Making Sense of Life Through The Biblical Story Podcast

In today’s episode we will look at the transition to a new generation in Israel, and the issues that need to be addressed if they are going to fulfill YHWH’s purpose once enter the Land. 

In this episode, we’re look at a particularly enigmatic character who comes on the scene in Numbers. He is not an Israelite, and he’s lukewarm, at best, in his orientation toward YHWH, but YHWH’s prophecies through him are an important part of The Story. His name is Balaam.

In today’s episode we are going to watch Israel struggle with the concept of holiness through the 3 stories in Numbers that cover most of their 38 years of wandering. 

In today’s episode, we’re going to see Israel continue to fight their relationship with YHWH bringing catastrophe on themselves as they journey toward the Land Promised to Abraham and his seed over 700 years earlier.

In this episode, we’ll be looking at God’s budding relationship with the nation of Israel. We concluded the last episode with the Tabernacle erected, and YHWH filling it with His presence and glory. But with that event, not even Moses could enter the Tabernacle. In this episode, we’ll see YHWH take the necessary steps to make Israel’s relationship with Him functional.

In today’s episode we’re going to be looking at the beginning of Israel’s relationship with God, giving the bulk of our attention to the incident involving the golden calf, and the impact of their actions on this newly established relationship with YHWH. 

In today’s episode we’re going to see the relationship that God has been pursuing with Israel — the one that He promised to Abraham over 700 years earlier — be formalized in the covenant with Israel at Mt. Sinai — the covenant known as the Mosaic Covenant, or the Old Testament Law.

In today’s episode we’ll be looking at God’s deliverance of Israel from Egypt, considering, not only the plagues leading up to the death of all the firstborn in Egypt, but also the rituals that God gave the Israelites to commemorate these events, the truths those rituals communicate, and how all of this moves the Story forward.

My computer is out of commission and I will not be able to produce an episode this week.

In this episode we’ll pick up the story of Israel enslaved in Egypt, and see how YHWH raises up Moses to be His instrument through which He will fulfill His promises to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

In today’s episode we’re going to look what happened to Jacob through the lives of his sons, with a particular focus on two of those sons, Joseph and Judah. Through their lives, we will see the re-emergence of the expectation of a ruler who will come through Abraham’s seed.

In this episode, we’re going to look at the life of Jacob, who becomes Israel, and what this new identity means to the Story.

In today’s episode, we’re going to see the Promises to Abraham fully and completely ratified, and then watch as they pass from Abraham to Isaac, and toward Jacob. I also want to give you a key to thinking about the Story in a way that you can begin to track it in your own mind.

In today’s episode we’re going to look at Abram & Sarai’s efforts to fulfill God’s Promise of a Seed with the Hagar Solution, and then see God’s rejection of those efforts with the Promise of the birth of Isaac. In these events, we’ll also look at the Sign of the Covenant, circumcision.

In today’s episode we’ll look at the connection between Abram’s faith and God’s Promises to him. We will see the Promise of a Seed return to prominence in the Story, and we will see the Promises that have already been made formalized into a binding Covenant. 

With the conclusion of the Story at Babel, things seem pretty hopeless. Man is nowhere near living up to what God created him for, and God has given men over to their defiance. There is no glimmer of hope in that smaller story. But the Larger Story isn’t over. In today’s episode, we’ll look at God’s initiative, through Abraham, to bring blessing to those who seem determined to live under the Curse...

After Babel, things seem pretty hopeless. Man is nowhere near living up to what God created him for, and God has given men over to their defiance. There is no glimmer of hope in that smaller story. But the Larger Story isn’t over. In today’s episode, we’ll look at God’s actions to bring blessing to those who seem determined to live under the Curse.

In this episode, we’re going to look at what happened to the sons of Noah after the flood. In the process, we’re going to see again that genealogies are simply a dry list, but make important contributions to the development of the Story. And by the end of today’s episode, we’re going to see that what happened at Babel was just as catastrophic as the flood.

The Story of Noah is more than a standalone Bible story. In it, God's relationship with mankind is dramatically altered. In this episode, we'll conclude our look at how the events related to Noah's life advance the larger Story.

The Story of Noah is one of those bible stories that is usually taught as a stand-alone story. But as we’ve seen, it’s not. It’s part of the larger Story of Scripture. So, what are the critical developments found in it, and how do they move the Story forward? That’s what we’re going to begin to look at in this episode.

In this episode we’re going to look how the Story moves from Adam to Noah. In particular, we will see what becomes of the Seed of the Woman.

In this episode, we continue our look into the Seed of the Serpent and the Seed of the Woman. In what we think of as The Curse, God had told the Serpent that He would put conflict between his Seed and the Seed of the Woman. At the time, it wasn’t apparent what these two Seed were, but in the story of Cain and Abel, they begin to come into focus. We began looking at that in the last episode. Today,...

In what we think of as The Curse, God had told the Serpent that He would put conflict between the seed of the Serpent and the Seed of the Woman, and He told the woman that He would multiply her pain and her pregnancies, and that in pain she would bring forth Sons. In this episode, we’ll watch as these elements of the Story begin to play out.

It is commonly taught, at least among Evangelicals, that the Curse impacted how a man and woman would relate in marriage—specifically, that the woman would desire to control her husband, but that her husband would dominate her harshly. But as I've followed the development of The Story, I no longer believe that's true. I believe that Genesis 3:16 is saying something very different—somethi...

In this episode of The Story, we explore the consequences of the Woman's decision to be like God and to pursue the knowledge of Good and Evil independent of Him.  As we watch things play out, we will look at the things that happened as a result of that decision and the consequences of that decision that plague us still today. At the heart of this episode, we want to understand what God meant...