Navigating An Ancient Faith Podcast

Questions or Comments? Send us a text! Many today live in constant fear that our planet is on the brink of total destruction.  🌎Media and politics amplify this anxiety, but what does the Bible say?  Does it foretell Earth's destruction even as the faithful are taken to heaven? 🚀In our final dive into "Stranger Things," we confront the apocalyptic fear of our planet's impendin...

Questions or Comments? Send us a text! Embark on a journey into the unknown! 🛸 Whispers of alien encounters and rumors of extraterrestrial secrets locked away have captured recent headlines. 👽 As the world ponders the possibility that we're not alone, Christians face profound questions about the essence of faith. How do these ideas impact the core messages of the Bible? 📜 Join us in our &q...

Questions or Comments? Send us a text! Artificial Intelligence (AI) is quickly being incorporated into all facets of life.  🤖 For some, AI holds the promise of solving many of the complex problems of modern life.  For others, AI brings us one step closer to having our entire lives run by machines.  But what is the Christian perspective on AI? Can ancient wisdom from the Bible guide us in this tec...

Questions or Comments? Send us a text! Uncover the deeper meaning of the Psalms. 🔍  Some of the Psalms were written in response to events recorded elsewhere in the Bible.  Reading the stories that are connected with these psalms can uncover hidden insights.  Often, the writer of the psalm is peering into the spiritual realm as they are reflecting on the events of the material world. 🔮 In this ep...

Questions or Comments? Send us a text! There are several Psalms that are described as Psalms of Ascent.   These are songs that likely would have been sung on pilgrimage to Jerusalem.  To go on pilgrimage is to ascend the Mountain of God.  But other Psalms also refer to descending to the grave or to The Pit.  What is the significance of the language of descending to the underworld?  Delve into the...

Questions or Comments? Send us a text! Psalm 82 makes a veiled reference to an assembly of the gods.  Is this just poetic imagery or is a deeper mystery at play?  As it turns out, the Bible mentions a type of divine assembly throughout both the Old and New Testaments.  So what are the origins of this assembly and how are we to understand these references today? Join us in this episode for a captiv...

Questions or Comments? Send us a text! Unearth the unseen battles within the Psalms! It might be easy to associate the Psalms with worship music and poetry.  Yet hidden beneath obscure references and our modern translations are numerous polemics against the pagan gods of other nations.  Make no mistake: when Yahweh led the Israelites out of Egypt and into the Promised Land, the surrounding deities...

Questions or Comments? Send us a text! When the Psalms refer to the mountain of God or God's holy hill, which mountain is it referring to?  Were these references merely poetic whispers, or do they carry deeper revelations?  By understanding what the mountain represented to the ancient mind, we are able to better understand what the Biblical writers of the Psalms meant by the many references t...

Questions or Comments? Send us a text! The ancient Greek philosophy of Stoicism is making a comeback in modern times.  Stoicism offers a compelling pathway to virtue, but does it tell the whole story?  As opposed to Stoicism, Christianity does tell the whole story - at least in the minds of believers.  But within that story, can Christians learn to pull out a structured path to becoming better peo...

Questions or Comments? Send us a text! In modern society, we have a wealth of information at our fingertips.  We have more information at our disposal than most rulers or kings had throughout history.  But are we using that information wisely and what have we sacrificed?  In this episode, we discuss the trade-off between information and concentration, and how we can begin to recapture the ancient...

Questions or Comments? Send us a text! Finishing our survey of the major themes in the New Testament book of Colossians, we discuss one phrase in Colossians 4 that is easy to overlook.  In Colossians 4:16 Paul instructs the church to share this letter with the church in Laodicea and to read the letter that was sent to them.  So what happened to the letter to Laodicea?  And what does it mean that w...

Questions or Comments? Send us a text! In Colossians 3, the Apostle Paul helps the church reconnect with their faith.   He does so by symbolically walking them through their baptism ceremony.  The original hearers would have also seen the similarities between baptism and an initiation rite into a mystery religion.  The old person had died and their new life was now hidden with Christ. ------------...

Questions or Comments? Send us a text! Continuing our journey through the New Testament book of Colossians we explore chapter 2 through the lens of the original hearers.  The Apostle Paul mentions several activities as shadows compared to the reality of Christ.  To a Greco Roman audience this would have echoes of Plato and the Allegory of the Cave.  Does this background help shed light on what Pau...

Questions or Comments? Send us a text! We begin our journey through the New Testament book of Colossians by examining the main theme of chapter 1 through the lens of the original hearers.  The Hymn to Christ is well known to readers of the Bible.  But one of the primary ways the Apostle Paul is using this hymn is to retell the creation story.  What would a creation story have meant to a Greco-Roma...

Questions or Comments? Send us a text! In this final recap of our trip to Greece in October 2022, we discuss The Descent .  What does it look like to experience the sacred and then return to normal life?  While we are tempted to capture that experience in the moment or recreate an experience for others, those attempts rarely work.  So what are we supposed to bring home with us?  In this episode, w...

Questions or Comments? Send us a text! On a recent trip to Greece, we visited the site of Philippi.  While there, the traditional site of St. Paul's prison, mentioned in Acts 16, was being questioned.  This led to a discussion on the tension between facts and meaning.  If the actual site of the prison in Philippi is revealed to be elsewhere, does that mean that the traditional site, which has...

Questions or Comments? Send us a text! Upon returning from Greece in October of 2022, David and JR discuss an unmistakable pattern they saw on the trip.  In order to reach many of the sacred sites they visited, a person had to ascend to a high place.  This pattern was consistent in both pagan and Christian sites.  What can we take from this pattern and how might it apply to our own worship experie...

Questions or Comments? Send us a text! In October of 2022, we traveled to Greece to explore Biblical sites.  We quickly saw a pattern emerging that to reach sacred sites, the person had to ascend to a high place.  In Meteora, Greece, we paused to reflect on that idea of The Ascent, and what it might mean for our worship in today's world. ---------------------------- Watch the YouTube video: T...

Questions or Comments? Send us a text! Have you ever wished you could visit Biblical sites in Greece?  In October 2022, David and J.R. went to several Bible places in Greece.  In this episode we share some insights from the places we visited and talk about how those insights inform the New Testament letters from the Apostle Paul. ---------------------------- Read more on Athens: Explore Athens Rea...

Questions or Comments? Send us a text! There are times when books of the Bible would have been understood in a different way than what we read today.  In this initial episode, you will be introduced to Navigating An Ancient Faith and how we approach understanding the original context of Bible. ----------------------------- Visit our website: Navigating An Ancient Faith Sign up for our Newsletter E...