Podcasts about english bible

Are you treating your material wealth as something to be buried for safety, or are you ready to risk it all to build the kingdom of God? This week on Off Script, Scott and the team celebrate reaching their 50th episode milestone while diving deep into the Parable of the Talents and what it truly means to manage God's resources . The guys break down why biblical stewardship is about far more than just money, yet never about less than money . From unpacking why the Bible mentions financial possessions over 2,000 times to celebrating over 1,000 baptisms this year, this conversation challenges us to stop playing religious games with God, stop waiting for "fairness," and start bringing our first and best right now - from this moment on . The Challenge: This week, take a hard look at what God has entrusted into your hands . Choose one specific area of your resources - whether it is your finances, time, or talents - where you have been hedging your bets out of fear, and commit to bringing your "first and best" in faithful obedience . Hosts: Neil Gregory and Scott Nickell What We Discuss Celebrating roughly 50 episodes and nearly a year of the Off Script podcast Why the Parable of the Talents is about way more than money, but certainly not less than money Scripture stats: Why there are over 2,300 verses addressing material possessions compared to prayer, faith, and love The responsibility of teaching healthy biblical views on money to our kids instead of outsourcing leadership Lessons from Gospel Patrons: How monetary partnership between William Tyndale and Monmouth brought English Bibles to light Why criticism against church spending on facilities and technology is often a bad-faith argument Acknowledging the unsung "two-talent people" who make ministry happen behind the scenes, from UK basketball player Anthony Epps to Southland's lead team Why demanding "fairness" from God is dangerous and why we should focus on faithful stewardship over outcome comparisons How to handle waiting seasons when you feel ready for bigger responsibilities before God expands your platform Differentiating between playing religious games with God out of fear and moving in terrifying, costly obedience ⸻ About Southland Christian Church Southland is one church meeting in multiple locations across central Kentucky. We believe Jesus came for the lost and the broken, which means there's a place for everyone here. Around here, that means we worship defiantly, speak truth unashamedly, and extend grace generously. To support this ministry and help us continue to reach across Central Kentucky and all around the world, visit: https://southland.church/give

Today,in verses 15 through 18, Paul gives us more details about what will happen whenJesus comes again.Paulbegins in verse 15: “For this we say to you by the word of the Lord.” Ilove that expression. Paul wants them to understand that what he is about totell them isn't speculation. It isn't Paul's personal theory about the future. Hesays it is “by the word of the Lord.” Then Paul says: “That we whoare alive and remain until the coming of the Lord will by no means precedethose who are asleep.” Verse16 says: “For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, withthe voice of an archangel, and with the trumpet of God.” The Lord Himself is coming! The same Jesus who left this earth is comingagain. Acts chapter 1 tells us that when Jesus ascended into heaven, two angelstold the disciples: “This same Jesus, who was taken up from you into heaven,will so come in like manner as you saw Him go into heaven.”  Thensomething incredible happens: “And the dead in Christ will rise first.”  ThenPaul says in verse 17: “Then we who are alive and remain shall be caught uptogether with them in the clouds.” That expression “caught up” means to besuddenly seized or taken away. It is from the Latin translation of thisexpression that we get our familiar word “rapture.” Someone might say, “Theword rapture isn't in my English Bible.” That's true, but the truthdescribed by that word certainly is. Paul says believers who are alive whenChrist comes will be “caught up.” First Corinthians 15:51–52 describesthe same wonderful event: “Behold, I tell you a mystery: We shall not allsleep, but we shall all be changed—in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye.”  Butnotice something else that I especially love. Paul says we will be caught up “togetherwith them.” Remember what the Thessalonians were worried about? Their lovedones who had died. Paul says there is going to be a reunion! The dead in Christwill rise, living believers will be changed, and together we will meet theLord. I've often thought about what that reunion will be like. Parents reunitedwith children. Husbands reunited with wives. Brothers and sisters togetheragain. Friends and fellow believers separated by death embracing once more. Whata day that will be! Butas wonderful as that reunion will be, it isn't even the greatest part of thepromise. Paul continues: “To meet the Lord in the air.” We are going to seeJesus! The One we have believed in but never physically seen. The One we haveprayed to. The One whose Word we have read. The One we have worshiped. The Onewho loved us and gave Himself for us. One day, we are going to see Him face toface. And then comes what I believe may be the greatest phrase in this entirepassage: “And thus we shall always be with the Lord.” Forever withJesus. Never separated again. No more death. No more funerals. No more hospitalrooms. No more cancer. No more heartache. No more goodbyes. No more temptation.No more sin. Forever with the Lord. Andnotice how Paul finishes this great prophetic passage. He doesn't say: “Therefore,argue with one another about these words.” He doesn't say: “Therefore,speculate about dates and times.” He says in verse 18: “Therefore comfortone another with these words.” Bible prophecy isn't given merely to satisfyour curiosity. It is given to produce hope, holiness, faithfulness, andcomfort. When we stand beside the grave of a believer, we can comfort oneanother with these words. When the world seems increasingly uncertain, we cancomfort one another with these words. When our bodies grow older and weaker, wecan comfort one another with these words. When we miss those who have gonebefore us, we can comfort one another with these words.Jesusis coming again. The dead in Christ will rise. We will be caught up together. Wewill see Jesus. And best of all: “We shall always be with the Lord.”

Click to watch - Click to view manuscriptThe four Hebrew consonants in “Yahweh” are pronounced with the vowels of the noun Adonai meaning “Lord.” Whenever this occurs in the text, the English Bible translators honor this tradition and read LORD. We learn here to love God's personal name, to treat God's name as holy, and to anticipate that one day “all the peoples of the earth may know that  the LORD is God; there is no other.” (1 Kings 8:60). 

Tyndale's work laid the foundation for virtually every English Bible translation of the past 500 years and left a major mark on the English language and our theological vocabulary. __________ For more resources visit breakpoint.org. 

If God inspired His Word, what happened to those words after they were given?In this PostScript Essentials conversation, Brandon Briscoe sits down with Dr. Alan Shelby to explore the relationship between inspiration, inscription, transmission, preservation, and translation—and what those doctrines mean for our confidence in the Bible we hold today.From a KJV, Bible-believing perspective, this conversation asks whether preservation ended with the original manuscripts or whether God providentially preserved His Word through history, transmission, and translation.Dr. Shelby discusses textual criticism, the history of the English Bible, the King James Bible, Jeremiah 36, the Received Text, and the providential preservation of Scripture.Originally recorded as PostScript Episodes 100 & 101, these two conversations have been brought together into one PostScript Essentials presentation.If God was capable of inspiring His Word, is He also capable of preserving it?Visit http://lfbi.org/learnmore

God said to Moses, “I AM WHO I AM. This is what you are to say to the Israelites: ‘I AM has sent me to you.'” — Exodus 3:14 In the third commandment, God teaches his people to revere his holy name, warning that they may not treat his name lightly. Over time, the Israelites took this command so seriously that they refrained from even saying God's name aloud.As a result, whenever we read the name “LORD” in our English Bibles today, we are reading what the people of Israel said—Adonai, meaning “Lord” —in place of the name that God revealed to Moses: Yahweh, or “I AM WHO I AM.” The word “Lord” (Adonai) fittingly indicates “power,” “authority,” “influence,” and other important attributes of reverence for God's name, showing respect for God's ultimate place and authority over the whole universe.Today, many Christians boldly say aloud God's name “Jehovah” (a rendition of Yahweh) because the opposite of taking God's name lightly is to take it too seriously, as ancient Israel did. We need to acknowledge and confess God's greatness and almighty power by properly expressing and honoring his name. Even better, we may respectfully and devotedly call God “Father,” as Jesus taught by his own example. Calling God “Father” not only acknowledges the Lord's power and authority but also reveals God's tender, loving care for us. We are God's children, reconciled to him and adopted through the work of Jesus, our Lord and Savior.  Father, thank you for making us your children through Jesus, your Son. Help us to live each day in devotion to you and with love for others. Amen.

As we continue our study of Bibliology, we take a survey of the history that gave us the bible in English.

If modern English Bible versions translated 1 Peter 2:18 as "Slaves, be subject to your masters with all respect..." it would be jarring to modern ears and sensibilities. But it was to slaves that Peter was writing and his encouragement to them in their day teaches us much about the Lord we are following, the Righteous One who suffered for us, and exposes our need to be more concerned about our character than we are about our circumstances. Join us as we learn about slavery in the ancient world, its practice in the Western Hemisphere, and its presence with us today.

Jeremy seeks to bother everyone by giving his personal opinion about thirteen different Bible translations. Do Theology is part of Foundations Media. Learn more at https://foundationsmedia.org https://dotheology.com https://store.dotheology.com https://www.buymeacoffee.com/DoTheology Contact Us: show@dotheology.com https://twitter.com/dotheology https://facebook.com/dotheology Subscribe to the podcast: https://linktr.ee/DoTheology 0:00 Introduction 3:50 NASB1995 6:41 NASB2020 8:45 NIV 13:04 NIrV 18:35 The Message 21:21 NRSV 25:27 ESV 29:49 KJV 40:21 NKJV 43:43 NET 47:38 CSB 52:26 NLT 56:53 LSB 1:03:02 A New Translation? 1:07:58 Conscience Chatter

After several chapters of prophecies of destruction at the hands of the Assyrians, Micah concludes his book with a promise of restoration for the people of Israel. Although there are some differences between the Masoretic text on which the old Testament of our English Bibles is based and the Septuagint, which was translated from Hebrew into Greek by about 200 BC, the overall message is the same: God will chastise His people for their behavior, but He will bless the remnant who repent and return to Him. Sharon's niece, Sarah Sachleben, has been battling stage 4 bowel cancer and the medical bills are piling up. If you are led to help, please go to GilbertHouse.org/hopeforsarah. Our latest book The Gates of Hell is available in paperback, Kindle, and as an audiobook at Audible! Derek's book Destination: Earth, co-authored with Donna Howell and Allie Anderson, is available in paperback, Kindle, and as an audiobook at Audible! If you are looking for a text of the Book of 1 Enoch to follow our monthly study, you can try these sources: Parallel translations by R. H. Charles (1917) and Richard Laurence (1821)Modern English translation by George W. E. Nickelsburg and James VanderKam (link to book at Amazon)Book of 1 Enoch - Standard English Version by Dr. Jay Winter (link opens free PDF)Book of 1 Enoch - R. H. Charles translation (link opens free PDF) The SkyWatchTV store has a special offer on Dr. Michael Heiser's two-volume set A Companion to the Book of Enoch. Get both books, the R. H. Charles translation of 1 Enoch, and a DVD interview with Mike and Steven Bancarz for a donation of $35 plus shipping and handling. Link: https://bit.ly/heiser-enoch JOIN US IN ISRAEL (NOTE NEW DATES)! We will tour the Holy Land Oct. 25–Nov. 6, 2027 with an optional three-day extension to Jordan. For more information, log on to GilbertHouse.org/travel. Follow us!• X: @gilberthouse_tv | @sharonkgilbert | @derekgilbert• Substack: GilbertHouse.substacdk.com | SharonKGilbert.substack.com• Telegram: t.me/gilberthouse | t.me/sharonsroom | t.me/viewfromthebunker• YouTube: @GilbertHouse | @UnravelingRevelation | @thebiblesgreatestmysteries• Facebook.com/GilbertHouseFellowship Thank you for making our Build Barn Better project a reality! We truly appreciate your support. If you are so led, you can help out at GilbertHouse.org/donate. Get our free app! It connects you to these studies plus our weekly video programs Unraveling Revelation and A View from the Bunker, and the podcast that started this journey in 2005, P.I.D. Radio. Best of all, it bypasses the gatekeepers of Big Tech! The app is available for iOS, Android, Roku, and Apple TV. Links to the app stores are at www.gilberthouse.org/app/. Gilbert House T-shirts and mugs! New to our store is a line of GHTV and Redwing Saga merch! Check it out at GilbertHouse.org/store! Think better, feel better! Our partners at Simply Clean Foods offer freeze-dried, 100% GMO-free food and delicious, vacuum-packed fair trade coffee from Honduras. Find out more at GilbertHouse.org/store. Our favorite Bible study tools! Check the links in the left-hand column at www.GilbertHouse.org.

After several chapters of prophecies of destruction at the hands of the Assyrians, Micah concludes his book with a promise of restoration for the people of Israel. Although there are some differences between the Masoretic text on which the old Testament of our English Bibles is based and the Septuagint, which was translated from Hebrew into Greek by about 200 BC, the overall message is the same: God will chastise His people for their behavior, but He will bless the remnant who repent and return to Him. 

John Wells - July 19th 2025 - The Living Word of God The Living Word of God • John 6:63 • John 8:31 • II Timothy 2:2 • II Timothy 3:13 • I Peter 1: 23 • Revelation 20: 11 The Word of God – The Bible • It's Power and Authority – “the words are God breathed and alive” • It's Preservation – many have tried to destroy it, distort it , change it • It's Permanence – The Word of God stands forever - it will never pass away God's man for translating the scriptures to English William Tyndale • Early life: William Tyndale was born around 1494 in Gloucestershire, England. He studied at University of Oxford and later at University of Cambridge, where he became skilled in Greek, Hebrew, Latin, German, French, Italian & Spanish languages. • Bible translation: Tyndale believed that ordinary people should be able to read the Bible in their own language. Since translating the Bible into English without approval was forbidden in England, he left the country in 1524 to continue his work in Europe. • Printing the New Testament: In 1526, his English translation of the New Testament was printed and secretly smuggled into England. Church authorities condemned and burned many copies, but they continued to circulate. • Further work: Tyndale continued translating parts of the Old Testament and wrote books supporting religious reform. His translations were based directly on the original Greek and Hebrew texts rather than the Latin Bible commonly used at the time. • Arrest and death: In 1535, Tyndale was betrayed, arrested near Brussels, imprisoned for over a year, and tried for heresy. In 1536, he was strangled and then burned at the stake. His reported final prayer was, "Lord, open the King of England's eyes." • Legacy: Tyndale's translations became the foundation for later English Bibles, especially the King James Version. It is estimated that much of the New Testament wording in the King James Version is based on Tyndale's work. His commitment to making Scripture accessible had a lasting impact on Christianity, English literature, and the development of the English language 1. The Original Writings (1400 BC–100 AD) 1. The Old Testament was written primarily in Hebrew, with a few sections in Aramaic. 2. The New Testament was written in Greek by Jesus' apostles and other early Christian leaders. Ancient Copies 1. Before printing, scribes carefully copied the Scriptures by hand. Thousands of ancient manuscripts have survived, allowing scholars to compare copies and identify copying errors. 3. William Tyndale's English Bible 1. In the early 1500s, William Tyndale translated the New Testament and parts of the Old Testament directly from the original Greek and Hebrew into English. 2. His work was considered illegal, and he was executed in 1536 for heresy. 3. Much of his wording was later incorporated into future English translations. 4. The King James Version (1611) 1. King James VI and I authorized a new English translation completed by a team of scholars in 1611. 2. The King James Version became the most influential English Bible for centuries and is still widely used today. 5. Modern English Translations 1. Since the discovery of many older biblical manuscripts (such as the Dead Sea Scrolls), scholars have been able to compare even earlier sources. 2. Modern translations such as the New International Version (NIV), English Standard Version (ESV), New American Standard Bible (NASB), and New King James Version (NKJV) are translated directly from the oldest and most reliable Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek manuscripts available.

In this episode of The Reformed Brotherhood, Tony Arsenal and Jesse Schwamb bring their extended series on the parables of Matthew to a powerful climax with the passage most listeners have been waiting for: the Sheep and the Goats (Matthew 25:31–46). Far from a checklist of works required for salvation, this text is unpacked as the master parable of Christ's entire parabolic ministry — a sovereign declaration of divine election, not a merit-based audit of individual performance. Tony and Jesse explore why this passage has been chronically misread as a call to works righteousness, why the language of inheritance and predestination is front and center, and how a Reformed reading liberates rather than burdens the conscience. Along the way, they weigh in on Herman Bavinck's prescient warning about media distraction, and Jesse recommends a Puritan gem on anxiety worth picking up immediately. Key Takeaways The Sheep and Goats is best understood as a parable, or at minimum parable-adjacent. The Greek construction in verse 31 mirrors the same comparative language Christ uses throughout his parabolic ministry, placing this text firmly within that tradition rather than outside it. The kingdom was prepared before any works were done — this is election language. The phrase "inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world" (v. 34) is not a reward for performance; it is the language of sovereign predestination preceding all human action. The works of the sheep are diagnostic, not causative. What the righteous did reveals who they already were — sheep — rather than being the mechanism by which they became sheep. The beak doesn't make the bird. Both groups are surprised, and that surprise is the parabolic punchline. Neither the sheep nor the goats anticipated the verdict they received, which undermines any reading that frames this text as an encouragement to accumulate saving merit. This passage is a recapitulation of the wheat and tares parable. Sheep and goats co-mingled until the moment of final separation, just as wheat and tares grow together until the harvest — the judgment reveals what was always true. Any theology that requires a human contribution to activate or complete salvation misreads this text.Whether Roman Catholic, Arminian, or Mormon in flavor, every view that makes God's preparation of the kingdom contingent on foreseen human merit fundamentally inverts the logic of the passage. The scope of judgment — "all nations" (ta ethnos) — would have been scandalous to first-century Jewish ears. This language deliberately expands the kingdom beyond ethnic Israel, fulfilling the Abrahamic covenant promise and confounding the assumptions of the religious elite. Key Concepts The Kingdom Prepared Before Your Works: Sovereign Election, Not Merit When the King says to those on his right, "Come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world" (Matthew 25:34), the theological weight of that single sentence is staggering. The kingdom was not prepared in response to anything the sheep did. It was prepared before time, before works, before choice — which means the works that follow in the passage cannot be the grounds of that inheritance. Only a Calvinistic understanding of election can sustain this logic without remainder. Arminian views require God to foresee a qualifying human response; Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox views require some degree of meritorious participation; even certain Lutheran frameworks lean on non-resistance to grace. Reformed theology alone places the entire cause within God's sovereign, unconditional decree — and this passage, read plainly, says exactly that. Works as Evidence, Not Ground: The Diagnostic Function of This Parable The great pastoral error in preaching this passage is treating it as a performance rubric — a list of charitable acts that, if completed, qualify a person for eternal life. But Christ does not separate the sheep from the goats because of what they did or failed to do. He separates them, and then describes the activity that characterized each group. The works are revelatory. They surface what was already true of each person's nature, just as a bird's beak reveals its species rather than constituting it. This reframing is liberating precisely because it means assurance does not rest on tallying acts of charity. It rests on the sovereign act of a Father who prepared a kingdom and the regenerating work of the Spirit who produces, in those He has claimed, a life that looks like the one described here. "All Nations": The Scandal of an Ethnically Inclusive Kingdom The Greek phrase ta ethnē — translated "all nations" in most English Bibles — would have landed very differently on first-century Jewish ears, particularly those of the Pharisees and Sadducees who comprised a significant portion of Christ's audience throughout Matthew 24–25. To them, ta ethnē meant the Gentiles, the peoples out there, those outside the covenant. The implicit effect of Christ's language is to place every people group — including Israel — within a single undifferentiated mass standing before his throne, with no ethnic group receiving preferential standing at the bar of judgment. This is entirely consistent with the Abrahamic promise of blessing to all families of the earth (Genesis 12:3), the vision of Psalm 2, and the missionary thrust of the Great Commission. The scandal is not incidental — it is the point. The kingdom Christ is ushering in is not the ethnic-nationalist kingdom the religious establishment expected. Memorable Quotes The kingdom of heaven was prepared for those whom Christ has elected before the foundation of the world, and it was the preparation of that kingdom that brought you through this such that you did the good works that you did... That is caused by the fact that God prepared a kingdom for you in advance, not that you somehow caused this kingdom to be prepared for you. - Tony It's not the beak that makes it the sparrow, it's the sparrow that makes it the kind of beak it is. That's the kind of classification we're talking about in this parable. - Tony The best freedom is the one that turns over all things to God and takes him at his word when he says, 'In love you were predestined to inherit this as sons and daughters of the kingdom,' so that he does all the work, because we do not want to have any of that work our own. - Jesse Full Transcript [00:01:11] Jesse Schwamb: Welcome to episode 498 of the Reformed Brotherhood. I'm Jesse  [00:01:19] Tony Arsenal: And I'm Tony, and this is the podcast with ears to hear. Hey, brother.  [00:01:24] Jesse Schwamb: Hey, brother. They said it couldn't be done. They said we couldn't come back. We wouldn't come back and continue in Matthew 25. But here we are, and we're ending this chapter in this whole section about sheep and goats. Everybody was clamoring for it. Everybody wanted to know, what about the sheep and the goats? And I think the last time we all chatted together, we prefaced it by saying it's parable adjacent. Or let's just say- Yes ... we just stacked up these three other parables, lots of things going on, and then Jesus resolves this or brings all these parables to a culmination by speaking about the end times, the end of all things, and the sheep and the goats. Yeah. And so we gotta go there  [00:02:06] Tony Arsenal: Yeah. Yeah, I'm stoked.  [00:02:07] What Counts Parable [00:02:07] Tony Arsenal: And y- you know, I, I was talking with a brother at, um, at church yesterday on the Lord's day, and he was asking how the podcast's going and what we're doing. And, you know, I was kind of thinking, like, I was talking about the parables and how we're kind of moving forward, and we were gonna do some of the I am sayings in John. And, and I was thinking, like, what is a parable anyways? And who decides what a parable is and what a parable isn't? Right. Um, some of the parables Christ calls a parable, others he doesn't. Uh, we'll probably talk a little bit about that when we get to, uh, some of the back half of Luke. But this, this episode I think is gonna be really, really the payoff and really the culmination of not just these, like, this trio of or trilogy of parables that we've talked about, but I think really, like, the payout of all of the parables in Matthew. It's really, like, the summary of all of Christ's parabolic teachings. So it's, it's a good place for us to round out Matthew, and then we'll, we'll dip into the parables in the other gospels, probably have a couple more months of, of, uh, parable talk before we move on to the next thing. But, uh, it's been great, and I'm super, super stoked for this. This is one of my favorite passages, actually, and there's so much to dig into. I, I, I'm just gonna say now, we probably won't make it through the whole thing- Right ... uh, because there's a lot there. But we'll see. We'll see how we do. Maybe Jesse and I will be super efficient tonight, uh, but we usually aren't, so. [00:03:27] Jesse Schwamb: Yeah, that's never happened. We, we take it low and slow. Not only that- ... it was reminding me as you spoke about that kind of proverb generally of if you wanna go build a wall, you assess what you need, how many stones, and then you go gather those stones. Yeah. You should double it, or if you're gonna go out and fight an army, take stock of that army. That's basically what we do, but in reverse. Anytime, like, you just... I just heard you say- ... like, "It'll probably take us a couple more months," you should double that. That's probably how long- Yeah ... it's actually gonna take us.  [00:03:50] Faith Works Assurance [00:03:50] Jesse Schwamb: Even in this- Yeah ... conversation, I think we're gonna get stuck in the best way possible speaking about things like faith, works, and assurance because there's a lot of language here- Yeah that could seem on the surface to sit in this tension with justification by faith alone. And I think the key to resolving all that tension, as I hopefully think we'll see, lies in the readings of works as the evidence of living faith rather than its ground, and I think that's what- Yes ... Christ is leading us through all of these parables, actually, whether it goes back. And you should listen to all those episodes. In fact, I gotta ask. Th- I mean, this brother you were talking to, it just strikes me as that question had already be answered for him if you were listening to the podcast. So-  [00:04:29] Tony Arsenal: Yeah, I don't think he does. No, I don't think he does- ... listen to the podcast. Uh, he knows that I do the podcast, and he's very gracious to ask me about it. Tom. And I think he's probably listened to the podcast before. Got it. Um, and he's, he's just a very kind, gracious brother who, who is concerned and wants to know what I'm doing. And, um, he has, he has his own sort of, like, production stuff that he does that he enjoys that I'm, I'm not super keyed into. But, uh, it was just nice. But, but it did get me thinking, like, I was trying to explain to him where we were in the progress of the parables, and I was like, "I can't really... I don't really know," because, like, it's hard to even understand and fully... There's no, like, full comprehensive universal list of what is a parable- Right ... and what's not. And I think what we've found as we've been going through this is sometimes, sometimes you come up against a portion of a text that is often taught sort of separate from the, the rest of it. Parables get taught discreet from other parables. But then you have these sort of, like, intervening texts, or this one's kind of a summary text, that's so integrated to what the parable means you really can't do a series on these parables without also treating this text. Which is gonna be interesting, 'cause I've never, I've never encountered somebody who really roots this teaching here of Christ in the context of the parables, despite its proximity. So it'll be fun. We're gonna figure it out in real time, and, and it'll be good.  [00:05:47] Jesse Schwamb: No, it's gonna be fun.  [00:05:48] Deny Doomscrolling Bavinck [00:05:48] Jesse Schwamb: And speaking of fun, we're so glad that you're listening, and we know that you're waiting with bated breath to hear about affirmations or denials. It's of course that part of the conversation where we either affirm with something that we think is fantastic, maybe by way of recommendation, or conversely, we deny against something that isn't that great. So Tony, as is our custom in the liturgy of the Reformed Brotherhood podcast, I ask you once again, are you affirming with or deny against? [00:06:15] Tony Arsenal: I am denying against something, and I'm gonna do that by affirming a Herman Bavinck quote. Uh, so I'm gonna read it for you. This, uh... Some of the guys in the Facebook group have put... or the Facebook group, the Telegram chat, have put together a, uh, like, a reading group to work through Bavinck's, uh, Wonderful Works of God, which is great, and I'm loving it. I haven't been able to participate in the conversation as much as I would like to, but just being part of a reading group, uh, sort of keeps you on schedule, which is great. So I've been reading through Wonderful Works of God, and on the Kindle edition, on page 34, uh, which I think is still the, I think is still the, uh, introduction, he says, quote, "The reading of daily and weekly newspapers, of magazines and brochures, devours our every blink. There's a lack of desire and opportunity for the investigation of scripture and the study of old theological works," end quote. And when I read that, it just really struck me as like- If that was true like 70 years ago, 80 years ago when Bavinck was writing this, right? And all there was was hard, hard copy media. There was no, uh, there was no digital media. There was radio, but there wasn't a lot of programming. Uh, I don't think that there was much in the way of television broadcasting. If there was, it was, it was very, very limited and very rudimentary. Um, even then he was saying the daily news cycle and all of this extra stuff that is out there is consuming our, quote, "Every blink," which I thought was a really interesting phrase. Um, it's basically like it's so ingrained in us, we're so invested and obsessed with the news cycle. Uh, or you might translate that to like to our Twitter feed or our Facebook feed or our Instagram reels or whatever it might be, and dare I say it, the podcasts we listen to.  [00:08:05] Jesse Schwamb: Right.  [00:08:05] Tony Arsenal: Um, that we don't save time for scripture and other theological works. And I think it's funny too is that the, the eternal, uh, the eternal contemporary statement of the Reformed world is like we don't read enough old theological works. Even Bavinck, who I'm reading as one of the old... I mean, not like super old, but like one of the old theological works, is saying, "Hey, we don't read enough old theological works." So I'm denying this sort of like obsession we have with the daily news cycle and with constantly being up to date and like constantly consuming all of that. Um, we've talked about how like our modern global news cycle sort of, uh, is built around the deception that we can be sort of pseudo omnipotent and know all things about everything. And, um- There's a lot of work that's been done to show that, like, the world's not really that much, not that much more of a violent place than it was 100 years ago. We just know a lot more about what's going on- Right ... in other parts of the world. And there's pros and cons to that. But I think the main con is, like, we, we feel suddenly that we have to be, you know, deeply involved in the goings on of a church on the other side of the country that we never would've even known existed otherwise. It- there's just a, there's a sense of omnipotence and omnipresence that's just not becoming for the creature that I think we try to take on. So Bavinck knew it. Uh, we've talked about it. Lots and lots of people have talked about it. This isn't new. I'm not, I'm not e- engineering anything new on this. But that quote really struck me when I was reading. I was like, "Dang, man, he, he got it right 100 years ago or, or 80 years ago, and we're still struggling with it." And I think probably, like, if you go back and you look at the, I don't know, more occasional writings of people like Martin Luther and John Calvin, um, as they're interacting with, like, people in the Reformed community or the Protestant community, I bet you would find statements like this too about how, like, we really spend a lot of time reading, like, silly things and not spending- Right our time studying the scripture or studying, um, theological works. So that's my denial. I'm sticking to it, and if that means you feel like you need to turn this podcast off and go read some John Calvin or some Herman Bavinck, then by all means. Uh, I think you're probably going to be edified by what we have to talk about. But, uh, th- the Bible's better, so if you gotta go do it, if you only got- That's true ... an hour today to study scripture or listen to this podcast, please go study scripture. Yeah. Uh, hopefully we can do a little bit of both with this podcast. But Herman Bavinck said it best. Our every blink is consumed with pamphlets and newspapers and it just is- It's true it's pretty silly.  [00:10:41] Jesse Schwamb: It's true.  [00:10:42] Meme Detour Reading Groups [00:10:42] Jesse Schwamb: I gotta take us all the way back to where you started there, and I'm going to betray, to nobody's surprise, my really strong naivete when it comes- ... to social media, and memes in particular. But this is what occurred to me, and I'm gonna try it. This is, like, what classically makes really good podcasting. Let me try to describe a meme to you that I'm not even sure I actually understand or know. So this will be great. I think, you tell me, Tony, 'cause you may have seen this. It's an old meme too, so I'm not even, like, on the cutting edge here. I think it's a meme of two panels showing, like, two pictures of Drake. In know one he's kinda, like, pushing away as if to say, like, "Get that outta here," and the other one's like, "Oh yeah, that's the stuff." Do you know what I'm talking about? Yeah. Is that accurate?  [00:11:21] Tony Arsenal: I do. I think you're gonna use it wrong, but yeah.  [00:11:23] Jesse Schwamb: Is that Drake? Okay, all  [00:11:24] Tony Arsenal: right. Yeah, that's, that's the meme.  [00:11:25] Jesse Schwamb: Okay, okay. And usually, if I understand it correctly, it's kind of like a faux juxtaposition of two things, right? Like, okay. So like here, let me try it. Uh, uh, let me just try it on everybody. Here we go. I'm gonna describe to you how I just interpret this based on what you said, 'cause something cracked me up that you said, Tony. If I were gonna make this meme just based on how you opened that up, the first panel would be like Drake pushing away the idea or being like, "That's no good," book club. The second one would be reading group, as in like, like the reading group is like the new cool way of like just kind of... Did I use it properly? Am I close?  [00:11:59] Tony Arsenal: I think the problem with this is that there's like a, there's like an ironic way to use it, and then there's like a more direct way to use it. Mm. Yeah. The direct way would be like some- like Drake's pushing away something that's bad, and he's- Yeah ... like accepting something that's good. That'd be like the direct way. Yes. The more ironic one is where like Drake is pushing away something that's actually pretty, actually pretty good, and he's- Yeah ... accepting the one that's pretty silly. Oh, okay. Um, there's a lot of memes that have that basic format. Never mind. There's one with like Jordi LaForge. I think there's a Michael Scott one. I tried. I tried. But yeah, no, I, I think yours is valid, it's just, I think it's an older usage of the meme. That's like the, that's like the middle English version of that meme. The Shakespearean use of that meme.  [00:12:36] Jesse Schwamb: Yeah. I'll take that. It's the old English style. I love a good book club or a reading group. A, a reading group just, it does have that sound like maybe somebody in the group has a monocle, or you guys have tea. Either way- Yeah ... I absolutely love it. And yes, what are our beautiful quotes. You kind of hear that general conception recapitulated among like theologians almost in every era. But it does make you think, what would Bavinck say about, like doom scrolling on the smartphone? Like- Yeah ... he's beside himself, right? It would just be beside himself. So I'm with you. I, it, there's gonna be a condemnation in every generation. Maybe I say this with some degree of like chronological snobbery, especially in ours, when it comes to not, like you said, I think kind of like not carving out or not prioritizing time in the scriptures. Yeah. There's not gonna be any excuse of like, "Well, I just didn't have time." Right. Or, "There were too many things to read." It's just, it's not gonna cut it. So I'm with you. I think you and I have talked about this at length, even just like the news media like you and I consume, like just s- set aside social media for a second. Just like how i- how much value is there in a lot of like what we cons- used to consider to be like well-informed reporting? How valuable is that to us? Yeah. And I'm certainly not saying like that everybody should be like unconcerned and uninterested in the world, but I think it's to what degree and what fascination we have with that, and how it fits into our priority as we consume information each day. That's the thing that's tricky, and there's no really-  [00:14:02] Tony Arsenal: Yeah ...  [00:14:02] Jesse Schwamb: good answer except to weigh out with the spiritual discernment- Yeah ... how we ought to consume that stuff. But certainly I think, without question, we need to be prioritizing time in prayer, time in the scriptures. I imagine if we were all doing that with a great deal of attention, that all of the other things would kind of find their way into the right place. Or let's say they would just find their way out of our lives in a significant way- Yeah ... that would remove us from distraction and anxiety, instead bring us back into the providence of God.  [00:14:31] Tony Arsenal: Yeah. And I'm not, I'm not gonna be the guy that tells you you can never s- you can never scroll Instagram or TikTok or whatever. Um, I, I think that's a decision that's between you and the Holy Spirit as far as how you spend your time. But I, I do think, um, I think you're right- We are accountable for the decisions we make and how- Right ... we choose to divide up our time. And I- God, I mean, God is the inventor of fun. He's the inventor of leisure, and he is, uh, I think he's pleased and honored when we, we make good use of our time f- for things that are restful and rejuvenating. Um, he doesn't expect us to just slavishly read scripture all day, every day, like every minute. That's not, that's not the biblical expectation. Um, and so I think it's fine if you wanna sit down and watch a fun show, or if you wanna watch some YouTube videos, or listen to a silly podcast, or listen to a serious podcast. Um, but I do, I agree. Like, we, we really need to be thoughtful. And I think where, where Bavinck's quote, uh, is strong is it's not so much about, "Don't read these things." Right. He, he's talking about these things consume our every blink. Like, m- he's treating blink... He's using the word blink as sort of a fill-in for like our, our finite resource of time and attention, and these things have consumed all of them. There's a very strong use of that word consume. Uh, and I, I think that's really the, the point that I'm trying to make is we often allow, either intentionally or unintentionally, we, we just let our time get all sucked up, uh, on things that maybe are good but are not pr- properly proportioned. Um- Like I said, it's, it's fine to spend some time on Twitter and to get into a debate once in a while, or to check in on your friends on Facebook, your old high school, college buddies or whatever, but we can definitely take it too far. So I think it's a good corrective for all of us to at least make a stop and think about how we're spending our time, and whether we are affording the appropriate amount of time to things like scripture, theological study, catechesis of our children, um, family worship, all of those good things. So we don't have to go much more into that. I think the point has been made. Uh, so Jesse, what are you affirming and/or denying tonight?  [00:16:43] Affirm Puritan Anxiety Cure [00:16:43] Jesse Schwamb: Perfect segue, because speaking of reading old things, you know me, I've always got some kind of Puritan work in the rotation, and the one I just finished is the one I'm affirming, which is called Special Providence for Anxious Souls by Obadiah Sedgwick, who I think is kinda... Like, people are sleeping on Sedgwick, you know? Mm-hmm. He's, he's kinda like, he's there in the wings, but we need to take him off the bench. And I came across this book and I thought, "Who doesn't want a title like that in their lives?" Like, we got some anxiety in all of our souls. And I'm affirming this because, uh, hi- his definitions, his writing is, are on point. But here's what I thought. I was embarrassed that I picked this up expecting one thing, and then in typical puritanical fashion, was delivered something else that was far better. And I was thinking about this title as you might see it, like, in your modern bookstore today, whether it's, like, in Barnes & Nobles or at any of the periodicals we were just kind of mentioning or implying that are out there. And I was expecting to get some kind of, I don't know, six or seven things, I mean, that's Puritan style, but six or seven things that would really help you diagnose the psychology, and then going back to the scripture in ways, all, all the ways we'd expect about how God loves us and cares for us, and all those things are true. And yet the only way I could describe how this book ministered to me is, like, how you might go to a physical therapist for some kind of ailment, which I have many as I get older, and have recently been to one. And the ailment I had was, um, basically like tarsal tunnel, which is like carpal tunnel for your foot. And so there was some nerves that were inflamed and causing some pain and some weirdness in my feet. And here's what I do know about physical therapy now that I think the Puritans also do for our souls, and that is the physical therapist gave me this full workup. They prodded me and poked me and rubbed things and made things hurt- And in the course of doing that, they clearly could figure out what was wrong with my foot. And so when he gave me the diagnosis, after, again, rubbing that part and, like, doing one of those things where he's like, you know, they tap on your hard and they're like, "Does that hurt?" I'm like, "Yes, it does hurt." And I presume that's because you know anatomy. And, you know, he's, he's ta- tapping on my ankle and it's causing my foot underneath to hurt. And after all that, you know, I run on a treadmill. He d- takes all this video, and this is what he says to me. He goes, "Yeah, so this is actually pretty straightforward." And I was like, "Great, so what are we talking about? Like exercises, uh, splints, like massage?" He's like, "You have a weak butt." And I was like- "I'm sorry, let's talk about that for a second." And this is what I've learned about physical therapy, is it's rarely about the thing that's actually bothering you or the thing that's hurt, right? It's something- Yeah ... far different. It's something almost seemingly, like, disjointed or removed or divorced from the very thing, maybe even non-contiguous, if only in our minds, maybe even logically. And so what I love about this is the first half of the book is just speaking about the province of God before it even gets into this idea of anxiety. And then the treatment on anxiety and worry is, he goes through, like, six or seven things in particular, are just absolutely glorious. So good that I want you to read it. I don't even want to talk about it. Uh, that, that's my admonishment to you, is that you should just go pick it up. So I'm affirming again that the Puritans in particular do this thing where there's, there's no cheap advice here. It's not even hide advice. It's really good advice, but it's the kind that says, "You have a weak butt" when you're concerned that your ankle- is messed up. Yeah. And that's sometimes what you need to hear. And in my case, after... Let's make this super weirdly spiritual. After doing a bunch of squats, I don't know what the spiritual equivalent is of that. After doing a bunch of squats, my ankle and my foot was so much better. And it, because I had somebody who cared enough for me to go through and actually diagnose the root of it, that was the reason that inevitably there was healing. So I've, this has given me so much to think about, this tiny little treatise. So much to put into practice. It's so rich, so good, so practical, and yet I think you'll find in many ways joyfully unexpected. So I highly affirm to everybody listening, and even those who aren't, Special Providence for Anxious Souls, Obadiah Sedgwick. You'll, you'll love it  [00:20:49] Tony Arsenal: Yeah.  [00:20:49] Physical Therapy Spiritual Practice [00:20:49] Tony Arsenal: So two thoughts. Uh, one, uh, I can confirm Jesse has a weak butt, um, flat as a board. So it's probably, probably better after, after doing some squats. Wow. Uh, two- Wow. ... uh, I can say I also am in some physical therapy right now, and I've been a little bit of a slacker. And what I will contribute to the conversation is just like in physical therapy, they can give you all of the exercises- Yeah uh, that you want. If you don't do the work, you're not going to get better. Yeah. And so whether it's Jesse doing squats or me not finding time to stretch and to do some, like, arm exercises with a, with a s- uh, like a TheraBand, uh, the same holds true. And, and maybe to unify our, uh, affir- our denials/affirmations into one mega, mega recommendation, um, the same holds true in that, one, we can take a book like this from, uh, Sedgwick, and we can turn it into the same thing we do with media where we're just... it's just devouring our blinks. Right. And we're just using it as a way to sort of, like, feed our eye hole Get better. You won't improve. Um, and that's actually the same with scripture. Like y-you can- Right ... turn scripture into, uh, into a snack food that you, you don't actually use to be nutritious. Um, I think there's probably more benefit to reading scripture sort of rote and, and almost mechanically than there is to reading anything else. But, um, but at the end of the day, you can also consume your blinks with scripture and not get a lot out of it if all you're doing is passing your eyes over text. So get in there. I think that's great. I haven't read that one. I mean, I think there's... I think there are probably many, I can't think of one off the top of my head, but I'm sure there are many, many Puritan treaties that- treatises that are similar in theme and tone and have the same kind of like spiritual antidote or spiritual medicine, um, prescribed by these guys that is good and wholesome. And again, like, like you're saying, like it's not that complicated. It's not that hard. Right. It just takes- Right ... you just actually have to do the work. Um, it's funny, my physical therapy thing is my, my shoulder has been really ba- really messed up, and I went in, I expected him to give me all these, all these shoulder exercises, and he's like, "Uh Really what you need to do is you fix your neck, uh, 'cause your shoulder is, is being in- injured because you're sleeping- Okay on that side because you're trying to stay off the other side. So, like, you really gotta fix your neck so you can sleep on the other side of your body. And I was like, "So I'm just, like, sleeping wrong?" Like, it's funny, there's a joke, it's like in your 20s you can do anything you want, in your 30s, like, you gotta be a little bit careful, and in your 40s, like, you hurt yourself just sleeping. Right. Just getting out of bed is dangerous.  [00:23:46] Jesse Schwamb: It's  [00:23:46] Tony Arsenal: true.  [00:23:47] Jesse Schwamb: It's true. So. It's a tough world. But  [00:23:48] Tony Arsenal: it's true. I feel like a really old man saying that.  [00:23:51] Read Matthew 25 Aloud [00:23:51] Jesse Schwamb: You know, it strikes me that you're right, of course, that there's so much here we always have to put into practice. There's so much here that we have to trust with God. There's a faith that works. And so I think actually that is the most lovely inroad into this final passage of Matthew, because there's a lot here for us to talk about with all of those things, and to understand it in this proper context. So as you've already set us up, Tony, the best part of our podcast is the scripture, for sure, 100%. So let's go there. So we're in Matthew 25 in case you're just joining us. And for some reason I went into, like, a full radio mode, as if this, like, this is being broadcast live, and you just came into the program. We're in Matthew 25, uh, starting in verse 31, and I'm gonna read until the end of the chapter. There's so much here that of course we're not gonna get to all of it, but in the spirit of literally having the full context of the scripture in front of us, and to hear it all, I think it's important. It w- b- better yet, you should go back and read the entire chapter and then tune in right now. But let me start at verse 31. "But when the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit on his glorious throne. And all the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate them one from another as the shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. And he will put the sheep on his right and the goats on his left. Then the King will say to those on his right, 'Come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom which has been prepared for you from the foundation of the world. For I was hungry, and you gave me something to eat. I was thirsty, and you gave me something to drink. I was a stranger, and you invited me in, naked, and you clothed me. I was sick, and you visited me.  [00:25:32] Judgment Scene Read [00:25:32] Jesse Schwamb: I was in prison, and you came to me.' Then the righteous will answer him saying, "Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? And when did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or naked and clothe you? And when did we see you sick or in prison and come to you?" And the King will answer and say to them, "Truly I say to you, to the extent that you did it to one of these brothers of mine, even the least of them, you did it to me." Then he will say to those on his left, "Depart from me, accursed ones, into the eternal fire which has been prepared for the devil and his angers-- angels. For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat. I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink. I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, naked and you did not clothe me, sick and in prison and you did not visit me." Then they will themselves also answer saying, "Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison and did not take care of you?" Then he will answer them saying, "Truly I say to you, to the extent that you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me." And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life  [00:26:47] Tony Arsenal: Yeah.  [00:26:49] Parable Not Fear [00:26:49] Tony Arsenal: Yeah, it's, it's, um, it's a sobering passage. And just as I think we've seen in a lot of the other parables, um These eschatological parables and these eschatological sayings of Christ, uh, as you kind of alluded to earlier, I, I think they are really, really, um... They are not prone to being misinterpreted. Right. The church has been prone to misinterpreting and misapplying these, um, in a, in a way that's used to make, make the Christian fearful and to, uh, undermine their assurance rather than to call them to action or to accountability.  [00:27:33] Why It's A Parable [00:27:33] Tony Arsenal: Um, and I think a- as I've been reading through this and I've been sort of glancing at the Greek as we're reading, I actually think I'm on... I, I stumbled on much more better ground to treat this as a parable than I even originally thought I did. You know, I, I had this whole lead-up that this isn't technically a parable, but when you read here, when it says, in verse 31, it says, "When the Son of Man comes in glory and the angels with him, then he will sit on his glorious throne. Before him will be gathered all nations, and he will separate people one from another as a shepherd separates- Right ... the sheep from the goats." If you go back to verse 14, when it says, "For it will be like a man," uh, that, that first word of verse 14 in the Greek is the same word as is used when it says, um, uh, "He separates people one from another as a shepherd." That same word is used as there, it's just translated differently because of where it comes in the, um, in the text. So Christ is still making this comparison, so it would be as though he said, um, you know, like the common, most common, at least so far, most common kind of parabolic introduction is like, "The Kingdom of Heaven is like." Um, this is the same basic language he's using here to introduce what the eschaton will be like. Right? The ga- the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate them. It says people in the ESV, but will separate them one from another. You could also say the, the nations or the peoples will be gathered before him. Right. He will separate them one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep. So the parable here is the s- the shepherd separating the sheep from the goats, this whole process of the separation and this, this, um, frankly, like it's, it feels and smells like a parable, right? It does. This, this, um, figure, this shepherd in the parable or the shepherd in the saying is saying these sort of like parabolic statements. He's using this language that's kind of like shocking punchline statement. Like we've talked about how in parables there's often this sort of unexpected turn of events, or there's this unexpected kind of shocking language, and this whole like twist at the end in both, sort of both s- chunks here, where like the sheep don't really understand, like they didn't really recognize that they were doing sheepy things, and the goats didn't really understand that they were being goats. That's like the parabolic twist or the parabolic punchline here. So the, the kingdom of heaven is like, basically it's like the Son of Man will come in his glory and it will be like this. It will be like a shepherd separating the sheep from the goats. That's the parabolic connection here. Mm-hmm. So I actually think that, that linguistically we're on, we're on pretty solid ground not just to treat this as a summary of all the parables, um- I think of for sure these three parables, but it, it really is like the master parable, and I think probably the master parable that kinda governs and constrains and explains all of the parabolic ministry of Christ. So I'm, I'm stoked for us to really dig into the details a little bit, but I think linguistically we're on super good ground to, to treat this as a parable. I agree. At the very least, it's stronger than just parable adjacent.  [00:30:44] Jesse Schwamb: Right.  [00:30:44] Tony Arsenal: It- but even if we aren't saying it's a parable proper, it's stronger than that. It still is using this kinda comparative ministry, comparative language that Christ has used throughout the parabolic, um, sayings of Christ.  [00:30:57] Jesse Schwamb: The construction seems a little bit less veiled because here we have Jesus implanting himself directly into the account.  [00:31:03] Tony Arsenal: Mm-hmm.  [00:31:04] Shepherd Imagery Stakes [00:31:04] Jesse Schwamb: At the same time, though, he's drawing on all the things you just said he does, especially with this allusion to shepherding, which would've been, of course, common throughout. So it seems to me a lovely bridge to all of the overt parables he's just told, but now he's bringing them all together and placing himself clearly as, like, the interpreter, as the identifier of all the things, as the one to seal up all of the edges, as it were. So it's clear that this is about the end times. All of these were all about the end times and about Jesus' role in them. And so of course here he identifies himself as the eschatological judge just to make it clear. He's the one who sits on his glorious throne, and that's significant, and that's why I think we sometimes feel like, well, this is not a parable because he's, he's being very, like, Christologically certain and direct here. You know, throughout scripture the final judgment is God's prerogative alone, but the Father has committed all that judgment to the Son, and here's Jesus affirming that. And so again, like Reformed theology, in all our conversations we've consistently emphasized that this text is in many ways, like, proof of Christ's full deity and his role as mediatorial king, and he's exercising his office as the judge at his return in glory. And though, like you said, at the same time, here's the cool parable kind of scent or flavor is you get all these nations, every person who has ever lived, not merely Israel or merely the church. And how does Jesus describe this? He goes back into parabolic language. And we got the shepherd imagery that- Yeah is, like, similar to Ezekiel 34 where God himself is judging between the sheep of his flock. And that separation, the shockingness of it, it's immediate, it's binary. There's no third category. There's only two eternal destinies. There's no purgatory, no middle ground, no post-mortem opportunity for repentance. So all that's at stake. And then again, the beauty of the language itself or the setup of the construction of the story as it unfolds is that both groups- Get the same speech with a change in do or do not, but they both ask the same question from, like, wildly different perspectives and standings. And that's the beautiful- Yeah thing to make reconciliation over is what does all this mean then? How is all this established and how is this final judgment come to be such that there are sheep and goats if, in fact, they're both doing the same things theoretically, or they're at least both asking the same questions of, well, when did this ever actually occur? That, that's what's for us to unpack either way.  [00:33:29] All Nations Gathered [00:33:29] Tony Arsenal: Yeah, and b- before we jump into, um, into the parable itself and start to unpack that, the other element that I think is worth, uh, and this just came to me so hopefully I'm not on too far of a, of a limb here. But the other element that I think is worth at least commenting on, um, we've, we've remarked, especially in these last three eschatological, um, parables, how much these are directed at the religious leaders, right? Right. The, the, the people are, um, the, the- the parables are told, um, in the context and sort of following up on these, this real directed, um, assault against the religious leaders who thought they were the ones, right? They're the ones that have a claim to the Kingdom of Heaven, they're the ones that, um, are the, you know, they're the ones that think they're doing the right thing, they're the ones that are ushering in God's kingdom. This little phrase here, "gathered all the nations," would also have really stuck in the craw of the religious leaders, right? Because the word for nations that's translated here is the same word that would el- elsewhere get translated as Gentiles, right? And the word people, when it says, "He will separate the people," that, that word people doesn't actually exist in the Greek. So if you translate this very literally, it'd say, "Before him will, will be gathered all nations, and he will separate them one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats." Now, I don't wanna go the route of saying, like, this is a parable about, like, which pe- people group will be brought into the kingdom and which won't, and I've read some that go that direction. I don't wanna go there. But this idea that, like, even in the final judgment, the people who are in view here are the Gentiles, right? Right. I think most Jewish, particularly the, the Pharisees and the Sadducees hearing this, would've, would've read this and would've read ta ethnos, and would not have thought nations the way we do. Certainly would not have thought of, like, modern nation states. They might have been thinking maybe, like, people groups in general, but they would be thinking more along the lines of, like, Psalm, Psalm 2, like, "Why do the nations rage?" kind of nations. Why do the Gentiles rage? Why do the peoples plot in vain? They would've been thinking th- this, this, uh, judgment almost, at least on the face of it, almost excludes the Jews entirely when you think about it this way. It's really now sort of, like, zooming out where at the very least, at the minimal least, the Jews are just another people group within this broader judgment of the people group. Right. So again, like, we've seen this theme that Christ is continually expanding the scope of what is considered to be the Kingdom of Heaven to include not just the Jewish people, um, but all nations, all people groups, all Gentiles and Jews alike. And in a very real sense, um, and I wanna be careful how I've said this, I know I've commented this in the past, there's a very real sense of anti-Semitism that is prominent in- reform, quote-unquote reformed circles right now that is just vile and disgusting and sinful, and has no place in any sort of Biblical Christianity. But there is a reality that the Jewish people, broadly speaking, um, rejected the Messiah, at least while he was here on Earth. Um, relatively speaking, very few Jewish people, especially in the Jewish elite, like the leadership class, accepted Christ for who he was while he was here. Many Jews came to faith through the ministry of Peter, uh, and, and even through the ministry of Paul, even though he was an apostle to the Gentiles. So it's not as though it remained the case, but at this point in Christ's ministry, the Jewish people were by and large were rejecting him as Messiah. And so this idea and, and sort of this like final culmination now saying like he gathered all the, all the Gentiles, all of the peoples, all of the nations. In Jewish, in Jewish language and, and when you look in the Old Testament, and even in some of the New Testament literature, the nations were those people out there. So even if we don't translate this as Gentiles, we don't, we don't take that more like restrictive sense, even then it still implies that Christ is talking about people out there, the non-Jewish nations- Right are being gathered before his throne. And so that's not to say, absolutely not to say that the Jewish people, that, that the Jewish people of his day or the, the... This is where it gets tricky too, 'cause like we think about modern Israel and we, we import our understandings of like nation states. That's not what was in view here. The, the idea of a modern nation state was not a concept that existed in the first century. Um, you might have something like city states, but even that is kind of like a little bit ethereal. The idea here is that all people groups, and maybe, maybe we conceptualize Israel now as one of these people groups, the Israeli Jewish people as one of these people groups. All of those people groups, Jews, Gentiles, Scythians, Athenians, Spartans, like, uh, Ethiopians, you know, all of these different people- Right ... groups that are mentioned in the, the New Testament, all of those peoples, all of those nations are gathered before the throne, and then he will separate them one from another in the same way that a shepherd sep- separates the goats. [00:38:35] Group Judgment Assurance [00:38:35] Tony Arsenal: And yes, I think there is an individualistic, um, judgment element, and this is where I think, um... And, and then I'll, I'll pause for a second. This is where I think we can go wrong reading this as a parable about the individual judgment of individuals in the future That's not really what the language here is supporting. This is supporting sort of a broader group-based judgment, and the grouping is there are those who are sheep and there are those who are goats. But it doesn't appear as though Christ is saying like, "I'm evaluating each individual person, and this person is a sheep, this person is a goat." It's, it's a broader picture that, yes, has some implications for individual personal judgment, but when we read too much of that individual personal judgment into this parable that doesn't seem to be there, that's where we start to, like, rob individual Christians of their assurance. We start to say, like, "Did you do enough? Did you feed enough poor people or did you not?" That's not really, not really what's at stake here, I don't think.  [00:39:40] Jesse Schwamb: No, it's definitely not. It's, it's important to remember just the beauty of, like, the consistent theological thread that runs all the way through the Old Testament, and then that we might expect, of course, to be manifest in Christ's teachings, which happen exactly here. So he is going all the way back to that covenantal promise seed through Abraham, single seed, many people groups, many ethnicities. In this way, the gospel is ethnic inclusive. And so it is, why wouldn't he say that in this way to express that this is exactly from all time what God wanted to do is gather all people groups to himself? Which means then by the time we get to the end of this chapter in verse 46, and there is this righteousness that... or the righteous that lead or go into eternal life, then of course we're led to believe here either directly or implicitly that that means that there would be some for whom the Pharisees would find it's, like, anathema to receive that kind of righteousness and eternal life are the ones in fact who are getting it. And so even that is scandalous. So the, the whole thing is very much a setup, and I think it's the confusion again of this is Jesus saying again to the Sadducees, like, "You are confused. You do not know the power of God. You, you search for it everywhere else but do not find it in front of you. It, it's he who speak to you. I am he. You think you search the scriptures, but you do not know." Everywhere it feels like he's saying that, and here also he's saying that again, but it's in the setup. And I'm with you. I think that there would've been a lot here that would've, like, just come right off his lips that would've been like, "Say what?" Uh, that would've been, like, offensive right off- Yeah ... the top.  [00:41:16] Tony Arsenal: Yeah.  [00:41:17] Sovereign Separation [00:41:17] Tony Arsenal: And the other, the other theme that plays out really loud and clear here, um, as we start to dig into this is, um, there's a sovereignty to this separation that is baked into, um, the king's right to decide who to keep and who to cast away. Right. So I think we, we, um, understandably read into this an assessment of the productivity or the profitability or somehow the, like, merit or worth of the sheep as contrasted to the worth of the goats. Um, and we read into it like the sheep have utility and the goats don't, so the goats get cast into the- Right outer darkness. That's not really, that's not really what's going on here, right? In a, in an agrarian society, like sheep and goats both have utility. It's not as though, like, sheep are worthless and goats aren't. There's a reason people have goats. Um, th- the, the issue here is that the king has decided that there are those on his right and there are those on his left, and the ones on his right he's gonna keep, and the ones on his left he's gonna cast away. And, and so, um, there's this sovereign election and determination that precedes the rest of this, right? It's not as though he's ... And this is where the personal, sort of personal assessment part comes in. He doesn't look at a person and go, "All right, you did a g- enough good works to qualify as a sheep, so you go ahead and go over-" Right and be a sheep. And you didn't do quite enough, so you're actually a goat, so you go over and you be a goat." He looks at, he says, "Y- sheep, goat. Goat, sheep." You know, he, he's separating them out, and then he describes what sheep do versus what goats do. And I, I, like I'm even drawing some of this language out. The sheep goats part of this is actually only, like, a verse and a half. He then flips out of this parabolic language to now go back to the sort of strictly predictive eschatological ex- like explanatory language. So this is what it's like when the Son of Man is on, on his kingdom. He separates sheep and goats. We read into, and maybe with some good reason, but we read into Uh, we read into the fact that the sheeps go to one side, the goats go to another. Then we sort of like attribute the characteristics of those who go to his right to sheep, and we attribute the characteristics... And I think we do this the wrong way. How many sermons have you heard where the whole sermon is about how sheep are obedient, and they're, they're affable, and they listen, and they, they, they are sweet and kind, and goats are stubborn, and they, they just wreck everything, and they don't listen, right? And how many s- how many sermons have you heard where they talk about, like, well, sheep and goats really look the same in the Middle Eastern context, and the only way you can tell them apart is what, by what they do? I think there's probably some, uh, benefit to thinking through those elements, but Christ does not make that point in this parable- Mm ... at least not directly, right? He said, "This is the activity. Imagine a man who has sheep and he has goats. He takes the sheep, he puts them on one side. He takes the goats on another side." That's what the separation at the end of the time, at the end of time will be like. Then he goes straight back out of the parable language into saying, "This is how the king will actually make the distinction.  [00:44:29] Predestination Before Works [00:44:29] Tony Arsenal: The ones on his left, or on his right, he will say, 'Come, you're blessed by my Father. Inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.'" Right? This is predestination language, not eschatological judgment language. The sheep were guaranteed a kingdom from before the foundation of the world. Before they did anything bad or didn't do anything good, they were guaranteed a kingdom from before the foundation of the world. Then he says, he explains to them, like the context that, as you said before, that reveals that they were sheep all along. [00:45:02] Jesse Schwamb: Right.  [00:45:02] Tony Arsenal: It shows them that they were already... Man, I just, just made this connection in my head. This is the parable of the wheat and of the tares- Yep ... coming to fruition- Exactly ... at the end of time. Right. Right? The sheep and the goats were allowed to mingle until the time came when they would be separated, just as the wheat and the tares were allowed to grow up until the time when they would be reaped and separated. This is what's going on. The sheep did things that sheep do. Those on the right did the things that the people on the right would do because they were part of God's blessed kingdom all along.  [00:45:34] Jesse Schwamb: Right.  [00:45:35] Tony Arsenal: And then he goes on to explain what the people on the left did not do, not because now they've been put on the left because they didn't do it, but they were shown to have always been a part of that, part of that population. They were always goats because of these things. This shows that they were goats all along, and they did these things or failed to do these things because they were goats all along.  [00:45:58] Jesse Schwamb: That's right.  [00:45:59] Works Righteousness Trap [00:45:59] Jesse Schwamb: Let me read another verse. "For we labor diligently to write, to persuade our children and also our brethren to believe in Christ and to be reconciled to God. For we know that it is by grace that we are saved after all we can do." My guess is everybody was with me- ... sounded kind of okay until that last part. And if you had that, like, as we say, like, that theological muscle memory that just made you flex or bristle there, or you had the Spidey Sense, as you say, Tony, good, because that's from 2 Nephi 25:23 from the Book of Mormon. And here's what I wanna say that's shocking, is if we read this passage of scripture that we're talking about as if there's something there that we need to do that proves that we've done enough and that somehow God will be pleased with that, even at the end of time in some small way, some modicum, then we're actually acting way more like Mormons than we are like Christians. That's just the bottom line. Yeah. Because Mormons, if you ask about this verse, rather than try to qualify that last statement by saying, "Well, that's misunderstood," or, "It's really not after all you can do," because of course it begs the question how do you know that you've done enough? How you don't- you've done all the things and that you're, you're exhausted. Their explanation of this is to double down on it and say, "Well, the context of that verse is following verse 23 actually does emphasize salvation only coming through Christ, but it also encourages continued observance of the law of Moses in order to be reconciled to God." Because that's all they could do until Christ fulfilled the law through his atonement. Even that is nonsense. So all of this to say, we have to be careful with this because I, I think you're right. We're aligning, we're running right up on this, and that is I would submit to you that we just get distracted because we always, of course, want to bring something to the party here. The, the salvation cake. We wanna, I don't know, we wanna make it, we wanna do. But God is doing all the things on our behalf. And so as a result of that, I think this parable is actually, it's about the divine prerogative and the agency of Christ in judgment at the end which belongs to him and him alone, and not about these actions. But we get caught up in the actions and we're missing this thri- divine prerogative. I also think that Christ gives this to us to reverse it on us and to show us that he sets about all things. It is in fact his foreordination and his providence. By grace we have been saved through faith, and that in providence being predestined is an act of his great love. And so this shows the extent of that love because those whom he has chosen himself are asking in disbelief as if to say, "When did I do the good works that you required?" And he said, "Well, you didn't because you could never do them apart from me."  [00:48:38] Tony Arsenal: Yeah.  [00:48:38] Jesse Schwamb: And so really that's the whole point. It's just so easy for us to get it twisted and say, "Well, doesn't it make sense that there are two groups?" Well, certainly there are in this passage. And doesn't it make good sense that because he said they did things or they didn't do things, then I just need to be about doing those things. And I think that is unfortunately the adventure in missing the point in this passage.  [00:48:58] Tony Arsenal: Yeah. Yeah, I, I agree 100%. And it's funny 'cause you were reading that and I was like What translation of J- of First John is it? It sound, I mean, it sounds like, it sounds like something you'd read in First John It sounds okay  [00:49:09] Jesse Schwamb: until  [00:49:10] Tony Arsenal: the end. Yeah. No, I mean, like, it literally sounds like First John until- Yeah ... you get to that last part.  [00:49:14] Jesse Schwamb: Yes.  [00:49:15] Tony Arsenal: And, and I think you're right that, um, we'll, we'll explore this more next week, but what has always struck me about this passage is that the, the p- the, the people on His right, I've gotta stop saying sheep, because that's... I just made the point that that's not really what's going on. The people on His right who are called into the kingdom because it was prepared for them before the foundation, because they were elected unto that kingdom. The people on His right, they're surprised at the fact that they did these things. And it, I, I think the works righteousness way of reading this is like, "You better earn your salvation. You better get at it because if you haven't fed Jesus in disguise, then you just aren't gonna make it. At the end of the day- Mm ... He's gonna say, 'I never knew you.'" And it, whether intentionally or unintentionally, sometimes I think intentionally, it implies that we, uh, that Jesus comes to know us because we've done good works, right? When we say, "If you don't do these things, then Jesus will say, 'I never knew you,'" then what you're saying is Jesus doesn't know you apart from your good works. Right. And what the Bible says, what this passage says, just right on the face of it, is that the Kingdom of Heaven was prepared for those whom Christ has elected before the foundation of the world, or who the Father has elected, who are blessed by the Father before the foundation of the world. Now, obviously the Father had to know those people in some sense-  [00:50:43] Jesse Schwamb: That's  [00:50:43] Tony Arsenal: right ... before the foundation of the world in order for them to be blessed by Him and for Him to prepare a kingdom. So then to come back to the end of it and say, "Well, there are some of those, uh, who the Father never knew because they didn't do enough work," well, the problem is that those who did the good work, the Father knew before they did the good works. They didn't merit the good works. I mean- Right ... it's funny you, you bring up the, the Mormons, and that's certainly true, but, like, you could substitute in, at least on this regard, right? There are meaningful, important differences between the groups I'm about to say and Mormons, that would be the dividing line between those who are possibly saved and those who are y- definitely not saved, right? You could substitute Arminians, who wanna say God looks down the corridor of time, and the reason He prepared a kingdom in advance for them from the foundation of the world is 'cause He saw that they would do these things that would merit salvation, or He saw that they would make the proper decision to receive His grace, right? Or Roman Catholics or Eastern Orthodoxes in a different sense, but similarly who would say like, "Well, yeah, God knows in advance that you're gonna merit salvation, so He prepared- Right ... this kingdom anticipating your merit that you would contribute or your participation or, or whatever." I think in a certain sense, um, you could even apply this to some Lutheran theology, right? Which would say, like, "Well, God prepared this kingdom for you from the foundation of the world because he looked down the corridor of time and he understood that you were not going to resist the grace he gave," right? You were not gonna reject his grace. Um, it really truly only is Reformed theology that can say, "No, God prepared this kingdom in advance for you, and it was the preparation of that kingdom that brought you through this such that you did the good works that you did, such that you made the wise decision to follow Christ that you did. That is caused by the fact that God prepared a kingdom for you in advance, not that you somehow caused this kingdom to be prepared for you." A- and aga- again, again, like, this is dicey. It gets into, like, logical ordering, but fundamentally, a- as far as I can understand it, every competing view besides sort of a Calvinistic understanding of predestination election has to say that in some sense God prepares the kingdom for you as a response to something you have done, or chose- Right to do or chose not to do. The reality is that this passage is saying, "No To those who are on the right. He didn't separate them based on the fact that they did these things. He just said, "You are on the right, and now to those who are on the right, I say to you, come into the kingdom that is blessed. You're blessed by my Father. Come into this kingdom prepared from the foundation of the world." So I think, you know, we're c

Which Bible translation does GotQuestions.org think is best? Which Bible translations does GotQuestions.org and BibleRef.com use? What are the different Bible translation methodologies?

This week's Torah portion covers Numbers 25:10–30:1, and it is titled Pinchas. Phinehas is the name used in English Bibles, so that's the name I will use in this podcast. Phinehas was a prominent biblical priest whose leadership started in the wilderness wanderings and continued into the early period of the Judges. He was the grandson of Aaron and the eventual High Priest of Israel. Phinehas is most famous for a violent moment of righteous rage. However, the Bible offers a much longer testament to the fullness of his character, telling a bigger story of his faithful obedience to God.Support the showConsider donating (one-time or recurring) to www.TheJerusalemConnection.us so we can continue to bring valuable content via podcasts free to the public. Help us increase our audience reach and improve production quality. Your donation is 100% tax-deductible to our non-profit organization. Bible Fiber and The Red Alert Report are available via YouTube and all major podcast platforms. The Jerusalem Connection also engages in additional educational and advocacy programs. Check our "Projects" tab for all the endeavors we invite YOU to be part of.

Text the Show⭐️ Affiliate item of the week: The Lexham English Septuagint (LES) is a new translation of the Septuagint, the Greek version of the Old Testament writings used during New Testament times and in the early church. Retaining the familiar forms of personal names and places, the LES gives readers the ability to read it alongside their favored English Bible. Translated directly from Swete's edition of the Septuagint, the LES maintains the meaning of the original text, making the Septuagint accessible to readers today. https://amzn.to/44wwLLUNo guest tonight so we will be going on a few journey's with you all back in time and looking ahead to a future that is taking shape right in front of us today. Join us live in the chats, phone line will be open for you to call in 248-238-8155.The Secret History of Lyme Disease and Biological Weapons article."Are modern alien-hybrid stories like Raechel's Eyes simply the latest version of an ancient narrative that once appeared as Watchers, Nephilim, fae, changelings, demigods, and hidden bloodlines? Have the entities changed—or just the names we've given them?"What if the world ended... and nobody noticed? What if history changed, but only some people remembered the way it used to be? SUPPORTBuy Me A Coffee http://buymeacoffee.com/DangerousinfopodcastSubscribeStar http://bit.ly/42Y0qM8Super Chat Tip https://bit.ly/42W7iZHBuzzsprout https://bit.ly/3m50hFTPaypal http://bit.ly/3Gv3ZjpPatreon http://bit.ly/3G3 SMART is the acronym that was created by technocrats that have setup the "internet of things" that will eventually enslave humanity to their needs. Support the showLeave Voicemail: https://www.speakpipe.com/DangerousInfoWebsite https://www.dangerousinfopodcast.com/Discord chatroom: https://discord.gg/8feGHQQmwgEmail the show dangerousinfopodcast@protonmail.comJoin mailing list http://bit.ly/3Kku5YtWatch LiveYouTube https://www.youtube.com/@DANGEROUSINFOPODCASTRumble https://bit.ly/4q1Mg7Z Twitch https://www.twitch.tv/dangerousinfopodcastPilled.net https://pilled.net/profile/144176  Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/DangerousInfoPodcast/SocialsInstagram https://www.instagram.com/dangerousinfo/TwitterX https://twitter.com/jaymz_jesseYouTube https://bit.ly/436VExnFacebook https://bit.ly/4gZbjVa

Welcome back to Gnostic Insights and to the Gnostic Reformation on Substack. Last week was part one of my interview with Bishop Nathan Wilson of the Gnostic Union, and he explained to us a bit about who the Gnostic Union is and what they believe in. At the beginning of that episode, I read from the Gnostic Union website their history and mission statement. And my brother Billy called me up and said, “Oh, but there’s a point of their theology that’s all wrong. I know they’re ecumenical and all, but we mustn’t fall into the error of wrong teaching.” And, you know, I totally agree with that concept, not teaching anything that is incorrect or that doesn’t make sense, according to the Gnosticism that I share with you here. And it created a very large discussion between my brother and me. And I don’t even have enough time in this short introduction to go into the point that Bill brought up out of their statement of beliefs. So we’ll wait and we’ll do that when these interviews are all over and that way we can go into depth and give the topic the attention it deserves. You see, the Gnosticism that I share with you here mostly comes from the Tripartite Tractate of the Nag Hammadi. And the Tripartite Tractate is a very unusual book. It is not a book of mythology. It is not a book of ancient myths concerning angels and demigods and great battles in heaven and so forth. It’s not that kind of book. We think of it as physics. It’s literally a book that describes the cosmology and the cosmogony, that is, how consciousness came to be transmitted from the base state of consciousness that we call the Father or the Source, and all the way downstream into, ultimately, us. We’re sitting here talking and thinking about it. This is pure consciousness we’re talking about. It’s not particularities. You understand? Gnosis itself we think of as that river of consciousness. That’s what gnosis is. So, I often say, if my dog can’t understand the gnosis, it’s not really gnosis—it's a knowledge claim. If a blade of grass or a tree in the forest can’t bask in the gnosis, then it’s not really gnosis. It’s a human knowledge claim. This is the reason why here at Gnostic Insights and on the Gnostic Reformation, we do not dwell in the history of things. We dwell in the understanding or the gnosis itself. The cosmogony and cosmology of Gnosticism that I share with you here is a logical step-by-step rollout of the consciousness of the Father or the Source. It doesn’t really matter what you call it. It’s the base state. It’s the matrix of consciousness itself and how it flows down to us. There are necessary steps described in the Tripartite Tractate for how that consciousness is differentiated and particularized and then rolled down. And how it is that we material beings are different than the ethereal beings. How could that have possibly happened? It’s like that. It’s a logical progression that necessarily comes out of an a priori statement of consciousness as the ground state. That’s quite a bit different than mythologies of how these angels fit in with these gods and goddesses down here on earth and so forth. Because those particularities definitely come out of the mind of humans. They can be inspired. Okay, I’ll give you that. But they are knowledge claims. They’re not necessarily gnosis and because of that they can go wrong. They can be wrong. Whereas starting with this a priori notion of consciousness ending up in us and how does that occur? By what means does that possibly happen? And how is it that we earthlings plug into that illimitable consciousness? That’s a different thing. That’s a description of process. That’s an understanding or a gnosis of what it is that we are part of. 15 steps in Gnostic Cosmology So I’m not knocking the history or the particularities that Bishop Wilson shares with us. But the gnosis that leads you to enlightenment is simply this: We come from the Father [El Elyon] or from the Source or from the Mother-Father or from the Great Mother—whatever you want to call it. We come from that Source, that unlimited well of consciousness and life and power and might and love. And then we will return to that. That’s all you have to know. We come from Above and we return to Above. And with that knowledge, that’s your base state. That’s what the blades of grass and the dogs and the trees all understand. All the rest of the particularities of who and why and how, those are just details being filled in. Some of them out of gnosis, but most of them out of tradition or history. So we’ll be proceeding now into part two of my interview with Bishop Nathan Wilson of the Gnostic Union. And later on, we’re going to talk some more about the difference between mythology and the process of gnosis. That is what this podcast specializes in. That’s what my brother Bill and I have parsed out and discovered out of direct mining of the Tripartite Tractate. Our gnosis comes from that and it proceeds in an orderly fashion that doesn’t require any extra research. It’s all about gnosis and what must be. But here, let’s go back to this interview with Brother Wilson. **************************************************************** Cyd: Well, tell me more about your Bible that you wrote. What do you call it? You call it… Bishop Nathan Wilson: I call it The Gnostic Christian Truth Bible. I actually asked one of the older bishops that trained me, Bishop Jason, and he started that. So, I like the name. So, I thought, okay, I want to put Gnostic Christian in there. So, I was going to call it first the Truth Bible. He requested that, but I thought, well, Gnostic Christian makes it less likely for the Catholics to come after me as well, and the Protestants. Many do not like my translations. They are quite upset that I’ve done this, but they don’t put too much light on me. So, it’s best not to give me too much attention, basically. So, the less attention I have, the less people know about this, but which is something unique about mine. I don’t just offer my translations. I offer the original Koine Greek with it, so they can look at the actual text. So, even if my translation, say, could be wrong, they could look straight at that text and go argue with the text that they see, which I also wanted to include for their own reason, and when I included the alternative English, it’s so I might read it one way, but someone else is going to read it another way, and that can teach me something new. I feel, oh, I didn’t understand it like that. So, that’s why I wanted to keep that in there too, and a couple of words I kept in there were Greek. So, I kept Logos. I kept Kosmos, Zoe, Sophia, Archon. Magus. I kept all these words. So, very, very Gnostic, and you won’t find these in the English translations. They have gone out of their ways to censor them. I also kept the word daemon or daimon, daemon, so I did not put that down as demon because that’s not what it means. So, I kept the original Greek context of use, and I also add a Greek, Koine Greek, index in my translation so people can actually look at little snippets of what these words mean. So, I have some things in here. So, this is just on one page on basically all Greek with English meaning. So, there’s Logos, which I explained means God’s word, God’s authority, God’s reasoning, song, and speech, and utterance. So, when you see Christians speak that Jesus is speaking the Word, or in the beginning there was Word, they are doing a disservice to what’s being implied. This is the word of God. Very different, and even the word God we use is very English. I did keep up, but for the English sake of things. So, English people wouldn’t freak out too much on me, and another thing is also a safer mouthful, because this Word means supreme deity, deity of deities, which is very interesting. Otherwise, we would go into a god, which is lesser gods as well. So, we have a pantheon. So, it was very different, like even monotheism would evolve into what we think it is today, but in the ancient past with ancient Jewish people, they did believe in other gods, it’s just they chose to worship one god. So, this would be not the same as monotheism now, where you completely reject them as non-existent. This wasn’t that case. So, they had a very different mind. So I kept Sophia being wisdom. I mentioned this is how this is feminine wisdom, God’s feminine wisdom, coming from the Hebrew word Chokmah. Sometimes those are called Chokmah. So, I kept that in there as Sophia. Zoe, I kept too, meaning basically when you see eternal Zoe, that’s eternal life. So, that’s implying the feminine wisdom again, but also the spiritual benefits one receives with a spiritual relationship with God, or what’s with mine. So, I kept that in there. So, it’s very feminine, and that’s being removed. They would not want you to know that life is Zoe, and there’s other words they could have used for life or soul, but they chose to use the word Zoe, and that’s important. So, I kept that in there. And I’ve also got Megas. I’ve already mentioned that, but Magus comes from—here’s two words that are entwined, but the thing was the church has used a later translation, which would be terrible, but that’s kind of wrong, and this is because the language would evolve over time. It came to words Megus and Magos, which basically would be Magi, and then great and powerful, larger than life. So, Jesus was also called Iesous Magos. So, Jesus the Great, Jesus the Wise, has been censored because of Magus, and they don’t want you to know about Simon Magus. They don’t want you to know anything about Gnosticism. So, this has been censored, and I’ve also put some passages where find this. I kept Daemon in here, or Diamon. Gehenna, I also translated in here. I kept Gehenna. I did not use hell because hell is German. It’s realm of light in German, so it’s a Germanic word. So, I kept the word Gehenna, which is ultimately what we would kind of call hell, but it’s not what people think it is. That’s an evolved tradition. So, Gehenna or even Abaddon, these are two different words, but the same thing. Gehenna was the place where the soul was destroyed or purified. So, the text can translate to eternal punishment, but that’s not strictly bound to it. That’s more would be a later theology bound to that translation where it means period of time. So, it doesn’t necessarily mean all these different things. It’s like the word soma where it’s all about Jesus’ body. It can be living body, dead body, or a carcass, or even the living body of the church, which is more symbolic, but fascinating. I also kept in here a couple words, such as I explained Hades, which is mentioned with Sheol and how that’s separate from Gehenna. I’ve kept Helios, Selene, Astron, or Asterios, as well as Aletheia. These words are very interesting because they are all gods. They’re all Greco-Roman gods. So, the scholars or, I really should say, a Christian apologist, that state there’s no pagan gods in the New Testament—they are entirely wrong. It’s just that they have looked at it in a modern Greek eye instead of looking at an ancient past—they would have seen the gods being mentioned. So that’s very interesting. So when Jesus says that the stars and the sun is falling, he’s not speaking about the sun and stars. He’s speaking about the Helios, the Roman sun god is falling, and the stars and goddesses falling, as well as Selene, the moon, so the moon goddess. That’s the falling of the pagan Roman gods that was subjecting the Jewish people. So very different theology. So theology matters. So we have to look at how people believed back these times. [Jesus speaks of the stars, moon, and sun in Matthew 24:29, Mark 13:25, Luke 21:25. Assigning them as gods and goddesses is Bishop Wilson's interpretation.] The Jewish people did not like the Romans. Not saying that all of them did not. We had some that were pro-Roman. One of the Romans that was involved in the Jewish revolt, fighting against the Jewish people, was Jewish, which is cool. And he was related to Philo of Alexandria. So very interesting. I think he might be his grandson. Cyd: Let me jump in for a second as we’re speaking about gods and the God Above All Gods versus lesser gods. Is it your thought that the God of the Jews of the Old Testament, Jehovah, is a lesser god as opposed to the God Above All Gods? Bishop Nathan Wilson: Yes. Cyd: Okay, so Jehovah is the tribal god of the Old Testament? Bishop Nathan Wilson: Yes, a bit of a mix. So there’s two gods. Well, there’s a couple, if you’ve got to go every single god being mentioned. But what they’re describing is, say, Deuteronomy 32:8, you have El Elyon dividing up the nations according to the Elohim being children of El, and Yahweh received his inheritance from the most high God. So Yahweh was more like a guardian deity, basically. He was a brother of Baal. But some Canaanites believed that Yahweh was Baal. So Yahweh kind of came later after Baal. But the first to worship Yahweh were the Sashu of Yahweh. So they were Canaanite raiders. Hebrew was also a Canaanite language.  [The earliest trace of Yahweh isn't Israelite—it's desert-born. Egyptian inscriptions speak of the “Shasu of YHW,” nomadic peoples on the edges of Canaan, sometimes regarded as raiders. It suggests the name of Yahweh may have emerged out of the wilderness before it was ever claimed by Israel. Even Hebrew itself comes out of the same Canaanite linguistic world.] So I see the views—the ones that were worshipping El would be the ones that would become the Essenes or Jewish mystics. So the Essenes worshipped El. They didn’t worship Yahweh. They viewed Yahweh as a lesser god, which is one reason they challenged the temple, because they viewed, you guys aren’t worshipping God, you’re worshipping the lesser deity, you’re worshipping an angel. And so they rejected the temple. And the priesthood was corrupt. So then you also had the Magharians or Magarites. They were first century BC era Jews. They were proto-Gnostic, so that’s a scholar term. So they were Jewish mystics. They believed that Yahweh was a demiurge and that he was a lieutenant. So not an evil demiurge, but he was ignorant of the most high Father El Elyon, but that’s not a name to them. That was just a title meaning most high God. So they didn’t believe in God with a name, the unknowable Father, they believed was beyond sex as well. So Mother-Father, basically. So beyond all things. Too perfect to interfere with matter. And they believed that the Torah had been corrupted. So that’s fascinating. So that’s a group that we want to talk about. So we had about 25 different versions of Judaism during that time with all different beliefs. So what type of Jew was Jesus? This makes a big, big difference. So not all Jews worshipped Yahweh. Some viewed him as a lesser God and some viewed him as the devil, which is whack. So the only Gnostics or proto-Gnostics would use that word devil at that time. So we have the wisdom of Solomon, which is the first text adored by Christians that they would say, look, this is our Messiah mentioning he’s a dying and rising Messiah calling himself the Son of God and he’s been crucified. So this means that just like our text, he would die a shameful death. But this text mentions that through death, the devil enters the world. So the Pharisees didn’t believe in the devil. The Sadducees didn’t either. But what’s interesting about the Pharisees and Sadducees and the Herodians, which kind of made up both these groups, they were a part of both, just the Herodians mostly supported King Herod. They believed that either King Herod was the Messiah or his family would be, or they belonged to the Sadducees and didn’t believe in a Messiah. So the Sadducees didn’t believe in angels. They didn’t believe in an afterlife. They believed once you were dead, the soul turned to dust. God was too perfect to interfere with humans. So that’s an interesting belief. But we had different subsects of Sadducees that had a different opinion to that. They believed that God did interfere with humans, but we had total free will. So they could interfere with some things, but there was no Messiah. There was no angels. So they believed that a human could be a messenger of God. That was about it. So like Moses. Then you had the Pharisees. They believed that Satan served Yahweh. His job was to test humanity or seduce humanity away from God. So that way mankind had free will. But some Pharisees didn’t believe that. They believed that Satan, Hasatan, was just symbolic for mankind’s inclination towards evil. So they didn’t believe in an evil being. So their belief was that God ordained good and evil, basically, would use evil for his own will. So that’s trippy, very trippy. So the Pharisees had a very different belief. They didn’t believe in the adversary against God. They didn’t believe in fallen angels. Later on, they would take on this belief, borrowing it from mystics and zealots. So funny enough, they would be influenced by Jesus’ teachings, such as saving a life on the Sabbath. The Pharisees would not do that. But to be fair, some Essenes wouldn’t do that either. Some Essenes were very warlike, wanting to join God’s angelic army fighting at the Armageddon of the last days of the world. But these mystics, they are the only groups that believed in fallen angels and believed in a place of punishment. The only groups. And that’s fascinating. So they believed in a physical adversary against God. And these beliefs are carried on in the Christianity with the Armageddon day, or even the belief that God basically allows Satan to do what he wants, but he’s going to conquer over him. That was an Essene belief. They believed that Belial was the adversary against God, a fallen angel, leader of the fallen angels, and God would allow him the sin because he would destroy him in the end. So that was an Essene belief, but not all that belief. Some believed that basically fallen angels chose to rebel against God, so they had free will and that God would overcome them in the end. So that’s different. So we have to look at those beliefs because that makes a big difference in theology as well. And one reason I chose to keep daemon or daimon in the text is because this doesn’t mean Jesus is casting out evil demons, but rather, well, the ghost of the mystic belief of pagan gods were fallen angels. So he’s casting out pagan gods, or he’s just casting out unclean spirits, depending on what the definition of word is, because that daimon or unclean spirit, for instance, isn’t always referenced to a pagan god. It’s just someone who’s died vengeful or angry at God, and is now just a ghost causing haunting. So it depends on how it’s being used. So I kept those words in there. So if the word said unclean spirit, I kept that as unclean spirit. But if it was going into a daimon for a pagan god, basically I’ll keep it as that daimon, so they could choose how they’re going to read it. Because sometimes you’re dealing with two things at once. Sometimes you’re dealing with an unclean spirit, then a pagan god’s being mentioned too. So this archon ruler’s having little other minions subject under him. So we even have an archon ruler being mentioned. So an archon of the daemons, ruler of pagan gods. So other gods had dominions, basically. So they viewed these other gods having their own realms of power, which we also see in the Gnostic text. So I kept all that. I also kept the archon of the synagogue, which is a ruler of the synagogue. So it’s not always a bad thing. Sometimes it’s just political rulers that are mentioned. So an archon of the Gentiles, for instance, is just a ruler of Gentiles, just a politician. I have kept archons in the sense of Yahweh somewhat, I believe, as being the devil. Because in John 8:44, we have Jesus going up to the Pharisees and Sadducees and Herodians who made up the high priesthood. He says, You are of your father, the devil. But if only these Gnostic Jews believed in the devil and their God is Yahweh, who’s he calling devil? And then when the daemons are calling him Son of the most high God, they’re calling him huios, which means son. Huios tou theou tou hypsistou, which is Greek for Son of the most high God. But if you put this in the Hebrew, it’s Son of El Elyon. So this is what the pagan gods are calling him. So the lesser gods. And then he’s also saying that we’re all the children of El Elyon, which is also fascinating. And also the word for son they’re using just means child. It can be male or female. But again, they’re wanting a male audience. So they restricted it, which is a shame. Cyd: How about the word aeon? A E O N. What do you do with that word? You know, in my work with the Tripartite Tractate, it seems to me that most references of aeon in the New Testament translate it as time, a period of time, or the end of the ages, the ages. Whereas I tend to see it always as eternal beings from the ethereal plane. What do you think about that? Bishop Nathan Wilson: I love that. I think that too. I think it’s a mixture of all these things, which is also, I keep, it depends on the context of use. But a lot of times you do see the text that is referring to a higher being, which is beautiful to mention, especially when you’re looking at Gnostic works. But you do see this in the New Testament as well. So you see one text mentioning, for instance, who is this Sophia and this higher power? And that’s how the text can translate too, which is fascinating. So that means who’s this unknown higher power. And then it mentions about the Aeon. And so you see all this sort of stuff being mentioned. Yes, it means an eternal being or an angelic being, but it can also mean eternity or a period of time. So depending on the context of use. So words have power as well. So that’s interesting. So again, how it’s used can make a world of a difference. And it’s interesting when they’re using certain words because there are some times that they could have chosen to use a different word. So when they’ve used a certain word like that, that can change the entire context of meaning. Cyd: Right. Like saying there’s some reference to judgment at the end of the age. And I’m always thinking that it’s judgment from the Aeons when I see that. But I’m not translating from scratch, I’m taking biblical translation, so what do I know? Bishop Nathan Wilson: You’re spot on though. So you’re correct. So it can translate that as well. And we have to realize that we have different versions of Christianity. So that’s certainly appropriate for a first century understanding. Most people are looking at from fourth century. So you’re looking at it from a first century point of view. And so you’re ahead of others in that sort of case, which is beautiful to see. So that’s rare. And I chose to keep that for that reason. So people can have their own conclusions, not having it forced onto them. Cyd: You are very much into the history of things. You’re an historian. I am not at all interested in history per se. I’m always talking about what other people believed in other times. That is not pertinent to our gnosis here and now. So what do you view the purpose of this deep historical knowledge that you have concerning the Jews and the Essenes and whatnot? And is it necessary to go into all of that? Bishop Nathan Wilson: If you want to, I guess, teach from a historical perspective as well as a spiritual one, then yes. But if you want to go for spiritual, you can just go by the heart. There were plenty of spiritual teachers that were illiterate, that could not read, that could not write, and they had a beautiful message. So there’s something more powerful that we can receive within that you won’t obtain from books. But ultimately, you can also have wisdom gained from books. It can be a form of worship or a form of connecting with the divine as well. We have many forms of worship or many forms of experience what’s divine or having that intimate moment with what’s divine to reflect and to deepen our purpose. I wanted to know the historical man we call Jesus and ultimately put into practice what he put into practice. So I wanted to look at the history side of things and especially also, what’s another word I would like to use, decondition myself, decondition past beliefs that were harmful, that did not serve me and ultimately not serving others, and also find out that I was wrong about many things, which I wanted to know as well. So what brought me to this was to know the man we call Jesus, Yeshua, or Yehoshua, whichever term you like, whichever name you want to use. So I want to know not just that, but I want to know his practices, what he did with his life, how his first followers lived, how the first Christians lived, and what I could use for my own spiritual path and how I could put that into practice. So that’s why I want to look at the history side of things. I think if you want to put into practice the different techniques of all the many different Gnostics, then you’re going to have to look at some of the history side of things to find those practices. That doesn’t mean that every single practice is necessary for you. So what works for me might not work for others. What works for others might not work for me. So double-edged sword. Cyd: What sort of practices are you referring to? Are these rituals? What’s the practices? Bishop Nathan Wilson: I go into some of the ancient rituals as well. Some of them I might look at the prayers that they would use, the diet they would take, or means of worship. So how they would go about their forms of private practice. So that sort of stuff. And then I might apply it into my own life and see how I can go. There’s still more I’d like to go and check out more. So I’m still studying a couple of some of the ancient practices as well. So from different or religious perspectives as well. And then I can see how I can put it to my own form of use. So I looked at a lot of Jewish Christians, they would do the shema for instance, before their meditations. And I’ll do that as well. [“Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God, the Lord is one… You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength…”] They also did breath works back then, which would also induce a sense of intoxication if you want to use, or light headness. And in turn that can also open a new state of reality. So entering the spiritual realm can be a vehicle, if you will, to get there. So to open the mind. And that’s also a practice that’s been used in ancient past. And we can certainly use that today. We have modern practices, say like Wim Hof, that teach breath work in meditation. That’s also useful. So sometimes looking at the past, we do see stuff in today’s world that’s not really new. It’s just being basically reentering this world again, from past knowledge gained of old. And I find that in a lot of Gnostic stuff. When you look at history, you kind of see that Gnostics kind of did a lot of things first, that what we’re doing now that we think is modern, but it’s not. It’s ancient. Cyd: That’s why conventional Christians who read my books, they say, oh, you’re just all new age. And I’m like, no, it’s not new age at all. It’s ancient. Bishop Nathan Wilson: Which is a shame that Christians have been shut off into their own world, which is kind of funny. I actually tell most Christians that they are, in fact, new age, because these beliefs are ancient. And what they are going by is, depending on what version of Christianity, if you’re Protestant, that’s 16th century, I believe. Non-denominal, 18th century. Protestant, 16th century. Catholicism, late second century. Orthodoxy, as we know it now, would be about 14th century. But older Orthodoxy, which would be the split from the Catholic church, is fourth century. So it’s when you go to Gnostic Christians, first century, and we’re really the only groups that are surviving, the Jewish Christians got killed. They ultimately were wiped out or would convert to mainstream Judaism or would become Christian or Islam, they would follow as well. So some would be converted to Muslims, which is also interesting as well. We as Gnostics were also harmed by these other groups, by Catholics, Protestants, Muslims as well. At one point Zoroastrians, but that was only one particular era. And we’ve basically arisen from all that, from that underground, and we’ve still survived, which is fascinating. It’s beautiful that we have. And also the texts that have been rediscovered, this is not accidental. This is all happening for a reason. What’s divine is experiencing itself where it can experience itself and express itself again safely in today’s world. In ancient past, it was dangerous to have diversion after the fourth century, which is a shame because the Catholics would kill those who came before them. They didn’t like that. And they even knew that some of the Gnostics, they had older writings, but they still denied them, which is funny. So it’s why such the hate, which is such a shame. So it goes back to that control of power, my way or the highway, basically. And it was never meant to be like that. It was meant to be very universal. It was meant to be very diverse. The first Christians were Gnostics and Jewish Christians, a mixture between strict law observing Jews and a mixture of Gentiles. And then you had the Jewish mystics that became the Christian mystics, which is fascinating. That was the original groups. And the original groups would argue amongst each other. The strict law observing Jews wanted circumcision, where the mystics said, no, no circumcision of the hearts, let the Gentiles come. That’s fine. So even when we look at the word, say, ethnos, for instance, in the Gospels, when you see kingdom against kingdom, nation against nation, these are the same things. So what they’re actually talking about is Gentile against Gentile and kingdom against kingdom. So the Jewish people didn’t have a kingdom at this stage. It was a mixture of Judea, Galilee and Samaria. So we’re the Samaritans. So that’s also something to take into account, too. So they didn’t like that. They were looking for a messiah to reunify the Jewish people, restore the Jewish faith and make Israel a kingdom again. And so some of them didn’t like the fact that Jesus wasn’t after this, for instance. So they didn’t like some of these teachings. It was a bit different. But if you look at the mystics, they had a very different interpretations. They did believe in a renewal of the Jewish faith, but a renewal back to El Elyon and a rejection of Yahweh. So that’s very different. So when you look at repentance, for Israel to repent, meaning for all of Israel to return back to El Elyon. And if you look at for the Gentiles conversion, that would be referring to not converting to any religion, but converting to God. So God outside religion. So fascinating. So you see all this in the original text. Cyd: And why do you suppose, this might be an unanswerable question, but why do you suppose conventional modern Christians are so, you know, extremely antagonistic towards Gnostic Christians? Is it fear or what? Bishop Nathan Wilson: Well, they’ve been told you're the enemy, basically. And yes, some of it is fear. Fear as well of the unknown. And also because of the need of an opponent. So they believe that they are doing a good thing. And if they don’t do this, they can be punished. So it’s the case of where a victim becomes an abuser. So most Christians have never even heard about Gnostics. It’s only the real ones who are into spiritual warfare, basically, and really full on extremist dogmatic ones that are familiar with, and apologetics. But they are now feeling like they’re losing the battle because more people were interested in Gnosticism and especially interested in other Jewish groups and the Dead Sea Scrolls, as well as the Nag Hammadi. So they’re realizing their other texts and there’s other options now. And that’s great. And regarding even my translations, one reason I chose to do it that I did, I found out that no modern English Bible translates from one source material. They’re all a mixture of different sources. So we have the Codex Sinaiticus mixed with the Latin Vulgate, mixing with Germanic copies, and then mixing ancient Koine Greek into modern Hebrew, putting it back into Greek. And that’s not good at all. So we’re just changing—we’re swapping chapters because we feel uncomfortable with them. So I was mortified when I was looking at that. And so I realized I couldn’t trust basically my Bible anymore. So I thought, well, I’m making this myself. And then I thought, well, I’m going to release it. Let’s go and share it too and do what they will with it. And it opened a lot of doorways to me, actually. So that’s one reason I wanted to give that out so people can have their own faith in their own interpretation and also believe in the message of Yeshua, bringing people back to the Most High God, to the Unknowable God, the Living Father, the Mother-Father. And we also see the Mother being mentioned in other texts too. It’s just mostly blocked out by mainstream Christianity, which is unfair, unfair to women and unfair to humanity with their approaches. It’s been very violent. So we need to remove that violence because that’s nothing to do with Yeshua’s teachings. He didn’t teach us to go around fighting each other. He said, Those who are for me are with me. They don’t understand his message. They very much follow the Catholic teachings of Paul that they’ve been given. And so they can look at the Gnostic teachings of Paul as well, which are also in there. Paul’s letters, we now know they’re mostly all forgeries. We don’t have any original copies either. They’re all later fourth century and we have some second century fragments. But the oldest reference to Paul is from the Ten Letters of Marcion. And he’s the man who compiled the first Christian Bible. And some people can argue, some people don’t believe he was a Gnostic. Others think he was a Gnostic. I think he was a type of Gnostic because he believed in a demiurge. So he believed that the God of the Jews was Yahweh and not the Supreme God of Jesus. That is a very Gnostic belief. But the thing is, the word Gnostic was given to us by the Catholic church, was a way of separating us and identifying us. But we wear it as a badge of honor because we understand they’re just calling us knowledgeable Christians, which is kind of funny. So language is powerful and the Catholic church certainly forgot it. So because of them, we now use daimon as demon. So they’ve basically demonized Jesus. They’ve demonized the Holy Spirit, which is their greatest sin. And they’ve demonized God and every other God. So they don’t know what damage they’ve done. And that’s not good. So I wanted to reverse that damage and bring people back to what I believe is the message of Yeshua, of Jesus, and to have their own spiritual relationship with God, an individual relationship, which is something that I want to see more of. That’s a very beautiful thing. You can’t define that intimate experience without living it. Cyd: Right, right. Well, that's all we have time for in this episode. We'll pick it up again next week for part three of my interview with Bishop Nathan Wilson of The Gnostic Union Church.  I like the way he talks, huh? Until next week, onward and upward and God bless us all.

Happy 250th Anniversary of 'Murica. You're in for a treat . This is part 2 of multiple on the Second Chapter "The English and American Public Culture." This episode broaches the English Bible's profound role on American Literacy Education, discussing pp. 29-34. "The American Founders read the Bible," Oxford University Rhodes Scholar Daniel Dreisbach says in his first sentence of his Oxford University Press book. "They knew the Bible from cover to cover." "Its ideas shaped their habits of mind." "The Bible left its mark on the political culture of the era." Dreisbach's first sentence in his chapter 2 is: Ready ? "Anglo-Americans are people of the Book, and that Book is the Bible." WOW ! We had the author, Dr. Daniel L. Dreisbach, D.Phil. (Oxford), JD (University of Virginia Law School) on the podcast for Thanksgiving, Fall 2022. We're going to make a fair use, do a transformative reading of the book. We'd like to thank Dr. Dreisbach for writing this, and thank Oxford University Press for making it available. Support publishers when they make something worth reading. Support the publisher and throw some bidness their way. Support your brick and mortar book dealer. This episode was filmed Thursday 28 May 2026 years after Jesus in the backyard of my long-time (nearly a quarter of a century) Epistemology mentor Dr. Doug Geivett (PhD, USC under Dallas Willard), a student himself of the famous late-great Republican professor, the late-great Dallas Willard of USC's Philosophy Department. The Republican Professor is a pro-correctly-and-adequately-articulating-the-Bible's-appropriate-influence-on-American-politics podcast. Therefore, welcome again, through his writing, Dr. Daniel L. Dreisbach, D.Phil., J.D. The Republican Professor is produced and hosted by Dr. Lucas J. Mather, Ph.D. Warmly, Lucas J. Mather, Ph.D. The Republican Professor Podcast The Republican Professor Newsletter on Substack https://therepublicanprofessor.substack.com/ https://www.therepublicanprofessor.com/podcast/ https://www.therepublicanprofessor.com/articles/ YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/@TheRepublicanProfessor Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TheRepublicanProfessor Twitter: @RepublicanProf Instagram: @the_republican_professor

What is God's personal name? Is it Yahweh? Jehovah? Why do most English Bibles use the word LORD instead? In Part 2 of The Names of God series, Pastor Roger Pettay examines God's personal covenant name as revealed in Exodus 3:13-15. Discover the meaning behind the divine name YHWH, why it appears thousands of times throughout the Old Testament, and how Jewish and Christian traditions have handled this sacred name through the centuries. In this message you will learn: • The three primary names used for God in the Old Testament • The meaning of "I AM WHO I AM" • Why LORD appears in all capital letters in many English Bibles • The difference between Elohim, Adonai, and Yahweh • How God's name is embedded in words like Hallelujah • The connection between Yahweh, Joshua, and Jesus • What Jesus meant when He declared, "Before Abraham was, I AM" Whether you are new to studying Scripture or have walked with Christ for many years, this message will help you better understand the character of God and deepen your appreciation for the God who desires to be known by His people. #Yahweh #Jehovah #NamesOfGod #Exodus3 #IAM #BiblicalTruth #BibleStudy #KnowGod #SermonPodcast #ChristianPodcast #ExaltChurch #ExaltChurchVA

SouthCrest Church Sunday message, 5/31/26. We're kicking off our summer series, Foundations, on eight principles to help us live out our faith. Senior Pastor Matt McFadden introduces Principle #1: Jesus is Lord. Teaching from Mark 1:1-11, we explore the meanings of the term “lord” in the English Bible and what it truly means to declare Jesus as Lord.

Happy 250th Anniversary of 'Murica. You're in for a treat . This is part 1 of multiple on the Second Chapter "The English and American Public Culture." "The American Founders read the Bible," Oxford University Rhodes Scholar Daniel Dreisbach says in his first sentence of his Oxford University Press book. "They knew the Bible from cover to cover." "Its ideas shaped their habits of mind." "The Bible left its mark on the political culture of the era." Dreisbach's first sentence in his chapter 2 is: Ready ? "Anglo-Americans are people of the Book, and that Book is the Bible." WOW ! We had the author, Dr. Daniel L. Dreisbach, D.Phil. (Oxford), JD (University of Virginia Law School) on the podcast for Thanksgiving, Fall 2022. We're going to make a fair use, do a transformative reading of the book. We'd like to thank Dr. Dreisbach for writing this, and thank Oxford University Press for making it available. Support publishers when they make something worth reading. Support the publisher and throw some bidness their way. Support your brick and mortar book dealer. This episode was filmed Thursday 28 May 2026 years after Jesus in the backyard of my long-time (nearly a quarter of a century) Epistemology mentor Dr. Doug Geivett (PhD, USC under Dallas Willard), a student himself of the famous late-great Republican professor, the late-great Dallas Willard of USC's Philosophy Department. The Republican Professor is a pro-correctly-and-adequately-articulating-the-Bible's-appropriate-influence-on-American-politics podcast. Therefore, welcome again, through his writing, Dr. Daniel L. Dreisbach, D.Phil., J.D. The Republican Professor is produced and hosted by Dr. Lucas J. Mather, Ph.D. Warmly, Lucas J. Mather, Ph.D. The Republican Professor Podcast The Republican Professor Newsletter on Substack https://therepublicanprofessor.substack.com/ https://www.therepublicanprofessor.com/podcast/ https://www.therepublicanprofessor.com/articles/ YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/@TheRepublicanProfessor Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TheRepublicanProfessor Twitter: @RepublicanProf Instagram: @the_republican_professor

On today's episode, we discuss big “ten‑gallon” theology words as the crew dives into premillennialism, amillennialism, and how to read key end‑times passages without splitting churches over them. Pastor Jimmy Williams lays out the two main views: premillennialism, where Christ returns to establish an intermediate kingdom before the final judgment, and amillennialism, where the present church age itself is the “millennial” reign with Christ already ruling from heaven. From there, they walk slowly through 1 Corinthians 15, unpacking Greek terms, temporal markers like “then” and “after that,” and how the sequence—Christ as “firstfruits,” then the resurrection of those who belong to Him, then “the end”—can be read to support an intermediate kingdom before final restoration. Along the way, they explain concepts such as “firstfruits,” telos (the ultimate “end” or goal), and the Parousia, while also showing how punctuation and translation choices in English Bibles can muddy who “he” refers to or where a sentence really ends. The episode stays irenic and practical, emphasizing that Christians should major on the shared essentials—the return of Jesus, resurrection of the dead, and restoration of creation—while treating rapture timing and millennial charts as important but secondary topics to wrestle with humbly together. Don't miss it!

The Hebrew poets didn't write safe words. They stacked image on top of image, layered metaphor on metaphor, and built texts designed to hit you in the chest. But when those words crossed into English, something got lost. The raw emotional power. The vivid word pictures. The sounds, the rhythms, the physicality of a language that was built to be felt, not just read.In this episode, Dr. Alison Gray, Director of Studies in Old Testament Language, Literature, and Theology at Westminster College, Cambridge, pulls back the curtain on what your English Bible simply cannot deliver. From the spatial drama of Psalm 18, where height means safety and narrowness means despair, to the stunning revelation that the Hebrew word for compassion literally means "wombs," this conversation exposes an entire dimension of Scripture that most believers have never encountered.In this episode you will learn:- How metaphor functions as the backbone of Hebrew poetry, not decoration but the primary vehicle of meaning- Why the spatial imagery in Psalm 18 (high vs. low, wide vs. narrow) unlocks the entire emotional architecture of the poem- What "metaphor clusters" are and how Hebrew poets deliberately piled images to overwhelm the reader- The specific emotional and theological losses that occur every time Hebrew poetry is translated into English- How the Hebrew accent marks called "taste marks" shaped the oral performance of the Psalms- Why reading Job through the lens of trauma literature makes sense of its contradictions and fragmented voices- The dangerous church tradition of sanitizing lament and why the Psalms of agony were never meant to be resolved quickly- What the British Sign Language Bible Translation Project reveals about the physicality already embedded in Hebrew Scripture- How the Hebrew word for compassion (rachmayim) literally comes from the word for womb- Why "slow to anger" in Hebrew actually means "long of nose" and what that tells us about how the ancient world pictured emotionDr. Gray's Book:Psalm 18 in Words and Pictures: A Reading Through Metaphor (Brill, 2014)https://brill.com/display/title/23722?language=enWestminster College:https://www.westminster.cam.ac.uk/academic-staff/dr-alison-grayWinter School in Ancient and Biblical Languages:https://www.westminster.cam.ac.uk/biblical-languagesBSL Bible Translation Project:https://bslbible.org.uk/Stay Connected:Website: Johnnyova.comSubscribe on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@thejohnnyovaThe Revelation Reset: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0DKSLQXWQ

Natalie Grueninger interviews Martha Tatarnic about her new book on Anne Boleyn, exploring how Anne shaped the English Reformation, championed the English Bible, and influenced church leadership through key appointments. The conversation also examines how Anne's reputation has been distorted over time, why the stories we tell about historical women matter today, and how recovering silenced voices reshapes our understanding of the past and present. Visit Martha Tatarnic's website https://marthatatarnic.ca/ JOIN 365 DAYS IN ELIZABETHAN ENGLAND https://www.nataliegrueninger.com/2026/05/17/365-days-in-elizabethan-england/ Learn more about your host: https://www.nataliegrueninger.com Support Talking Tudors on Patreon!

Audio taken from the live teaching "What Is China's Role In Final Prophecy?" - https://youtu.be/JoEO3J-f1C8There are approximately 15 nations mentioned specifically in final Bible prophecy, many of which have modern names that differ from their ancient names. You will not find the specific word “China” in any of the accurate modern English Bible translations, however, there are several passages in the Bible that provide a theological position that strongly suggest that China will be involved prophetically as a major “eastern” power.In today's study I would like to answer 3 critical questions about China and Bible prophecy that are often asked by our audience.1 - Is China Found In Bible Prophecy?2 - Is China the “200 Million Man Army” In Revelation?3 - Is China Involved In The Battle Of Armageddon?Key Scriptures used in today's teaching: Revelation 9:13-19Other Scriptures referenced: Isaiah 49:12; Revelation 16:12-21If you prayed with Tiff, click here https://lostlamb.org/ and let him know!  Be sure to check out the playlist “New Beginnings” - https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLsX8E19Azl58_FjxELPxjnsL8CAtmama4Thank you for listening, and subscribe for new content each week. 
Connect with Tiff Shuttlesworth:Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/LostLambAssociation/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tiffshuttlesworth/ X/Twitter: https://twitter.com/tiffshuttleswor Learn more about my ministry: https://lostlamb.org/ Learn more about my ministry in Canada: https://www.lostlamb.ca

What if the story we've been told about Anne Boleyn is missing the most important part? In this episode, Loren Richmond Jr. talks with Martha Tatarnic—priest, author, and co-host of the podcast—about her new book Anne Boleyn: Reputation, Revolution, Religion, and the Queen Who Changed History and the overlooked role Anne played in shaping the English Reformation. Drawing from historical research and theological reflection, Martha challenges the familiar narrative that reduces Anne to a pawn in Henry VIII's story. Instead, she presents Anne as a deeply formed, intellectually engaged, and theologically motivated leader whose influence helped shape the future of the Anglican Church. The conversation explores how Anne's faith informed her convictions, her advocacy for an English Bible, and her support of key reformers whose impact is still felt today. They also examine how history has often distorted Anne's story—especially through gendered narratives that diminish strong women—and why those patterns still matter for leadership in the church today. They discuss the ongoing challenges women face in ministry, the temptation toward self-congratulation in church systems, and the work still needed to create environments where all leaders can truly flourish. Together they explore: Why Anne Boleyn's story has been misunderstood or misrepresented Her role as a reformer, not just a historical figure How her faith shaped her influence on the English Reformation How gendered narratives distort history and leadership Ongoing challenges for women in church leadership today Why the church must move beyond self-congratulation toward real change How Anne's legacy still shapes Anglican identity and practice Martha Tatarnic is a contributor to Christian Century, a blogger on Medium, and co-host of the Future Christian podcast. She is the author of Why Gather? The Hope and Promise of the Church. She is a priest in the Anglican Church of Canada and rector at St. George's Anglican Church in St. Catherines, Ontario. She lives in Catherines, Ontario, Canada. Mentioned Resources:

Makrothumia. The Greek compound from Hebrews 6:12 that the English Bible translates as patience. Makros: long. Thumos: passion. Long-tempered. The quality of a man whose spiritual fire does not die down with time, whose fervour does not decrease the longer the answer is delayed, whose passion for the promise grows stronger with every year it has not yet arrived. In this Sunday sermon, Pastor Olubi Johnson opens the legal and prophetic framework of intercession and then walks through five biblical portraits of the makrothumia that inherits the promise. The legal case is established first: God gave man dominion over the earth in Genesis 1:26, a constitutional act that He will not unilaterally override. When Adam surrendered it and the cross recovered it, prayer became a legal instrument, not a devotional exercise: enforcing in the earth what has already been established in heaven. Then Daniel, reading the prophetic clock in Babylon and setting his face in prayer while the angelic answer was opposed for twenty-one days in the heavenly places. Then Abraham, Joseph, and the four-hundred-year promise carried through dying hands until the groaning of four centuries tipped the bowl and the bush began to burn. Then Esther, who led three days of corporate fasting and walked into the throne room unsummoned, trusting that the intercession had already prepared the atmosphere for the golden sceptre to go out. Then Anna, who gave sixty years to one prayer in a temple court, and was there on the morning the answer walked through the gate. We are in 2026, at the threshold of the third prophetic day from the maturity of the Lord Jesus Christ. The morning Anna spent sixty years waiting for is our morning. The eight landmarks of the Path of Life are the daily architecture of the intercession that prepares the vessel to receive it.

The Bible we hold is a translation of ancient manuscripts. But does that gap between the original autographs and our English Bibles introduce error we should be worried about? In Lesson 27 of Christian Ethics and the Old Testament, Dave Rich works through the transmission and translation of Scripture—and makes the case that we have every reason for confidence.Rich opens with the logic: reliable manuscripts plus faithful translation equals God's Word in English. Either piece can fail, and he walks through what happens when it does. From there he examines the manuscript evidence for the Old Testament—the Masoretic Text, the Dead Sea Scrolls, and the Septuagint—showing that agreement across those sources is remarkably stable. The one significant variant, Psalm 22:16, turns out to have strong textual support for "they pierced my hands and feet," consistent with its unmistakably messianic context.New Testament transmission is even more extensively attested—over 5,800 Greek manuscripts, with 99.5% of the text determinable from existing evidence. Rich walks through the nature of the variants honestly, showing that the most significant ones are well known, clearly marked in modern translations, and doctrinally non-threatening.The lesson closes with a survey of English translations across a spectrum from highly literal to outright corrupt: the YLT, NASB, LSB, ESV, NIV, New Living, and then the Message, the New World Translation, the Passion Translation, and several others that distort the text to serve a theological agenda.God had a purpose in giving His Word, Rich argues, and that same providence extends to its transmission and translation into every language. ★ Support this podcast ★

Have you ever heard the expression “a smoking gun”? It comes from an earlier era of guns when black powder produced a good cloud of smoke each time someone fired the weapon. Originally a smoking gun referred to a situation when someone was caught with the weapon in hand, still emitting smoke. The implication of this is not just that the smoking gun is evidence of the person’s guilt, but that such is conclusive and undeniable evidence. Today were going to consider the topic of bias in our English Bible translations. I’m going to present to you four independent grammatical smoking guns of Trinitarian mischief in evangelical translations. In each case, rather than rendering the source language into the target language, we’ll see how translators tweak the translation to support the personality of the holy spirit.   Listen on Spotify   Listen on Apple Podcasts This talk was originally presented at a Unitarian Christian Alliance (UCA) event held at the Cantebury Christadelphian Ecclesia in Melbourne, Australia on March 21, 2026. Thanks to the Christadelphians for providing a venue and giving me access to the recording. —— Links —— Download the slides from this presentation Read the article that inspired this presentation Support Restitutio by donating here Join our Facebook group, follow on X @RestitutioSF or Instagram @Sean.P.Finnegan or Threads @sean.p.finnegan Leave a 90 second voice message via SpeakPipe with questions or comments and we may play it out on the air Who is Sean Finnegan?  Read his bio here Get Finnegan’s book, Kingdom Journey to learn about God’s kingdom coming on earth as well as the story of how Christianity lost this pearl of great price. Get the transcript of this episode Intro music: Good Vibes by MBB Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported (CC BY-SA 3.0) Free Download / Stream: Music promoted by Audio Library.

This is Christian Meditation for A Bigger Life – a time for you to relax your body and refocus your mind to experience the reality of God's presence. I'm Dave Cover. I want to help you with Christian meditation where you can break through all the distractions and experience God's presence through biblically guided imagination.  Psalm 9:10 ESV “And those who know your name put their trust in you, for you, O LORD, have not forsaken those who seek you.” “LORD” in all uppercase letters in our English Bibles indicates that in Hebrew God's name, Yahweh, is used (Exodus 3:14-15; Isaiah 42:8). Yahweh is the ancient Hebrew verb form for “HE IS.” God's name, Yahweh, is used more than any other term for God by far in the Hebrew scriptures. Well over 5,000 times — far more than “God” is used.  When we look at all the various truths associated with God's name, HE IS, in the Hebrew scriptures (what we call the Old Testament), five powerful truths of Yahweh are emphasized.  HE IS the Creator and Sustainer of ALL that exists, including this entire universe (Ps 33:6; Isa 40:25-28; Isa 42:5; Isa 44:24). HE IS the Giver and Sustainer of ALL life everywhere always (Num 27:16; Job 12:10; Neh 9:6). HE IS eternal and forever God – he inhabits eternity (Isa 57:15; Isa 40:28). HE IS ALWAYS infinitely 100% present with you and in control of everything in your life at every moment (Ps 31:14-15; Psalm 139:1-8; without being any less present or any less focused anywhere else in the universe, because HE IS infinite). See Jesus's words in Matthew 10:29-31.“ HE IS good and his steadfast love endures forever.” (Most repeated phrase in the OT.) So imagine – envision – this reality. He is the Creator of this entire universe; he is the Source of all being; he is the Giver of your life and sustains your life at every moment; he is the one who “inhabits eternity” (Isaiah 57:15), and so has the eternal perspective in all your life's circumstances; and he is infinitely, intimately, 100% present with you at every moment and in control of every circumstance in your life. And he is good and his steadfast love for you endures forever. Who can you share this podcast with? If you found this episode helpful, consider sharing it on social media or texting it to a friend you think might benefit from it. Follow Dave Cover on X (Twitter) @davecover Follow A Bigger Life on X @ABiggerLifePod Our audio engineer is Matthew Matlack. This podcast is a ministry of The Crossing, a church in Columbia, Missouri, a college town where the flagship campus of the University of Missouri is located.

Calvary Live is an outreach ministry of GraceFM at Calvary Church in Aurora, Colorado.If you like what you hear on Calvary Live – don't forget tofollow us, and share it with your friends and family!

Various Scriptures - The Bible has a long, complex and very human story of how it came be (and how it came to us). In this message, we examine what it means that the Bible was co-produced by a number of people, some known and some unknown. Using only the Bible itself, we explore some of it what it means for the Bible to be a collection of texts that were composed, canonized, transmitted, and translated in history. In doing so, we learn that the Bible being a human word does not diminish the fact that it is also a divine Word. A sermon by Cameron Heger and Kyle Sunderland. [Part 3 of our series "The Very Words of God: Answering, trembling & delighting before the Holy Scriptures"] Questions for reflection: 1) What have you been taught up to this point about where the Bible came from? 2) Was there anything new, exciting, or challenging in what Cameron shared about the overall picture? 3) Why do you think the human side of the Bible's production is sometimes viewed as scandalous? 4) Why do you think we can have confidence in our modern English Bible translations? 5) What relevance does the divinity/humanity of Jesus have for how we think the Bible?

QUOTES FOR REFLECTION“Reality is too heavy for most people to carry. So they borrow illusions, soft dreams, sweet lies, and call it happiness.”~Franz Kafka (1883-1924), Jewish Czech writer of German literature, known for his works marked by surreal and bizarre storylines “The Holy Scriptures were not given to us that we should enclose them in books, but that we should engrave them upon our hearts.”~John Chrysostom (died 407 AD), church leader in ancient Constantinople The Letter to the Romans “is the principal and most excellent part of the New Testament. It is the light and way into the whole Scripture. No man can read it too often or study too well.”~William Tyndale (c.1494-1536), scholar and linguist, considered the father of the English Bible “This epistle is really the chief part of the New Testament and the very purest gospel and is worthy not only that every Christian should know it word for word by heart, but occupy himself with it every day as the daily bread of the soul. It can never be read or pondered too much.”~Martin Luther (1483-1546), German reformer, in his commentary on Romans “Because faith alone justifies… publicans and prostitutes will be first in the kingdom of heaven”~Hilary of Poitiers (c.310-c.367), Gallic-Roman church leader “God justifies the believer—not because of the worthiness of his belief, but because of his [Christ's] worthiness who is believed.”~Richard Hooker (1554-1600) in his Ecclesiastical Polity (1593) “Of whatever virtue you may declare that the ancient righteous people were possessed, nothing saved them but the belief in the Mediator who shed his blood for the remission of their sins.”~Augustine (354-430), North African theologian in Against Two Letters of the Pelagians “God's righteousness compels him...to have to judge the guilty. But then he offers forgiveness and says ‘I will not judge you according to your works.' So...he sends his Son...so that now when he calls you his own...he has not compromised his righteousness.”~Jackie Hill Perry, poet, writer, and hip-hop artistSERMON PASSAGE Romans 1:16-17 & 3:21-26 (Dr. Robert Gagnon's translation of the original Greek)Romans 1:16-17 For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for effecting salvation to everyone who is believing it, both to the Jew first and to the Greek. For in it the righteousness of God is being revealed from faith to faith, just as it is written, “And the righteous one from faith will live.” Romans 3:21-26 But now, apart from the law, the righteousness of God has been manifested, though it is attested by the law and the prophets; that is, the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction, for all sinned and are lacking in the glory of God, with the result that they are being justified as a gift by his grace through the redemption that is available in Christ Jesus, whom God set before himself as an amends-making offering by means of his blood, through that faith, for an indicator of his righteousness, because of the letting go of the sins that occurred previously in the time of God's holding back his wrath, with a view toward that indicator of his righteousness in the ‘now' time, in order that he himself might be righteous and justifier of the person whose identity is derived from faith in Jesus.

He started growing tropical flowers in the Netherlands. Then he walked away from it all to chase a lifelong obsession with the Bible. Dr. Dirk Jongkind is the Academic Vice Principal at Tyndale House in Cambridge, England, and the lead editor behind the Tyndale House Greek New Testament, the first completely new critical edition of the Greek New Testament in over 40 years. He holds a PhD from Cambridge, helped digitize Codex Sinaiticus at the British Library, and spent over a decade rebuilding the Greek text behind your English Bible from the ground up.From the origins of Tyndale House during World War II to the ancient scribes who copied Codex Sinaiticus in the 4th century, this episode covers ground most Christians have never explored. Dr. Jongkind walks us through what it was like to work with one of the oldest complete New Testaments in existence, how scribes made errors and stretched their letters to fill miscalculated page space, and why the book of James follows Acts in the earliest manuscripts instead of Romans. He tackles the ending of Mark head on and unpacks one of the most provocative statements you will hear on this podcast: that God inspiring Scripture does not mean God was obligated to preserve every last detail of it.In this episode you will learn:- How Dr. Jongkind went from growing tropical flowers to becoming one of the leading New Testament textual scholars in the world- What Tyndale House is and how it was born out of a crisis of faith during World War II- What a critical edition of the Greek New Testament actually is and why it matters for every English Bible translation- Why his team felt the standard Greek text used by scholars for decades needed to be rebuilt from the ground up- How three ancient scribes with very different skill levels copied Codex Sinaiticus and what their habits reveal about biblical transmission- Why the long-held dictation theory for how Sinaiticus was produced is likely wrong- How the scribes miscalculated page space and made desperate attempts to fill columns- Why the book of James follows Acts in the earliest manuscripts instead of Romans- How Dr. Jongkind's team handled the ending of Mark and why he sits 55/45 on whether those verses are original- What the story of King Josiah rediscovering the Book of the Law teaches us about inspiration vs. preservation- How the tiniest details of the Greek text beautifully reinforce the biggest truths of ScriptureCheck out Dr. Jongkind's work:An Introduction to the Greek New Testament (Crossway): https://www.amazon.com/Introduction-Testament-Produced-Tyndale-Cambridge/dp/1433564092Scribal Habits of Codex Sinaiticus (Gorgias Press): https://www.amazon.com/Scribal-Habits-Codex-Sinaiticus-Studies/dp/1593334222Tyndale House: https://tyndalehouse.comStay Connected:Website: https://johnnyova.comSubscribe on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@thejohnnyovaThe Revelation Reset: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0DKVY3FB2

Join us at https://www.crisisinvesting.com The hosts revive a "day in history" segment highlighting William Tyndale's 1523 English Bible translation and argue that Sir Thomas More, though revered as a saint, used authorities to hunt down and execute Tyndale. They then discuss the speaker's recent luncheon talk in Argentina for Rand Paul during his visit, where he said Javier Milei's election is historically important but criticized Milei for not acting like an anarcho-capitalist, citing failures such as not abolishing the central bank, moving Argentina's gold abroad, buying used F-16s, seeking NATO/Ukraine/Israel ties, and keeping foreign exchange controls. They note a $96 homemade MANPADS prototype as evidence of democratized warfare, then assess the US-Iran conflict's changing warfare dynamics, vulnerability of carriers, and risks from Strait of Hormuz disruptions, UAE and Houthi escalation, and attacks on Russian facilities, warning of recession/depression amid rising rates, private credit stress, an AI/data-center bubble, and overvalued markets, while remaining bullish but cautious on gold, gold stocks, and select oil stocks. 00:00 This Day in History Returns 00:24 Tyndale and English Bible 02:48 Saint Thomas More Exposed 04:35 Speech for Rand Paul 05:31 Milei Not Walking Talk 06:45 Gold and Central Bank 08:11 F-16s and NATO Drift 10:52 DIY Manpad and Weapons 12:44 Iran War Lessons 14:21 Carriers and Tankers Vulnerable 15:06 Trump Hegseth and War Spin 19:54 Why War Won't End 20:43 War Versus Energy Shock 22:03 UAE Escalation Risks 23:24 Houthis and Red Sea Chokepoints 24:31 Ukraine Strikes and Blowback 25:48 Iranian Resolve and Retaliation 27:15 Israel and Nuclear Escalation 29:32 Oil Flow and Debt Spiral 31:28 Private Credit and AI Bubble 35:40 Markets in Denial 38:54 Gold and Oil Positioning 40:33 Democratized Warfare Ahead 41:28 Wrap Up and Next Episode

"Jesus wept" is the shortest verse in the English Bible, but it contains a lot of depth. Listen to Fr. Ivan's homily today to find out why.

This episode brings to a close part one of our series exploring William Tyndale's life, Bible translation and legacy. In this third episode, we explore the continuing legacy of William Tyndale's work of Bible translation with the help of experts in the sixteenth century and the history of Christianity.We're very grateful for contributions from:• Bruce Gordon, the Titus Street Professor of Ecclesiastical History at Yale Divinity School, and author of The Bible a Global History (Basic Books, 2024)• Alec Ryrie, Professor of the History of Christianity at the University of Durham, and the author of The World's Reformation: How Protestantism Became a Global Religion (Yale University Press, to be published in 2026)• Simon Burton, John Laing Senior Lecturer in Reformation History at the School of Divinity at the University of Edinburgh, and author of ‌ Participation & Covenant in Puritan Theology (Davenant Press, 2025)• Karl Gunther, historian of the Reformation from the Hamilton School for Classical and Civic Education in the University of Florida, and author of ‌ Participation & Covenant in Puritan Theology Reformation Unbound: Protestant Visions of Reform in England, 1525–1590 (Cambridge University Press, 2014)• Harry Spillane, Bye-Fellow in History at Downing College, Cambridge. He is currently completing his Munby Fellowship research project entitled ‘Collecting and Correcting: Histories of the English Bible and the Bible Society Collections'Support the showEdited by Tyndale House Music – Acoustic Happy Background used with a standard license from Adobe Stock.Follow us on: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube

The execution of Tyndale and the English Bible (Know Your Story Week 2 ) - Dr. Matthew Barrett by St. Aidan's Anglican Church, KC

In this episode, Tony Arsenal and Jesse Schwamb explore one of Scripture's most fascinating puzzles: the parable of the lost sheep appears in both Luke 15 and Matthew 18, yet teaches dramatically different lessons depending on its context. In Luke, it defends Christ's mission to seek the lost and exposes Pharisaic self-righteousness. In Matthew, it becomes a pastoral manual for church discipline, humility, and restoration. This conversation challenges the common assumption that parables have only one meaning and demonstrates how the same story can illuminate multiple theological truths. The hosts unpack the scandalous grace woven throughout both accounts while wrestling with practical implications for church life, confrontation, and the celebration of repentance within the covenant community. Key Takeaways Context transforms meaning: The parable of the lost sheep appears in both Luke 15 and Matthew 18 with similar wording but vastly different applications—proving that parables can have multiple valid meanings depending on their literary and theological context. Matthew 18's audience is internal: Unlike Luke 15, which addresses outsiders and critics, Matthew 18 speaks to disciples about life within the kingdom community—focusing on humility, care for "little ones," and the church's responsibility toward vulnerable or straying members. The parable sets up church discipline: In Matthew 18, the lost sheep parable (vv. 12-14) directly precedes and theologically grounds the church discipline passage (vv. 15-20), teaching that confrontation should be motivated by pastoral rescue, not punitive justice. "Little ones" matter to the Father: The phrase "little ones" refers to children, new believers, and those vulnerable within the church—Christ warns sternly against despising them and insists it is not the Father's will that any should perish (v. 14). Restoration is the goal, not excommunication: Verse 15's language of "gaining your brother" frames confrontation as recovery. Even final excommunication (v. 17) should be carried out with ongoing hope for repentance and return, not with triumphalism or relief. Christ's presence empowers difficult work: The promise that "where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I among them" (v. 20) is not a general prayer meeting verse—it's a specific assurance of Christ's authorizing presence during the judicial and painful work of church discipline. Divine intention shapes church posture: The statement "it is not the will of my Father...that one of these little ones should perish" (v. 14) must color every step of the discipline process, ensuring the church never loses sight of God's restorative heart. Explanatory Paragraphs Context Transforms Meaning One of the most significant insights from this episode is the recognition that the parable of the lost sheep serves distinct theological purposes in Luke 15 and Matthew 18. In Luke, Jesus tells the parable to Pharisees and scribes who criticize Him for welcoming sinners—the lost sheep represents those outside the covenant community whom Christ seeks. In Matthew, however, Jesus addresses His disciples within the context of kingdom life, and the lost sheep represents a believer who has wandered from the fold. This contextual shift demonstrates that parables are not rigid allegories with single meanings but flexible teaching tools that illuminate different facets of divine truth. The hosts argue that this reality should free interpreters from overly narrow readings and encourage careful attention to literary setting, audience, and surrounding discourse when seeking to understand Jesus' teaching. The Parable Sets Up Church Discipline In Matthew 18, the parable of the lost sheep (vv. 12-14) is not an isolated story but a theological foundation for the church discipline instructions that immediately follow (vv. 15-20). By emphasizing the shepherd's joy in recovering the one lost sheep and stating that it is not God's will for any "little one" to perish, Jesus prepares His disciples to approach confrontation with a restorative rather than punitive mindset. The language of "gaining your brother" (v. 15) echoes the recovery theme of the parable—confrontation is rescue, not victory. This connection is often missed because English Bible headings create visual breaks between verses 14 and 15, obscuring their flow. When read together without interruption, the passage reveals that every step of church discipline—from private conversation to final excommunication—must be undertaken with the Father's heart, which longs for the wanderer's return rather than their expulsion. Christ's Presence Empowers Difficult Work The promise in Matthew 18:20—"where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I among them"—is frequently misapplied as a general encouragement for small prayer groups or house churches. While Christ's omnipresence certainly validates such gatherings, the primary context of this verse is judicial and ecclesiastical. The "two or three" echoes the Old Testament requirement for multiple witnesses in matters requiring serious judgment (Deuteronomy 19:15), and the phrase appears at the climax of Jesus' teaching on church discipline. Christ is promising His authorizing presence specifically during the church's most difficult and painful work: confronting sin, evaluating repentance, and when necessary, declaring someone outside the visible church. This is both sobering and comforting—sobering because it reminds us that church discipline carries divine weight, and comforting because Christ does not leave His church alone in this weighty task but stands in the midst of the assembly, confirming its righteous judgments and sustaining its members through heartbreak. Memorable Quotes "This almost proves the idea that parables have one meaning just isn't really real...a single parable with the same words can have multiple, at the very least, can have multiple gradations of meaning." — Tony Arsenal "The scandal here is that it's not God's will that any one of these little ones should be lost. And that sometimes, I think, in the midst of great conflict feels scandalous." — Jesse Schwamb "Gaining your brother frames confrontation as rescue...discipline begins maybe actually all the way through as pastoral care. It's not public shaming." — Jesse Schwamb Full Transcript [The complete, unedited transcript of the episode would be included here for reference and accessibility.]

William Tyndale risked everything to put God's Word in your hands — and his final prayer was answered fast.This episode is a deep-dive, spy-thriller style story of William Tyndale: the scholar-fugitive who made the English New Testament a “dangerous object” in the 1520s–30s.We trace why translation was illegal, how the Bible was smuggled into England, and how a few “simple word choices” threatened an entire power system. In the end, Tyndale's death becomes a shocking victory — and a challenge for us today to actually read the Word we have so easily.WHAT YOU'LL LEARNThe Outlawed Word: Why church and state treated translation and even reading as heresy.The Laws of Fire: The Constitutions of Oxford (1408) and “De heretico comburendo.”The Ploughboy Prophecy: Tyndale's mission to put Scripture in ordinary hands.The Smuggling Networks: Printing raids, merchant allies, and the “Packington scheme.”The War of Words: Why “congregation,” “elder,” “repent,” and “love” shook the system.Betrayal & Martyrdom: Henry Phillips, the dungeon letter, and Tyndale's final prayer.The KJV Legacy: How Tyndale's phrasing fundamentally shaped the King James Version.CONNECT & RESOURCESBlog: https://conradrocks.netBook: Open Your Eyes https://amzn.to/3RJx7byBook: Night Terror https://amzn.to/3XRFohlAmazon Ministry List https://www.amazon.com/hz/wishlist/ls/2GSBT99APHFQR?ref_=wl_share

In this episode of Prove All Things, guest Robert Bates joins Jeff and Mike for a deep dive into the Name of God—why the Tetragrammaton (YHWH) appears thousands of times in the Hebrew Scriptures, why many English Bibles render it as “LORD,” and how Hebrew language and culture can add vivid depth to passages we already know. This is a thoughtful, Scripture-focused conversation that encourages reverence, humility, and “testing all things.”

I. Introduction Welcome to the Victory Church podcast and Sunday worship gathering. Victory's mission: reaching the lost, restoring the broken, reviving believers.​ Joy and gratitude for being in God's house where worship, prayer, the Word, and fellowship occur.​ Emphasis that God's grace enabled people to be present, overcoming hindrances.​ II. The Nature and Purpose of Prayer Prayer and the Word as central priorities at Victory Church.​ Biblical commands to pray: “men ought always to pray,” “pray without ceasing,” “watch and pray,” “continue earnestly in prayer.”​ Clarification: prayer is not a religious ritual but a relational conversation with a loving Father.​ Prayer as sharing cares, dreams, concerns with God; Scripture as God sharing His thoughts and heart with us.​ III. Reactive vs. Proactive Prayer A. Reactive Prayer Definition: responding to events, crises, and immediate needs after they happen.​ Typical reactive requests: jobs, finances, housing, healing, family and school pressures.​ Affirmation: these needs matter to God; believers should cast all cares on Him.​ Problem: if this is the only kind of praying, discipleship and prayer life are out of alignment with God's best.​ B. Proactive Prayer Definition: creating or shaping situations by praying God's will in advance, not only reacting.​ Example from the Lord's Prayer: “Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven” as a proactive request.​ Goal: move believers beyond crisis-only praying into kingdom-focused, forward-looking prayer.​ IV. Acts 4 as a Model of Prayer A. Context of Acts 4 Acts as early church history, showing the Spirit-empowered beginnings of the church.​ Peter and John preaching, healing a crippled man, and provoking opposition from religious leaders.​ Authorities command them not to speak or teach in the name of Jesus.​ Connection to today: pressure in culture to silence biblical truth and the name of Jesus.​ B. The Disciples' Response They return “to their own” (the church, fellow believers) when threatened.​ Principle: where you turn in crisis reveals much about your heart.​ They share the report as a prayer request and turn immediately to corporate prayer.​ They pray in alignment with Scripture (Psalm 2) and God's will, not just emotions.​ C. Content of Their Prayer (Acts 4:24–31) Acknowledge God as Creator and Sovereign Lord over heaven and earth.​ Rehearse Scripture about nations raging and rulers opposing the Lord and His Christ.​ Interpret persecution as part of God's sovereign purpose in Christ's suffering.​ Reactive element: “Lord, look on their threats.”​ Proactive element: ask for boldness to speak the Word, and for God's hand to heal with signs and wonders in Jesus' name.​ Result: the place is shaken, all are filled with the Holy Spirit, and they speak God's Word with boldness.​ V. Praying with the Word and God's Will Call to pray not only from need or emotion but aligned with Scripture.​ Examples of praying Scripture over needs (provision, healing, emotional and spiritual needs, relationships).​ Recognition that God's will includes timing; believers must be sensitive and obedient.​ Emphasis: there is power when prayer and the Word are joined.​ VI. From Problem to Launching Pad Observation: in Acts 4, the crisis launches the church into deeper proactive prayer, not retreat.​ Instead of praying primarily for safety and comfort, they pray for greater boldness and impact.​ Application: believers today should ask God to use trials to produce testimony, messages, and greater influence for His glory.​ VII. Call to a Proactive Kingdom Focus A. For Truth and Witness in a Confused Culture Culture tolerates generic “god talk” but reacts strongly to the exclusive claims of Jesus.​ Expect opposition when living and speaking biblical truth, without being obnoxious or hypocritical.​ The church must stand firm on Scripture, not be shaped by social media or worldly opinions.​ B. For Local and Global Mission Victory Church's call: reach Providence and the nations through evangelism and missions.​ Example: missions trips (Kenya, Sierra Leone, Liberia) and conferences to strengthen pastors and churches.​ Appeal for proactive prayer for missions: bold preaching, anointing, signs and wonders, and lasting fruit.​ C. For Revival and Awakening Distinction: revival for the church (bringing believers back to life), awakening for the lost.​ Invitation to pray for souls, discipleship, anointing, revival in churches, and awakening in the nation.​ Desire to create cultures of discipleship, evangelism, missions, and deep engagement with Scripture.​ VIII. Illustrations of Proactive Prayer in History and Life Personal testimony: long season in temporary housing, choosing contentment and kingdom focus while trusting God's timing.​ Application of Matthew 6:33: prioritizing God's kingdom and righteousness, trusting Him to add needed things.​ Biblical example: Job praying for his friends and receiving double restoration.​ Historical examples: John Knox's burden “give me Scotland or I die” and its influence.​ David Brainerd's fervent prayer for Native Americans and resulting impact.​ William Tyndale's martyrdom for translating Scripture and the later spread of English Bibles.​ The Moravians' 100-year prayer meeting and remarkable missionary sending.​ IX. Practical Application and Invitation Challenge: move beyond “needs-only” praying to kingdom-centered, proactive prayer.​ Specific areas to pray proactively: personal walk, church, ministries, missions, national awakening, and social issues.​ Encouragement to stay for times of corporate prayer, lifting up pastors, leaders, and global work.​ Final appeal: cultivate a passion that cries, “Lord, give us souls, give us revival, use my life and this church for Your glory.”

With an explosion of English Bible versions on the market, why does Curtis Corner Baptist Church stand on the King James Bible? In this evening message from Matthew 4:1-4, Pastor Paul Chapman gives five clear, biblical reasons this is more than a matter of preference — it's a matter of conviction. In this sermon you'll learn:

Imagine a scene so haunting it echoes through six centuries: high-ranking officials digging up a man dead for 44 years just to burn his bones and scatter them in a river. Why? Because he dared to give the common man the Word of God in his own tongue. Join us as we journey back to the 14th century to meet John Wycliffe, the "Morning Star of the Reformation," and explore how he broke the "Latin chains" to end a spiritual famine. This episode is a deep dive into the courage, chaos, and linguistic revolution that paved the way for the Bible you hold today. Key TakeawaysThe Famine of the Word: Understanding the spiritual starvation of the Dark Ages and the fulfillment of the prophecy in Amos 8:11: "Behold, the days come, saith the Lord God, that I will send a famine in the land, not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water, but of hearing the words of the Lord."Dominion by Grace: Wycliffe's radical idea that spiritual authority comes from God's grace, not an office—echoing Psalm 118:22: "The stone which the builders refused is become the head stone of the corner."The Lollard Movement: How "poor priests" and "mumblers" created an underground distribution network for the forbidden English scriptures.Linguistic Legacy: Discovering how Wycliffe didn't just translate the Bible; he molded the English language, giving us words like "glory," "mystery," and "treasure."The Global Ripple Effect: Why burning Wycliffe's bones failed to stop his message, eventually flowing from the River Swift to the great ocean of the Protestant Reformation.Call to ActionSubscribe to Coffee with Conrad for more deep dives into church history and prophetic insights.Share your thoughts: How does knowing the cost of the English Bible change the way you read it today? Leave us a review or a voice message!Visit the Site: For more "rocks of revelation," head over to conradrocks.net.LinksBlog: https://conradrocks.netBook: Open Your Eyes → https://amzn.to/3RJx7byBook: Night Terror → https://amzn.to/3XRFohlAmazon Ministry List → https://www.amazon.com/hz/wishlist/ls/2GSBT99APHFQR?ref_=wl_shareInner Circle Email Subscription: https://eepurl.com/dhtqlP My Books: * Open Your EyesNight TerrorT-Shirts: Team Jesus 4 Store PayPal: Support the Show Social Media:FacebookInstagramTwitter/XTikTok

Every Christian holds a Bible, but few stop to ask why they trust the text in their hands. Questions about manuscripts, translators, editions, and revisions are often treated as technical matters best left to specialists. Yet they carry enormous implications: Is the Bible I hold the very word of God—truly infallible and inerrant?For the preservationist, the story of the English Bible is not one of constant loss and recovery, but of transmission, reception, and faithful use within the life of the church—giving believers confidence in what has been handed down.In this episode of the Postscript, I'm joined by Dr. Jim Alter, pastor of Grace Baptist Church in Sidney, Ohio, and co-founder of Ancient Baptist Press. Dr. Jim is also the founder, curator, and educator behind Purified Seven Times, a traveling exhibit that teaches the history of Bible translation into English with special attention to the preservation of God's word. Through pastoral ministry, publishing, and hands-on historical education, Dr. Jim helps Christians think carefully—and faithfully—about where their Bible came from and why that history still matters today.Visit https://www.gracebaptistsidney.com/exhibit to learn more about Purified Seven TimesVisit https://lfbi.org/learnmore

Welcome to Day 2786 of Wisdom-Trek, and thank you for joining me. This is Guthrie Chamberlain, Your Guide to Wisdom – Theology Thursday – The Unintended Consequences of Replacing Yahweh with “God” Wisdom-Trek Podcast Script - Day 2786 Welcome to Wisdom-Trek with Gramps!   I am Guthrie Chamberlain, and we are on Day 2786 of our Trek.   The Purpose of Wisdom-Trek is to create a legacy of wisdom, to seek out discernment and insights, and to boldly grow where few have chosen to grow before. Our current series of Theology Thursday lessons is written by theologian and teacher John Daniels. I have found that his lessons are short, easy to understand, doctrinally sound, and applicable to all who desire to learn more of God's Word. John's lessons can be found on his website   theologyinfive.com.   Today's lesson is titled The Unintended Consequences of Replacing Yahweh with “God”. In the pages of Scripture, the God of Israel reveals Himself by name, Yahweh, a name that marks His identity, His covenant, and His absolute uniqueness among all other spiritual beings. Yet somewhere in the history of Jewish and Christian tradition, this name was quietly replaced. Where once God was named, now He is merely titled. Yahweh became “the LORD.” Eventually, even “the LORD” gave way to “God,” a generic and universal term that can apply to almost any religious conception of the divine. What began as an effort to show reverence or accommodate translation has produced serious theological consequences. The loss of God's name has led to a distorted view of monotheism, erased key distinctions between Yahweh and other spiritual beings, and enabled poor apologetic compromises, such as the claim that “Allah is just the Arabic word for God.” It has also obscured the meaning of the First Commandment and weakened the Church's understanding of its own covenant relationship. This article traces how we got here and why recovering the name Yahweh is essential to restoring biblical clarity. The First Segment is: From Name to Title: How Yahweh Was Replaced. The divine name Yahweh (יהוה), also called the Tetragrammaton, appears over 6,800 times in the Hebrew Bible. In Exodus 3:15, God declares, “This is my name forever, and this is how I am to be remembered in every generation.” Yet despite this, a tradition developed during the Second Temple Period in which Jews refrained from pronouncing the divine name aloud. Instead, they substituted it with Adonai (“Lord”) during public readings. This practice, rooted in caution and reverence, carried over into Greek and Latin translations of the Bible. The Septuagint rendered Yahweh as Kyrios (“Lord”), and the Latin Vulgate followed suit with Dominus. English Bibles later preserved this substitution, using the stylized “LORD” in small caps, often without explaining to readers that a name was being replaced. As Christianity spread into the Gentile world, the name Yahweh virtually disappeared from common use. The God of the Bible came to be referred to simply as “God,” a word that is not a name at all, but a title. And not a unique title either, “God” can refer to any number of deities across religious systems or even to philosophical abstractions. In trying to show reverence or universality, the Church began to erase the very name by which the true God had distinguished Himself. The second segment is: The Problem with “God”: A Category, Not a Character This shift might seem minor, but it represents a profound theological error. In Hebrew, the word elohim is used to...

This is the first episode in our new series exploring William Tyndale's life, Bible translation, and legacy. Tony Watkins interviews experts in the sixteenth century and the history of the Bible. In this first episode, they explore the history of Bible translation prior to William Tyndale and the cultural context in which he lived and worked.We're very grateful for contributions from:Bruce Gordon, the Titus Street Professor of Ecclesiastical History at Yale Divinity School, and author of The Bible a Global HistoryAlec Ryrie, Professor of the History of Christianity at the University of DurhamSimon Burton, John Laing Senior Lecturer in Reformation History at the School of Divinity at the University of EdinburghKarl Gunther, historian of the Reformation from the Hamilton School for Classical and Civic Education in the University of FloridaLink to Season 5 of the Tyndale House Podcast on New Testament manuscripts: https://tyndalehouse.com/2025/01/16/s5e1-what-is-a-manuscript-and-why-should-we-study-them/Support the showEdited by Tyndale House Music – Acoustic Happy Background used with a standard license from Adobe Stock.Follow us on: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube

The number of English Versions has exploded in recent years. Why? How are they different? What should you consider and what should you avoid? We'll look at the history of the English Bible, and Dr Jeannie will share some of her personal experiences in doing translation work.

On Culture Friday, John Stonestreet addresses doctrinal clarity, persecution, and the ethics of technology. Joseph Holmes reviews The Promised Land, and a museum showcases the history of the English Bible. Plus, the Friday morning newsSupport The World and Everything in It today at wng.org/donateAdditional support comes from Missions Upside Down - a FREE, award-winning video series about Christian missions in the past, present, and into the future. You can find this free resource on RightNowMedia or at missionsupsidedown.comFrom the Peace of God Bible, inviting you to experience God's peace. With notes and devotions from Dr. Jeremiah Johnston. PeaceofGodBible.comAnd from Covenant College, where Christian faculty equip students for their callings through hard ideas, deep questions, and meaningful work. covenant.edu/world