Podcasts about Africa

Idi Amin is 20th-century Africa's most notorious ruler – a cartoonish tyrant who has been bracketed with the likes of Hitler and Stalin. And it's true that, as Uganda's dictator for most of the 1970s, he oversaw murderous repression as well as the forced expulsion of the nation's Asian community. But why did so many ordinary Ugandans willingly serve the regime and help to maintain his power? That's a question at the heart of a new book by the historian Derek R Peterson, and in this episode he shares his conclusions with Rob Attar.  (Ad) Derek R Peterson is the author of A Popular History of Idi Amin's Uganda (Yale University Press, 2025). Buy it now from Amazon: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Popular-History-Idi-Amins-Uganda/dp/0300278381/ref=tmm_hrd_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&dib_tag=AUTHOR&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.7asZBQQWAZKsuHp8ZQ6vEJACr_TDgPYF6VppcpEALLBwzrnat70DnfBdLe23Fq1NjYcpJVsmX_qpCT4hW1xageeVMJB9yDQdZNRtwQmsf_s7mKADzEet_olde5WsCvbHySmwMG5ChnSUyfhQ42ZjCg.zqMhWkSai2mwT7Qlw7rU5NTGyU_7y7n8vg53f6wnbfQ&tag=bbchistory045-21&ascsubtag=historyextra-social-histboty. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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What does learning look like when technology shifts faster than most university systems can adapt? That question shaped my conversation with Rob Telfer, who leads education strategy for D2L across Europe, the Middle East, and Africa. Rob returned to the show with a clear view of how AI is transforming higher education and why so many institutions are struggling to keep pace with expectations from students, employers, and society. Rob opened by laying out the reality universities face today. Financial strain, fluctuating enrolment, employer demands changing at speed, and a generation of learners preparing for roles that may not even exist yet. Against that backdrop, he described AI as the biggest catalyst the sector has seen in decades and explained how it has already reshaped academic policy, assessment models, and daily teaching practice. We explored practical examples of where AI is already creating meaningful change. Rob shared how D2L is helping institutions introduce adaptive learning, on demand student support, and content creation tools that reduce the pressure on educators. These are not speculative ideas. They are used by universities serving tens of thousands of learners, improving accessibility, easing workloads, and giving students faster, more personal support. The conversation moved to employability, a worry at the centre of almost every higher education debate. Rob explained how curriculum design needs to shift from theory first to skill first, and how deeper collaboration between academia and industry can help close widening gaps. He described why AI should be woven through the learning experience rather than bolted on at the end, and how that alignment can shape graduates who are confident with the tools they will soon use in the workplace. A striking theme came from the mismatch between student behaviour and institutional policy. Many students use AI daily, even where guidance is unclear or restrictive. Rob argued that ignoring the reality only pushes students into the shadows. Universities that teach responsible use, clear evaluation methods, and prompt literacy will better prepare their learners for the world they are about to enter. We ended by looking ahead to 2026. Rob believes the institutions that thrive will be the ones that act with intent, create clear AI policies, invest in meaningful technology, and keep human connection at the centre of learning. Those that resist or delay may find themselves struggling to compete in a sector where expectations rise quickly and alternatives for learners continue to grow. If you work in education or care about the future of learning, Rob's insights offer a candid, practical view of what must change. Which of his observations resonates most with your own experience, and how should universities evolve from here? I would love to hear your thoughts. Useful Links Connect with Rob Telfer on LinkedIn Learn more about D2L Follow on LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook Tech Talks Daily is Sponsored By Denodo. To learn more, visit denodo.com

What does the coup attempt in Benin mean for the West African nation and its citizens? President Patrice Talon has assured the nation that things are 'under control' after the government thwarted Sunday's military takeover. About a dozen soldiers believed to be the leaders of the mutiny have been arrested. Also, did you know dog meat is a staple in some parts of Nigeria, Africa's biggest population? We take you inside one of the largest dog meat markets in the country. Presenter : Nkechi Ogbonna Producers: Bella Twine and Ayuba Iliya Technical Producer: Davis Mwasaru Senior Producer: Charles Gitonga Editors: Samuel Murunga and Maryam Abdalla

It's Monday, December 8th, A.D. 2025. This is The Worldview in 5 Minutes heard on 140 radio stations and at www.TheWorldview.com.  I'm Adam McManus. (Adam@TheWorldview.com) By Adam McManus Pastor arrested for refusing to apologize for objecting to Drag Queen story hour Canadian Pastor Derek Reimer was arrested on December 3rd for refusing to write an apology letter to a Calgary, Alberta library manager for telling her that a library-sponsored drag queen story time event for children was misguided. At the time of Reimer's arrest, Artur Polawski, a Canadian-Polish preacher who previously spoke out against Canada's COVID lockdown, made this comment to the policemen. POLAWSKI: “You know why you're arresting this man for? He refused to apologize for his religious conviction. Are you aware of that?” POLICE OFFICER: “Thank you.” During Reimer's application to vary the conditions of his year-long house arrest sentence, which ends next month, he did not comply with a controversial court order, requiring him to write a letter of apology to Saddletowne Library manager Shannon Slater, reports Rebel News. The letter was due on November 28. Slater is the woman Reimer was convicted of alleged “criminally harassing” simply for explaining to her, on camera for 90 seconds, that drag-themed story hours for little kids, featuring men dressed like grotesque caricatures of women with big wigs and gaudy makeup, leads to the sexual grooming of children. REIMER: “They wanted me to apologize for that, and I won't apologize for it.” Reimer, who leads Mission 7 Ministries in Calgary, has insisted he cannot in good conscience apologize for warning about the drag event — an event aimed at kids and known in Calgary as “Reading With Royalty.” Reimer represented himself in court during his appearance. His submissions regarding his Canadian Charter right to freedom of religious expression and liberty of conscience were not accepted by Justice Karen Molle, who ruled them irrelevant to his application. REIMER: “It was such a travesty of justice today. It was such an egregious display of behavior through this justice where she wouldn't even let me finish my submissions. She walked out halfway through my submissions. “When she came back, I didn't even have an opportunity for rebuttal. She didn't want to hear me. I asked her, respectfully, ‘Do I have an opportunity to share the rest of my submissions?' and she says, ‘Well, I've deemed them irrelevant.'” At a prayer vigil outside Derek Reimer's jail cell, one woman expressed her anger over the injustice to him, his wife Mona, and their young son. LADY: “A man like Derek can go to the library, have a 90-second conversation with somebody, and then, all of a sudden, he gets arrested because he refuses to apologize for his Christian conviction. “This is a persecution of Christianity and Christians. This is a target to the Bible and God. This is good vs. evil. They want us to call evil good and good evil. [Isaiah 5:20] We cannot do it. They're going to continue to round up good men in society. “I'm Canadian. I was born in Canada. Ice runs through my veins, but the fire of God burns in my heart. And I want every Canadian to remember, as cold as it gets out here, it is our duty to go out and stand for the rights of the people who need it, like Derek.” The Democracy Fund is providing legal defense for Pastor Derek Reimer, who was assaulted, and then absurdly fined and arrested, while peacefully protesting the Drag Queen Story Time. Learn more at www.SavePastorDerek.com. That's www.SavePastorDerek.com. Samaritan's Purse plane hijacked in Sudan A Samaritan's Purse plane carrying medical supplies to South Sudan was hijacked by an armed man earlier this week, reports The Christian Post. At the time, the Cessna Grand Caravan plane, that operates exclusively in Africa, was en route to Maiwut, South Sudan, to deliver medicine to a mobile medical unit. The hijacker has been identified as Yasir Mohammed Yusuf.  He wore a fake reflective vest with the logo of an air charter company with operations at the airport, snuck aboard the plane, and hid in the rear cabin before takeoff. He demanded to be flown to another Central African country, Chad. After circling for several hours, the pilot told the hijacker that the plane was low on fuel and landed at Wau Airport, where Yusuf was taken into custody. A spokesman for Samaritan's Purse said, “We praise God that no one was seriously injured.” Supreme Court upholds new Texas Congressional map Late Thursday night, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the newly redrawn U.S. Congressional map in Texas which is expected to increase Republican representation in Texas's U.S. House delegation, reports The Epoch Times. The court's new unsigned order in League of United Latin American Citizens v. Abbott was issued over the dissents of Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, and Ketanji Jackson. Justice Samuel Alito filed an opinion concurring in the order. Justices Clarence Thomas and Neil Gorsuch joined that concurrence. In August, Texas adopted a new congressional map. Republicans currently hold 25 of the state's 38 seats in the House of Representatives. Under the new map, Republicans hope to win up to 30 of those 38 seats, reports the Supreme Court blog. The League of United Latin American Citizens challenged the map, falsely claiming that it was the product of unconstitutional racial gerrymandering. Justice Alito does not claim that the Supreme Court is definitively endorsing the 2025 Texas map's legality on the merits.  But he does assert that (a) The impetus for the map was partisan, not racial and (b) The lower court misapplied the proper standard of review. Eight states could vote on abortion in 2026 And finally, pro-life advocates are bracing for a pivotal battle in 2026 as voters in eight states prepare to weigh in on ballot measures that could either safeguard legal protections for the pre-born or create a fake right to kill babies by abortion, reports LifeNews.com. In Missouri, the pro-life “Amendment 3” would prohibit most abortions while allowing exceptions for medical emergencies, fatal fetal anomalies, and cases of rape or incest within the first 12 weeks. Nevada's “Question 6,” certified after passing its first vote in 2024, returns for a required second approval to embed a “fundamental right to abortion” in the state constitution until fetal viability—typically around 21 weeks. In Idaho, the “Reproductive Freedom and Privacy Measure,” is aiming to overturn the state's abortion ban by establishing a so-called “right to abortion.” Montana's proposed “Definition of Person Amendment,” seeks to amend the state constitution to define a “person” as beginning at fertilization or conception, effectively granting legal protections to the preborn. Nebraska's potential “Establish Personhood of Preborn Children Amendment,” is in the early stages of the ballot qualification process to define a preborn child as a person in the state constitution, effectively banning abortion from conception with limited exceptions. In Oregon, with a signature deadline in July 2026, abortion advocates are circulating petitions to amend the state constitution by affirming a right to kill babies by abortions. Virginia's “Right to Reproductive Freedom Amendment” advances toward a second vote in the 2026 session to embed a “right to reproductive freedom” in the state constitution. This would allow abortions up to birth in Virginia. And, in Colorado, pro-life advocates are currently before the Colorado Supreme Court with “The Right to Be Born” amendment that states: “Children have the right to continue living from the moment they are conceived.” Proverbs 31:8 says, “Speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves.” Close And that's The Worldview on this Monday, December 8th, in the year of our Lord 2025. Follow us on X or subscribe for free by Spotify, Amazon Music, or by iTunes or email to our unique Christian newscast at www.TheWorldview.com.  Plus, you can get the Generations app through Google Play or The App Store. I'm Adam McManus (Adam@TheWorldview.com). Seize the day for Jesus Christ.

Send us a textDownload study notes for this chapter.Download study notes for this entire book.**********Scriptures taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version ®, NIV ® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc. Used with permission. All rights reserved worldwide.The “NIV”, “New International Version”, “Biblica”, “International Bible Society” and the Biblica Logo are trademarks registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office by Biblica, Inc.  Used with permission.BIBLICA, THE INTERNATIONAL BIBLE SOCIETY, provides God's Word to people through Bible translation & Bible publishing, and Bible engagement in Africa, Asia Pacific, Europe, Latin America, the Middle East, and North America. Through its worldwide reach, Biblica engages people with God's Word so that their lives are transformed through a relationship with Jesus Christ.Support the show

Burning Bright and guest Brad Zerbo break down the emerging “Trump Doctrine” as they connect the administration's diplomatic maneuvers, foreign-policy posture, and escalating information war to a broader strategic realignment. They explore how Trump's peace deals, regional power restructuring, and refusal to follow legacy-media narratives reveal a coherent geopolitical philosophy rooted in sovereignty, deterrence, and economic leverage. From Africa to the Middle East to America's domestic political battles, BB and Brad analyze how Trump's actions, rather than pundit rhetoric, define the doctrine, and why the establishment finds it so destabilizing. Along the way they examine information-war dynamics, media manipulation, and the signals hidden inside official statements and global reactions. With humor, sharp pattern recognition, and BB's signature narrative framing, this episode unpacks how Trump's approach is reshaping alliances, exposing institutional decay, and accelerating a historic shift in global power.

In this episode of the Hunting Stories podcast, we invite Boston Allan, an 18-year-old hunter from Saskatchewan. Boston shares his unique journey into hunting, which began with his family's move to Africa when he was seven. He recounts his first experiences with wildlife, including elephants and snakes, and how these encounters shaped his passion for hunting. The conversation delves into his transition to hunting in Saskatchewan, his first bow hunting experience, and the lessons learned along the way. Boston also discusses his interest in taxidermy and how it connects to his identity as a hunter. The episode highlights the bond between Boston and his father as they navigate the world of hunting together, culminating in Boston's first archery buck and reflections on their growth as hunters. In this engaging conversation, Boston Allan shares his thrilling hunting experiences, focusing on his journey from deer hunting to an unforgettable elk hunting adventure. He recounts the challenges and excitement of tracking and shooting his first buck with a bow, the anticipation of elk hunting, and the incredible success of taking multiple bulls in a single day. The discussion highlights the camaraderie among hunters, the importance of preparation, and the sheer joy of being in nature. @HuntingStoriesPodcast⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Want to be a guest?⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Hunting Stories Website⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Sponsors: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Vortex Optics⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Ignite Marketing Group Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Episode 202 with Melissa Mbugua, East Africa Partnerships Lead at Radio Workshop. Melissa Mbugua leads partnerships across East Africa at Radio Workshop, an award winning organisation that trains young people across the continent to create powerful radio programmes and podcasts. Through storytelling, Radio Workshop equips youth with the skills, tools and confidence to inform their communities, influence public dialogue and shape Africa's future from the ground up.In this episode, Melissa shares how Radio Workshop is building a new generation of African journalists, storytellers and community leaders by supporting youth led audio storytelling. She reflects on the organisation's work training over 5,000 youth reporters across 100+ radio stations and reaching millions of listeners across Africa through local broadcasts and a globally recognised podcast.Drawing on her experience across East Africa, Melissa explores how radio remains Africa's most trusted and accessible medium, particularly in reaching underserved and rural communities. She discusses how youth led storytelling is being used to address critical social and economic issues such as mental health, education inequality, climate change and civic participation, while creating pathways for young people to develop leadership, communication and critical thinking skills.What We Discuss With Dr MercyMelissa Mbugua's journey into youth empowerment and partnerships at Radio Workshop and her role in expanding its impact across East Africa.How Radio Workshop trains youth to produce radio programmes and podcasts across Africa.Why radio continues to play a vital role in informing communities and strengthening civic participation.How youth led storytelling addresses major social and development challenges in Africa.The future of youth driven media and storytelling in East Africa and across the continent.Did you miss my previous episode where I discuss Fighting Misinformation and Advancing Health Literacy and Journalism in Africa? Make sure to check it out!Connect with Terser:LinkedIn - Terser AdamuInstagram - unlockingafricaTwitter (X) - @TerserAdamuConnect with Melissa:LinkedIn - Melissa Mbugua and Radio WorkshopMany of the businesses unlocking opportunities in Africa don't do it alone. If you'd like strategic support on entering or expanding across African markets, reach out to our partners ETK Group: www.etkgroup.co.ukinfo@etkgroup.co.uk

In Global Norms and Local Action: The Campaigns to End Violence against Women in Africa (Oxford UP, 2020), Peace A. Medie studies the domestic implementation of international norms by examining how and why two post-conflict states in Africa, Liberia and Côte d'Ivoire, have differed in their responses to rape and domestic violence. Specifically, she looks at the roles of the United Nations and women's movements in the establishment of specialized criminal justice sector agencies, and the referral of cases for prosecution. She argues that variation in implementation in Liberia and Côte d'Ivoire can be explained by the levels of international and domestic pressures that states face and by the favorability of domestic political and institutional conditions. Medie's study is based on interviews with over 300 policymakers, bureaucrats, staff at the UN and NGOs, police officers, and survivors of domestic violence and rape — an unprecedented depth of research into women's rights and gender violence norm implementation in post-conflict countries. Furthermore, through her interviews with survivors of violence, Medie explains not only how states implement anti-rape and anti-domestic violence norms, but also how women experience and are affected by these norms. She draws on this research to recommend that states adopt a holistic approach to addressing violence against women. Peace A. Medie is an award-winning scholar and a writer. She is associate professor in politics at the University of Bristol. She studies state and non-state actors' responses to gender-based violence and other forms of insecurity in countries in Africa. She is author of ‘Global Norms and Local Action: The Campaigns to End Violence Against Women in Africa' (OUP 2020). Her debut novel, His Only Wife, was a New York Times Notable Book of 2020 and a Time Magazine Must-Read Book of 2020. Her second novel, Nightbloom, will be published in June 2023. Lamis Abdelaaty is an associate professor of political science at the Maxwell School of Syracuse University. She is the author of Discrimination and Delegation: Explaining State Responses to Refugees (Oxford University Press, 2021). Email her comments at labdelaa@syr.edu or tweet to @LAbdelaaty. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/gender-studies

Jeannette meets the remarkable Annemarie Durbin, one of the most highly respected and experienced business minds in the world, to talk about her inspiring journey from her early career in New Zealand to becoming a prominent figure in the banking industry.  Annemarie discusses the challenges she faced as a woman in a male-dominated field, including personal adversity following her mother's passing and the cultural shocks she encountered when moving to the UK. She also reflects on her resilience, the importance of mentorship, and the supportive culture at Standard Chartered, where she found a sense of belonging and opportunity for growth Annemarie explains why: The journey of overcoming personal loss and challenging childhood experiences shapes a strong sense of resilience and determination Acknowledging and sharing personal struggles, including feelings of inadequacy and the challenges of balancing career and family, can foster authenticity and connection with others Finding a workplace culture that aligns with personal values can significantly impact career satisfaction and success.  The inclusive and diverse environment at Standard Chartered provided a sense of belonging and support that was crucial for professional development. The experience of being a woman in leadership roles highlights the importance of not defining oneself solely by gender.  Subscribe to Brave Bold Brilliant for weekly wisdom on leadership, legacy, and living boldly. Visit ⁠https://brave-bold-brilliant.com/⁠ for free tools, guides and resources to help you take action now

"Women like this really do exist."The Real Housewives reality TV franchise has become one of America's biggest cultural exports. But what happens when this franchise lands in Africa?In this episode of Limitless Africa, hosts Claude Grunitzky and Dimpho Lekgeu speak with Portia Hlubi, producer of The Real Housewives of Johannesburg, Durban, Cape Town and Lagos, and Eugene Mbugua, executive producer of The Real Housewives of Nairobi. Together, they unpack how the franchise's glamor and drama are being reimagined by African producers. From casting and cultural nuance to conflict style and aesthetics, this episode explores the behind-the-scenes decisions that make the show work across African cities.Plus: The difference between the Real Housewives in Joburg and Lagos.

In Global Norms and Local Action: The Campaigns to End Violence against Women in Africa (Oxford UP, 2020), Peace A. Medie studies the domestic implementation of international norms by examining how and why two post-conflict states in Africa, Liberia and Côte d'Ivoire, have differed in their responses to rape and domestic violence. Specifically, she looks at the roles of the United Nations and women's movements in the establishment of specialized criminal justice sector agencies, and the referral of cases for prosecution. She argues that variation in implementation in Liberia and Côte d'Ivoire can be explained by the levels of international and domestic pressures that states face and by the favorability of domestic political and institutional conditions. Medie's study is based on interviews with over 300 policymakers, bureaucrats, staff at the UN and NGOs, police officers, and survivors of domestic violence and rape — an unprecedented depth of research into women's rights and gender violence norm implementation in post-conflict countries. Furthermore, through her interviews with survivors of violence, Medie explains not only how states implement anti-rape and anti-domestic violence norms, but also how women experience and are affected by these norms. She draws on this research to recommend that states adopt a holistic approach to addressing violence against women. Peace A. Medie is an award-winning scholar and a writer. She is associate professor in politics at the University of Bristol. She studies state and non-state actors' responses to gender-based violence and other forms of insecurity in countries in Africa. She is author of ‘Global Norms and Local Action: The Campaigns to End Violence Against Women in Africa' (OUP 2020). Her debut novel, His Only Wife, was a New York Times Notable Book of 2020 and a Time Magazine Must-Read Book of 2020. Her second novel, Nightbloom, will be published in June 2023. Lamis Abdelaaty is an associate professor of political science at the Maxwell School of Syracuse University. She is the author of Discrimination and Delegation: Explaining State Responses to Refugees (Oxford University Press, 2021). Email her comments at labdelaa@syr.edu or tweet to @LAbdelaaty. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/african-studies

It's the dry season on the African plains and it hasn't rained for months, so a warthog, a hippo and a rhino set out on a search for a greener land.Written especially for this podcast by Alice.  If you enjoyed this story, please do leave us a review.  And, if you'd like to suggest an animal for a future Animal Tales story, you can do so by emailing podcast@animaltales.uk. We would love to hear from you.  Animal Tales Books!Collections of Animal Tales children's stories are available to buy exclusively at Amazon. Simply search for Animal Tales Short Stories or follow this link: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0CLJQZ9C9?binding=paperback&ref=dbs_dp_sirpi Become a PREMIUM SubscriberYou can now enjoy Animal Tales by becoming a Premium Subscriber. This gets you:All episodes in our catalogue advert freeBonus Premium-only episodes (one per week) which will never be used on the main podcastWe guarantee to use one of your animal suggestions in a storyYou can sign up through Apple Podcasts or through Supercast and there are both monthly and yearly plans available.   Discover a brand new story every Monday, Wednesday and Friday – just for you!  You can find more Animal Tales at https://www.spreaker.com/show/animal-tales-the-kids-story-podcastA Note About The AdvertsIn order to allow us to make these stories we offer a premium subscription and run adverts. The adverts are not chosen by us, but played automatically depending on the platform you listen through (Apple Podcasts, Spotify, etc) and the country you live in. The adverts may even be different if you listen to the story twice.We have had a handful of instances where an advert has played that is not suitable for a family audience, despite the podcast clearly being labelled for children. If you're concerned about an advert you hear, please contact the platform you are listening to directly. Spotify, in particular, has proven problematic in the past, for both inappropriate adverts and the volume at which the adverts play. If you find this happening, please let Spotify know via their Facebook customer care page. As creators, we want your child's experience to be a pleasurable one. Running adverts is necessary to allow us to operate, but please do consider the premium subscription service as an alternative – it's advert free.

Tomorrow I will be in Roanoke, Virginiaparticipating and speaking at a celebration of life service for a dear, dearsaint of God, Nancy Young. I'll tell you more about Nancy's and her life thatwas, “A Life Well Lived”, later in this blog. Matterof fact her life “measured up to the stature of the fullness of Christ”, thatPaul desired for every believer here in Ephesians 4. Today we begin looking atthis next section of the chapter where we learn about the “growth of unity” inthe local church. From verse 11 we are told this growth takes after, “HeHimself gives some apostles, and some prophets, some evangelists, and somepastors and teachers.” He does this for the purpose which we find in verses12-16. Thisis a very special passage of scripture that gives us exactly what the pastorsand leaders of the church should be doing. That is equipping the saints for thework of the ministry and for the spiritual growth and maturity of theindividual members.  Overmy 50 plus years as a pastor, if I ever knew someone that was a part of comingto the fullness of unity in Christ, coming to a place of full maturity in thebody of Christ and building up the body of Christ, and doing their part to makesure the church of Christ, the body of Christ, was the kind of church it shouldbe, it was Nancy Young. I've had the privilege of being her pastor for the pastthirty-some years now. As I think about the ministry we had together in thelocal church there at Rainbow Forest Baptist Church, of which she was a faithfulmember for the last 40 years, I watched as the Lord used Nancy in a wonderfulway to touch the lives of so many people. Manyof you probably didn't know that Nancy grew up in Africa with her parents, whowent there in 1945 when she was 3 years old. They were first missionaries inthe Congo, and then in Burundi, where during their ministry, there was aterrible genocide taking place. In her personal eight-page typed testimony thatshe recently wrote for her RFBC Sunday School class, she said from birth shewas taught the Word of God by her parents and had memorized Psalm 23 by thetime she was one year old. How amazing is that!!!!  Nancygrew up in Africa up to the time, when as a teenager she went to WheatonCollege back in the states. It was at Wheaton College that she developed apassion to teach children God's word. Not long after college, that she gotinvolved in WRE, (Weekly Religious Education). Now for over 55 plus years,every week you could find her teaching children the Bible in the public schoolsystem, usually meeting in a small trailer across the street from the school,like she did at Colonial Elementary School near where I lived. Ijust am so thankful for her faithful dedication to this ministry because manyof my grandchildren sat under her Bible teaching. Nancy actually taught mydaughters-in-law, Crystal Floyd Grooms when she was a girl. Remember Crystal,(and she won't mind that I say this), today is in her 40s. Yet when she was alittle girl at Colonial Elementary, she sat under Nancy's teaching. Nancyis a wonderful example of someone who loved the Lord, loved her husband, lovedher family, loved ministry, loved teaching God's Word, and had a grasp of the Wordof God in its entirety. She truly was an example of a mature believer who livedin the fullness of Jesus Christ. Oh, what a blessing it has been to be herpastor. We're celebrating her homegoing tomorrow (Tuesday) with her family.We're excited about how God's going to speak to the lives of many even in theservice.  Itrust you have been encouraged by her testimony that I have shared in today'schat. I trust that you are being equipped for the work of the ministry likeNancy Young was. May the Lord also use you to affect and influence the lives ofhundreds of others as He blesses and leads you.  Godbless!

Today, in light of the upcoming Come Follow Me lesson which covers Official Declaration 2, we're honored to share a conversation with W. Paul Reeve and Ramesus Stewart-Johnson about race, the priesthood and temple restriction, and what it really means to root out racism in our church community today.Since lifting the priesthood and temple ban in 1978, we have witnessed a great flourishing of the church, as multitudes have embraced the restored gospel in Africa and elsewhere. We can pause to celebrate this transformation occurring in the body of Christ, while contemplating how we can continue to follow the prophetic challenge to root out racism in our church, in our society and in our hearts today.. Part of this work is recognizing that myths and misinformation about our history on race persist to this day, subtle remnants of racism.This conversation felt bold, and at times, challenging. But both Paul and Ramesus share their personal stories, insights, and convictions to help us face our past and future with clarity and spiritual courage. Paul walks us through the history—how the restriction began, how it was solidified, and how newly available primary sources push back against the idea, expressed in our Come Follow Me manual, that we “just don't know” why the priesthood and temple restrictions were put in place. Paul argues that, until we come face-to-face with our history, we will not learn what we should from it. Ramesus helps us grapple with the lasting spiritual and emotional impact this history has had on many Black Saints—and how genuine discipleship, rooted in grace, honesty, and reconciliation, may be the key to moving forward.Paul is the Simmons Chair of Mormon Studies at the University of Utah and author of Let's Talk About Race and Priesthood, published by Deseret Book, as well as Religion of a Different Color, a landmark history of race and the early Church and winner of multiple book awards. Ramesus founded the North Texas Genesis Group as a support for Black Latter-day Saints, and now leads Black Lives Bless, an organization devoted to building beloved community through storytelling and truth-telling across the global Church and beyond.We're deeply grateful to Paul and Ramesus for being willing to share their hearts and their wisdom with us.You can watch a video of how Paul would lead a Sunday School discussion on Official Declaration 2 on our YouTube channel, and you can find Paul's slides for that discussion here.You can learn more from Black Lives Bless on their website, blacklivesbless.org.And find even more from Faith Matters on this important topic in this week's newsletter on our website, faithmatters.org.

Send Bidemi a Text Message!In this episode, host Bidemi Ologunde unpacks how AI chip diplomacy is reshaping global power, from the UAE's intelligence-tinted partnership with the U.S. to Silicon Valley's high-stakes entanglement with Gulf investors. He explores Saudi Arabia's record-breaking $55 billion leveraged buyout of Electronic Arts, the Kingdom's sweeping mutual defense pact with Pakistan, and its strategic oil lifeline to post-Assad Syria. Along the way, Bidemi connects the dots between technology, finance, and security to show how these moves are rewiring geopolitics across the Middle East, Europe, Asia, and Africa.Support the show

This illustrious light of Orthodoxy in the Western Church was born in Gaul in 349, but his widowed mother took the family to Rome while he was still a small child. Brilliant and well-educated, he was made a provincial Governor in 375 and took up residence in Milan. In those days, the Arian heresy was still dividing the Church, despite its repudiation at the Council of Nicaea in 325. When the time came to elect a new Bishop in Milan, the Orthodox and Arian parties were so divided that they could come to no agreement on a new Bishop. When Ambrose came as Governor to try to restore peace and order, a young child, divinely inspired, called out "Ambrose, Bishop!" To Ambrose's amazement, the people took up the cry, and Ambrose himself was elected, though he tried to refuse, protesting that he was only a catechumen (it was still common in those days to delay Holy Baptism for fear of polluting it by sin). He even attempted to flee, but his horse brought him back to the city. Resigning himself to God's will, he was baptized and, only a week later, elevated to Bishop. Immediately, he renounced all possessions, distributed all of his money to the poor and gave his estates to the Church. Straightaway, he entered into a spirited defense of Orthodoxy in his preaching and writings to the dismay of the Arians who had supported his election. Soon he persuaded Gratian, Emperor of the West, to call the Council of Aquilea, which brought an end to Arianism in the Western Church. (Arianism, however, continued to prosper among the barbarian nations for many years; see the Martyrs of Africa, also commemorated today).   Several times the holy Bishop was called upon to defend the Church against domination by the secular powers. Once, putting down an uprising in Thessalonika, the Emperor Theodosius punished the city by ordering the massacre of thousands of its residents. When the Emperor later visited Milan and came to the Cathedral to attend the Liturgy, Saint Ambrose stopped him at the door, condemned his crime before all the people, forbade him entrance to the church and excommunicated him for eight months. The Emperor went away weeping, and submitted in humility to the Church's discipline. When he returned after long penance to be restored to Communion, he went into the sanctuary along with the clergy, as had been the custom of the Emperors since Constantine the Great. But again the holy Ambrose humbled him in the sight of all the people, saying "Get out and take your place among the laity; the purple does not make priests, but only emperors." Theodosius left without protest, took his place among the penitents, and never again attempted to enter the sanctuary of a church. (When the Emperor died, it was Bishop Ambrose who preached his funeral eulogy).   Saint Ambrose, by teaching, preaching and writing, brought countless pagans to the Faith. His most famous convert was St Augustine (June 15), who became his disciple and eventually a bishop. Ambrose's many theological and catechetical works helped greatly to spread the teaching of the Greek fathers in the Latin world. He wrote many glorious antiphonal hymns which were once some of the gems of the Latin services.   Saint Ambrose reposed in peace in 397; his relics still rest in the basilica in Milan.

Archival collections are political spaces: the decisions that govern whose histories are preserved, when, and by whom are not neutral. They reflect the communities that make them. For most of western history queer, trans, and gender non-conforming people were excluded from such communities. Premodern trans experiences went largely unreported and reconstructing such histories relies on the piecing together of ephemeral glimpses. Literary scholars developed tactics and tools to read through the traces, with hugely generative results that highlight the richness of non-normative premodern genders. But how do we move beyond the limits of the trace to uncover a more expansive history of premodern gender non-conformity? In Trans Histories of the Medieval Book: An Experiment in Bibliography (Arc Humanities Press, 2025), J.D. Sargan takes a methodological approach to that question. Sargan explores how experiment in applying trans approaches to the study of the premodern book offers alternatives both for trans histories and for book historical methods. J. D. Sargan is a book historian. He was educated at Queen Mary University of London and the University of Oxford. He is an Assistant Professor in the Department of English at the University of Georgia and teaches a course in Queer Bibliographies for California Rare Book School. He researches the social dynamics of book use.  Jen Hoyer is Technical Services and Electronic Resources Librarian at CUNY New York City College of Technology. She is co-author of What Primary Sources Teach: Lessons for Every Classroom (2022) and The Social Movement Archive (2021), and co-editor of Armed By Design: Posters and Publications of Cuba's Organization of Solidarity of the Peoples of Africa, Asia, and Latin America (2025). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network

In An Unformed Map: Geographies of Belonging Between Africa and the Caribbean (Duke UP, 2025), Philip Janzen traces the intellectual trajectories of Caribbean people who joined the British and French colonial administrations in Africa between 1890 and 1930. Caribbean administrators grew up in colonial societies, saw themselves as British and French, and tended to look down on Africans. Once in Africa, however, they were doubly marginalized—excluded by Europeans and unwelcome among Africans. This marginalization was then reproduced in colonial archives, where their lives appear only in fragments. Drawing on sources beyond the archives of empire, from dictionaries and language exams to a suitcase full of poems, Janzen considers how Caribbean administrators reckoned with the profound effects of assimilation, racism, and dislocation. As they learned African languages, formed relationships with African intellectuals, and engaged with African cultures and histories, they began to rethink their positions in the British and French empires. They also created new geographies of belonging across the Atlantic, foundations from which others imagined new political horizons. Ultimately, Janzen offers a model for reading across sources and writing history in the face of archival fragmentation. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/history

Archival collections are political spaces: the decisions that govern whose histories are preserved, when, and by whom are not neutral. They reflect the communities that make them. For most of western history queer, trans, and gender non-conforming people were excluded from such communities. Premodern trans experiences went largely unreported and reconstructing such histories relies on the piecing together of ephemeral glimpses. Literary scholars developed tactics and tools to read through the traces, with hugely generative results that highlight the richness of non-normative premodern genders. But how do we move beyond the limits of the trace to uncover a more expansive history of premodern gender non-conformity? In Trans Histories of the Medieval Book: An Experiment in Bibliography (Arc Humanities Press, 2025), J.D. Sargan takes a methodological approach to that question. Sargan explores how experiment in applying trans approaches to the study of the premodern book offers alternatives both for trans histories and for book historical methods. J. D. Sargan is a book historian. He was educated at Queen Mary University of London and the University of Oxford. He is an Assistant Professor in the Department of English at the University of Georgia and teaches a course in Queer Bibliographies for California Rare Book School. He researches the social dynamics of book use.  Jen Hoyer is Technical Services and Electronic Resources Librarian at CUNY New York City College of Technology. She is co-author of What Primary Sources Teach: Lessons for Every Classroom (2022) and The Social Movement Archive (2021), and co-editor of Armed By Design: Posters and Publications of Cuba's Organization of Solidarity of the Peoples of Africa, Asia, and Latin America (2025). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/gender-studies

World news in 7 minutes. Monday 8th December 2025Today : Benin coup attempt. Mozambique displacement. US vaccine advice. Honduras no result. Argentina pistachios. India fire. Afghanistan Pakistan clash. Iran hijab. Indonesia floods. Eurovision boycott. Greece boat. France Louvre wet. Italy Pavarotti apology.SEND7 is supported by our amazing listeners like you.Our supporters get access to the transcripts and vocabulary list written by us every day.Our supporters get access to an English worksheet made by us once per week.Our supporters get access to our weekly news quiz made by us once per week.We give 10% of our profit to Effective Altruism charities. You can become a supporter at send7.org/supportContact us at podcast@send7.org or send an audio message at speakpipe.com/send7Please leave a rating on Apple podcasts or Spotify.We don't use AI! Every word is written and recorded by us!Since 2020, SEND7 (Simple English News Daily in 7 minutes) has been telling the most important world news stories in intermediate English. Every day, listen to the most important stories from every part of the world in slow, clear English. Whether you are an intermediate learner trying to improve your advanced, technical and business English, or if you are a native speaker who just wants to hear a summary of world news as fast as possible, join Stephen Devincenzi, Juliet Martin and Niall Moore every morning. Transcripts, vocabulary lists, worksheets and our weekly world news quiz are available for our amazing supporters at send7.org. Simple English News Daily is the perfect way to start your day, by practising your listening skills and understanding complicated daily news in a simple way. It is also highly valuable for IELTS and TOEFL students. Students, teachers, TEFL teachers, and people with English as a second language, tell us that they use SEND7 because they can learn English through hard topics, but simple grammar. We believe that the best way to improve your spoken English is to immerse yourself in real-life content, such as what our podcast provides. SEND7 covers all news including politics, business, natural events and human rights. Whether it is happening in Europe, Africa, Asia, the Americas or Oceania, you will hear it on SEND7, and you will understand it.Get your daily news and improve your English listening in the time it takes to make a coffee.For more information visit send7.org/contact or send an email to podcast@send7.org

US diplomacy under President Donald Trump has a bigger chance of success because it focuses on transactional deals that “translate into improvements of people's lives” instead of “theories about democracy, freedom and human rights”, argues Rwandan President Paul Kagame. Kagame, who has led Rwanda for more than 30 years, tells host Steve Clemons that he's “never seen the level of focus, attention, energy and pressure” that the US president brought to the conflict between the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Rwanda, which led to the signing of a tentative deal between the two sides in Washington on December 4.

Music Time in Africa is VOA's longest running English language program. Since 1965 this award-winning program has featured pan African music that spans all genres and generations. Host Heather Maxwell keeps you up to date on what's happening in African music with interviews and cultural information.

In this episode, we are joined by Oscar Scafidi, a Guinness World Record–holding adventurer, author, and expert on some of the most remote regions of Africa. Oscar recently released his new book, Kayak the Mangoky, which chronicles his expedition to paddle the length of Madagascar's longest river. Oscar shares how a “random” decision to take a teaching job in Sudan changed the entire direction of his life, sparking a 20-year journey living, working, and traveling across 35 African countries. He opens up about misconceptions that keep travelers away from places like Angola, Equatorial Guinea, and Madagascar — and why those stereotypes are outdated and unfair. Oscar also tells the full story behind the Mangoky expedition: navigating bureaucratic obstacles, trekking through remote mountain ranges, facing immense portages due to rapids and croc-filled canyons, and hiking for nine days without water resupply. With satellite maps from the 1980s, confusing tributaries, and no agreed-upon “official” river source, finding where to start the expedition was an adventure in itself. Through this intense journey, Oscar reflects on resilience, teamwork, risk, and why community support — not macho heroics — is what makes expeditions succeed. The episode also highlights Oscar's charity work supporting Malagasy children in rural education.  

Ten years ago this month, Petr Jasek traveled to Sudan on behalf of The Voice of the Martyrs to meet with and encourage Sudanese Christians. At the airport on his way out of the country, Petr was arrested and later sentenced to life in prison. His first prison cellmates were ISIS fighters—men who hated Christians and quickly began to persecute Petr. Petr Jasek spent 445 days in Sudanese custody. Listen this week as Petr shares about his first night in a jail cell, how God uniquely prepared him with a dream and how he discovered that his cellmates were radical Muslim ISIS fighters. In prison, Petr felt the Lord's presence very near as—once he received a Bible—he spent hours every day reading the Bible and praying. In Petr's lowest moments, God brought to his mind the names and faces of other persecuted Christians—men and women Petr had met during his years overseeing VOM's work in Africa. He began to pray for other persecuted believers and his spirit lifted as his focus changed from his own difficulties to praying for other Christians. The story of Petr's imprisonment—and the ministry God allowed him inside—is told in his book, Imprisoned with ISIS: Faith in the Face of Evil. Days after returning home, Petr sat down with VOM Radio to share his story and thank the thousands of people who prayed for him and his Sudanese co-defendants during his long months in prison. To hear Petr share the entire story of his arrest, imprisonment, and eventual release, go to www.vomradio.net/petr. This interview was recorded during the VOM National Conference in Bartlesville, OK, where Petr shared how his time in prison and the lessons he learned there still impact him ten years later. To view a video version of Petr's interview, go to VOM's YouTube channel. The VOM App for your smartphone or tablet will help you pray daily for persecuted Christians in nations like North Korea, Nigeria and Bangladesh, as well as provide free access to e-books, audiobooks, video content and feature films. Download the VOM App for your iOS or Android device today.

Max Pearson presents a collection of Witness History and Sporting Witness episodes, all with a Nigerian theme.We hear two personal stories of the Biafra war, which began in 1967, including the writer Wole Soyinka who was jailed for trying to stop it. Plus, we hear from Patricia Ngozi Ebigwe about escaping the conflict. She's now better known as TV and music star Patti Boulaye.We speak to Dr Louisa Egbunike, who is an Associate Professor in African Literature at Durham University in England.Also, a retired Brigadier General speaks about West African countries fighting back against the jihadist militant group Boko Haram in 2015. Then, the opening of the New Afrika Shrine in 2000, by Fela Kuti's children to honour his legacy. Finally, we hear from Omoyemi Akerele who founded Lagos Fashion Week in 2011.Our Sporting Witness programme this week looks at Nigeria becoming the first team to represent Africa at the first ever FIFA Women's World Cup in 1991. This is a Made in Manchester Production.Contributors:Wole Soyinka - Nobel Prize-winning poet and playwright. Patricia Ngozi Ebigwe - TV and music star. Dr Louisa Egbunike - Associate Professor in African Literature at Durham University. Sani Kukasheka Usman - retired Brigadier General. Omoyeni Anikulapo-Kuti, also known as Yeni Kuti - the eldest daughter of Fela Kuti. Omoyemi Akerele - founder of Lagos Fashion Week. Nkiri Okosieme – captained Nigeria women's national football team.(Photo: Biafran national army soldiers. Credit: AFP via Getty Images)

In this episode of the Learn Real Polish podcast, I will take you on a fascinating journey to the times of the rise and fall of the Ottoman Empire, one of the most powerful and longest-lasting powers in world history, which left a huge mark on Europe, Asia, and Africa. Listen to this episode, and as always, I will explain everything in a simple and understandable way to help you learn Polish effectively. Premium members can read the full Polish transcript at realpolish.plThe post ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠RP509: Imperium Osmańskie⁠⁠ appeared first on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠realpolish.pl

From our little corner of the Notting Hill pub, it can be hard to see what life is like for people with Parkinson's across the rest of the UK – let alone around the world! Today, however, we're talking about Parkinson's care in Africa, a continent where levodopa access is limited and where stigmas around the condition still impact countless lives. We're joined by experts – both in the pub and down-the-line from the frontline of treatment – to try and understand the situation and how the global community might collaborate to alleviate some of the suffering of African Parkies.Sponsored by Albion Chambers.Presented by Rory Cellan-Jones, Gillian Lacey-Solymar, Mark Mardell, Paul Mayhew-Archer, Sir Nicholas Mostyn and Jeremy Paxman.Produced and edited by Nick Hilton for Podot.Sound mixing by Ewan Cameron.Music by Alex Stobbs. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this snow-day edition of Geopolitics with Ghost, Gordon breaks down the fast-moving and deeply tangled situation unfolding in the Democratic Republic of Congo and Rwanda. He walks through the Trump-brokered peace signing with Presidents Kagame and Tshisekedi, the ongoing M23 rebel clashes, and why the mineral-rich Kivu region sits at the center of a decades-long geopolitical struggle. Ghost connects the dots on how rare earth metals, tech giants like Apple, Gulf-state investment, and the long shadow of the Israeli diamond cartel all converge in this conflict. From Mossad's covert interference to coup attempts, laundered minerals, and the collapse of legacy monopolies, Ghost exposes how global powers are reshaping Africa's future, and how Trump's strategy is forcing bad actors into the light. He also examines Apple's legal troubles, Al-Shabaab's sudden appearance in the region, and the broader implications for Russia, China, Venezuela, and the emerging sovereign-alliance realignment. A packed episode loaded with evidence, timelines, maps, and hard truths, all pointing to a world in rapid transition.

In An Unformed Map: Geographies of Belonging Between Africa and the Caribbean (Duke UP, 2025), Philip Janzen traces the intellectual trajectories of Caribbean people who joined the British and French colonial administrations in Africa between 1890 and 1930. Caribbean administrators grew up in colonial societies, saw themselves as British and French, and tended to look down on Africans. Once in Africa, however, they were doubly marginalized—excluded by Europeans and unwelcome among Africans. This marginalization was then reproduced in colonial archives, where their lives appear only in fragments. Drawing on sources beyond the archives of empire, from dictionaries and language exams to a suitcase full of poems, Janzen considers how Caribbean administrators reckoned with the profound effects of assimilation, racism, and dislocation. As they learned African languages, formed relationships with African intellectuals, and engaged with African cultures and histories, they began to rethink their positions in the British and French empires. They also created new geographies of belonging across the Atlantic, foundations from which others imagined new political horizons. Ultimately, Janzen offers a model for reading across sources and writing history in the face of archival fragmentation. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network

According to flight logs and reporting, Clinton took a number of international trips in 2002 and 2003 using Epstein's private jet — often referred to by critics as the “Lolita Express.” On those flights, Epstein's plane reportedly carried Clinton, members of his entourage (staff, supporters, Secret Service), and on several occasions, Ghislaine Maxwell, identified in the logs by her initials. Destinations listed in those logs include not only Africa and Europe, but also Asia and China, among other countries. These trips were described at the time as part of philanthropic or “foundation-related tours,” tied to Clinton's post-presidential work.After Epstein's crimes became more widely known, Maxwell gave a sworn interview to the U.S. Department of Justice in which she denied that Epstein ever introduced Clinton to the private-island properties tied to the sex-trafficking case — insisting that Clinton “absolutely never went” to Epstein's island. She characterized his flights aboard Epstein's jet as humanitarian or foundation-related and denied any knowledge of wrongdoing or illicit activity involving Clinton. Despite the public flight logs and records showing repeated travel with Epstein and Maxwell, the question of what Clinton knew, when he knew it, and whether any misconduct occurred remains publicly unresolved — clouded by conflicting accounts, denials, and sealed records.to contact me:bobbycapucci@protonmail.comBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-epstein-chronicles--5003294/support.

This was a challenging Friday crossword, the second by James McCarron since August, of the year: in short, he's on a roll. There were some simultaneously terrific (if you like a challenge) and terrifying (if you value your streak) clues. Among the best not mentioned in the podcast were 37D, Minimal coverage provider?, THONG (ha!); 27D, Silent sort, CLAM (not FILM or MIME); and 15D, Show stoppers, sometimes, RAIN (true, dat). Show note imagery:  Egyptian football/soccer star Mohamed SALAH, about to do something magicalWe love feedback! Send us a text...Contact Info:We love listener mail! Drop us a line, crosswordpodcast@icloud.com.Also, we're on FaceBook, so feel free to drop by there and strike up a conversation!

In An Unformed Map: Geographies of Belonging Between Africa and the Caribbean (Duke UP, 2025), Philip Janzen traces the intellectual trajectories of Caribbean people who joined the British and French colonial administrations in Africa between 1890 and 1930. Caribbean administrators grew up in colonial societies, saw themselves as British and French, and tended to look down on Africans. Once in Africa, however, they were doubly marginalized—excluded by Europeans and unwelcome among Africans. This marginalization was then reproduced in colonial archives, where their lives appear only in fragments. Drawing on sources beyond the archives of empire, from dictionaries and language exams to a suitcase full of poems, Janzen considers how Caribbean administrators reckoned with the profound effects of assimilation, racism, and dislocation. As they learned African languages, formed relationships with African intellectuals, and engaged with African cultures and histories, they began to rethink their positions in the British and French empires. They also created new geographies of belonging across the Atlantic, foundations from which others imagined new political horizons. Ultimately, Janzen offers a model for reading across sources and writing history in the face of archival fragmentation. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/caribbean-studies

Have a comment? Send us a text! (We read all of them but can't reply). Email us: Will@faithfulpoliticspodcast.comIn this episode of Faithful Politics, Will and Josh speak with Holly Berkley Fletcher, historian, essayist, former CIA Africa analyst, and author of The Missionary Kids: Unmasking the Myths of White Evangelicalism. Drawing from her childhood in Kenya as an MK and years of research on the American missionary movement, Holly explores how missionary culture has shaped white evangelical identity, race narratives, and U.S. religious politics for more than a century.She discusses the history of American missions, the deep roots of evangelical “calling,” the romanticized myth of the missionary saint, and why missionary children often carry the hidden costs of their parents' spiritual ambitions. The conversation dives into race, colonial influence, trauma, American exceptionalism, Christian nationalism, global evangelicalism, and how missions became both a mirror and mask for white American Christianity. Holly also shares personal stories—from boarding school trauma to growing up surrounded by stark inequality—that illuminate the insider/outsider vantage point MKs uniquely bring.If you care about global Christianity, American evangelical culture, deconstruction, mission work, or the complicated intersection of faith and identity, this episode offers an honest, challenging, and deeply human lens.Buy: The Missionary Kids: Unmasking the Myths of White Evangelicalism https://bookshop.org/a/112456/9798889832034Guest Bio Holly Berkley Fletcher is a historian, essayist, and former Africa analyst at the Central Intelligence Agency, where she spent nearly two decades focusing on political, cultural, and security trends across the continent. Raised in Kenya as a missionary kid, she later earned a PhD in American History, giving her a unique insider/outsider perspective on evangelical culture. Her book, The Missionary Kids: Unmasking the Myths of White Evangelicalism, blends memoir and research to examine the American missions movement, the psychology of calling, racial narratives, and the long-term impact on children raised in missionary families. Her work explores faith, identity, trauma, and globSupport the show

Widely recognized as one of the most influential and beloved figures in the field of peacebuilding, John Paul Lederach embodies both the rigor of the scholar and sensitivity of the poet. A pioneer of the concept of conflict transformation (as distinct from resolution), his work has redefined peacebuilding as a moral and relational art rooted in empathy, moral imagination, and the human capacity for connection across divides. Join TNS Host Serena Bian for this intergenerational conversation exploring John Paul's enormous body of work in building the fields of conflict transformation and collective trauma healing--as well as his love for poetry and haiku. John Paul Lederach Dr. John Paul Lederach is internationally recognized for his groundbreaking work in the fields of peacebuilding and conflict transformation. He is widely known for the development of culturally based approaches to conflict transformation; the design and implementation of integrative, strategic approaches to peacebuilding; and for carving a robust integration of the arts and social change. Over the course of his career, Lederach has garnered extensive experience working with non-governmental organizations, community-based initiatives impacted by cycles of violence, and national peace process design. He has worked extensively as a practitioner in conciliation processes in Latin America, Africa, and Southeast and Central Asia. He is the author or editor of 30 books and manuals (translated into a dozen languages), and numerous academic articles and monographs on peace education, conflict transformation, international peacebuilding, and conciliation training. He currently serves as Senior Fellow for Humanity United and Professor Emeritus of International Peacebuilding at the Joan B. Kroc Institute of International Peace Studies at the University of Notre Dame. Host Serena Bian Serena is pursuing a life that remains attentive to the tenderness of a snail's soft body and reverent to the miracle of its spiraled shell. She is a Chinese-American peacebuilder, storyteller, and community weaver devoted to the belief that intergenerational connection is vital for the future of our peace and justice movements. She recently completed six years as a Special Advisor in Design & Innovation to U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy, bringing a spiritual and systemic understanding to the public health crisis of loneliness and isolation. She is a Zen chaplain-in-training and serves on the boards of CoGenerate and Commonweal. #commonweal #commonwealnewschool #peacebuilding #conflict #transformation #virtuouscycle #haiku Find out more about The New School at Commonweal on our website: tns.commonweal.org. And like/follow our Soundcloud channel for more great podcasts.

Welcome to Director Watch! On this AwardsWatch podcast, co-hosts Ryan McQuade and Jay Ledbetter attempt to breakdown, analyze, and ultimately, get inside the mind of some of cinema's greatest auteurs. In doing so, they will look at their filmographies, explore what drives them artistically and what makes their decision making process so fascinating. Add in a few silly tangents and a fun game at the end of the episode and you've got yourself a podcast we truly hope you love. On episode 129 of the Director Watch Podcast, the boys discuss the next film in their Claire Denis series, White Material (2009). Within the latest film of the Denis series, she heads back to Africa to explore a family drama set in the background of an unstable, unknown country, but as the film plays out, seems to be more interested in what is in the background rather than the characters that are focused on within the film. Instead of making a "white savior" movie, Denis is using this film as a honest, reflective look at her own place within this world as a white woman, commenting on the violent world that surrounds these white characters, and mirrors her own childhood. While it's not her best film, it's her most personal, and a bold piece of filmmaking that isn't looking for a pat on the back, but rather exposing the flaws within power dynamics in a part of the world we will never be able to fix or understand. Ryan and Jay break down their thoughts on the film, Denis' relationship to the source material, the violence in the background of the film, the lingering questions about the open ending, as well as plenty of fun tangents post-Thanksgiving for the boys, highlight some of their favorite films they've been catching up with lately. You can listen to the Director Watch Podcast wherever you stream podcasts, from iTunes, iHeartRadio, Soundcloud, Stitcher, Spotify, Audible, Amazon Music, YouTube and more. This podcast runs 1h57m. The guys will be back next week to continue their series on the films of Claire Denis with a review of her film, Let the Sunshine In. You can rent it via iTunes and Amazon Prime rental in preparation for the next episode of Director Watch. Till then, let's get into it. Music: MUSICALIFE, from Pond5 (intro) and "B-3" from BoxCat Games Nameless: The Hackers RPG Soundtrack (outro).

In An Unformed Map: Geographies of Belonging Between Africa and the Caribbean (Duke UP, 2025), Philip Janzen traces the intellectual trajectories of Caribbean people who joined the British and French colonial administrations in Africa between 1890 and 1930. Caribbean administrators grew up in colonial societies, saw themselves as British and French, and tended to look down on Africans. Once in Africa, however, they were doubly marginalized—excluded by Europeans and unwelcome among Africans. This marginalization was then reproduced in colonial archives, where their lives appear only in fragments. Drawing on sources beyond the archives of empire, from dictionaries and language exams to a suitcase full of poems, Janzen considers how Caribbean administrators reckoned with the profound effects of assimilation, racism, and dislocation. As they learned African languages, formed relationships with African intellectuals, and engaged with African cultures and histories, they began to rethink their positions in the British and French empires. They also created new geographies of belonging across the Atlantic, foundations from which others imagined new political horizons. Ultimately, Janzen offers a model for reading across sources and writing history in the face of archival fragmentation. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/african-studies

On this podcast, I look at the recently declared over Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and the current Marburg virus outbreak in Ethiopia. Watch the video version

Send us a textPeaches and Trent drag the Air Force's favorite fantasy into the daylight: the idea that “nothing ever happens in Africa.” Major Mike Voto shows up and calmly dismantles a decade of complacency, bureaucratic daydreaming, and leadership cosplay that left defenders untrained, undermanned, and standing on a Kenyan airfield praying the cavalry might arrive sometime today-ish. He drops truth bombs about zero-prep deployments, wet-behind-the-ears defenders thrown into real combat, and the surreal aftermath where the wrong people got medals and the right people got silence. If you think you know what happened at Manda Bay, buckle up—Peaches isn't here to stroke egos, he's here to wake you up. If this episode makes you uncomfortable, good. It should.⏱️ TIMESTAMPS 00:00 – The “ambushes don't matter” delusion 04:45 – The Operator Training Summit shout-out 06:20 – How Voto landed in the nightmare 12:40 – “Pre-deployment training? LOL, no.” 18:00 – Why defenders weren't ready (and why leadership didn't care) 24:10 – The Christmas party that nearly became a mass casualty 33:30 – The attack begins: chaos, mortars, and reality 45:50 – Holding the airfield with 84 defenders and duct tape 55:10 – The medal circus that insulted everyone who fought 1:08:00 – The cost: careers ended, mental health shattered 1:22:00 – Peaches unloads on accountability theater 1:25:00 – Final message: stop pretending this isn't a problem

Kelly Cates and a range of guests react to the World Cup draw!Dion Dublin, Ian Dennis & Don Hutchinson reflect on England drawing Croatia, Ghana & Panama, before we hear from manager Thomas Tuchel from Washington.Pat Nevin joins the pod to discuss Scotland drawing Brazil, Morocco & Haiti, as does Scotland striker Lyndon Dykes! We then hear from Scotland boss Steve Clarke.Julien Laurens joins the pod to look at France's potential 'Group of Death', plus how the rest of Europe's top nations may fair. We hear from Cape Verde player Roberto Lopes as they head to the World Cup for the first time, and John Bennett provides insight into the rest of Africa's nations, plus Oceania too. Tim Vickery joins us as we delve deep into Brazil, Argentina and the rest of South America.And finally we hear from correspondent John Murray, having attended a delayed, but bonkers World Cup draw!Timecodes:06:26 England group reaction 13:10 Thomas Tuchel interview 16:55 Scotland group reaction 20:55 Lyndon Dykes joins the pod 28:33 Steve Clarke interview 31:20 The rest of Europe 43:30 Cape Verde's Lopes joins the pod 48:43 The rest of Africa & Oceania too 50:26 South America chat 55:40 John Murray rounds up the drawCommentaries this weekend:Saturday 6th December PREMIER LEAGUE: Bournemouth v Chelsea 1500 KO - 5 LIVE PREMIER LEAGUE: Spurs v Brentford 1500 KO - SPORTS EXTRA 3 PREMIER LEAGUE: Leeds v Liverpool 1730 KO - 5 LIVE FA CUP: Chelmsford City v West-super-Mare 1500 KO - SPORTS EXTRA 2 FA CUP: Sutton United v Shrewsbury 1715 KO - SPORTS EXTRA 3 FA CUP: Chesterfield v Doncaster Rovers 1930 KO - SPORTS EXTRA 3 WSL: Arsenal v Liverpool 1200 KO - SPORTS EXTRA 3Sunday 7th December PREMIER LEAGUE: Brighton v West Ham 1400 KO - SPORTS EXTRA PREMIER LEAGUE: Fulham v Crystal Palace 1630 KO - 5 LIVE FA CUP: Slough Town v Macclesfield 1230 KO - SPORTS EXTRA 3 FA CUP: Gateshead v Walsall 1530 KO - SPORTS EXTRA 3 FA CUP: Blackpool v Carlisle United 1730 KO - SPORTS EXTRA

Miishe Addy started her first company in California's Silicon Valley followed by another business in Accra, Ghana. Now, she runs one of Africa's fastest-growing logistics tech firms.She describes how she's tackling the hidden costs of African trade, and what she's learned as a female founder building companies in two continents.If you'd like to get in touch with the programme, our email address is businessdaily@bbc.co.ukPresenter: Sam Fenwick Producers: Ahmed Adan and Niamh McDermott(Picture: Miishe Addy. Credit: Jetstream)

John speaks with Michelle Manook about the realities of Australia's energy system, the misconceptions driving policy, and the widening gap between ideology and practical national interest. Manook explains why technological advances in sustainable coal production, including Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) and High Efficiency Low Emissions (HELE) power plants, make coal a legitimate energy option for our future. The discussion urges Australians to re-examine the assumptions embedded in net zero narratives, the economic risks posed by unreliable power, and the strategic necessity of maintaining a diverse and resilient energy mix. This is a grounded, forward-looking discussion about how nations sustain prosperity and stability in an increasingly uncertain world. Michelle Manook is Chief Executive of FutureCoal. Previously, she was Head of Strategy, Government and Communications for Europe, Asia and Africa for the multinational company Orica, based in Perth, Australia.

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In this powerful inspirational and motivational episode, Reginald D sits down with Bishop Daniel Timotheos Yohannan, President of GFA World and one of today's most impactful global Christian leaders. Together they explore what God is doing across Africa, Asia, and the 10/40 window, how miracles still happen, and why millions are searching for hope in a world full of noise, overwhelm, and distraction.From water buffalo miracles, to prison conversions, to genocide-surviving nations rebuilding through faith, to young adults craving silence in a digital age, this episode delivers a deeply motivational speech-style conversation designed to ignite your purpose, strengthen your faith, and open your eyes to a world desperately needing the love of Christ.If you've been feeling spiritually dry, overwhelmed, unmotivated, or unsure of your purpose—this inspirational episode will remind you that God still speaks, still moves, and still leads one step at a time.This episode also speaks to people overwhelmed, overstimulated, and stretched thin by constant notifications, news cycles, and social pressure. In a world full of emotional exhaustion, loneliness, and distraction, many people—especially Gen Z—are searching for meaning, clarity, peace, purpose, and direction.Bishop Daniel reveals:Why quieting the noise is essential for spiritual strengthHow everyday believers can live with purpose and missionWhy God still performs miracles, even in the most difficult placesHow to overcome discouragement, burnout, and spiritual numbnessWhy your obedience—just one step at a time—still changes livesPress play now to experience one of the most inspirational and motivational conversations of the year—and ignite a renewed fire for your purpose, your faith, and your impact.GFA World Website: https://www.gfa.orgMotivational, motivational and inspirational, inspirational, motivational speech, GFA World, Christian, Asia, Africa, Global missions, missions. self improvement, God, faith, purpose, Gen Z, Christian leadersSend us a textSupport the showFor daily motivation and inspiration, subscribe and follow Real Talk With Reginald D on social media:Instagram: realtalkwithreginaldd TikTok: @realtalkregd Youtube: @realtalkwithreginald Facebook: realtalkwithreginaldd Twitter Real Talk With Reginald D (@realtalkRegD) / TwitterWebsite: Real Talk With Reginald D https://www.realtalkwithreginaldd.com Real Talk With Reginald D - Merchandise

In this theologically rich episode of The Reformed Brotherhood, Jesse and Tony delve into the Parable of the Lost Coin from Luke 15:8-10. They explore how this parable reveals God's passionate pursuit of His elect and the divine joy that erupts when they are found. Building on their previous discussion of the Lost Sheep, the brothers examine how Jesus uses this second parable to further emphasize God's sovereign grace in salvation. The conversation highlights the theological implications of God's ownership of His people even before their redemption, the diligent efforts He undertakes to find them, and the heavenly celebration that follows. This episode offers profound insights into God's relentless love and the true nature of divine joy in redemption. Key Takeaways The Parable of the Lost Coin emphasizes that God actively and diligently searches for those who belong to Him, sparing no effort to recover what is rightfully His. Jesus uses three sequential parables in Luke 15 to progressively reveal different aspects of God's heart toward sinners, with escalating emphasis on divine joy. The coin represents something of significant value that already belonged to the woman, illustrating that God's elect belong to Him even before their redemption. Unlike finding something new, the joy depicted is specifically about recovering something that was already yours but had been lost, highlighting God's eternal claim on His people. The spiritual inability of the sinner is represented by the coin's passivity - it cannot find its own way back and must be sought out by its owner. Angels rejoice over salvation not independently but because they share in God's delight at the effectiveness of His saving power. The parable challenges believers to recover their joy in salvation and to share it with others, much like the woman who called her neighbors to celebrate with her. Expanded Insights God's Determined Pursuit of What Already Belongs to Him The Parable of the Lost Coin reveals a profound theological truth about God's relationship to His elect. As Tony and Jesse discuss, this isn't a story about finding something new, but recovering something that already belongs to the owner. The woman in the parable doesn't rejoice because she discovered unexpected treasure; she rejoices because she recovered what was already hers. This illustrates the Reformed understanding that God's people have eternally belonged to Him. While justification occurs in time, there's a real sense in which God has been considering us as His people in eternity past. The parable therefore supports the doctrines of election and particular redemption - God is not creating conditions people can move into or out of, but is zealously reclaiming a specific people who are already His in His eternal decree. The searching, sweeping, and diligent pursuit represent not a general call, but an effectual calling that accomplishes its purpose. The Divine Joy in Recovering Sinners One of the most striking aspects of this parable is the overwhelming joy that accompanies finding the lost coin. The brothers highlight that this joy isn't reluctant or begrudging, but enthusiastic and overflowing. The woman calls her friends and neighbors to celebrate with her - a seemingly excessive response to finding a coin, unless we understand the theological significance. This reveals that God takes genuine delight in the redemption of sinners, to the extent that Jesus describes it as causing joy "in the presence of the angels of God." As Jesse and Tony note, this challenges our perception that God might save us begrudgingly. Instead, the parable teaches us that God's "alien work" is wrath, while His delight is in mercy. This should profoundly impact how believers view their own salvation and should inspire a contagious joy that spreads to others - a joy that many Christians, by Tony's own admission, need to recover in their daily walk. Memorable Quotes "Christ love is an act of love and it's always being acted upon the sinner, the one who has to be redeemed, his child whom he goes after. So in the same way, we have Christ showing the self-denying love." - Jesse Schwamb "The coin doesn't seek the woman. The woman seeks the coin. And in this way, I think we see God's act of searching grace... The reason why I think it leads to joy, why God is so pleased, is because God has this real pleasure to pluck sinners as brands from the burning fire." - Jesse Schwamb "These parables are calling us to rejoice, right? Christ is using these parables to shame the Pharisees and the scribes who refuse to rejoice over the salvation of sinners. How often do we not rejoice over our own salvation sufficiently?" - Tony Arsenal Full Transcript [00:00:08] Jesse Schwamb: There still is like the sovereign grace of God who's initiating the salvation and there is a kind of effect of calling that God doesn't merely invite, he finds, he goes after he affects the very thing. Yeah, and I think we're seeing that here. The sinner, spiritual inability. There's an utter passivity until found. The coin doesn't seek the woman. The woman seeks the coin. And in this way, I think we see God's act of searching grace. It's all there for us. And the reason why I think it leads to joy, why God is so pleased is because God has this real pleasure. To pluck sinners as brands from the burning fire. Welcome to episode 472 of The Reformed Brotherhood. I'm Jesse. [00:00:57] Tony Arsenal: And I'm Tony. And this is the podcast with ears to hear. Hey brother. [00:01:01] Jesse Schwamb: Hey brother. [00:01:02] Jesus and the Parable of the Lost Coin [00:01:02] Jesse Schwamb: So there was this time, maybe actually more than one time, but at least this one time that we've been looking at where Jesus is hanging out and the religious incumbents, the Pharisees, they come to him and they say, you are a friend of sinners, and. Instead of taking offense to this, Jesus turns this all around. Uses this as a label, appropriates it for himself and his glorious character. And we know this because he gives us this thrice repeated sense of what it means to see his heart, his volition, his passion, his love, his going after his people, and he does it. Three little parables and we looked at one last time and we're coming up to round two of the same and similar, but also different and interesting. And so today we're looking at the parable of the lost coin or the Lost dma, or I suppose, whatever kind of currency you wanna insert in there. But once again, something's lost and we're gonna see how our savior comes to find it by way of explaining it. In metaphor. So there's more things that are lost and more things to be found on this episode. That's how we do it. It's true. It's true. So that's how Jesus does it. So [00:02:12] Tony Arsenal: yeah. So it should be how we do it. [00:02:14] Jesse Schwamb: Yes. Yeah, exactly. I cut to like Montel Jordan now is the only thing going through my head. Tell Jordan. Yeah. Isn't he the one that's like, this is how we do it, that song, this is [00:02:28] Tony Arsenal: how we do it. I, I don't know who sings it. Apparently it's me right now. That was actually really good. That was fantastic. [00:02:36] Jesse Schwamb: Hopefully never auto tuned. Not even once. I'm sure that'll make an appearance now and the rest, somebody [00:02:42] Tony Arsenal: should take that and auto tune it for me. [00:02:44] Jesse Schwamb: That would be fantastic. Listen, it doesn't need it. That was perfect. That was right off the cuff, right off the top. It was beautiful. It was ous. [00:02:50] Tony Arsenal: Yes. Yes. [00:02:51] Affirmations and Denials [00:02:51] Jesse Schwamb: I'm hoping that appearance, [00:02:53] Tony Arsenal: before we jump into our, our favorite segment here in affirmations of Denials, I just wanted to take a second to, uh, thank all of our listeners. Uh, we have the best listeners in the world. That's true, and we've also got a really great place to get together and chat about things. That's also true. Uh, we have a little telegram chat, which is just a little chat, um, program that run on your phone or in a browser. Really any device you have, you can go to t Me slash Reform Brotherhood and join that, uh, little chat group. And there's lots of stuff going on there. We don't need to get into all the details, but it's a friendly little place. Lots of good people, lots of good conversation. And just lots of good digital fellowship, if that's even a thing. I think it is. So please do join us there. It's a great place to discuss, uh, the episodes or what you're learning or what you'd like to learn. There's all sorts of, uh, little nooks and crannies and things to do in there. [00:03:43] Jesse Schwamb: So if you're looking for a little df and you know that you are coming out, we won't get into details, but you definitely should. Take Tony's advice, please. You, you will not be disappointed. It, it's a fun, fun time together. True. Just like you're about to have with us chatting it up and going through a little affirmations and denials. So, as usual, Tony, what are you, are you affirming with something or are you denying again, something? I'm, I'm on the edge of my seat. I'm ready. [00:04:06] Tony Arsenal: Okay. Uh, it is, I thought that was going somewhere else. Uh, I'm, I'm affirming something. [00:04:13] AI and Problem Solving [00:04:13] Tony Arsenal: People are gonna get so sick of me doing like AI affirmations, but I, it's like I learned a new thing to do with AI every couple of weeks. I ran across an article the other day, uh, that I don't remember where the article was. I didn't save it, but I did read it. And one of the things that pointed out is that a lot of times you're not getting the most out of AI because you don't really know how to ask the questions. True. One of the things it was was getting through is a lot of people will ask, they'll have a problem that they're encountering and they'll just ask AI like, how do I fix this problem? And a lot of times what that yields is like very superficial, basic, uh, generic advice or generic kind of, uh, directions for resolving a problem. And the, I don't remember the exact phrasing, 'cause it was a little while ago since I read it, but it basically said something like, I'm encountering X problem. And despite all efforts to the contrary, I have not been able to resolve it. And by using sort of these extra phrases. What it does is it sort of like pushes the AI to ask you questions about what you've already tried to do, and so it's gonna tailor its advice or its directions to your specific situation a little bit more. So, for example, I was doing this today. We, um, we just had the time change, right? Stupidest thing in the world doesn't make any sense and my kids don't understand that the time has changed and we're now like three or four weeks past the, the time change and their, their schedule still have not adjusted. So my son Augie, who is uh, like three and three quarters, uh, I don't know how many months it is. When do you stop? I don't even know. When you stop counting in months. He's three and a quarter, three quarters. And he will regularly wake up between four 30 and five 30. And when we really, what we really want is for him to be sleeping, uh, from uh, until like six or six 30 at the latest. So he's like a full hour, sometimes two hours ahead of time, which then he wakes up, it's a small house. He's noisy 'cause he's a three and a half year old. So he wakes up the baby. The baby wakes up. My wife, and then we're all awake and then we're cranky and it's miserable. So I, I put that little prompt into, um, into Google Gemini, which is right now is my, um, AI of choice, but works very similar. If you use something like chat, GPT or CLO or whatever, you know, grok, whatever AI tool you have access to, put that little prompt in. You know, something like since the time change, my son has been waking up at four 30 in the morning, despite all efforts to the contrary, I have not been able to, uh, adjust his schedule. And so it started asking me questions like, how much light is in the room? What time does he go to bed? How much does he nap? And it, so it's, it's pulling from the internet. This is why I like Google Geminis. It's actually pulling from the internet to identify like common, common. Related issues. And so it starts to probe and ask questions. And by the time it was done, what it came out with was like a step-by-step two week plan. Basically like, do this tonight, do this tomorrow morning. Um, and it was able to identify what it believes is the problem. We'll see if it actually is, but the beauty now is now that I've got a plan that I've got in this ai, I can start, you know, tomorrow morning I'm gonna try to do what it said and I can tell. The ai, how things went, and it can now adjust the plan based on whether or not, you know, this worked or didn't work. So it's a good way to sort of, um, push an ai, uh, chat bot to probe your situation a little bit more. So you could do this really for anything, right. You could do something like I'm having, I'm having trouble losing weight despite all efforts to the contrary. Um, can you help me identify what the, you know, root problem is? So think about different ways that you can use this. It's a pretty cool way to sort of like, push the, the AI to get a little deeper into the specifics without like a lot of extra heavy lifting. I'm sure there's probably other ways you could drive it to do this, but this was just one clever way that I, that this article pointed out to accomplish this. [00:08:07] Jesse Schwamb: It's a great exercise to have AI optimize itself. Yeah. By you turning your prompts around and asking it to ask you a number of questions, sufficient number, until it can provide an optimize answer for you. So lots, almost every bot has some kind of, you can have it analyze your prompts essentially, but some like copilot actually have a prompt agent, which will help you construct the prompt in an optimal way. Yeah, and that again, is kind of question and answer. So I'm with you. I will often turn it around and say. Here's my goal. Ask me sufficient number of questions so that you can provide the right insight to accomplish said goal. Or like you're saying, if you can create this like, massive conversation that keeps all this history. So I, I've heard of people using this for their exercise or running plans. Famously, somebody a, a, um, journalist, the Wall Street Journal, use it, train for a marathon. You can almost have it do anything for you. Of course, you want to test all of that and interact with it reasonably and ably, right? At the same time, what it does best is respond to like natural language interaction. And so by turning it around and basically saying, help me help you do the best job possible, providing the information, it's like the weirdest way of querying stuff because we're so used to providing explicit direction ourselves, right? So to turn it around, it's kind of a new experience, but it's super fun, really interesting, really effective. [00:09:22] Tony Arsenal: And it because you are allowing, in a certain sense, you're sort of asking the AI to drive the conversation. This, this particular prompt, I know the article I read went into details about why this prompt is powerful and the reason this prompt is powerful is not because of anything the AI's doing necessarily, right. It's because you're basically telling the AI. To find what you've missed. And so it's asking you questions. Like if I was to sit down and go like, all right, what are all the things that's wrong, that's causing my son to be awake? Like obviously I didn't figure it out on my own, so it's asking me what I've already tried and what it found out. And then of course when it tells me what it is, it's like the most obvious thing when it figures out what it is. It's identifying something that I already haven't identified because I've told it. I've already tried everything I can think of, and so it's prompting me to try to figure out what it is that I haven't thought of. So those are, like I said, there's lots of ways to sort of get the ais to do that exercise. Um, it's not, it's not just about prompt engineering, although that there's a lot of science now and a lot of like. Specifics on how you do prompt engineering, um, you know, like building a persona for the ai. Like there's all sorts of things you can do and you can add that, like, I could have said something like, um. Uh, you are a pediatric sleep expert, right? And when you tell it that what it's gonna do is it's gonna start to use more technical language, it's gonna, it's gonna speak to you back as though it's a, and this, this is where AI can get a little bit dangerous and really downright scary in some instances. But with that particular prompt, it's gonna start to speak back to you as though it was a clinician of some sort, diagnosing a medical situation, which again. That is definitely not something I would ever endorse. Like, don't let an AI be your doctor. That's just not, like WebMD was already scary enough when you were just telling you what your symptoms were and it was just cross checking it. Um, but you could do something like, and I use these kinds of prompts for our show notes where I'm like, you're an expert at SEO, like at um, podcast show notes. Utilizing SEO search terms, like that's part of the prompt that I use when I use, um, in, in this case, I use notion to generate most of our show notes. Um, it, it starts to change the way that it looks at things and the way that it, I, it responds to you based on different prompts. So I think it, it's a little bit scary, uh, AI. Can be a strange, strange place. And there's some, they're doing some research that is a little bit frightening. They did a study and actually, like, they, they basically like unlocked an AI and gave it access to a pretend company with emails and stuff and said that a particular employee was gonna shut out, was gonna delete the ai. And the first thing it did was try to like blackmail the employee with like a risk, like a scandalous email. It had. Then after that they, they engineered a scenario where the AI actually had the ability to kill the employee. And despite like explicit instructions not to do anything illegal, it still tried to kill the employee. So there's some scary things that are coming up if we're not, you know, if, if the science is not able to get that under control. But right now it's just a lot of fun. Like it's, we're, we're probably not at the point where it's dangerous yet and hopefully. Hopefully it won't get to that point, but we'll see. We'll see. That got dark real fast, fast, fast. Jesse, you gotta get this. And that was an affirmation. I guess I'm affirming killer murder ais that are gonna kill us all, but uh, we're gonna have fun with it until they do at least. [00:12:52] Jesse Schwamb: Thanks for not making that deny against. 'cause I can only imagine the direction that one to taken. [00:12:57] Tony Arsenal: Yeah. At least when the AI hears this, it's gonna know that I'm on its side, so, oh, for sure. I, for one, welcome our new AI overlords. So as do Iye. [00:13:05] Christmas Hymns and Music Recommendations [00:13:05] Tony Arsenal: But Jesse, what are you affirming or denying today to get me out of this pit here? [00:13:09] Jesse Schwamb: So, lemme start with a question. Do you have a favorite Christmas hymn? And if so, what is it? [00:13:16] Tony Arsenal: Ooh, that's a tough one. Um, I think I've always been really partial to Oh, holy Night. But, uh, there's, there's not anything that really jumps to mind my, as I've become older and crankier and more Scottish in spirit, I just, Christmas hymns just aren't as. If they're not as prominent in my mind, but oh, holy night or come coming, Emanuel is probably a really good one too. [00:13:38] Jesse Schwamb: Wow. Those are the, those are like the top in the top three for me. Yeah. So I think [00:13:42] Tony Arsenal: I know where you're going based on the question. [00:13:44] Jesse Schwamb: Yeah, we're very much the same. So, well maybe, so I am affirming with, but it's that time of year and people you, you know and love and maybe yourself, you're gonna listen to Christian music and. That's okay. I put no shade on that, especially because we're talking about the incarnation, celebrate the incarnation. But of course, I think the best version of that is some of these really lovely hymns because they could be sung and worshiped through all year round. We just choose them because they fit in with the calendar particularly well here, and sometimes they're included, their lyrics included in Hallmark cards and, and your local. Cool. Coles. So while that's happening, why not embrace it? But here's my information is why not go with some different versions. I love the hymn as you just said. Oh, come will come Emmanuel. And so I'm gonna give people three versions of it to listen to Now to make my list of this kind of repertoire. The song's gotta maintain that traditional melody. I think to a strong degree, it's gotta be rich and deep and dark, especially Ko Emmanuel. But it's gotta have something in it that's a little bit nuanced. Different creative arrangements, musicality. So let me give two brand new ones that you may not have heard versions and one old one. So the old one is by, these are all Ko Emanuel. So if at some point during this you're like, what song is he talking about? It's Ko. Emmanuel. It's just three times. Th we're keeping it th Rice tonight. So the first is by band called for today. That's gonna be a, a little bit harder if you want something that, uh, gets you kind of pumped up in the midst of this redemption. That's gonna be the version. And then there are two brand new ones. One is by skillet, which is just been making music forever, but the piano melody they bring into this and they do a little something nuanced with the chorus that doesn't pull away too much. From the original, but just gives it a little extra like Tastiness. Yeah. Skill. Great version. And then another one that just came out yesterday. My yesterday, not your yesterday. So actually it doesn't even matter at this point. It's already out is by descriptor. And this would be like the most chill version that is a hardcore band by, I would say tradition, but in this case, their version is very chill. All of them I find are just deeply worshipful. Yeah. And these, the music is very full of impact, but of course the lyrics are glorious. I really love this, this crying out to God for the Savior. This. You know, just, it's really the, the plea that we should have now, which is, you know, maranatha like Lord Jesus, come. And so in some ways we're, we're celebrating that initial plea and cry for redemption as it has been applied onto us by the Holy Spirit. And we're also saying, you know, come and fulfill your kingdom, Lord, come and bring the full promise, which is here, but not yet. So I like all three of these. So for today. Skillet descriptor, which sounds like we're playing like a weird word game when you put those all together. It does, but they're all great bands and their versions I think are, are worthy. So the larger affirmation, I suppose, is like, go out this season and find different versions, like mix it up a little bit. Because it's good to hear this music somewhat afresh, and so I think by coming to it with different versions of it, you'll get a little bit of that sense. It'll make maybe what is, maybe if it's felt rote or mundane or just trivial, like you're saying, kind of revive some of these pieces in our hearts so we can, we, we can really worship through them. We're redeeming them even as they're meant to be expressions of the ultimate redemption. [00:16:55] Tony Arsenal: Yeah. Yeah, I, um, I heard the skillet version and, uh, you know, you know me like I'm not a huge fan of harder music. Yeah. But that, that song Slaps man, it's, yes, [00:17:07] Jesse Schwamb: it does. It's [00:17:07] Tony Arsenal: good. And Al I mean, it, it also ignited this weird firestorm of craziness online. I don't know if you heard anything about this, but Yes, it was, it was, there was like the people who absolutely love it and will. Fight you if you don't. Yes. And then there was like the people who think it's straight from the devil because of somehow demonic rhythms, whatever that means. Um, but yeah, I mean, I'm not a big fan of the heavier music, but there is something about that sort of, uh. I don't know. Is skill, would that be considered like metal at all? [00:17:38] Jesse Schwamb: Oh, that's a loaded question. Probably. [00:17:39] Tony Arsenal: Yeah. So like I found, uh, this is, we're gonna go down to Rabbit Trail here. Let's do it. Here we go. I found a version of Africa by Toto that was labeled as metal on YouTube. So I don't know whether it actually is, and this, this version of skill, it strikes me as very similar, where it's, ah, uh, it, it's like, um. The harmonies are slightly different in terms of like how they resonate than Okay. Other harmonies. Like I get [00:18:05] Jesse Schwamb: that [00:18:06] Tony Arsenal: there's a certain, you know, like when you think about like Western music, there's certain right, there's certain harmonies when, you know, think about like piano chords are framed and my understanding at least this could be way off, and I'm sure you're gonna correct me if I'm wrong, is that um, metal music, heavy metal music uses slightly different. Chord formations that it almost leaves you feeling a little unresolved. Yes, but not quite unresolved. Like it's just, it's, it's more the harmonics are different, so that's fair. Skillet. This skillet song is so good, and I think you're right. It, it retains the sort of like. The same basic melody, the same, the same basic harmonies, actually. Right. And it's, it's almost like the harmonies are just close enough to being put into a different key with the harmonies. Yes, [00:18:52] Jesse Schwamb: that's true [00:18:53] Tony Arsenal: than then. Uh, but not quite actually going into another key. So like, sometimes you'll see online, you'll find YouTube videos where they play like pop songs, but they've changed the, the. Chords a little bit. So now it's in a minor key. It's almost like it's there. It's like one more little note shift and it would be there. Um, and then there's some interesting, uh, like repetition and almost some like anal singing going on, that it's very good. Even if you don't like heavier music. Like, like I don't, um, go listen to it and I think you'll find yourself like hitting repeat a couple times. It was very, very good. [00:19:25] Jesse Schwamb: That's a good way of saying it. A lot of times that style is a little bit dissonant, if that's what you mean in the court. Yeah. Formation. So it gives you this unsettledness, this almost unresolvedness, and that's in there. Yeah. And just so everybody knows, actually, if you listen to that version from Skillet, you'll probably listen to most of it. You'll get about two thirds of the way through it and probably be saying, what are those guys talking about? It's the breakdown. Where it amps up. But before that, I think anybody could listen to it and just enjoy it. It's a really beautiful, almost haunting piano melody. They bring into the intro in that, in the interlude. It's very lovely. So it gives you that sense. Again, I love this kind of music because there's almost something, there is something in this song that's longing for something that is wanting and yet left, unresolved and unfulfilled until the savior comes. There's almost a lament in it, so to speak, especially with like the way it's orchestrated. So I love that this hymn is like deep and rich in that way. It's, that's fine. Like if you want to sing deck the Holes, that's totally fine. This is just, I think, better and rich and deeper and more interesting because it does speak to this life of looking for and waiting for anticipating the advent of the savior. So to get me get put back in that place by music, I think is like a net gain this time of year. It's good to have that perspective. I'm, I'm glad you've heard it. We should just open that debate up whether or not we come hang out in the telegram chat. We'll put it in that debate. Is skillet hardcore or metal? We'll just leave it there 'cause I have my opinions, but I'm, well, I'm sure everybody else does. [00:20:48] Tony Arsenal: I don't even know what those words mean, Jesse. Everything is hardcore in metal compared to what I normally listen to. I don't even listen to music anymore usually, so I, I mean, I'm like mostly all podcasts all the time. Anytime I have time, I don't have a ton of time to listen to. Um, audio stuff, but [00:21:06] Jesse Schwamb: that's totally fair. Well now everybody now join us though. [00:21:08] Tony Arsenal: Educate me [00:21:09] Jesse Schwamb: now. Everybody can properly use, IM prompt whatever AI of their choice, and they can listen to at least three different versions of al comical manual. And then they can tell us which one do you like the best? Or maybe you have your own version. That's what she was saying. What's your favorite Christmas in? [00:21:23] Tony Arsenal: Yeah. And [00:21:24] Jesse Schwamb: what version of it do you like? I mean, it'll be like. [00:21:28] Tony Arsenal: It'll be like, despite my best efforts, I've been un unable to understand what hardcore and medical is. Please help me understand. [00:21:37] Jesse Schwamb: Oh, we're gonna have some, some fun with this at some point. We'll have to get into the whole debate, though. I know you and I have talked about it before. We'll put it before the brothers and sisters about a Christmas Carol and what version everybody else likes. That's also seems like, aside from the, the whole eternal debate, which I'm not sure is really serious about whether or not diehard is a Christmas movie, this idea of like, which version of the Christmas Carol do you subscribe to? Yeah. Which one would you watch if you can only watch one? Which one will you watch? That's, we'll have to save that for another time. [00:22:06] Tony Arsenal: We'll save it for another time. And we get a little closer to midwinter. No reason we just can't [00:22:10] Jesse Schwamb: do it right now because we gotta get to Luke 15. [00:22:12] Discussion on the Parable of the Lost Coin [00:22:12] Tony Arsenal: We do. [00:22:13] Jesse Schwamb: We, we've already been in this place of looking at Jesus' response to the Pharisees when they say to him, listen, this man receives sinners and eats with them. And Jesus is basically like, yeah, that's right. And let me tell you three times what the heart of God is like and what my mission in serving him is like, and what I desire to come to do for my children. And so we spoke in the last conversation about the parable lost sheep. Go check that out. Some are saying, I mean, I'm not saying this, but some are saying in the internet, it's the definitive. Congratulation of that parable. I'm, I'm happy to take that if that's true. Um, but we wanna go on to this parable of the lost coin. So let me read, it's just a couple of verses and you're gonna hear in the text that you're going to understand right away. This is being linked because it starts with or, so this is Jesus speaking and this is Luke 15, chapter 15, starting in verse eight. Jesus says, or a what woman? She has 10 D drachmas and loses. One drachma does not light a lamp and sweep the house and search carefully until she finds it. And when she has found it, she calls together her friend and her neighbors saying, rejoice with me for I found the D Drachma, which I lost in the same way I tell you, there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents. [00:23:27] Tony Arsenal: Yeah. Yeah. On one level, this is, uh, again, it's not all that complicated of a scenario, right? And we have to kind of go back and relo through some of the stuff we talked about last week because this is a continuation of, you know, when we first talked about the Matthew 13 parables, we commented on like. Christ was coming back to the same themes, right? And in some ways, repeating the parable. This is even stronger than that. It's not just that Christ is teaching the same thing across multiple parables. The sense here, at least the sense I get when I read this parable, the lost sheep, and then the prodigal, um, sun parable or, or the next parable here, um, is actually that Christ is just sort of like hammering home the one point he's making to the tax collectors and or to the tax collectors or to the scribes who are complaining about the fact that Christ was eating with sinners. He's just hammering this point home, right? So it's not, it's not to try to add. A lot of nuance to the point. It's not to try to add a, a shade of meaning. Um. You know, we talked a lot about how parables, um, Christ tells parables in part to condemn the listeners who will not receive him, right? That's right. This is one of those situations where it's not, it's not hiding the meaning of the parable from them. The meaning is so obvious that you couldn't miss it, and he, he appeals, we talked about in the first, in the first part of this, he actually appeals to like what the ordinary response would be. Right? What man of you having a hundred sheep if he loses one, does not. Go and leave the 99. Like it's a scenario that anyone who goes, well, like, I wouldn't do that is, looks like an idiot. Like, that's, that's the point of the why. He phrases it. And so then you're right when he, when he begins with this, he says, or what woman having 10 silver coins if she loses one, does not light a lamp and sweep the house and seek diligently until he, till she finds it. And of course, the, the, the emphasis again is like no one in their right mind would not do this. And I think like we think about a coin and like that's the smallest denomination of money that we have. Like, I wouldn't, like if I lost a, if I had 10 silver coin, 10 coins and I lost one of them, the most that that could be is what? 50 cents? Like the, like if I had a 50 cent piece or a silver dollar, I guess, like I could lose a dollar. We're not really talking about coins the way we think of coins, right? We're talking about, um. Um, you know, like denominations of money that are substantial in that timeframe. Like it, there was, there were small coins, but a silver coin would be a substantial amount of money to lose. So we are not talking about a situation where this is, uh, a trivial kind of thing. She's not looking for, you know, I've, I've heard this parable sort of like unpacked where like, it's almost like a miserly seeking for like this lost coin. Interesting. It's not about, it's not about like. Penny pinching here, right? She's not trying to find a tiny penny that isn't worth anything that's built into the parable, right? It's a silver coin. It's not just any coin. It's a silver coin. So she's, she's looking for this coin, um, because it is a significant amount of money and because she's lost it, she's lost something of her, of her overall wealth. Like there's a real loss. Two, this that needs to be felt before he can really move on with the parable. It's not just like some small piece of property, like there's a [00:26:57] Jesse Schwamb: right. I [00:26:57] Tony Arsenal: don't know if you've ever lost a large amount of money, but I remember one time I was in, um, a. I was like, almost outta high school, and I had taken some money out of, um, out of the bank, some cash to make a purchase. I think I was purchasing a laptop and I don't know why I, I don't, maybe I didn't have a credit card or I didn't have a debit card, but I was purchasing a laptop with cash. Right. And back then, like laptops, like this was not a super expensive laptop, but. It was a substantial amount of cash and I misplaced it and it was like, oh no, like, where is it? And like, I went crazy trying to find it. This is the situation. She's lost a substantial amount of money. Um, this parable, unlike the last one, doesn't give you a relative amount of how many she has. Otherwise. She's just lost a significant amount of money. So she takes all these different steps to try to find it. [00:27:44] Understanding the Parable's Context [00:27:44] Tony Arsenal: We have to feel that loss before we really can grasp what the parable is trying to teach us. [00:27:49] Jesse Schwamb: I like that, so I'm glad you brought that up because I ended up going down a rabbit hole with this whole coined situation. [00:27:56] Tony Arsenal: Well, we're about to, Matt Whitman some of this, aren't we? [00:27:58] Jesse Schwamb: Yes, I think so. But mainly because, and this is not really my own ideas here, there's, there's a lot I was able to kind of just read and kind. Throw, throw something around this because I think you're absolutely right that Jesus is bringing an ES escalation here and it's almost like a little bit easier for us to understand the whole sheep thing. I think the context of the lost coin, like you're already saying, is a little bit less familiar to us, and so I got into this. Rabbit hole over the question, why would this woman have 10 silver coins? I really got stuck on like, so why does she have these? And Jesus specific about that he's giving a particular context. Presumably those within his hearing in earshot understood this context far better than I did. So what I was surprised to see is that a lot of commentators you probably run into this, have stated or I guess promulgated this idea that the woman is young and unmarried and the 10 silver coins could. Could represent a dowry. So in some way here too, like it's not just a lot of money, it's possible that this was her saving up and it was a witness to her availability for marriage. [00:28:57] The Significance of the Lost Coin [00:28:57] Jesse Schwamb: So e either way, if that's true or not, Jesus is really emphasizing to us there's significant and severe loss here. And so just like you said, it would be a fool who would just like say, oh, well that's too bad. The coin is probably in here somewhere, but eh, I'm just gonna go about my normal business. Yeah. And forsake it. Like, let's, let's not worry about it. So. The emphasis then on this one is not so much like the leaving behind presumably can keep the remaining nine coins somewhere safe if you had them. But this effort and this diligence to, to go after and find this lost one. So again, we know it's all about finding what was lost, but this kind of momentum that Jesus is bringing to this, like the severity of this by saying there was this woman, and of course like here we find that part of this parable isn't just in the, the kingdom of God's like this, like we were talking about before. It's more than that because there's this expression of, again, the situation combined with these active verbs. I think we talked about last time that Christ love is an act of love and it's always being acted upon the sinner, the one who has to be redeemed, his child whom he goes after. So in the same way, we have Christ showing the self-denying love. Like in the first case, the shepherd brought his sheep home on his shoulders rather than leave it in the wilderness. And then here. The woman does like everything. She lights the candle, she sweeps the house. She basically turns the thing, the place upside down, searching diligently and spared no pains with this until she found her lost money. And before we get into the whole rejoicing thing, it just strikes me that, you know, in the same way, I think what we have here is Christ affirming that he didn't spare himself. He's not gonna spare himself. When he undertakes to save sinners, he does all the things. He endures the cross scor in shame. He lays down his life for his friends. There's no greater love than that. It cannot be shown, and so Christ's love is deep and mighty. It's like this woman doing all the things, tearing the place apart to ensure that that which she knew she had misplaced comes back to her. That the full value of everything that she knows is hers. Is safe and secure in her possession and so does the Lord Jesus rejoice the safe sinners in the same way. And that's where this is incredibly powerful. It's not just, Hey, let me just say it to you one more time. There is a reemphasis here, but I like where you're going, this re-escalation. I think the first question is, why do the woman have this money? What purpose is it serving? And I think if we can at least try to appreciate some of that, then we see again how Jesus is going after that, which is that he, he wants to save the sinner. He wants to save the soul. And all of the pleasure, then all of the rejoicing comes because, and, and as a result of that context. [00:31:22] Tony Arsenal: Yeah. Yeah. [00:31:23] Theological Implications of God's People [00:31:23] Tony Arsenal: The other thing, um, maybe, and, and I hope I'm not overreading again, we've, we've talked about the dangers of overreading, the parables, but I think there's a, and we'll, we'll come to this too when we get into the, um, prodigal son. Um, there is this sense, I think in some theological traditions that. God is sort of like claiming a people who were not his own. Right. And one of the things that I love about the reform tradition, and, and I love it because this is the picture the Bible teaches, is the emphasis on the fact that God's people have been God's people. As long as God has been pondering and con like contemplating them. So like we deny eternal justification, right? Justification happens in time and there's a real change in our status, in in time when, when the spirit applies, the benefits that Christ has purchased for us in redemption, right? But there's also a very real sense that God has been looking and considering us as his people in eternity past. Like that's always. That's the nature of the Pactum salutes, the, you know, covenant of redemption election. The idea that like God is not saving a nameless, faceless people. He's not creating conditions that people can either move themselves into or take themselves out of. He has a concrete people. Who he is saving, who he has chosen. He, he, you know, prior to our birth, he will redeem us. He now, he has redeemed us and he will preserve us in all of these parables, whether it's the sheep, the coin, or as we'll get to the prodigal sun next week or, or whenever. Um. It's not that God is discovering something new that he didn't have, or it's not that the woman is discovering a coin, right? There's nothing more, uh, I think nothing more like sort of, uh, spontaneously delightful than like when you like buy a, like a jacket at the thrift store. Like you go to Salvation Army and you buy a jacket, you get home, you reach in the pocket and there's like a $10 bill and you're like, oh man, that's so, so great. Or like, you find a, you find a. A $10 bill on the ground, or you find a quarter on the ground, right? Yeah. Or you find your own money. Well, and that that's, there's a different kind of joy, right? That's the point, is like, there's a delight that comes with finding something. And again, like we have to be careful about like, like not stealing, right? But there's a different kind of joy that comes with like finding something that was not yours that now becomes yours. We talked about that with parables a couple weeks ago, right? There's a guy who finds it, he's, he's searching for pearls. He finds a pearl, and so he goes after he sells everything he has and he claims that pearl, but that wasn't his before the delight was in sort of finding something new. These parables. The delight is in reclaiming and refining something that was yours that was once lost. Right? That's a different thing. And it paints a picture, a different picture of God than the other parables where, you know, the man kind of stumbles on treasure in a field or he finds a pearl that he was searching for, but it wasn't his pearl. This is different. This is teaching us that God is, is zealous and jealous to reclaim that which was his, which was lost. Yes. Right. So, you know, we can get, we can, maybe we will next week, maybe we will dig into like super laps area versus infra laps. AIRism probably not, I don't necessarily wanna have that conversation. But there is a reality in the Bible where God has a chosen people and they are his people, even before he redeems them. [00:34:52] Jesse Schwamb: Exactly. [00:34:53] God's Relentless Pursuit of Sinners [00:34:53] Tony Arsenal: These parables all emphasize that in a different way and part of what he's, part of what he's ribbing at with the Pharisees and the, and the scribes, and this is common across all of Christ's teaching in his interactions and we get into true Israel with, with Paul, I mean this is the consistent testimony of the New Testament, is that the people who thought they were God's people. The, the Jewish leaders, especially the Pharisees, the Sadducees, the scribes, the, the sort of elites of, uh, first century Jewish believers, they really were convinced that they were God's people. And those dirty gentiles out there, they, they're not, and even in certain sense, like even the Jewish people out in the country who don't even, you know, they don't know the scriptures that like, even those people were maybe barely God's people. Christ is coming in here and he is going, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Like you're asking me. You're surprised that I receive sinners and e with them. Well, I'm coming to claim that which is mine, which was lost, and the right response to that is not to turn your nose up at it. The right response is to rejoice with me that I have found my sheep that was lost, that I have reclaimed my coin that was lost. And as we'll see later on, like he really needles them at the end of the, the, uh, parable of the prodigal son. This is something I, I have to be like intentional in my own life because I think sometimes we hear conversion stories and we have this sort of, I, I guess like, we'll call it like the, the Jonah I heresy, I dunno, we won't call it heresy, but like the, the, the like Jonah impulse that we all have to be really thankful for God's mercy in our life. But sort of question whether God is. Merciful or even be a little bit upset when it seems that God is being merciful to those sinners over there. We have to really like, use these parables in our own lives to pound that out of our system because it's, it's ungodly and it's not what God is, is calling us. And these parables really speak against that [00:36:52] Jesse Schwamb: and all of us speak in. In that lost state, but that doesn't, I think like you're saying, mean that we are not God's already. That if he has established that from a trinity past, then we'd expect what others have said about God as the hound of heaven to be true. And that is he comes and he chases down his own. What's interesting to me is exactly what you've said. We often recognize when we do this in reverse and we look at the parable of the lost son, all of these elements, how the father comes after him, how there's a cha singer coming to himself. There's this grand act of repentance. I would argue all of that is in all of these parables. Not, not to a lesser extent, just to a different extent, but it's all there. So in terms of like couching this, and I think what we might use is like traditionally reformed language. And I, I don't want to say I'm overeating this, I hope I'm not at that same risk, but we see some of this like toll depravity and like the sinner is lost, unable to move forward, right? There still is like the sovereign grace of God who's initiating the salvation and there is a kind of effect of calling that God doesn't merely invite, he finds, he goes after he affects the very thing. Yeah, and I think we're seeing that here. There is. The sinner, spiritual inability. There's an utter passivity until found. The coin doesn't seek the woman. The woman seeks the coin. And in this way, I think we see God's act of searching grace. It's all there for us. Yeah, it's in a slightly different way, but I think that's what we're meant to like take away from this. We're meant to lean into that a bit. [00:38:12] Rejoicing in Salvation [00:38:12] Jesse Schwamb: And the reason why I think it leads to joy, why God is so pleased is because God has this real pleasure. Jesus has this real pleasure. The Holy Spirit has this real pleasure. To pluck sinners as brands from the burning fire. You know, it was Jesus, literally his food and drink like not to be too trite, but like his jam went upon the earth to finish the work, which he came to do. And there are many times when he says he ammi of being constrained in the spirit until this was accomplished. And it's still his delight to show mercy like you're saying He is. And even Jonah recognizes that, right. He said like, I knew you were going to be a merciful God. And so he's far more willing to save sinners than sinners are to be saved. But that is the gospel level voice, isn't it? Because we can come kicking and screaming, but in God's great mercy, not because of works and unrighteousness, but because of his great mercy, he comes and he tears everything apart to rescue and to save those whom he's called to himself. [00:39:06] Tony Arsenal: Yeah. Yeah. I love that old, um, Puritan phrase that wrath is God's alien work. And we, you know, like you gotta be careful when you start to talk that way. And the Puritans were definitely careful about everything. I mean, they were very specific when they spoke, but. When we talk about God's alien work and wrath being God's alien work, what we're saying is not, not that like somehow wrath is external to God. Like that's not what we're getting at of Right. But when you look at scripture and, and here's something that I think, um. I, I don't know how I wanna say this. Like, I think we read that the road is narrow and the the, um, you know, few are those who find it. I think we read that and we somehow think like, yeah, God, God, like, really loves that. Not a lot of people are saved. And I, I actually think that like, when we look at it, um, and, and again, like we have to be careful 'cause God, God. God decreed that which he is delighted by, and also that which glorifies him the most. Right? Right. But the picture that we get in scripture, and we have to take this seriously with all of the caveats that it's accommodated, it's anthropopathism that, you know, all of, all of the stuff we've talked about. We did a whole series on systematic theology. We did like six episodes on Divine Simplicity and immutability. Like we we're, we're right in line with the historic tradition on that. All of those caveats, uh, all of those caveats in place, the Bible pic paints a picture of God such that he grieves over. Those who are lost. Right? Right. He takes no delight in the death of the wicked. That's right. He, he, he seeks after the lost and he rejoices when he finds them. Right. He's, his, his Holy Spirit is grieved when we disobey him, his, his anger is kindled even towards his people in a paternal sense. Right. He disciplines us the way an angry father who loves us, would discipline us when we disobey him. That is a real, that's a real thing. What exactly that means, how we can apply that to God is a very complicated conversation. And maybe sometimes it's more complicated than we, like, we make it more complicated than it needs to be for sure. Um, we wanna be careful to preserve God's changeness, his immutability, his simplicity, all of those things. But at the end of the day, at. God grieves over lost sinners, and he rejoices when they come back. He rejoices when they return to him. Just as the shepherd who finds his lost sheep puts that sheep on his shoulders, right? That's not just because that's an easy way to carry a sheep, right? It's also like this picture of this loving. Intimate situation where God pulls us onto himself and he, he wraps literally like wraps us around himself. Like there are times when, um. You know, I have a toddler and there are times where I have to carry that toddler, and it's, it's a fight, right? And I don't really enjoy doing it. He's squirming, he's fighting. Then there are times where he needs me to hold him tight, and he, he snuggles in. When he falls down and hurts his leg, the first thing he does is he runs and he jumps on me, and he wants to be held tight, and there's a f there's a fatherly embrace there that not only brings comfort to my son. But it brings great joy to me to be able to comfort him that that dynamic in a, uh, a infinitely greater sense is at play here in the lost sheep. And then there's this rejoicing. It's not just rejoicing that God is rejoicing, it's the angels that are rejoicing. [00:42:43] The Joy of Redemption [00:42:43] Tony Arsenal: It's the, it's other Christians. It's the great cloud of witnesses that are rejoicing when Aah sinner is returned to God. All of God's kingdom and everything that that includes, all of that is involved in this rejoicing. That's why I think like in the first parable, in the parable of the lost sheep, it's joy in heaven. Right? It's sort of general joy in heaven. It's not specific. Then this one is even more specific. It's not just general joy in heaven. It's the angels of God. That's right. That are rejoicing. And then I think what we're gonna find, and we'll we'll tease this out when we get to the next par, well the figure in the prodigal son that is rejoicing. The one that is leading the rejoicing, the chief rejoice is the one who's the standin for God in that parable. [00:43:26] Jesse Schwamb: Right, exactly right. So, [00:43:27] Tony Arsenal: so we have to, we have to both recognize that there's a true grief. A true sorrow that is appropriate to speak of God, um, as having when a sinner is lost. And there's also an equally appropriate way to speak about God rejoicing and being pleased and delighted when a sinner returns to him. [00:43:53] Jesse Schwamb: That's the real payoff of this whole parable. I think, uh, maybe all three of them altogether, is that it is shocking how good the gospel is, which we're always saying, yeah, but I'm really always being moved, especially these last couple weeks with what Jesus is saying about how good, how truly unbelievable the gospel is. And again, it draws us to the. Old Testament scriptures when even the Israel saying, who is like this? Who is like our God? So what's remarkable about this is that there's an infinite willingness on God's part to receive sinners. [00:44:23] Tony Arsenal: Yeah. [00:44:23] Jesse Schwamb: And however wicked a man may have been, and the day that he really turns from his wickedness and comes to God by Christ, God is well pleased and all of heaven with him, and God has no pleasure in the death of the wicked, like you said, but God has pleasure and true repentance. If all of that's true, then like day to day, here's what I, I think this means for us. [00:44:41] Applying the Parable to Our Lives [00:44:41] Jesse Schwamb: Is when we come to Christ for mercy and love and help and whatever anguish and perplexity and simpleness that we all have, and we all have it, we are going with the flow. If his own deepest wishes, we're not going against them. And so this means that God has for us when we partake in the toning work of Christ, coming to Christ for forgiveness, communing with him despite our sinfulness, that we are laying hold of Christ's own deepest longing and joy. [00:45:10] Tony Arsenal: Yeah. And [00:45:10] Jesse Schwamb: Jesus is comforted when we draw near the riches of his atoning work because as his body, even his own body in a way is being healed in this process. And so we, along with it, that I think is the payoff here. That's what's just so remarkable is that not only, like you're saying, is all heaven kind of paying attention to this. Like they're cognizant of it. It's something worthy of their attention and their energies and their rejoicing. But again, it's showing that God is doing all of this work and so he keeps calling us and calling us and calling us over and over again and just like you said, the elect sinner, those estr belongs to God and his eternal purpose. Even that by itself, we could just say full stop. Shut it down end the podcast. Yeah. That's just worthy to, to rejoice and, and ponder. But this is how strong I think we see like per election in particular, redemption in these passages. Christ died for his chief specifically crisis going after the lost coin, which already belongs to him. So like you were saying, Tony, when you know, or maybe you don't know, but you've misplaced some kind of money and you put your hand in that pocket of that winter coat for the first time that season and out comes the piece of paper, that's whatever, 20 or whatever, you rejoice in that, right. Right. It's like this was mine. I knew it was somewhere, it belonged to me, except that what's even better here is this woman tears her whole place apart to go after this one coin that she knows is hers and yet has been lost. I don't know what more it is to be said. I just cannot under emphasize. Or overemphasize how great God's love is in this like amazing condescension, so that when Jesus describes himself as being gentle and lowly or gentle and humble or gentle and humiliated, that I, I think as we understand the biblical text, it's not necessarily just that he's saying, well, I'm, I'm displaying. Meekness power under control. When he says he's humble, he means put in this incredibly lowly state. Yeah. That the rescue mission, like you're saying, involves not just like, Hey, she lemme call you back. Hey, come over here, says uh. He goes and he picks it up. It's the ultimate rescue, picks it up and takes it back by his own volition, sacrificing everything or to do that and so does this woman in this particular instance, and it should lead us. I think back to there's this virtuous cycle of seeing this, experiencing this. Being compelled by the law of Christ, as Paul says, by the power of the Holy Spirit and being regenerated and then worshiping, and then repenting, and then worshiping, and then repenting, and then worshiping. Because in the midst of that repentance and that beautifulness recognizing, as Isaiah says, all of these idols that we set up, that we run to, the one thing they cannot do for us is they cannot deal with sin. They cannot bring cleanliness and righteousness through confession of sin. They cannot do that. So Christ is saying, come to the one you who are needy, you who have no money. To use another metaphor in the Bible, come and buy. And in doing so, we're saying, Christ, Lord have mercy on me, a sinner. And when he says, come, come, I, I've, I have already run. After you come and be restored, come and be renewed. That which was lost my child. You have been found and I have rescued you. [00:48:04] Tony Arsenal: Yeah. Yeah. And these, these are so, um, these two parables are so. Comfortable. Like, right, like they are there, there are certain passages of scripture that you can just like put on like a big fuzzy warm bathrobe on like sn a cold morning, a snuggy. Yeah. I don't know if I want to go that far, but spirits are snuggy and, and these two are like that, right? Like, I know there are times where I feel like Christ redeemed me sort of begrudgingly, right? Mm-hmm. I think we have, we have this, um, concept in our mind of. Sort of the suffering servant, you know, like he's kind of like, ah, if I have to do it, I will. Right, right. And, and like, I think we, we would, if, if we were the ones who were, were being tasked to redeem something, we might do it. You know, we might do it and we. We might feel a certain sense of satisfaction about it, but I can tell you that if I had a hundred sheep and I had lost one, I would not lay it on my shoulder rejoicing. I would lay it on my shoulder. Frustrated and glad that I finally found it, but like. Right. Right. That's not what Christ did. That's right. Christ lays us on his shoulders rejoicing. Right. I know. Like when you lose something, it's frustrating and it's not just the loss of it that's frustrating. It's the time you have to take to find it. And sometimes like, yeah, you're happy that you found it, but you're like, man, it would've just been nice if I hadn't lost this in [00:49:36] Jesse Schwamb: the That's right. [00:49:37] Tony Arsenal: This woman, there's none of that. There's no, um, there's no regret. There's no. Uh, there's no begrudging this to it. There's nothing. It's just rejoicing. She's so happy. And it's funny, I can imagine, uh, maybe, maybe this is my own, uh, lack of sanctification here. I can imagine being that friend that's like, I gotta come over 'cause you found your coin, right? Like, I can be, I could imagine me that person, but Right. But honestly, like. This is a, this is a situation where she's so overcome with joy. She just has to tell people about it. Yeah. She has to share it with people. It, it reminds me, and I've seen this, I've seen this, um, connection made in the past certainly isn't new to me. I don't, I don't have any specific sorts to say, but like the woman at the well, right. She gets this amazing redemption. She gets this, this Messiah right in front of her. She leaves her buckets at the well, and she goes into a town of people who probably hate her, who think she's just the worst scum of society and she doesn't care. She goes into town to tell everybody about the fact that the Messiah has come, right? And they're so like stunned by the fact that she's doing it. Like they come to see what it is like that's what we need to be like. So there's. There's an element here of not only the rejoicing of God, and again, like, I guess I'm surprised because I've, I've, I've never sort of really read this. Part, I've never read this into it too much or I've never like really pulled this out, but it, now that I'm gonna say it, it just seems logical, like not only is God rejoicing in this, but again, it should be calling us to rejoice, right? Christ is. Christ is using these parables to shame the Pharisees and the scribes who refuse to rejoice over the salvation of sinners. How often do we not rejoice over our own salvation sufficiently? Like when's the last time? And I, I don't want to, this is, this can be a lot of loss. So again, like. God is not calling every single person to stand up on their lunch table at work, or, I don't know if God's calling anybody to stand up on the lunch table at work. Right. To like, like scream about how happy they are that they're sick, happy, happy. But like, when's the last time you were so overcome with joy that in the right opportunity, it just over, like it just overcame you and you had to share it. I don't rem. Putting myself bare here, like I don't remember the last time that happened. I share my faith with people, like my coworkers know that I'm a Christian and, um, my, they know that like, there are gonna be times where like I will bring biblical ethics and biblical concepts into my work. Like I regularly use bible examples to illustrate a principle I'm trying to teach my employees or, or I will regularly sort of. In a meeting where there's some question about what the right, not just like the correct thing to do, but the right thing to do. I will regularly bring biblical morality into those conversations. Nobody is surprised by that. Nobody's really offended by it. 'cause I just do it regularly. But I don't remember the last time where I was so overcome with joy because of my salvation that I just had to tell somebody. Right. And that's a, that's a, that's an indictment on me. That's not an indictment on God. That's not an indictment on anyone else. That's an indictment on me. This parable is calling me to be more joyful about. My salvation. [00:52:52] Jesse Schwamb: Yeah. One of the, I think the best and easiest verses from Psalms to memorize is let the redeemed of the Lord say so. Yes. Like, say something, speak up. There's, there's a great truth in what you're saying. Of course. And I think we mentioned this last time. There's a communal delight of redemption. And here we see that played out maybe a little bit more explicitly because the text says that the joy is before the angels, meaning that still God is the source of the joy. In other words, the angels share in God's delight night, vice versa, and not even just in salvation itself, but the fact that God is delighted in this great salvation, that it shows the effectiveness of his saving power. All that he has designed will come to pass because he super intends his will over all things that all things, again are subservient to our salvation. And here, why would that not bring him great joy? Because that's exactly what he intends and is able to do. And the angels rejoice along with him because his glory is revealed in his mighty power. So I'm, I'm with you. I mean, this reminds me. Of what the author of Hebrew says. This is chapter 12, just the first couple of verses. Therefore, since we have so great a cloud of witnesses in this communal kind of redemption of joy surrounding us. Laying aside every weight and the sin,

Journalist Ahmed Kaballo joins Mnar Adley to break down Sudan's civil war, UAE's gold operations, U.S. narratives on Nigeria, and the rise of anti-imperialist forces across Africa. From RSF atrocities and foreign interference to Burkina Faso's revolutionary model, this episode exposes the geopolitical struggle shaping the continent's future.Mnar Adley is an award-winning journalist and editor and is the founder and director of MintPress News. She is also president and director of the non-profit media organization Behind the Headlines. Adley also co-hosts the MintCast podcast and is a producer and host of the video series Behind The Headlines. Contact Mnar at mnar@mintpressnews.com or follow her on Twitter at @mnarmuh. 

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For the 1,000th episode of the InnerFight Podcast, Marcus turns the mic on someone very close to home – his dad. In this deeply personal and powerful conversation, Marcus explores the man behind so many of his own values: hard work, simplicity, honesty, and doing the right thing even when it's hard.They talk about:Taking bold career leaps – from Yorkshire to Africa, Jeddah, and Dubai, and how those risks shaped his life.Values that withstand time – discipline, honesty, simplicity, and doing the right thing even when it's hard.Choosing fulfilment over comfort – walking away from a well-paid job because he no longer enjoyed it, and why that decision defined his integrity.This episode is full of wisdom, humour, straight-talking honesty, and emotion. It's also a gentle challenge: if your parents are still around, sit down with them, ask the questions you don't know the answers to, and record the conversation if you can.A milestone episode, the final show of 2025, and an hour of pure gold from Marcus' dad.

Rob was so excited to finally speak with Martha Plimpton! The actress joins Rob to discuss her life-changing experiences on Broadway, her HBO show, "Task," moving to London, and her experience studying animal tracking in Africa! Plus, Rob pays tribute to the brilliant writer Tom Stoppard, who passed on November 29th, soon after the recording of this interview. Make sure to subscribe to the show on YouTube at YouTube.com/@LiterallyWithRobLowe! Got a question for Rob? Call our voicemail at 323-570-4551. Your question could get featured on the show! Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.