to God's love. While a main theme of the Bible is God's love for his human creatures, it–contrary to a popular evangelical trope–is not a love letter to us. First of all, the genre of scripture is not that of a letter; while there are letters in the Bible (e.g., the letters of Paul), so much of God's Word reads completely differently than a letter: there are genealogies, rules, poetry, laws, and many other genres of writing. So fundamentally, the Bible is a story–the story of God's plan to rescue his creation. And secondly, the Bible is not written to any individual person but to a group of people, the church. To individualize the message of Scripture is to risk losing its cosmic scope, to minimize his plan to rescue–not just individuals, but–a new family to himself. But at the end of the day, the idea that the Bible is God's love letter to me does capture an important reality. God does love me! Hosts: Aaron Mueller and Chuck Rathert Subscribe to the show at https://cacg.saintjamesglencarbon.org. To comment on this episode, visit https://saintjamesglencarbon.org/cacg-ep109.

How do pastors become pastors? How does God make pastors, and how do they know that's what God wants them to be? And how do they know what church they should be at. In this episode Chuck and Aaron answer these questions and also talk about Aaron's call to be a pastor. Pastors are called by God to preach and teach the Gospel to the Christian church. In this sense the call is unique to this particular ministry. But in another sense the call to be a pastor is no different than the call to be a mother, or lawyer, or church musician. God gives each of his people gifts to use in loving him and loving each other, and these specific gifts will make clear what call each person has received from God. And for pastors, the question of which church they should serve at is also connected with the gifts God has given them. Which church can best use his gifts and cover his weaknesses? Aaron is making the transition to pastoring a new church, so Chuck and Aaron discuss how Aaron and his family made the decision to leave St James and move to his new church. And in related news, Chuck and Aaron also discuss the ongoing mission of Craving Answers Craving God, and how the podcast will continue producing episodes in spite of Aaron's move. Hosts: Aaron Mueller and Chuck Rathert Subscribe to the show at https://cacg.saintjamesglencarbon.org. To comment on this episode, visit https://saintjamesglencarbon.org/cacg-ep108.

It's not at all controversial to note that Christmas, as a cultural phenomenon in the United States, does not always resemble the Christian festival celebrating Jesus' birth. Commercial interests have exploited the season for profit, and it seems like all of us have agreed to make the month of December the most hectic and least peaceful season of all. On the one hand, this misplaced emphasis on capitalist greed and frantic busy-ness at least holds Christmas up as important, and as long as Christmas is at the forefront of the cultural consciousness there is a chance its main message - that God has become human to recur his human creatures and creation - might break through the barriers. But its worthwhile for Christians to push back against the noise and pace of “American” Christmas and spend more time quietly meditating on what it means to wait on the Lord, to find our happiness in the arrival of Jesus to save us. Hosts: Aaron Mueller and Chuck Rathert Subscribe to the show at https://cacg.saintjamesglencarbon.org. To comment on this episode, visit https://saintjamesglencarbon.org/cacg-ep107.

Luther expands the “father and mother” of the fourth commandment to also mean “other authorities.” His reasoning for this is that all human leadership flows out of the leadership and responsibility God gives to parents over their children: parents cannot teach their children everything so they hire schools and teachers to represent them in training their kids; parents cannot defend their homes and children from the threat of foreign invaders so they pay taxes to the government who cares for national defense. So for Luther, the government the citizen lives under is just as much a function of God's authority as the parents a child lives under. For that reason, governments must never be rebelled against or overthrown. This does not mean, though, that governments must always be obeyed. While the Christian's vocation is citizen, his or her identity is baptized into Christ, so the Christian must always obey Jesus before any other human authority, but this must be done with the respect and honor that God's chosen agent for each country, state, or city is due. Hosts: Aaron Mueller and Chuck Rathert Subscribe to the show at https://cacg.saintjamesglencarbon.org. To comment on this episode, visit https://saintjamesglencarbon.org/cacg-ep106.

All of us know what it's like to be humbled, and almost all of those times of humiliation have been forced upon us - after all, no sane person would willingly choose to be humiliated in front of other people. But Jesus' humiliation is active: “he humbled himself” Paul says in Philippians 2. But why would he do this? Paul insists that the path of salvation - in other words, the path of exaltation - is and was necessarily the path of humiliation. Jesus humbled himself, becoming the servants of those very people whom he created, sustained, and who rebelled against him, in order to rescue us who could not rescue ourselves. This also provides a model of what it means to love self-sacrificially, to give up our glory and exaltation to serve others who do not deserve it. Hosts: Aaron Mueller and Chuck Rathert Subscribe to the show at https://cacg.saintjamesglencarbon.org. To comment on this episode, visit https://saintjamesglencarbon.org/cacg-ep105.

A person's appetite for and willingness to change can frequently be a matter of personality - some people are by nature more conservative in their personality and tend to resist change by nature, while others have personalities that are more progressive and tend to embrace and even pursue change. The former group have the advantage of not being easily swayed into making bad changes in their life but the disadvantage of being unwilling at times to make necessary good changes. On the other hand, the latter group have the advantage of being willing to embrace much-needed changes but the disadvantage of sometimes rushing into unnecessary and even harmful changes. Both groups, of course, need each other to temper each other's weaknesses. But how do we know what is bad change and what is good change? The answer the Bible gives is that their is an unchangeable touchstone, Jesus Christ, who is the same yesterday, today, and forever. He never changes because he is perfect and thus needs no change. But we are not perfect, so we must be ready to change when needed, and we know we need to change when our thoughts or behavior does not match up with the perfect, unchangeable Jesus. So, with Jesus as our North Star, we can know when changing is necessary and when changing would be wrong. Hosts: Aaron Mueller and Chuck Rathert Subscribe to the show at https://cacg.saintjamesglencarbon.org. To comment on this episode, visit https://saintjamesglencarbon.org/cacg-ep104.

In Christianity there are two different, but related, senses of the word confession. On the one hand, there is a confession of faith - the public and private statement of what Christians believe. On the other hand, there is also a confession of sin - the public and private statement that God is right and his human creatures are wrong. What these two confessions have in common is they both are fundamentally an agreement with God, that he is right and we are wrong. These confessions carry with them a lot of benefit for the individual human: first, by turning us away from the fake “reality” that God is wrong and we are right and orienting us to true reality, we can know that we are right with God; and second, this right orientation to God's reality produces psychological comfort as the individual human begins to experience much less dissonance in his life as he moves throughout God's world. Chuck and Aaron also discuss the benefits of private confession to God, corporate confession, individual confession with a pastor, and confessing our sins to those we have sinned against. Hosts: Aaron Mueller and Chuck Rathert Subscribe to the show at https://cacg.saintjamesglencarbon.org. To comment on this episode, visit https://saintjamesglencarbon.org/cacg-ep103.

Every human belief or opinion is based upon a presupposition - a faith commitment that cannot be proven but can only be assumed. For instance, the difference between Christianity and atheism is not the difference between “faith” and “reason”, between opinion and fact, between superstition and rationality; instead, both positions are based on unprovable, faith-based assumptions - presuppositions. Christians believe God exists, atheists believe God does not exist. Neither can prove their position is correct, so both hold their position based on faith. And starting from those presuppositional foundations, each builds out logical explanations of how the universe works based on those presuppositions. The question is which presupposition makes for the best logical conclusions; does faith in God or does faith in no-God make best sense of the universe? Does Christianity or atheism make best sense of the inborn sense of justice all humans have? Does Christianity or atheism make best sense of the quest for beauty that all humans strive for? For Christianity, the logical conclusions of belief that God has revealed himself in Jesus make sense of our world in ways that no other presupposition can. Hosts: Aaron Mueller and Chuck Rathert Subscribe to the show at https://cacg.saintjamesglencarbon.org. To comment on this episode, visit https://saintjamesglencarbon.org/cacg-ep102.

Some Christians have held that cremation is not permitted by the Bible, on the grounds that bodies buried intact, or “sleeping”, are a concrete anticipation of the resurrection of the dead on the last day. But the Bible never expressly forbids cremation, and in at least one place cremation is approvingly performed (1 Samuel 31:11-13). The key issue is the question of what the resurrection from the dead means: if the body has been created by God and is fundamentally good, then our funeral and burial practices must center around and focus on the belief and confession that God will raise all the bodies of his children someday to new life in his new creation, whether they have been buried or cremated. Hosts: Aaron Mueller and Chuck Rathert Subscribe to the show at https://cacg.saintjamesglencarbon.org. To comment on this episode, visit https://saintjamesglencarbon.org/cacg-ep101.

Virtue, in the ancient world, was the word for moral and physical excellence. Those who were brave, those who were honest, those who accomplished great things, were excellent, therefore virtuous. The Bible, too, picks up on this ancient idea and calls humans to pursue virtue. But the Bible, unlike the Stoics and other ancient philosophies, holds that virtue is something that is only located in God's character. In 2 Peter 1, Peter first claims that glory and virtue are something that are God's alone, and then calls God's people to live in His virtue, making ever effort to supplement our faith with this excellence. And if Christians are living in Christ's virtue, then there is no need for “virtue signaling” - having to tell people we have virtue, to cover up our lack - because the genuine virtue and excellence of Jesus will be manifest in our day to day living. Hosts: Aaron Mueller and Chuck Rathert Subscribe to the show at https://cacg.saintjamesglencarbon.org. To comment on this episode, visit https://saintjamesglencarbon.org/cacg-ep100.

When Jesus was falsely accused of sedition and blasphemy, Pontius Pilate asked him a question which has persistently confounded every thinker before and since: “What is truth?” Pinning down truth so that everyone can have access to reality has been notoriously difficult. One option is to hold that humans can figure out the truth based upon their own observations and experiences - but the human propensity to be mistaken often demonstrates this theory's weakness. Another option is to hold that there is no such thing as truth (or, at least, no one can know whether there is or not) - and yet we humans continue to live as though some things are true and worth giving assent to and others are not. The Christian solution is that no mere mortal can completely know and understand the truth, but that God has made the truth known in the person of his Son Jesus. In other words, any and all truth claims must be tested not against the standard of human experience or common sense, but against the person of the One who claimed to be the way, the truth, and the life. Hosts: Aaron Mueller and Chuck Rathert Subscribe to the show at https://cacg.saintjamesglencarbon.org. To comment on this episode, visit https://saintjamesglencarbon.org/cacg-ep99.

The cultural trope of the twenty-something guy living in his parents basement, not working, not exercising, and playing hours of video games, is perhaps a caricature, but it touches on a reality that is all too common today: the disillusioned and lonely young man. Individualism has taught all of us that community responsibility and living life in relationship is unimportant, and guys who have bought into this lie pay the price of loneliness. But in addition, cultural currents which disdain the way God has created men to function (with energy, aggression, logical rigor, and decisiveness) make being a real man in public an almost impossible task. Part of this cultural pushback is, of course, a necessary reaction against the sexual aggression of some men who have felt loosed by the sexual revolution to treat women as objects. But Christianity insists that the solution to the problems of the sexual revolution is not to stifle biological manhood, but to channel the way God has made them in service of their families and community, by providing and protecting. Hosts: Aaron Mueller and Chuck Rathert Subscribe to the show at https://cacg.saintjamesglencarbon.org. To comment on this episode, visit https://saintjamesglencarbon.org/cacg-ep98.

Sometimes churches close for demographic reasons: a small, rural community whose citizens are moving away will perhaps struggle to keep its churches open. But the primary reason why once healthy churches shrink and die is that they stop recognizing their foundation, Jesus Christ. The liberal way of ignoring the foundation is to ignore his teachings, his strong Jewish commitment to the way God's Law reveals God's own character. The conservative way of ignoring the foundation is to ignore his mission, his desire - not to establish a theological ghetto of like-believing religious adherents - but to use his own people as his body to rescue the cities and neighborhoods where he has planted that particular church. But when God's people remain faithful to his teaching and his mission, the Christian church grows and flourishes. Hosts: Aaron Mueller and Chuck Rathert Subscribe to the show at https://cacg.saintjamesglencarbon.org. To comment on this episode, visit https://saintjamesglencarbon.org/cacg-ep97.

If God is indeed infinite, like the Bible says, then it's clear we can never completely comprehend what this means. After all, if the finite (we humans) could comprehend the infinite it would no longer be infinite. But this doesn't mean we shouldn't try to understand who God is. Like any other intellectual pursuit (learning new technology, a new language, a new musical instrument, etc.), reaching perfection is never possible, but growth is. In fact, believing in a God who is infinite gives direction to our lives now. Like a road trip whose final destination gives meaning and purpose to the individual turns on the way there, knowing that the final destination for redeemed humanity is a relationship with an infinite God controls how we live now. And God, who is alone infinite and immortal, gives his people the gift of his own immortality by uniting them to his resurrected son Jesus. Hosts: Aaron Mueller and Chuck Rathert Subscribe to the show at https://cacg.saintjamesglencarbon.org. To comment on this episode, visit https://saintjamesglencarbon.org/cacg-ep96.

Christians often talk about serving the Lord. And while it's true that the Bible calls his people to serve him with all their hearts, it's a mistake to think that what this means is that God needs us to meet his needs. So, in what sense is it appropriate to talk about us serving God? First, since God is God and we are not, he is in charge and we're not. As such, he is our master and we are his servants. But he doesn't call us to serve him because he needs us or because there is something missing in him which only his human creatures can fulfill. Instead, the Bible frequently describes God as serving us. Unlike the rest of the gods in the world, our God does not demand our sacrifice for his sake, but instead he sacrifices himself for us. In other words, he is the kind of Master who serves, subverting what our culture thinks about power and authority and identifying it with self-sacrifice, the heart of which is the self-sacrifice of the God-man Jesus Christ on the cross for the lives of his people. Hosts: Aaron Mueller and Chuck Rathert Subscribe to the show at https://cacg.saintjamesglencarbon.org. To comment on this episode, visit https://saintjamesglencarbon.org/cacg-ep95.

Music has a power which logic and rationality do not - the power to tap into the human emotional experience. This experience is no less spiritual than understanding and reflecting on the truth of the gospel intellectually, merely different. Music evokes memories that mere words cannot, connecting us to our experience of God in worship from the past. Music taps into our creativity, allowing us not merely to participate in worship but become authors and creators of Christian worship ourselves. And music fires our imagination, allowing us by faith to experience the universal church on heaven and earth as we sing and aids us in longing for the eternal worship of new creation. Chuck and Aaron call the Christian church back to its heritage of strong and heartfelt congregational singing. Hosts: Aaron Mueller and Chuck Rathert Subscribe to the show at https://cacg.saintjamesglencarbon.org. To comment on this episode, visit https://saintjamesglencarbon.org/cacg-ep94.

What makes the books of the Bible sacred scripture is that they were written by prophets (Old Testament) or apostles (New Testament). The books of the New Testament bear witness to the ministry of Jesus of Nazareth, either as a first-hand account of his life, death, and resurrection (we call these the four Gospels) or by reflecting on and applying this Gospel to the life of the Christian communities of the first century (these are the epistles written by Paul, Peter, and others). These books were not “decided upon” by anyone; instead, the earliest Jesus followers recognized that they were about the historical Jesus and carried his continuing power in the reading of them. Only later, in the fourth century, did the church feel the need to put down on paper an official list of the books they had already recognized as scripture. Hosts: Aaron Mueller and Chuck Rathert Subscribe to the show at https://cacg.saintjamesglencarbon.org. To comment on this episode, visit https://saintjamesglencarbon.org/cacg-ep93.

After a discussion about how it's impossible to prove things like whether spirits exist or not, Chuck and Aaron talk about how the Bible describes the spiritual world. The existence of angels - powerful, supernatural beings whose job it is to serve God - is assumed by the Bible, and there are times when angels interact with humans. Most of us have never had an experience of an angel, but the Bible says that sometimes humans can interact with them without being aware they are talking with an angel. The Bible also describes fallen angels, or demons. These beings have rebelled against God and are determined to do harm to humanity. Chuck and Aaron discuss the possibility that “hauntings” are actually the work of demonic forces. Ghosts, on the other hand, if they are to be understood as the souls of deceased people, don't typically inhabit this universe, since the Bible says that it is appointed to each human being to die and then face the judgment. In other words, the souls of the deceased either go to hell or into the presence of Christ. Interacting with spiritual forces under the misconception that they are harmless wandering souls can therefore be a very dangerous thing. Hosts: Aaron Mueller and Chuck Rathert Subscribe to the show at https://cacg.saintjamesglencarbon.org. To comment on this episode, visit https://saintjamesglencarbon.org/cacg-ep92.

For Christians, the question of how we can be saved has too often been framed as a future question: how can I know I'm going to heaven when I die? But the Bible just doesn't talk enough about going to heaven when we die for us to justify making that the baseline of our assurance of salvation. Instead, the Bible talks about our assurance in terms of what God has done in the past and is now doing in the future; namely, he has become a human being in space and time so that he can - in the middle of human history and on the planet earth - die the death we should have died and rise from the dead to take away the barrier between us and God, and that he gives us this salvation in concrete, objective ways. These concrete applications of his salvation are his word, which regardless of how we feel announces to us that he loves us for the sake of his son, Jesus Christ, and his sacraments, which are physical, objective promises of salvation to us. I might sometimes doubt, I might sometimes not understand the Bible like I should, I might sometimes do things that are sinful, but what never changes is that God's word announces my salvation and my baptism into Jesus really happened. Hosts: Aaron Mueller and Chuck Rathert Subscribe to the show at https://cacg.saintjamesglencarbon.org. To comment on this episode, visit https://saintjamesglencarbon.org/cacg-ep91.

For the past three hundred years it has seemed obvious to many modern Westerners that cataclysmic, global floods are impossible, and so the biblical story of the great flood has been seen as a legendary myth highlighting the vindictive judgment of the Bible's angry God. But this assumption fails to acknowledge the existence of great flood narratives spread throughout the ancient world - from the Cheyenne in North America, to the Chinese, to the Mesopotamians. How could all these different groups tell such similar stories? Is this a coincidence? Or instead does there remain in the collective memory of all these people groups the flood event described in Genesis 6-9? This last option seems more likely than the myth that modern, scientific man is more right than the remembered and recorded experiences of all these ancient peoples. But the larger question is not, did the flood happen? But, what does the flood mean? And in the Bible, the great flood happens because the creator God simultaneously refuses to tolerate sin, and also loves to create salvation from that destruction. Like the Red Sea crossing, God drowns those who hate him, but saves - through that same water - those who trust him. The culmination of this truth is the redemption given to those who believe in the death and resurrection of Jesus, in the water of baptism. Hosts: Aaron Mueller and Chuck Rathert Subscribe to the show at https://cacg.saintjamesglencarbon.org. To comment on this episode, visit https://saintjamesglencarbon.org/cacg-ep90.

The question of whether Christians should go to church or not can only be answered by answering the question, are Christians the church or not. Once again, Western-style individualism blocks us from even understanding the nature of the problem. The Bible insists that our highest value comes not from our individuality but from how our individuality flourishes in community. By ourselves we have no way of overcoming our personal weaknesses, but in community others cover up these weaknesses with their strength, as we do for them. Unfortunately, Christians in America tend to be more individualistic than biblical: the notion that we can be Christians on our own outside of the Christian church creates a personal atmosphere of isolation and ignorance, but embracing the strange and scary reality of Christian community leads to flourishing and knowledge. Hosts: Aaron Mueller and Chuck Rathert Subscribe to the show at https://cacg.saintjamesglencarbon.org. To comment on this episode, visit https://saintjamesglencarbon.org/cacg-ep89.

Legalism is the belief that humans flourish best when they have order, structure, and rules to guide them. The opposite philosophy is liberty - the belief that humans need freedom from restrictions to flourish. Christianity, while definitely promising freedom from the burden of sin while also providing order and rules for living, definitely holds that humans flourish best when in relationship, especially the relationship all humans were created for - with the creator God in Jesus. Hosts: Aaron Mueller and Chuck Rathert Subscribe to the show at https://cacg.saintjamesglencarbon.org. To comment on this episode, visit https://saintjamesglencarbon.org/cacg-ep88.

Is Christianity merely a crutch for those who believe - a sort of whistling-in-the-graveyard, a head game naive and superstitious people play to avoid the hard reality of materialistic realism? The rise of the psychological sciences in the late 19th and early 20th centuries might lead us to think so. But what psychology does well - describe the human mind, human emotions, human behavior, and human relationships - does not begin to answer all the questions humans have about ultimate reality. In other words, if there is nothing more to humans than humanity, religion is unnecessary at best, and dangerous at worst. But if God exists, then pursuing knowledge of him is both necessary, but impossible unless God himself acts to make himself known, and since philosophy and psychology can't exceed the bounds of we humans who engage in them, only what we call religion (the knowledge of God through his self-revelation) can answer these ultimate questions about God. In this sense, Christianity is a crutch - an acknowledgement that there is some knowledge we can't get on our own but need outside help to receive. But what makes this charge against Christianity short-sighted is the hypocritical notion that some humans don't have crutches. Some secularists, perhaps, believe that they are self-sufficient and need nothing, but no one can live without purpose - and whether that purpose is material gain, family togetherness, romantic love, community respect, academic achievements, or the enjoying of a hobby, these purposes function for the secularist in much the same way that religion functions for the Christian. They provide meaning, goals, structure for decision making - in short, a crutch. The question at hand, then, is whose crutch is most aligned with the universe as it really is; in other words, whose crutch actually holds a human being up instead of eventually being too weak to support a person. And Christianity insists that God alone can give ultimate meaning, purpose, and ultimate support that never goes away, diminishes, or fails. Hosts: Aaron Mueller and Chuck Rathert Subscribe to the show at https://cacg.saintjamesglencarbon.org. To comment on this episode, visit https://saintjamesglencarbon.org/cacg-ep87.

Stoicism, which flourished in Greece around 250 years on either side of Christ's birth, taught that the highest good for humans is to be ultimately happy. This happiness, though, is far different from our culture's notion that happiness is equal to personal pleasure; instead, Stoicism held, true ultimate happiness can be experienced only through the practice of virtue - especially the virtues of courage, wisdom, justice and moderation. This has been seen by many to be a welcome alternative to our culture's current credo of “do what feels good,” and to the extent that Stoicism functions as a critique of our hedonism, Christianity welcomes it. But there are several aspects of the human condition and experience that Stoicism fails to address. First, because Stoicism held to a classic pantheistic view of God - that the divine is equal with the lived-in universe - it was largely incapable of dealing with the problem of evil. After all, if God is in everything and every experience, then everything must be the way it's supposed to be; in other words, Stoics are unable to critique evil events as evil and insist that evil must be met with cosmic justice, but must be content with trying to bear up under the evil as best as possible. Christianity, however, while teaching joy and patience in suffering, insists that it is only possible if one believes in a personal God who is putting things to right and will eventually address and crush all evil. And second, Stoicism insists that humans have within us the power for virtuous living, but Christianity insists that virtuous living can only be accomplished by Jesus and by his gracious acting on our behalf to work his virtuosity our in our own lives. Hosts: Aaron Mueller and Chuck Rathert Subscribe to the show at https://cacg.saintjamesglencarbon.org. To comment on this episode, visit https://saintjamesglencarbon.org/cacg-ep86.

While the Bible insists that those who deny the reality of God are fools, this in no way means such skeptics are unintelligent. The biblical idea of “fool” and “foolishness” has less to do with brain power and more to do with an unwillingness to conform to reality: it's foolish to not go to the doctor when you have cancer because it doesn't align behavior with the real-life situation. Many smart people (like Steve Jobs, for instance) have made this fatal error. And atheism is the same - it's not dumb to disbelieve in God, it's foolish. In fact, Chuck and Aaron discuss how atheists are almost always very intelligent; as it seems to be one of the main qualifiers to being an atheist. But while atheism is almost exclusively for intelligent people, Christianity is far more inclusive: many super-intelligent people like scientists, philosophers, writers, and the like have been devout Christians, but Christianity is also made up of many people who work more from their emotions, and in addition there are lots of believers who are neither “book smart” or overtly emotional but are “doers”. The God of Christianity in Jesus (and therefore the Christian worldview) is wide open to all different types of people because this God connects with every type of human. Whereas the necessity of being intelligent means that only one slice of society can truly belong within its ranks, Christianity is inclusively open to everyone. Hosts: Aaron Mueller and Chuck Rathert Subscribe to the show at https://cacg.saintjamesglencarbon.org. To comment on this episode, visit https://saintjamesglencarbon.org/cacg-ep85.

Islam and Christianity share a lot in common: they're both Abrahamic religions - tracing their heritage back to God's call of Abraham and the promises God made to his offspring, they both insist that polytheism is wrong and that there's only one true God, they both hold that this one true God is holy and cannot tolerate sinful behavior. But the main thing they disagree about is the Muslim insistence that Jesus was only a human prophet and the deeply-held Christian belief that in Jesus the eternal creator God has become man to rescue his creation. Chuck and Aaron also discuss the problem of radical Islamist terrorist attacks: some Muslims have read the calls for military jihad in the Koran and acted upon them against those with whom they disagree, while many Muslims - even in the Middle East - reject acts of violence against non-Muslims (and, what is more common in the Middle East, acts of violence from members of one branch of Islam against members of another) as opposed to the will of Allah. In addition, Chuck and Aaron talk about ways for Christians to talk about their relationship with God in Jesus Christ that highlight what Christianity can uniquely offer that Islam cannot: assurance of being loved and forgiven by - not just an almighty and holy God - a covenant-keeping heavenly Father, as well as the promise that sins can be forgiven eternally by the shed blood of our savior Jesus. Hosts: Aaron Mueller and Chuck Rathert Subscribe to the show at https://cacg.saintjamesglencarbon.org. To comment on this episode, visit https://saintjamesglencarbon.org/cacg-ep84.

When it comes to current events Christians too frequently fall into one of the twin ditches of either allowing themselves to become spokespeople for one of the approved cultural positions (usually either “conservative” or “liberal”) or withdrawing from the world in the name of “separation of church and state”. The key is understanding that the Gospel of Jesus' kingdom stands over against all human systems, so the Christian church - while its proclamation will from time to time mirror certain conservative or liberal talking points - must not allow itself to be co-opted by any political or cultural group. The difficulty of being so counter-cultural causes many Christians to stay silent about current events, but Jesus himself provides a model for faithfully engaging the culture with the Gospel - Jesus could not be borrowed and used by the Romans, the Herodians, the Pharisees, the Saduccees, the Eseenes, or the Zealots. Instead, through his death and resurrection he brought about the kingdom of God - the world's only hope for justice, mercy, peace, and righteousness. Hosts: Aaron Mueller and Chuck Rathert Subscribe to the show at https://cacg.saintjamesglencarbon.org. To comment on this episode, visit https://saintjamesglencarbon.org/cacg-ep83.

The content of movies has changed dramatically in the last 100 years. What once was considered offensive and even pornographic is now commonplace. The false dichotomy of either mindlessly enjoying all contemporary media or withdrawing from and rejecting it undermines the Christian's vocation to both be separate from the idolatrous values of the world and simultaneously live redemptively in and for the world Jesus died to redeem. The key to living in this tension is to use the Christian Story (the story of Creation, Fall, Redemption, and Restoration in Jesus) to critique the culture's alternative versions of this story. In addition, Christians should be aware of their own tendencies to fall for fake stories; in other words, those who struggle with a particular idol should be wary of exposing themselves to media that fosters that idolatry. With this in mind, the Christian calling to be agents of God's redemption should motivate us to engage with the culture from this Gospel perspective. Hosts: Aaron Mueller and Chuck Rathert Subscribe to the show at https://cacg.saintjamesglencarbon.org. To comment on this episode, visit https://saintjamesglencarbon.org/cacg-ep82.

Our first impulse when someone we know and love goes through a season of suffering tends to be either to try to assert ourselves too much - by talking too much, using trite cliches, or by trying to cheer our friend up by distracting them, or by avoiding them altogether - frequently by rationalizing to ourselves that our friend probably needs some alone time. But both these paths fail to show genuine love to the sufferer by making the primary goal of the relational moment ourselves and our comfort. Instead, genuinely walking with those who are suffering means embracing their pain and willingly and patiently carrying it with them, not with feeble words but with Christlike presence. The temptation to believe that every problem can be fixed if we only know the proper technique can drive us to try to use words to fix grief, but the biblical pattern of the incarnation of the Son of God shows us that sometimes being “with” and being “for”, being present, is what the moment of grief and suffering needs. Hosts: Aaron Mueller and Chuck Rathert Subscribe to the show at https://cacg.saintjamesglencarbon.org. To comment on this episode, visit https://saintjamesglencarbon.org/cacg-ep81.

The two most common notions in the West of what makes a man masculine are, on one hand, a physically strong, domineering man who leads through sheer force of physicality or personality and, on the other hand, a sweet, sensitive man who refuses to assert himself. Both of these visions, while acknowledging some important aspects of what men should be, have resulted in the fostering of a self-absorbed narcissistic man who, in the first case, is mainly obsessed with his own quest for power and control and, in the second case, is mainly obsessed with his own quest for personal pleasure. But the biblical vision of what a godly man should look like has little to do with his physical makeup or with his personality type. Instead, the biblical model of masculinity is the God-man, Jesus. And while Jesus can be both powerful and sensitive, the main quality marking his masculinity is his self-sacrificial love for others. Jesus uses his power to serve others, and he seeks the well-being and pleasure of others. In other words, the quest for power and pleasure are not in themselves toxic, but the godly man will always be questing to use his power for the other and not himself, and will always be questing to bring pleasure and happiness for the other and not himself. Hosts: Aaron Mueller and Chuck Rathert Subscribe to the show at https://cacg.saintjamesglencarbon.org. To comment on this episode, visit https://saintjamesglencarbon.org/cacg-ep80.

The Western Liberalism of John Locke, Rousseau, and the founding fathers of America, promised to set us free from the tyranny of kings and priests. That the God of the Christian Bible would be a casualty in this great purge seemed to many to be a necessary step on this path to liberation. But far from making us happy and free, sociologists, counselors, and therapists (not to mention the billion dollar pharmaceutical industry) agree that we are of all people most lonely and hopeless. What happened to the freedom we were promised? Chuck and Aaron discuss how the death of the idea of God stripped us of the philosophical foundation necessary to be a truly moral people. In addition, it gutted the idea of beauty and transcendence, turning them into purely personal opinion. The resulting individualism and commitment to personal freedom has separated us from the types of community which have traditionally given people a sense of purpose and meaning. As a result, the epidemic of loneliness and despair are only growing. Our culture's one true hope is to turn to the ultimate meaning provided by the God of the Christian Bible, the God who became a human being to give all human beings value, who died for us because of his deep commitment to that value, and who meets with his humans in the Church, the community which gives us all a framework for selfless purpose and meaning. Hosts: Aaron Mueller and Chuck Rathert Subscribe to the show at https://cacg.saintjamesglencarbon.org. To comment on this episode, visit https://saintjamesglencarbon.org/cacg-ep79.

The separation of church and state is taken for granted in the current West, but this sort of division between a person's religious beliefs and his or her public persona finds no place in the biblical worldview. So how are Christians supposed to think about their relationship with their country? The key is to recognize the difference between one's identity and one's vocation. The Christian's identity should only and always be in Jesus - no other loyalties must be allowed to compete with or claim equality with the Christian's citizenship in heaven. However, out of all the vocations a Christian is called to by God, the particular country he or she is an earthly citizen of is one of the most important. Christians are to take their calling to love their neighbors as themselves seriously. Because of this, God's mission to rescue his world through Jesus must always inform how Christians act, vote, and serve. Hosts: Aaron Mueller and Chuck Rathert Subscribe to the show at https://cacg.saintjamesglencarbon.org. To comment on this episode, visit https://saintjamesglencarbon.org/cacg-ep78.

One mistaken notion about Christianity is that its primary goal is to foster good ethical behavior. But the biblical reality is that Christianity is fundamentally God's plan to rescue his humans and creation as a free act of grace. This grace is both necessary (since we humans have rebelled against God we have rendered ourselves unable to do anything to make ourselves right) and loving (God is completely unobligated to do anything to rescue us but does so because of his deep love and commitment to us). Hosts: Aaron Mueller and Chuck Rathert Subscribe to the show at https://cacg.saintjamesglencarbon.org. To comment on this episode, visit https://saintjamesglencarbon.org/cacg-ep77.

When Christians talk about the spiritual gifts, they frequently get hung up discussing the so-called charismatic gifts - healing, speaking in tongues, prophecy, etc., but this unfortunately short-circuits the very important discussion about what the spiritual gifts actually are, and (maybe more importantly) what they do. Chuck and Aaron have just this discussion. The spiritual gifts are different roles that the Holy Spirit empowers Jesus' people with to love and serve the one family of God in Christ. This gifting creates what Paul calls the body of Christ, with the different members - each gifted uniquely to serve the whole body - making up the body parts which function together as a whole. The foundation of all these gifts, as Paul says in 1 Corinthians 13, is love. The gifts are not meant to build up the individual possessing the gift, but to build up the entire body which includes the member exercising the gift. Hosts: Aaron Mueller and Chuck Rathert Subscribe to the show at https://cacg.saintjamesglencarbon.org. To comment on this episode, visit https://saintjamesglencarbon.org/cacg-ep76.

Dating, since it is a fairly new phenomenon in how humans relate to each other, is not mentioned in the Bible. But the Bible has much to say about romantic relationships, and how we should look for a future spouse. First, the Bible highly values the marriage relationship, so any effort put into finding a spouse is worthwhile. But second, it must be recognized that our current system (in the West at least) of dating tends to be selfish, tending towards a commercial view of human relationship: i.e., “trying out” different people until we find the one that benefits me most. Instead, the Bible encourages us to see relationships as vocations - opportunities to give ourselves up to love and serve another. This means that dating should not primarily be an attempt to find someone who can serve us, but instead an attempt to find someone we can selflessly serve with our life. Hosts: Aaron Mueller and Chuck Rathert Subscribe to the show at https://cacg.saintjamesglencarbon.org. To comment on this episode, visit https://saintjamesglencarbon.org/cacg-ep75.

In a culture obsessed with individual rights and personal autonomy, parenting and raising kids remains - mostly - a relationship recognized as being valuable to the extent that it is self-sacrificial. What is it about our relationship with our own children that glorifies and valorizes the type of love that gives and expects nothing in return? Chuck and Aaron talk about how the relationship between parents and kids points us to the relationship God the Father has with his adopted children, and how the self-sacrificial love at the heart of the universe can be displayed and practiced in families. They also tackle some practical issues in parenting. Hosts: Aaron Mueller and Chuck Rathert Subscribe to the show at https://cacg.saintjamesglencarbon.org. To comment on this episode, visit https://saintjamesglencarbon.org/cacg-ep74.

Why is marriage so important? The Bible describes God not as one powerful being, but as three persons - the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit - who have always known and loved each other with complete commitment. And when they decided to create human beings in their image, they decided to create a married man and woman so the humans could experience in their lives together what the Trinity has always experienced in its life together. And this reality extends to all human relationships - whether marriage, family, friends, or Christian community - but marriage is the primal human relationship. The importance of marriage then lies in its unique ability to reflect the interpersonal love and commitment we were created for when God created us in his image. Hosts: Aaron Mueller and Chuck Rathert Subscribe to the show at https://cacg.saintjamesglencarbon.org. To comment on this episode, visit https://saintjamesglencarbon.org/cacg-ep73.

It's true that different people find different particular things beautiful, ugly, or plain. This seems to validate the notion that beauty is subjective, that there is no accounting for taste, as the saying goes. But everyone agrees that eating really delicious food can be an experience of beauty, as is falling in love or seeing a wonderful site of nature. Perhaps there are standards of beauty that can help us understand what is truly beautiful and what it means. Chuck and Aaron talk about how the Creator God made the world to reflect the beauty of his own person, and because of that we can understand our experience of beauty as God pointing us to himself. Hosts: Aaron Mueller and Chuck Rathert Subscribe to the show at https://cacg.saintjamesglencarbon.org. To comment on this episode, visit https://saintjamesglencarbon.org/cacg-ep72.

Jesus, quoting Moses, says that the greatest good for a human is to love God with all our being and to love our neighbor as we love ourselves. This at least implies that self-love is good and healthy, but it places healthy self-love in the context of relationship. We love ourselves truly when we find who we are in the context of our personal connection with God and others. Paul explains self-love the same way in Ephesians 5 - pointing out that for a husband to truly love himself he must give himself up for his wife like Jesus gave himself up for the church. In other words, good self-love happens when we love God and love our neighbor. The alternative is a self-love that values oneself over the other - a type of love which is destructive both of relationship and (counterintuitively perhaps) ourself as well. Hosts: Aaron Mueller and Chuck Rathert Subscribe to the show at https://cacg.saintjamesglencarbon.org. To comment on this episode, visit https://saintjamesglencarbon.org/cacg-ep71.

In spite of our culture's current skepticism about knowledge, people nevertheless are desperate to know what's real and true. How is this possible? How can we find a model of knowing that doesn't artificially divide “faith” and “knowledge”? How can we avoid the postmodern trap of confusing power for knowledge? In order to know things, we have to give up the Enlightenment error of connecting knowledge to provability; in other words, there are many things we know not by proving them but by living in them. In the Bible, knowing is a relational act, not a math problem to be solved. And when we began to commit to knowledge as a give-and-take between us and those around us, we began to trust in the God of knowledge who reveals himself to us and gives us true, lived-in knowledge. Hosts: Aaron Mueller and Chuck Rathert Subscribe to the show at https://cacg.saintjamesglencarbon.org. To comment on this episode, visit https://saintjamesglencarbon.org/cacg-ep70.