Douglas Jacoby Podcast

For additional notes and resources check out Douglas’ website. Here are the links for the major classes given in the 2015 Biblical Study Tour. The theme was "Finding God When the Church is Adrift," and the teaching took place in the very cities where the early history of the Protestant Reformation played out. Our route took us from Wittenberg to Zurich to Geneva -- that is, from Luther to Zwingli...

For additional notes and resources check out Douglas’ website. Here are the links for the major classes given in the 2015 Biblical Study Tour. The theme was "Finding God When the Church is Adrift," and the teaching took place in the very cities where the early history of the Protestant Reformation played out. Our route took us from Wittenberg to Zurich to Geneva -- that is, from Luther to Zwingli...

For additional notes and resources check out Douglas’ website. EVANGELISM IN THE SECOND CENTURY Challenges to evangelism Apostles now gone – tendency to get more and more involved in disputes Persecution: from Jewish to Roman False teachers (Marcionites, Gnostics, Montanists) Evolving priesthood (spectator shift) Success! Other nations, but little work outside the bounds of the Roman Empire. Churc...

For additional notes and resources check out Douglas’ website. EVANGELISM IN THE FIRST CENTURY Introduction Definition of evangelism: spreading the good news 30—Pentecost, 200 – end of century of intense persecution. Will begin with Acts/NT, then move into 2nd C. Matthew 28: Every people, not every nation (in the modern sense of the term) Mission & purpose (Luke 10:20; Matthew 22:37-40). I have 2...

For additional notes and resources check out Douglas’ website. "The most successful book series in history: approximately 450 million copies sold internationally. Translated: 67 languages. The film series by Warner Bros.: $7.7 billion worldwide...." -- from magazine.pepperdine.edu, May 2013. Why Potter? Writers like C.S. Lewis ( Narnia ), J.R.R.R. Tolkien ( Lord of the Rings ), and many others aim...

For additional notes and resources check out Douglas’ website. Suzanne Collins' trilogy The Hunger Games Catching Fire Mockingjay About Panem Panis et circenses (Latin for bread and circuses), coined by Juvenal, c.100 AD. Note: circuses refer to (extremely violent) chariot races, gladiatorial spectacles, and so forth. Iam pridem, ex quo suffragia nulli uendimus, effudit curas; nam qui dabat olim i...

For additional notes and resources check out Douglas’ website.  

For additional notes and resources check out Douglas’ website. To listen to a biblical exploration of Jane Austen's classic Pride and Prejudice, click on the link. I hope you'll enjoy my short podcast (14 minutes). Note: If you haven't read the novel, or watched any of the various film productions of the book, you will probably want to skip this podcast. Themes commented upon: human nature, truth-...

For additional notes and resources check out Douglas’ website.  

For additional notes and resources check out Douglas’ website. Christian should be engaging culture Divergent is the first novel in Veronica Roth's trilogy: Divergent (2011), Insurgent (2012), Allegiant (2013). Although it is not an explicitly Christian book, in the acknowledgments Roth writes, "Thank you, God, for your Son, and for blessing me beyond comprehension..." The author is inviting us to...

For additional notes and resources check out Douglas’ website. Download the PDF of the notes for this podcast .

For additional notes and resources check out Douglas’ website. This podcast is a book review, examining Todd Burpo's Heaven is for Real: A Little Boy’s Astounding Story of His Trip to Heaven and Back (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 2010), 162 pp. Why the story seems genuine The credibility of the author is enhanced for three reasons. 1. The author (Colton Burpo's father) is a Christian pastor. 2. The w...

For additional notes and resources check out Douglas’ website. Ron Moseley’s book, Yeshua: A Guide to the Real Jesus and the Original Church (Clarksville, Maryland: Messianic Jewish Publishers, 1996) is an interesting read. I have met representatives of this movement before, and read a number of their books, especially once I came into direct personal contact with this school of thought on my firs...

For additional notes and resources check out Douglas’ website. The book critiqued in this podcast is Through the Eye of the Needle: The Doctrine of Non-Accumulation, by Roger Hertzler. The basic idea Our society and the church are materialistic. Christians have ignored the clear teaching of Christ that we are not to store up treasure on earth (Matthew 6:19-21). "Christ says that nothing on earth h...

For additional notes and resources check out Douglas’ website. Avatar is a term from Hindu theology, though it is also common in computer and virtual reality applications. Click here for the origins of the word. "Jake" visits Pandora through an avatar, a 10-foot tall blue-skinned alien, though in fact it is Jake and his American friends who are the real aliens! The plot centers around the exploita...

For additional notes and resources check out Douglas’ website. I. THESIS Jesus was a zealot, advocating violence to overthrow the occupying Romans as well as the corrupt priesthood. For Jesus, the Kingdom of God is very much of this world [144]. John 18:36 has been totally misunderstood [117]. The kingdom is political. Jesus intended that the twelve tribes be reconstituted for a single purpose: wa...

For additional notes and resources check out Douglas’ website. Great lines: "The gods are angry" [Lucius]. -- " One of them is [Clavius]." "Did he say anything?" [Clavius] -- "It is finished [centurion]." "I believe Yeshua will embrace you (Clavius) as a brother, even as you slew him" [Joseph of Arimathea]. "I pray not to thee today, divine Mars, but to the God of the Hebrews, Yahweh. Hear me. Tak...

For additional notes and resources check out Douglas’ website. Note: These thoughts on Yann Martel's book (2001; motion picture 2012) will certainly mean the most to those who have read the book or seen the movie.

For additional notes and resources check out Douglas’ website. What was cool Nearly all the theology is orthodox (God, man, the atonement, righteousness judgment, justice, spirituality...) Especially good is the exploration of the dynamics among the members of the Trinity. Deity is neither male nor female, though he initially appears to the protagonist as female because his own father-wound is so...

For additional notes and resources check out Douglas’ website. Introduction One spring day towards the end of 2004, Australian Rhonda Byrne discovered a secret - the secret laws and principles of the universe . Almost immediately her life was transformed, as she began to put into practice what she had learned. And in that moment her greatest wish, and mission, were to share this knowledge with the...

For additional notes and resources check out Douglas’ website. Scriptures to consider: Genesis 2 -- marriage is the norm Matthew 19:10-12 1 Corinthians 7:6 Biblical celibacy has two components Companionship The sexual element It is assumed that church leaders will be married (1 Timothy 3), as correctly understood by Orthodox clergy. Celibacy over-emphasized in the 2nd century An overreaction to Gn...

For additional notes and resources check out Douglas’ website. 1 Cor 7:10-12, 15 “Not I, but the Lord” and “I, not the Lord.” Paul reveals the Lord’s will on an issue common in the Greco-Roman world: mixed marriages. (“I, not the Lord.”) A Christian has a pagan spouse. Paul and Jesus agree on the subject of divorces between covenant people. Assuming there are no grounds for divorce—and no remarria...

For additional notes and resources check out Douglas’ website. Introduction As we have learned, in Matt 19 / Mark 10 Jesus is weighing in on the Shammai-Hillel debate. He rejects the any-cause divorce of Hillel. Familiarity with this debate is crucial if we are to appreciate the interaction between Jesus and the Pharisees. Yet Mark doesn’t mention the exceptions. In Mark 10 it sounds like all divo...

For additional notes and resources check out Douglas’ website. Mark 10: 2-3, 10-12 Jesus is quizzed. Where does he stand on the divorce issue? Mark indicates absolutely no exceptions! Don’t read through filter of other passages (like 1 Cor or Matt). Mark was writing for a Roman audience. It is doubtful they had access to Matthew—if Matthew was even written yet—and the Jewish issues addressed in Ma...

For additional notes and resources check out Douglas’ website. Podcast notes: Exod 21:10-11: If a married man takes a second (slave) wife, then the food, clothing, and sexual love—material support plus emotional support—received by the first wife must not be reduced. If the husband reneges, the first wife may be released from the marriage. The rabbis correctly saw that if a slave had such rights,...