Craving Answers, Craving God

The Christian New Testament teaches that Christians must be baptized. In this episode, Chuck and Aaron talk about the meaning of Christian baptism, the proper biblical mode of baptism, and the proper subject of baptism. They also talk about the Bible’s teaching that baptism has the power to save: because baptism is the Word of God in liquid form it has the ability to do all the things holy scriptu...

Following up on the last episode about prayer, Chuck and Aaron talk about the value of the Psalms as a way to intimately connect with God. The Psalms not only contain a wide variety of types of prayer, but all the Psalms work together to tell the story of God’s plan of salvation: they work through the reign of David, the loss of that reign in exile, the heartbreak of separation from God and his te...

Perhaps the most remarkable thing about the Christian God is his desire to have a relationship with his human creatures. He wants to talk to us and wants us to talk to him, and we call this prayer. God saves his human creatures because he wants children. This means prayer is, fundamentally, our relational connection with him. And this communication is in many ways more powerful than our communicat...

Serious Christians spend a lot of time thinking about God, but in today’s episode Chuck and Aaron talk about what God thinks about his creatures. Some people tend to think of God as a judge, and this of course is the way the Bible frequently talks about him as well. But the message of the gospel is that when God judges those who believe in Jesus he judges them “not guilty.” In other words, God’s a...

In a prior episode, the question of what Christians believe about the final destination of the Christian believer was raised. For many years, the Christian church has lived in the legacy of the medieval Catholic church’s teaching that the goal of Christianity is to get the believer to heaven after they die. But the Bible never uses the word “heaven” to refer to the place where Christians’ souls re...

The title of our podcast is Craving Answers, Craving God, but what do we mean by the word craving? And, outside of food, what do people crave? And specifically, do people crave answers? Do they crave God? Chuck and Aaron talk about how everyone wants answers to questions, but how our postmodern culture’s belief that there are no real answers to any of these questions means existential conflict, le...

Christians believe that God has called the Church to be his agent for change in the world. Chuck and Aaron talk about how to define the word “world”, and how God loves his creation – both people and nature, but that sometimes the Bible uses the word “world” negatively: as the broken and rebellious system determined to oppose God and his Messiah. God’s whole goal in creating his Church is to work o...

Christians and non-Christians alike are uncomfortable with what Jesus teaches about hell. But the difference between the two groups is that Christians don’t usually like to talk about hell, whereas non-Christians are very interested in talking about how Christians can believe something as horrible as the doctrine of eternal separation from God. It’s important to understand that the Bible’s teachin...

Unbelievers find the Christian doctrine of the Trinity confusing and contradictory, and believers sometimes are confused about what the point of the Trinity is. But the Bible insists the only way to really know God is to know him in the story of the Bible – a story that describes him, even as early as Genesis 1, as existing in multiple persons and then, later, as One. This notion of God as always...

In the last episode Chuck and Aaron talked about fearing God. In this episode they talk about facing our fear of things that God doesn’t want us to be afraid of. While some types of fear can be helpful – the brief momentary fears that give us bursts of focus and energy are a gift of God to help keep us safe. But the deep, chronic fears that paralyze us are symptoms of idolatry: we fear loss, and t...

Is fear a good or bad thing? The Bible tells us not to be afraid, but it also tells us to fear God. The fear of God begins with his holiness. Chuck and Aaron talk about the possibility that the reason why we humans struggle with the notion of fearing God is that we aren’t enough in his presence. And this is the foundation of the healthy, biblical fear of God: recognizing that the things we’re afra...

Chuck and Aaron continue their discussion about forgiveness by thinking through the notion of the forgiveness of sins. In one sense some people need more forgiveness because some sins are more bad, more damaging. But in another sense, because all sins are equally wrong, everyone needs the same amount of forgiveness. God gives this forgiveness once for all time, to all who believe in Jesus; but in...

Forgiveness is at the heart of the Christian faith, but it’s such a difficult concept to understand in our culture. Currently, everything is either permitted or unforgivable. Part of this unwillingness to grapple with the notion is the understandable concern that forgiveness means saying that damaging and painful things that have been done are somehow “okay”. But real biblical forgiveness means re...

Who is Jesus, and why does he matter? Christians claim that Jesus stands in a special relationship with the creator God, but many others claim that he was merely a wise teacher or a powerful prophet. Chuck and Aaron talk about how Jesus fits into the Jewish story of the Bible as God’s special and unique agent to bring about his own kingdom of righteousness, justice, and peace. Jesus has long been...

Chuck and Aaron talk about the difference between a Christian and non-Christian definition of evil. Almost all people believe in evil – that there are things that violate ultimate value. Both groups, in this sense, use the word evil in this same way. The difference is that the values by which both groups judge an event to be evil or not is drastically different. For Christians, the character of Go...

What is evil? And how could a good and all-powerful God allow it to exist? Chuck and Aaron discuss the relationship between moral evil and creational evil; the philosophically unanswerable question of how, if God exists, he could allow suffering; and the Bible's practical, two-part answer to this question. From a Christian perspective, evil is broader than just moral violations, it also encompasse...

Is Christianity a religion? What is religion? Chuck and Aaron discuss the similarities and differences between the religions and worldviews of the world and the religion of Christianity.</p> Christianity is seen by many as one of the world’s great religions, but is there a distinction between Christianity and the other world religions? What does it mean to be spiritual? Is it possible to be...

Many people struggle with chronic loneliness, a sickness not always alleviated by the presence of other people. Why do we, in spite of all the people around us, feel so disconnected? Chuck and Aaron talk about how our culture became so bored, how this boredom cannot be alleviated by joining special interest clubs, and how having a relationship with Jesus in the Christian Church not only alleviates...

Many people in our culture identify as “spiritual” but find the idea of belonging to a church or other religious group hard to swallow. But even though we reject the thought of community, we find ourselves – in our increasing loneliness as a culture – craving community at the same time. Is it possible that this craving comes from our being made in God’s image, and thus made for the very community...

With all the competing stories in our culture, how can we know that the story of the Bible is the right one? Chuck and Aaron talk about how the story of the Bible takes into account all the different aspects of life in God’s creation in ways that all the alternate stories can’t. The story of the Bible claims to be the one true story of all reality, and its reliability can be experienced when we al...

If the Bible exercises its authority as a Story, what are the alternative stories that challenge the Bible for this authority? Chuck and Aaron talk about competing stories that contemporary culture tells itself that all claim to have authority. The story of the Bible tells the story of Creation (Where did we come from? What are we meant for?), Fall (What went wrong? Why are we in the trouble we’re...

Christians claim that the Bible is authoritative, but how can an ancient document written in a specific historical time and geographic place be authoritative over people living here and now? Chuck and Aaron discuss the problem of authority claims in an anti-authoritarian culture, and how and why our culture got to the point where it views authority claims as oppressive. They discuss how science an...