Relaunching the podcast, Dan and Laurence celebrate by pondering a lesser known Christmas story. They encounter a community of people in the temple at Jerusalem "waiting for the consolation of Israel". They discover that the birth of Jesus is firmly rooted in a backstory. Investigating mystery deaths and incomplete sentences, this is an invitation to have yourself a lesser known Christmas story!
We continue our exploration of the Divine Council worldview by looking at claims made about verses in Deuteronomy 32, the introduction to the book of Job and Psalm 82. It is useful to understand the cultural background to the text of the Bible, but we conclude that it's also important to avoid being distracted by speculative ideas from the main thrust of the Bible message about Jesus reconciling humans to God.
Is the phrase 'sons of God' used to refer to angels? If so, does that include spiritual beings with independent power to oppose God and his people? Using the framework of Michael Heiser's book, Unseen Realm, we start to examine what is termed the 'Divine Council' worldview. This involves grappling with some of the most mystifying parts of the Bible text - but hey, we're just ordinary people trying to understand the Bible better!
Dan and Laurence step into the New Testament for an introduction to the three letters of John. After exploring the stark contrasts and Torah references in the first letter they then see how the second and third letters apply the theory from the first letter to two opposite situations. And finally, little children, keep yourselves from idols...uh?
In this episode, we finish our series on the 5 books of Moses, the Torah, by looking at Deuteronomy. We find that this book acts as a stage-setter, defining how leaders of this ancient people will be described for the next 600 years. Remarkably, Deuteronomy also makes a surprise appearance at the end of that history, just before Israel were exiled to Babylon.
Where do demons fit into a Biblical theology? We look at the few places they appear in the Old Testament and find them linked to the idols worshipped by the peoples around the ancient Israelites. It turns out they are presented as having no real existence or power. So why do demons suddenly make a large appearance in the Gospels?
We continue their exploration of how these 'characters' appear in the Bible. In part 1 we reached a preliminary conclusion that they are used as terms to personify our inherent tendency to want to go our own way rather than God's way. We now look at many more of the relevant biblical passages to get to know the devil and satan better.
Dan welcomes guest, John Launchbury, to discuss the vital question: why did Jesus have to die? They explore the meaning of the word atonement and consider the pros and cons of some of the main atonement theories. As they explore the key scriptural passages involved they find that the impact of the death of Jesus can be just as profound today as it was in the 1st century - and it's all about changing us rather than changing God!
We continue our introduction episodes by looking at the book of Numbers. It's actually not just about counting things, but instead it's about a journey through the wilderness and it says much about God's overarching care for his people to protect, preserve and remain true to his promises.
Paul and Dan embark on a multi-part exploration of the terms Devil and Satan and how they are used through the Bible. They aim to lay some foundations by thinking about how our worldview might affect how we read the Bible and (eventually) start to explore some key verses. The initial conclusion is that they may not be referring to a supernatural being, as is commonly supposed.