When The Stars Disappear

In this, the final episode of Season 1 of When the Stars Disappear, Mark and KJ wrap things up by explaining how our accepting Christ's work through faith results in renewed fellowship with God and how Jesus' bodily resurrection assures us that behind the sin, suffering, and death that we see lies a greater and much more glorious reality that will be revealed on the day when Christ returns.

Mark and KJ wrap up their discussion of the suffering that we may experience because of our first parents' rebellion by showing what is wrong with prosperity preaching and then turn to begin exploring the last two parts of the whole Christian story: redemption and consummation.

After Mark suggests that the language of Scripture should become so familiar to us that we naturally speak it back to God in prayer, he and KJ then go on to discuss how the book of Ecclesiastes can help us to understand and endure our suffering.

In this episode, Mark and KJ discuss how Robert Dabney and C. S. Lewis maintained their faith in the midst of profound suffering and then turn to consider what Psalm 90 can teach us about life's frailties caused by human sin.

Mark and KJ examine a second way in which suffering—and especially profound suffering—affects us by disrupting our stories and thus blotting out virtually all of the stars we have been relying upon to guide us in life's way.

Mark explains how his suffering prompted him to depend more on God, and then discusses with KJ whether some of our Lord's words in the Sermon on the Mount suggest it is misleading to talk about "Christian flourishing" in this life.

Mark offers a way to characterize all kinds and degrees of human suffering and then explores with KJ how this can help us to live better, more deliberate, and more courageous Christian lives.

Mark highlights the full Christian story by reading John Julian's hymn, "Hark! The voice Eternal," and then reflecting on human history's central turning point: Jesus' resurrection.

Mark and KJ discuss how human suffering is the spoiled fruit of Adam and Eve's fall into sin and how that means that God is not to be blamed for our suffering, as well as the vast differences between "top-down" and "bottom-up" explanations of human life.

Mark and Karl—"KJ"—Johnson review the centrality of stories in our lives and begin to discuss how Adam and Eve's disobedience to God's command not to eat from the forbidden tree, as the first great turning point in human history, opened the door to human suffering.

This episode asks whether Adam or Eve was more responsible for the fall and then turns to show how suffering became inevitable once Adam and Eve ate from the forbidden tree yet is also a key element in how God calls us back to himself.

Paul and Mark examine how the serpent led Eve to doubt God's warning that if she and Adam ate from the forbidden tree, then they would die, as well as how they knew enough about God and his love for them that they should not have believed the serpent's lies.

In this episode, Paul and Mark show why the penalty of death was the inevitable consequence of Adam and Eve's eating from the forbidden tree.

Paul and Mark discuss how prohibitions add an important element to human life: they help us recognize what we must never do and they enable us to express our unqualified resolution to live lives of complete and exclusive commitment to another person.

Paul and Mark begin to explore the prohibition that God gave to Adam in Genesis 2:17—namely, “you must not eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for in the day that you eat of it you will surely die.” Why did God issue a command prohibiting our first parents from eating from one specific tree in the garden of Eden? And why would their disobedience result in their deaths?

Paul and Mark explore the remarkable implications of the Genesis 2 account of Adam and Eve.

Paul and Mark discuss how the expansion of Genesis 1's account of the creation of Adam and Eve in Genesis 2:4-25 enables us to understand more deeply who God has created us to be.

Paul Winters and Mark open their discussion of Mark's second volume, Give Me Understanding that I May Live, by exploring why we must understand the first chapter of Genesis if we are to live the lives for which God made us and to which he calls us.

In this episode, John and Mark recap the main lesson from When the Stars Disappear—that it is only those who endure to the end through all persecution and affliction who will be saved (see Matthew 10:22; 2 Corithians 1:6).

Mark and John wrap up their discussion of When the Stars Disappear, Mark's first volume in his Suffering and the Christian Life series, by reflecting on what the Christian story offers us and then recounting its four parts. Mark summarizes the purpose of his first volume as clarifying that, no matter how deep anyone's suffering is, Scripture records instances of suffering that are at least as deep, which is a sign for Christians that God is always with them and will walk with them through even the worst of times.

After Mark offers some advice on the sort of help we need to understand Scripture, John and Mark address the question: Given the suffering in our world, how should we live in order to shine a light on the truth of the Christian story?

The stories of Naomi and Job show us that while suffering can make us think that life will never again be good, God may restore us. And even if, as with Jeremiah, God doesn't restore us in this life, he can help us to persevere. No matter what we understand, God is always working in and through every circumstance.

The psalmists provide us with breathing lessons for exhaling our pain and grief to God and then inhaling his promises as well as remembering what he has done for us in the past.

While we should expect to suffer in this life, we can find hope in the fact that God will always bring good out of our suffering.

Mark tells the story of his paralyzing accident, his sense of God's love that immediately followed it, and its subsequent blessings in his life.

Welcome to the podcast "When The Stars Disappear" hosted by Dr. Mark Talbot, Associate Professor of Philosophy at Wheaton College in Illinois.