four cubits and a span

The four cubits podcast has always been about taking seriously both our ancient Bible and our modern lives, even when doing so leads us away from easy, neat answers. Often, that approach will lead us towards personal and communal change - and despite what you might have heard from some Christians, theres nothing more biblical than change!This episode explores some of the ways in which the people of God in scripture not only navigated changes in themselves, their communities, and their world, but how their experiences of God often drove those changes.Read transcriptRead more »

An image from the non-violent Civil Rights protests of 1963 in Birmingham, Alabama (USA).I am coming to feel that people of ill-will have used time much more effectively than the people of good will. We will have to repent in this generation not merely for the vitriolic words and actions of the bad people, but for the appalling silence of the good people. – Rev. Dr Martin Luther King, Jr., Letter From A Birmingham Jail (April 1963)From a jail cell in Birmingham, Alabama in April 1963, Dr King wrote one of the most powerful Christian essays of the 20th century. It was a response to an open letter by eight local Alabama clergymen that criticised the non-violent Civil Rights protests in the city. It was the response of a Christian whose faith was not merely a set of beliefs and actions that he shared, but the reality in which he lived and the lens through which he both experienced the world as it was, and saw the world as it would one day be.In this special episode we consider the background to King's Letter From A Birmingham Jail and then we read it together. As Christians in July 2020, we should not need to be reminded that Black lives matter - and yet, here we are. We need only look back to Dr King for an appropriate Christian response, but it also behoves us to join his lament. It is nearly 60 years since King wrote this essay, and still our societies - let alone our churches - have failed to internalise some of the most basic tenets of racial justice and Christian fellowship.Transcript for introduction coming soon!Read more »

We're back! This is the Sunday morning talk that I would have given in church this morning, if we weren't all locked down trying to squash what's left of COVID-19 in Scotland. My wife and I prepared this together, and the subject - how do we connect with God? - has been on our minds for quite some time now. When a young friend posed the eponymous question we really just went off.Transcript coming soon!Read more »

When the gospel texts converge and diverge in their retellings of the Jesus story, it can be tempting to gloss over what makes each gospel text unique. Nathan Kitchen takes us through some examples to help us read the details better. As well as nerding out on synoptic studies, we also had a great conversation about sacred time and space, and what psalms fatigue means for our (lack of) appreciation for the Psalter.Transcript coming soon!Read more »

I got started on this week's episode... and I didn't finish it. But the Leviticus segment, sparked by a note in the Jewish Study Bible, was too interesting to leave in the archives. So this minicast is a look at the tum'ah - the uncleanness - of Leviticus 12-15, from a different perspective than the one usually taken in both Jewish and Christian commentary. The JPS Torah commentary volume on Leviticus also helps to place the text's concept of contagion within its ancient Near Eastern origin.None of this is to say that the contagious miasma posited by some modern Jewish scholars is (or was) actually a phenomenon in the real world: only that this may have been the original concept behind these tum'ah texts. Re-framed with the language of ritual impurity rather than physical aura, the texts remain relevant even as Jewish thought moves on to re-read re-interpret them: because it's the theology of the text that gives it enduring significance.Transcript coming soon!Read more »

What do Christians do with Leviticus? That's what Kameron Mazurek and I are talking about this week, and it mostly involves paying closer attention to Jewish interpretation and tradition. Jesus lived near the end of an era in Jewish history, and it's that time period that we're looking to for wisdom.Transcript coming soon!Read more »

So many of our reading skills depend on our cultural background: the memes, metaphors, and idioms that make up our literary vernacular. This week, Jo Kitchen and I take on 1 Corinthians 6, which turns out to be particularly densely packed and full of rhetorical flair.Read transcriptRead more »

Psalm 81 features a classic, biblical counter-narrative. I leave it as a bit of an open question, so plenty to get stuck into here. This was fun to talk about for a few minutes last week, but I cut it for time because on account of how cool Psalm 82 is. I'm a bit behind on editing, so this week's conversation with Jo Kitchen will be along in a day or so!Transcript coming soon!Read more »

Psalm 82 and Mark 12 took me in unexpected directions this week. I hope that you find it as thought-provoking, challenging, and inspiring as I did.Transcript coming soon!Read more »

I had a lovely Sunday afternoon catching up with old friends in Wardley again, and this is the talk I gave at the eucharist service. I picked up on the threads of the Romans 12 segment from last week's podcast, cheerfully stealing Nat's comments as well as expanding on mine. The subject of renewal and transformation of mind/spirit as Christian is an easy one to talk about and say inspiring things about. But when it comes to really putting it into practice, well, that's where the real work is.Read transcriptRead more »

The plague narrative is our jumping-off point for the epic that is Exodus, as our friend Nat Ritmeyer returns to 4QS to talk about how (and how not) to read it. We spend our time discussing how to let Exodus be Exodus, and not bring its towering theology crashing back down to a mundane level. There's just some much story to explore.Transcript coming soon!Read more »

A quick flashback this week, in lieu of a full-length episode, to a very brief mention a few weeks ago of the pastoral epistles. I promised a minicast giving an overview of the question of who wrote the letters to Timothy and Titus, and here it is. Many biblical scholars have good reasons to think it wasn't Paul, and there are reasons to pay close attention to this question. I'm going to suggest that it's not for the reason that you might at first think, but either way: more information is always better.Read transcriptRead more »

Well, this week's episode started out as a short look at Genesis 22 and the Binding of Isaac, known in Jewish tradition as the "Akedah" ("binding", from Genesis 22:9). It kind of grew legs, though, and it turns out to be an incredible passage to talk about some really important stuff when it comes to biblical narrative and interpretation. Transcript coming soon!Read more »

Happy new year from myself and Becky Lewis, my first co-host on four cubits in 2020! The Genesis segment comes to you in a slightly different format this week: Genesis 9 is Becky's jumping-off point for an overview of the themes in the whole book. It works really well as a reader's guide to the book, which will be very helpful as we read through it this month. I already have more co-hosts lined up to tackle some other books in a similar way this year, so get ready to hear new and familiar voices on the podcast soon!Transcript coming soon!Read more »

Looking at how a biblical text is written can help us focus on the right things when we're reading it. That's what we're looking at in Nehemiah and 2 Timothy this week: how the message is proclaimed and why it matters. On the other hand there's also Amos, who takes a prophetic flamethrower to his people in a scathing indictment of a religious piety devoid of social justice.Don't forget, you can now register for the Living Faith Study Day 2019 on EventBrite! It's a gathering for those exploring their relationship to faith, the Bible, and community. There'll be four thought-provoking topics packaged in short talks, with ample time for questions and discussion. I'll be giving one of those talks, "Christian Ethics and Social Justice: The Gospel of the Human Jesus". It's going to be a great day for building faith, and for taking the Bible seriously - both in its ancient context, and in the present day.Read transcriptRead more »

We're back with Nehemiah this week, one of my favourite Bible characters. He's an early governor of post-exilic Jerusalem, but here we see him exercising his prophetic voice. After a few minutes in Hosea to look at the theme of reversal we dive into an extended NT segment in Acts, where the narrative is in transition to the final act of the book's story.Don't forget, you can now register for the Living Faith Study Day 2019 on EventBrite! It's a gathering for those exploring their relationship to faith, the Bible, and community. There'll be four thought-provoking topics packaged in short talks, with ample time for questions and discussion. I'll be giving one of those talks, "Christian Ethics and Social Justice: The Gospel of the Human Jesus". It's going to be a great day for building faith, and for taking the Bible seriously - both in its ancient context, and in the present day.Read transcriptRead more »

The prophets in the Hebrew Bible urge the people of God to resist empire, but maybe they also confront their own community's traditions in search of better ways of worshiping and knowing God. In Ezra and Hosea this week, we're encouraged to see resistance as a mechanism of active change - and the prophets are nothing if not agents of change.Don't forget, you can now register for the Living Faith Study Day 2019 on EventBrite! It's a gathering for those exploring their relationship to faith, the Bible, and community. There'll be four thought-provoking topics packaged in short talks, with ample time for questions and discussion. I'll be giving one of those talks, "Christian Ethics and Social Justice: The Gospel of the Human Jesus". It's going to be a great day for building faith, and for taking the Bible seriously - both in its ancient context, and in the present day.Read transcriptRead more »

Just one passage this week, as I've been busy working with the writer of a new blog series, One Woman's Journey: A Call to Reflect, which I'm really excited to host here on the four cubits and a span blog. If you haven't read part 1 yet, you should definitely go and read it right now. On the podcast this week, we're looking at the final chapter of Daniel, and the Second Temple-era revelation of personal resurrection.Don't forget, you can now register for the Living Faith Study Day 2019 on EventBrite! It's a gathering for those exploring their relationship to faith, the Bible, and community. There'll be four thought-provoking topics packaged in short talks, with ample time for questions and discussion. I'll be giving one of those talks, "Christian Ethics and Social Justice: The Gospel of the Human Jesus". It's going to be a great day for building faith, and for taking the Bible seriously - both in its ancient context, and in the present day.Read transcriptRead more »

Some people like to say that Bible-believing Christians should not be political: but that's a difficult proposition when the Bible itself contains such deeply political texts. All three readings this week make striking political statements, so we're looking at how the inspired writers bring the lens of the past to bear on the present for the people of God.Don't forget, you can now register for the Living Faith Study Day 2019 on EventBrite! It's a gathering for those exploring their relationship to faith, the Bible, and community. There'll be four thought-provoking topics packaged in short talks, with ample time for questions and discussion. I'll be giving one of those talks, "Christian Ethics and Social Justice: The Gospel of the Human Jesus". It's going to be a great day for building faith, and for taking the Bible seriously - both in its ancient context, and in the present day.Read transcriptRead more »

Monday's episode on 2 Chronicles 12-13 was notably missing any content from 2 Chronicles 13. Well here it is! A few minutes on Abijah/Abijam, son of Rehoboam king of Judah, who gets a post-exilic, Braveheart makeover by the Chronicler. It's epic, y'all.Don't forget, you can now register for the Living Faith Study Day 2019 on EventBrite! It's a gathering for those exploring their relationship to faith, the Bible, and community. There'll be four thought-provoking topics packaged in short talks, with ample time for questions and discussion. I'll be giving one of those talks, "Christian Ethics and Social Justice: The Gospel of the Human Jesus". It's going to be a great day for building faith, and for taking the Bible seriously - both in its ancient context, and in the present day.Read transcriptRead more »

This week, each passage is a reframing a familiar, biblical narrative for a different moment in time. We consider how the Chronicler retells an Egyptian invasion of Judah; how Ezekiel recounts a vision of an Israel united under very different terms; and how the Evangelist in the gospel of John recasts the return of Jesus, the kingdom of God, and present community of faith.Read transcriptRead more »

four cubits and a span is back! Jo Kitchen returns to co-host this episode, and we take a look at three passages that make us ask all of the most interesting questions that the Bible invites us to consider. (Spoiler alert: they all start with "Why...?")This new season of the podcast kicks off with the bloodless, U-rated version of Solomon's accession to the throne; the 15-rated, blood-soaked gore-fest that is the epic, eschatalogical, apocalyptic final battle of Ezekiel 39; and, in a passage chosen by my co-host, Qoheleth tries to bring some kind of balance and perspective to the question of life's purpose and meaning. Together, Jo and I reflect on these scriptures, and on our responses to them.Read transcriptRead more »

The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice.- Dr Martin Luther King, Jr (after Theodore Parker). 1964, Middletown, Connecticut.Something a little different this week! In an essay in 1853, Theodore Parker set up ideas on social responsibility, justice, conscience, and the nature of God reflected in human beings that still resonate today. The quotation made famous by Dr King, is actually a paraphrase from this essay, in which Parker critiques both church and state to present the gospel of a human Jesus bringing good news to the rest of humanity. Read transcriptRead more »

We're back with a summer hiatus special episode! I was delighted to invite my friend Jo Kitchen to re-record with me a segment on the second half of Deuteronomy 22. We look at how ancient patriarchal norms framed laws on sex and marriage, and how we can read scripture seriously today when we find in its pages the same attitudes that drive modern-day rape culture.Special thanks to Viv Brown, Rebekah Lewis, and our other sisters in Christ who kindly volunteered their time to review drafts and notes of the material for this episode. Their feedback and input has been invaluable - thank you!Read transcriptRead more »

This week's episode opens up a conversation about the ethical implications of divinely-mandated violence and genocide in the conquest narrative in Joshua, and the real world danger of a superficial, white European reading of the text.Read transcriptRead more »

There's an extended Joshua segment today, as we face up to the different versions of the conquest of Canaan presented throughout Joshua and Judges. To help us start framing the right questions to ask of the Bible - like, "Why there are multiple accounts in the first place?" - we go looking for help from archaeology. Read transcriptRead more »

In the Joshua 3-4 segment there are some crucial issues to consider that help to frame this pivotal episode in early Israelite narrative history: entering the land of Canaan. The Isaiah passage on the other hand is pivotal to Christians, but the whole story in that passage is central to the meaning of the most quotable verse. In the New Testament, we're reading some second temple Jewish apocalyptic in order to better appreciate the early Christian apocalypticism of 1 Thessalonians.Finally in this week's extra-long episode, I read some extracts from Inspired, a 2018 book by Christian writer (and fellow millennial) Rachel Held Evans. Rachel tragically and unexpectedly died on May 4th. She has rebuilt her Christian faith in the most public ways for over ten years - and even though, as a Christadelphian, I've had not really had any of the fundamental doctrinal issues to deconstruct, her story of re-framing and re-focusing her faith and Bible reading has resonated with me in so many ways. May we all be so valiant in challenging ourselves and our Christian culture to be more truly biblical and Jesus-like.-- Read transcriptRead more »

This week's episode is super-late because I've been ill, but here it is anyway. There's plenty of material in this week's readings to make everybody uncomfortable, and that's without the stuff that I cut for length. Sometimes the Bible does that.Read transcriptRead more »

This week on the podcast we're returning to the seventh-year remission laws from last month, and the fascinating character (and book) of Koheleth from last year. We're also facing up to one of the rare "texts of terror" in the New Testament: the execution of Ananias and Sapphira.Read transcriptRead more »

What happened at Sinai? This question faces us throughout the Deuteronomy narrative, and this week is our introduction to the Deuteronomist's retelling of the Exodus tradition. In John's gospel we're facing another perspective on John's Christology and theology - what are we to make of the Comforter passage?Read transcriptRead more »

What was the route of the exodus journey, and why does it matter? Can we really learn profound lessons about the Bible by reading a list of place names? (Spoiler alert: we can.) We move away from pithy one-versers in Proverbs, and take on the Jesus/cannibalism sayings in John.Read transcriptRead more »

So what happens when the reality of the biblical text crashes against our expectations of biblical reality? We're taking that head-on in the Numbers passage this week, as we consider the choice: explain away the biblical text, or change our perspecive on it. Perhaps Proverbs can help us properly frame our search for wisdom in the Bible.Read transcriptRead more »

Challenging texts this week, and three important conversations to hold. In Numbers, God is planning genocide again - and we have to ask ourselves whether or not God changes his mind, and how we read scriptures describing God's words and actions. The tables are turned on the reader in the New Testament, as we are forced to turn those same questions of ourselves, at the trial of Jesus.In the Proverbs text, we take some time to consider ways to read - and not to read - the sayings in that book, and we take some examples. For texts from ancient times and places, all three this week are still sharp and extremely relevant. They speak directly to present-day moral, philosophical, and political issues.Read transcriptRead more »

Lady Wisdom and Madam Folly are introduced at the start of Proverbs, and it's appropriate as we look for wisdom in the Law and the Gospel this week. It's hard to know where to go with either, but there are some story anchors that we can drop to get started.Read transcriptRead more »

In spite of the dreadful audio quality in this episode (sorry about that) I really got sucked into the texts this week. The release and jubilee laws in Leviticus, which are cautiously liberative, are closely connected to the land of promise itself - both textually and historically; and in the New Testament, a synoptic study of an account in Luke reveals three surprisingly different versions of an originally shocking Jesus story.Read transcript (it's much clearer than the audio)Read more »

Three quite different passages this week: a list of sexual "don't"s in Leviticus; part of the astonishing Psalm 119 that puts humanity and God only a Torah's-breadth apart; and the question of whether or not the author of Luke-Acts positioned themselves as an historian (spoiler: they didn't). Running through this episode, though, is a similar range of questions based on how (and why) we read the Bible.Read transcriptRead more »

The Leviticus segment for the next two weekly episodes takes us into the Holiness Code, a text that is quite distinct from the rest of the Priestly material in Torah. In this minicast we take a look at what sets it apart, and how that helps us to read these chapters.Read transcriptRead more »

How do we read and study the Bible? How hard should we work to pin down the meaning of every last detail, and is that even possible? This is where our thoughts are drifting in this episode, especially in Leviticus 8 and in a spot of light textual criticism in 1 Corinthians 16. Listen in and be prepared to let go of some certainty in exchange for a firmer biblical foundation.Read transcriptRead more »

Sometimes the Bible is obscure and esoteric to us, and relies on knowledge that was bound to its culture of origin, as in the instructions for robing the priests in Exodus - and that's OK. Sometimes, we indulge in interpretations that are obscure and esoteric, which rely on the transitory circumstances in our own culture, and we appropriate biblical texts like the Olivet Discourse for questionable ideological reasons - and that's not OK. Read transcriptRead more »

As promised a few weeks ago, we're reading Jesus walking on the water alongside Psalm 89 and asking what it means for a human being to exercise the authority of God.Read transcriptRead more »

Bit of a different format this week, as we spend (almost) the entire, shorter episode on Romans 13. If we put ourselves in the shoes of an oppressed and colonised people, we find a very different perspective on government emerge from this text than the one typically heard in affluent, Western democracies. Guided by Sung Uk Lim's 2015 paper, A double-voiced reading of Romans 13:1-7 in light of the imperial cult, we venture into the world of 1st century Roman politics and religion, and ask what we can bring back to our own place and time.Read transcriptRead more »

Redemption for all people in all places is a thread that runs from the Korahite Psalms (such as today's Psalm 49), through the centuries, to the writing of the apostle Paul (as in Romans 1-3). Two spectacular, inspirational texts to look at there this week. There's even a hint of the sentiment in Joseph's actions in Genesis 44, which brings the Joseph narrative full circle quite poetically.Read transcriptRead more »

It was supposed to be a few minutes of source criticism; it turned into a minicast; now it's a full special episode! After the minicast on the composition of Torah a couple of weeks ago, I'm testing the source critical approach on the stories of Rebekah, Isaac, and Ishmael: how does the approach work in practice, and does it really add anything useful to our Bible reading toolkit?Read transcriptRead more »

It's a big four cubits welcome back to last-minute co-host Nat Ritmeyer for the Psalms segment this week, as we dive back into the theology of Iron Age Israel through its poetry. We also have a shorter Genesis segment (stay tuned for more of Rebekah's story next week), and in Matthew we're looking again at the evangelist's use of material from Mark's gospel.Read transcriptRead more »

Happy new first full podcast of the new year! We dive right in with the iconic Babel story, which reaches forwards and backwards across the narrative of early Genesis, and seems written to resonate particularly with exile-era Israel. Add to that a few psalms, and Jesus as Lord and servant in Matthew's gospel, and we're off!Read transcriptRead more »

OK, so I did an intro to the book of Psalms while recording episode #45, and... well, you can probably guess. So here it is in minicast #2! Psalms might have an even more interesting textual history than Torah, but we'll almost certainly never be able to figure it out. What we can do is bear it in mind as we read and interpret the Psalms - both individually, and as an integrated book.Read transcriptRead more »

As we prepare to get stuck into Torah in 2019, here's the first 4QS minicast! It's a brief introduction to source critical theories of composition, particularly focusing on the modern form of the Documentary Hypothesis. I also give a quick intro to other composition theories, and discuss the important question: why does it matter?Read transcriptRead more »

And we're back, with thanks to my friend Jessica for being the podcast's first live-in-person co-host! This week we go to Job, Malachi, and Revelation to talk about biblical literature, history, mythical creatures, and the end of the world. Read transcriptRead more »

Mercy is a recurring theme in today's readings, both its lack and its abundance. Maybe the extent to which we show mercy depends to a large extent on what we believe about God, and God's character. We explore that theme in this episode, through Zophar, Micah, and James.Read transcriptRead more »

An extended segment on Job dives into the curious framing narrative that opens the book. With a heightened sense of reality and a gathering of divine beings, what's really going on here - and what part does it really play in the drama of Job? A similar, literary look at the middle of the Jonah narrative gives way to a consideration of what modern people do with ancient prophecy - and Hebrews picks up that question and runs with it!Read transcriptRead more »

Yes, this week's episode is super-late, but here it is! This week we explore the limits of Nehemiah's strong justice ethic (hint: you don't have to go far to find them), and it's hard not to be disappointed in him. The other two readings - Amos and 2 Timothy - make challenging counter-points.Read transcriptRead more »