Redeeming God Podcast

At a conference I attended a while back, I mentioned in passing to someone that I do not believe that God punished people for their sin. The person I was talking to looked at me like I had lost my mind. “If God doesn’t punish people for their sin,” he said, “then God is just an enabler, letting people get away with their sin.” The man thought I was going to back peddle from my position, but I didn...

Have you ever heard someone say that God is a God of love, but He is also a God of justice? Usually this is said in the context of a discussion on hell. You might object to the idea of torturing people forever in hell as being not very loving, and the other person might say, Well, you know, God is a God of love, but He is also a God of justice. In other words, God wants to forgive, but He must be...

What is evil? Do you know evil when you see it? We all think we know what evil is, that we can recognize it, and that we are able to accurately judge between good and evil. Jonah 4:6 reveals that judging between good and evil should be left up to God. To view the shownotes or leave a comment, visit: https://redeeminggod.com/jonah_4_6/

There are lots of calls for justice in the world today. And God is a God of justice, but most Christians are not really aware of how God carries out justice. We are going to learn more about justice today as we study Jonah 4:5. Jonah wants Nineveh brought to justice, and takes steps to see if God will act. To leave a comment or view the shownotes, visit: https://redeeminggod.com/jonah_4_5/

Have you ever been angry at how God runs the world? I was listening to a podcast recently which had an atheist on the show, and he said this to the Christian who was interviewing him, “If your God exists, then your God sucks. I could do a better job running the world than He is. Why doesn’t He stop the wars, and the violence, and the rapes, and the murders?” Have you ever felt like that? I’ll be h...

At the very beginning of our study of Jonah, we encountered two questions about Jonah’s strange behavior in the book. When asked by God to go preach judgment against the evil city of Nineveh, Jonah instead got on a boat and headed to Tarshish. The first question, then, was, “Why would Jonah go to Tarshish instead of obey God and preach judgment against his enemies, the Ninevites?” And then Jonah’s...

Have you ever been angry at God? Come on now, be honest. Of course you have. Life has a way of crushing us all, and when that happens, we often get angry at God about it. When you’re angry at God, what do you do? Do you try to handle it yourself? Or do you lash out at God in your anger? This is what we look at in this study of Jonah 4:2, and you will find it very encouraging for your own prayer li...

After Nineveh experiences a city-wide revival in response to his preaching, Jonah becomes angry at God. What do you think about that? Have you ever thought that he should have rejoiced instead? Well, today, we are going to look a bit more at Jonah’s response, and come to understand that Jonah’s response is actually quite normal and natural. You and I might have had a similar response. Maybe we do....

What is repentance? What is evil? If you think you know, here are some harder questions: Does God ever need to repent? Does God commit evil? Jonah 3:10 seems to indicate that God does commit evil and does repent of it. Yikes! What does that mean? This is what we look at in this study. To leave a comment or view the shownotes, visit: https://redeeminggod.com/jonah_3_10/

What is repentance? How do we repent? Does God ever need to repent? It is these sorts of questions we are considering today as we look at Jonah 3:9, where the king of Nineveh expresses his hope that God will repent. To leave a comment or view the shownotes, visit: https://redeeminggod.com/jonah_3_9/

What if there was another way to defeat violent groups of people, other than with more violence? What if there was a better, godly ways to defeat violence? This is one of the questions we consider today from Jonah 3:6-8. This is what we are going to learn about today, as we see how God brought the violent and evil empire of Assyria to its knees in sorrow and repentance. If you want to defeat evil,...

Did you know that you can evangelize and be a witness for the Gospel as you go about your day and interact with others without having to share the Four Spiritual Laws with them, or walk them through the Romans’ Road? It’s true! You do not have to stand on the street corner shouting through a bullhorn or go door-to-door interrupting people in their homes to share the gospel. God can start a city-wi...

How do you evangelize? Do you use tracts? Invite people to church, or to an evangelism crusade? Do you use the Roman’s Road? Do you shout into a bullhorn that people are going to hell unless they repent? In Jonah 3:4, we see how Jonah shared the message of God to the people of Nineveh. We’ll also see that his approach to evangelism left much to be desired. To leave a comment or view the shownotes,...

What does God think of evil people? What does God think of people who disobey Him, and are opposed to Him and His ways? Well, according to Jonah 3:3, God thinks they’re great. We’re going to see that the wicked and violent people of Nineveh are great to God. Nineveh was the capital of Assyria, and so this is why I titled today’s podcast Making Assyria Great Again. Assyria was in modern day Iraq, s...

Do you ever feel like you are stuck on a hamster wheel in the life of discipleship to Jesus? That you hear the same things over and over? You go through the same steps over and over? That you just keep going round and round and never seem to make any progress or do anything new? If so, what you learn from this Bible study of Jonah 3:2 will be helpful for you. To leave a comment or view the shownot...

Jonah 3 begins in almost exactly the same way as Jonah 1. Jonah 3:1 is nearly identical to Jonah 1:1. Jonah 3:1 reveals that God is a God of second chances. After Jonah’s blatant rebellion and shameful disobedience of chapter 1, and after Jonah’s self-righteous, unrepentant behavior in chapter 2, God still calls Jonah to go to Nineveh and preach to it the message that God to him. To leave a commen...

As we have studied through Jonah’s prayer in Jonah 2, I have been fairly critical of Jonah and what he says. I have said that his prayer, while full of Scripture and pious language, is actually a big sham. He praises himself, condemns the sailors, and reveals a lot of self-righteousness and pride. Now that was my take on the prayer. And honestly, I hate being critical of someone else’s prayer. My...

If I say “salvation is from the Lord,” what do you think of? If you are like most Christians, you think of how God forgives your sins so you can receive eternal life and go to heaven when you die. Well, the phrase “salvation is from the Lord” is found in Jonah 2:9, which are looking at in this podcast episode, and we will see that it means something quite different from what many Christians think...

Do you think that theology can be an idol? That is, do you think that we sometimes allow our study of God, or even what we think we know about God, to get in the way of actually worshiping and obeying God? In other words, do you think we Christians ever make our theology of God more important than God Himself? Is it possible for our theology to become idolatry? That is what we will discuss today a...

What is your prayer life like? Do you ever wonder if you are praying properly? As we continue to look at Jonah’s prayer in Jonah 2:5-6, we learn some more lessons today about how to pray, and how not to pray. To leave a comment or view the show notes, visit: https://redeeminggod.com/jonah_2_5-6/

In Jonah 2:4, Jonah states that he prayed to worship God in His holy temple. In this way, Jonah seems to take credit for his deliverance from drowning. And though he has no interest in obeying God by going to Nineveh, Jonah is happy about the prospect of worshiping God in the temple. But which do you think God would prefer? To leave a comment or view the shownotes, visit: https://redeeminggod.com/...

I’ve encountered several people recently who fear death. I don’t know if you fear death or not. Personally, I don’t. But as we study the book of Jonah, we see that Jonah sort of wanted to die, but he didn’t want to die by drowning. We see why in this study of Jonah 2:3. We see that Jonah prefers to die by digestion that to die by drowning. Isn’t that strange? To leave a comment or view the shownot...

When you think of hell, what is it you think of? A place of burning? Fire? Demons gleefully torturing people as they scream in terror? If you are like most people, that is likely what the word “hell” brings to mind. But did you know that such a depiction of hell does not come from the Bible at all? It comes from ancient pagan beliefs; not from the Bible. When the Bible talks about hell, or hades,...

My two recent books have referenced René Girard’s Mimetic theory. If you want to learn more about this theory, and why it is so important for understanding life, Scripture, and ourselves, here is an explanation of this theory that I recorded last year. To leave a comment, visit: https://redeeminggod.com/rene-girard-mimetic-theory/

In my own prayer life, I find it helpful to pray the prayers of Scripture. I sometimes pray the prayer of Daniel in in Daniel 9. Or the prayer of Jesus in Matthew 6. Or any of the numerous prayers of Paul found throughout his letters, such as the one at the end of Ephesians 3. I especially find it helpful to pray the Psalms. There is a Psalm for every emotion. If you do something like this, the on...