Bible Bard - English

The Bible speaks of two contrary terms: "the mind governed by the flesh" and "the mind governed by the Spirit". The text we analyze appears to suggest that the believing human being has access to either mind because they can “set” their mind (agree with) either what “the flesh desires” or what “the Spirit desires”. This episode discusses what the text is teaching us about that willful choice.

There are three conditions that plague humanity: they are fear, worry, and anxiety. Surveys indicate that in the world about 70% of humanity spends a lot of emotional and mental energy on these three internalizing, affective states. What the Bible Bard is interested in is how the Bible addresses this human problem.

Luke 18:18-27 tells a story of a conversation Jesus has with a man who is called the rich young ruler . This man asks Jesus a question, “Good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life ?” The answer Jesus gives to the basic question at the heart of all religions is shocking and totally different from the answers provided by other religions.

The text of 2 Corinthians 5 provides an unusual instruction on how to live our lives. This is a very strange thing to talk to people about. The subject is what are you living for? What are you living to accomplish? In trying to answer that question, we look at how a few great pagan thinkers have answered it including Aristotle, Siddhartha Gautama, Epicurus, Epictetus, Seneca, Marcus Aurelius, and...

In John 5:16-47 we are given a long passage that discusses who Jesus is. These 31 verses declare a lot about Jesus that is ignored by another lot of people. This person Jesus, this historic figure Jesus, is not a shadowy figure of legend. He is not a mythic person, the concoction of novelists. What the Bible actually states about Jesus is shocking.

When we read the Bible as literature we often notice such wonderful things. In John Chapter 12 we find something revealed that we didn’t expect — there are three different classes of believers in Jesus. This episode discusses what they are.

The letters of the Apostle Paul to early Christian believers are wonderful because they show us what Christianity was like when it just began. These texts become for us a history of what was said about Jesus and what was believed by those who listened to the early message from those who had been with Jesus himself. Our methodology of literary analysis takes a particular text and gains clarity beca...

This episode of the Bible Bard podcast is Lesson Ninety-nine (99) God Has No Favorites. The Apostle Peter says something quite astonding: “I now realize how true it is that God does not show favoritism but accepts from every nation the one who fears him and does what is right.” This episode discusses what this means to Christianity historically.

Today the Bible Bard celebrates the posting of our 100th English podcast episode. This is 4,343 minutes of podcast content examines from a literary point-of-view what the Bible says about who is God and who are human beings. The podcast is published in eight (8) languages including English , Bengali , Chichewa , Hindi , Spanish , Swahili , and Urdu , with three (3) more languages in development: C...