Working Theology Podcast

When theologians and pastors speak of Scripture's preservation, they are talking about the ways God has maintained the integrity and accesibility of his Bible to his people across the ages, from its beginnings in the 15th century BC until today. In this episode, I want to outline how Scripture has come to us and some of the ways God has ensured the Bible's integrity from the days it was written until today.

In this episode, we will reflect on the revelation of God’s free and powerful expression of mercy in Deuteronomy 30:1-15. Israel will continue to sin, the expression of their fundamental brokenness, their sinful hearts. Deuteronomy 30 looks to a day in the future when God would remove this brokenness and replace Israel’s sinful hearts with faithful ones.The translation used is from this essay, (3) Do Not Say in Your Heart: An Exposition of Romans 10:1-8.

The Bible testifies that God is a God who speaks. The Bible is a unique act of God's speech, different from his speech at creation and from all the prophecies and messages that have not endured until our day. The Bible is covenant legislation, a law governing our relationship with our Lord. In this episode, we will see how God has given us the Bible and how each part fits together as a covenant document from our God.

In this series of episodes, I hope to give a foundation for a life-long reading of Scripture by asking the big picture questions about what the Bible is. We will look first at the Bible and its story (Episodes A, B, C), then we will ask the question, What is the Bible? (Episodes D, E, F). Finally, we will see that the Bible is clear, sufficient, and authoritative (Episodes G, H, I).

After Israel sinned with the golden calf, Moses sought a glimpse of God’s character that would give him confidence that God would never abandon his people. God gives a small glimpse of his character, sufficient to assure Moses, in Exodus 34. In the New Testament, we find the full revelation of God that Moses did not see.This episode uses the ESV along with my own translations of the text.

In this episode, I want to address a significant problem in the way we think about church services and preaching. We often assume that people in our congregations are literate, are good readers. We often assume that the methods of communication we learned in university are helpful in the church. But the majority of the world are oral-preferential learners, and the church is by nature an oral context. So we need to think carefully about oral communication if we want to communicate well in our churches. This episode will have two parts. In part 2, we will consider how to craft sermons that are for the ear rather than the eye, sermons that are better listened to than read.

In this episode, I want to address a significant problem in the way we think about church services and preaching. We often assume that people in our congregations are literate, are good readers. We often assume that the methods of communication we learned in university are helpful in the church. But the majority of the world are oral-preferential learners, and the church is by nature an oral context. So we need to think carefully about oral communication if we want to communicate well in our churches. This episode will have two parts. In part 1, we will introduce the ideas of oral and text-preferential learning and how this applies to our churches. We will then consider how choices we often make in our services are skewed towards text-preferential learners over oral-preferential learners.

In this episode, we will reflect on the revelation of God’s name in Exodus 3. In the account of the burning bush, God reveals himself to be “I AM who I AM,” or Yahweh from the human perspective. This name means that God is known only through his gracious self-revelation, but God reassure s us that he has given us sufficient revelation so that we can truly know him.

In this episode, we will reflect on the character of God revealed through an interesting story in the life of Abraham. In Genesis 15, God instructs Abraham to perform what appears to us to be a bizarre ceremony, yet this ceremony demonstrates the extravagant grace of God. God shows us that he is willing to give his life if necessary to guarantee his promises for his people. (Genesis 15 is read from the ESV and Philippians 2 from the NIV, along with some of my own translations.)

In this episode, I want to address a significant and growing problem with pastoral ministry. This episode will be broken into two parts. In the first part, I will draw on my 12 years of experience in Christian higher education to show you aproblem with how we train minister. In the second part, I will draw on other resources and statistics to show that this reflects a broader problem in Christian ministry. I hope to show you that there is a problem with pastoral ministry,which relates to the view that pastors need to be highly educated.  I have argued elsewhere that this is the problem; in other episodes, hope to show you that the pastoral ministry according to the Bible has nothing to do with intellectual theology and academic, higher education. But for now, I just want to show you there is a problem. (This episode is based on the introduction to my book ⁠The Workers are Few⁠.)

In this episode, I want to address a significant and growing problem with pastoral ministry. This episode will be broken into two parts. In the first part, I will draw on my 12 years of experience in Christian higher education to show you aproblem with how we train minister. In the second part, I will draw on other resources and statistics to show that this reflects a broader problem in Christian ministry. I hope to show you that there is a problem with pastoral ministry,which relates to the view that pastors need to be highly educated.  I have argued elsewhere that this is the problem; in other episodes, hope to show you that the pastoral ministry according to the Bible has nothing to do with intellectual theology and academic, higher education. But for now, I just want to show you there is a problem. (This episode is based on the introduction to my book The Workers are Few.)

In this episode, we will reflect on God as he is revealed in the Genesis creation narrative and in John’s reflections on this narrative in John 1. From Genesis 1, we hear that the whole world is sustained by God and depends on him: we encounter God in all the rich diversity of his beautiful creation. From John 1, we hear that Jesus was there in the beginning as the agent of God’s creative work. (The Bible readings are from the ESV translation.)

In this podcast, we hope to offer thoughtful and biblically faithful reflections on Christian ministry. We hope that the resources we create will be accessible to men and women from all sorts of backgrounds. Episodes of the working theology podcast will fall into three streams. Stream one will offer reflections on Biblical passages and themes. Stream two will offer teaching and reflection on issues related to Christian ministry. Stream three will offer conversations on Christian ministry.

This episode is based on the introduction to my book , Portraits of the King. In this episode, I introduce the idea that our knowledge of God is not about content we possess but about knowing a person, like we know our friends and family. Future episodes will reflect on specific ways God reveals himself in the Old and New Testaments. The text is Romans 1:18-23, read from the ESV.