Ep. 68 - Coley Stephens - Did Jesus Actually Claim To Be God?

Coley Stephens is an online content creator who works in Christian ministry. He recently came to notoriety debating Alex O’Connor on the popular Jubilee Channel about whether Jesus claimed to be God. In this episode, we dive into his experience at the debate, his thoughts on both his and Alex’s arguments, and offers an insight into the production and guest selection Jubilee deploy for each of their videos.We go on to discuss the difference between the historical Jesus and the Jesus we read in the Gospels, explore the Gospel of Mark, and delve into the ethics of animal suffering.Coley unpacks the term Yahweh, gives different scholarly views on the divinity of Christ, and presents why the local church - not Instagram or TikTok - should be the central hub of discipleship. All My Links:Follow Coley on TikTok: www.tiktok.com/discover/coley-stephens Follow Coley on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/coley.stephens/ 0:00 - Introduction 0:42 - Coley’s Recent Notoriety 3:20 - Is John’s Gospel Historically Accurate? 5:23 - Experience Debating On Jubilee 7:40 - Rating Alex O’Connor’s Debating9:21 - What Is “Q”? 13:00 - Who Is The Historical Jesus? 18:25 - Unpacking The Term Yahweh26:59 - Theory That Jesus Was Just Endowed, But Not God32:15 - Jesus’s Divinity Hidden In Mark 34:21 - Unpacking Each Gospel40:27 - Ethics Of Animal Suffering45:00 - Biblical Answer For Animal Suffering46:10 - Apologetics vs. Evangelism 53:00 - Why The Local Church?