Reparadigmed Podcast

In an era where some Christians on the forefront of social justice and peacemaking advocacy, while simultaneously other Christians are running the department of war or promoting racial homogeny, it has never been more important for Evangelical Christians to wrestle with the questions, “what is the center of the Christian faith?” and “how is God known?” These are the questions we are engaging with...

Romans 13 has been a go-to text for answering Christian questions about government. Does it teach christians how to use political power? Are christians supposed to obey good government? Should christians overthrow bad governments? A look at Romans 13 in context shows that some of the claims about this text don’t hold water. Nick and Matt take a look at God’s ordering of worldly authorities and how...

In a world of deep political division, how should we as followers of Jesus navigate national identity? And how should we think about not only partisan allegiance, but allegiance to the states we are born into? From the "Constantinian shift" to modern Christian Nationalism, the church has often struggled to balance the ethics of the Gospel with the demands of worldly power. Sometimes we have privat...

Did Jesus satisfy God’s wrath on the cross? Christians have developed a wide variety of theories to explain how Jesus saves from sin. The most popular theory in Evangelical churches, Penal Substitutionary Atonement, is considered central to the gospel by some, an unbiblical distortion by others. Matt and Nick look at the history and development of atonement theories through church history in order...

Apologetics are important, reading the Bible well is important, but we can make a big mistake when we read our Bible with apologetics-driven questions in mind. The history of the church is full of strange (and sometimes troubling) interpretations arising from apologetics-driven interpretations. Nick and Matt discuss the difference between reading Scripture for answers, and reading scripture for wi...

Is the Lord’s Supper an act of resistance against empire? What does Christ the logos mean for how we know God? Where has the church missed the mark? Dr. Paul Axton, Director of Ploughshares Bible Institute and host of the Forging Ploughshares Podcast, joins Matt and Nick in discussing psychology, atonement, and the church’s call to live as a peaceful kingdom community. He offers some harsh critiqu...

“Fallen, fallen is Babylon the Great!” Revelation is loaded with descriptions of Rome’s oppressive systems, exploitative wealth, and coming downfall. Nick and Matt discuss the vivid imagery used to embolden the early Christian communities against their surrounding corruptions. They consider how Revelation encourages Christians to stand against Babylon in our own day as we look forward to the futur...

Revelation is often read as a predictive prophecy for the Western Church, full of obscure symbolism and veiled oracles awaiting future fulfillment. However, if we take seriously the context of the letter, and seek to understand the purpose of apocalyptic literature - we’ll find the letter becomes less cryptic and far more practical to its original audience. Nick explores how this letter would have...

Is human violence ever right? Rev. Dr. Helen Paynter’s work Blessed are the Peacemakers: A Biblical Theology of Human Violence dives into the difficulties of finding a consistent Biblical theology among the variety of voices and perspectives offered in Scripture. Dr. Paynter joins Reparadigmed to discuss how Christians can find ethical guidance in Scriptures for navigating a fallen world. She addr...

Have you ever wondered why early Jesus-followers called each other siblings, holy ones, or beloved? Norman Hubbard sits down with Matt and Nick to discuss the early church’s use of normal language in surprising ways to express and shape their unique relationships. He describes how these unique relationships were an expression of the gospel of Jesus, and considers ways our church tradition has been...

Greek translations of the Hebrew Scriptures helped prepare the way for the message of Jesus and the spread of Christianity. These translations (the Septuagint) were the Scriptures used by the earliest churches, and help us understand connections between our Old and New Testaments. Nick and Matt take a look at some of the interesting and significant differences between the Septuagint and the Masore...

When astronomers like Copernicus and Galileo challenged conventional beliefs, Christians held to their understanding of Scripture’s plain teachings against the dangerous new ideas. Today we look back at those who stuck to their Biblical convictions and we celebrate … the astronomers. In this episode Nick and Matt reflect on the church’s response to heliocentrism and compare modern approaches to re...

The Bible doesn’t sound very Christian when it talks about the soul… Wait that didn’t sound right. Could it be that Christians don’t sound very Biblical when they  talk about it? In this episode, Matt and Nick do a thorough lexical study of the most common Hebrew and Greek words translated into English Bible’s as soul. What they find is surprising, and it makes them think that maybe (just may...

Heaven and Earth - Resurrection Ep 3 Do humans have souls? What is the difference between spirit and flesh? Will the earth be turned into a giant zoo free from humans? Where do the dead go until the resurrection? What is heaven? Matt and Nick discuss the importance of creation in the Biblical story, the mixing of platonism with Christianity, and some of the strange readings of the Bible that occur...

The resurrection of the Messiah before the end of the age was a surprising event. What does it mean to be living between the start and the end of the resurrection? Death is defeated but our bodies are still mortal. New creation is here but we’re still so sinful! The New Testament puts Jesus' resurrection at the center of Christian identity, hope, and ethics. Nick and Matt discuss the importance of...

Many Christians hope to leave earth and spend eternity in a disembodied bliss, but the Hebrew Bible describes God’s good creation and his purpose for image bearing humanity within that creation. Has God abandoned his plans for creation? Did death win? Nick and Matt discuss death’s invasion into the Biblical story, God’s work to limit the effects of death, and Hebrew Bible hope that one day, the cr...

Dr. J. Richard Middleton joins the podcast to discuss “A New Heaven and a New Earth”, his book exploring the future hope of Jesus-followers according to the Bible. Nick presses Dr. Middleton on what the Bible has to say about the Image of God and culture creation, the “sacred/secular” divide, the joy of God’s world, the earthy future hope of believers, the intermediate state, the resurrection of a...

The expectation that believers will be raptured away from earth before the apocalypse has inspired imagination, lots of fiction, and some strange readings of the Bible. Matt and Nick investigate a key rapture passage within its original context, trying to understand how 1st century cultural practices illuminate this passage. Why does this provide comfort regarding those who’ve died? Why would anyo...

“When will this happen, and what will be the sign of your coming and of the end of the age?” Jesus’ answer to these questions has been a hotbed of debate. Is Jesus speaking about events that occurred in Rome’s sacking Jerusalem, or further beyond to another day of judgment? How can Jesus be certain that “this generation” won’t pass away until these things have happened, and say that no one knows t...

In this episode, we dive into the meaning of the apocalyptic “Son of Man,” why Jesus used it as a title in the Gospel accounts, and what it means for a human–any human–to be exalted to the throne of God as a representative ruler of the world. Drawing from biblical sources like Daniel, 1 Enoch, and the Gospels, we explore the origins of the term and consider the implications of Jesus of Nazareth ta...

KJV, ESV, NASB, NIV, NET, AMP, CSB, NLT, LEB, GNB, RSV, and on and on and on… How do you decide which English Bible translation to use? Translated from the Masoretic text or Dead Sea Scrolls? Textus Receptus or Critical Text? Formal or dynamic equivalence? Who pisseth against the wall? There are a lot of questions that have to be answered by Bible translators, and their decisions can have a seriou...

The ancient Hebrews were to hit the economic reset button every fifty years, restoring the people and the land they had accumulated back to the original tribal allotments God had proscribed.  The Jubilee functioned as a time-designated practice in the Hebrew Bible for liberation, restoration, and the redistribution of wealth. In this episode, Matt and Nick explore the concept of Jubilee and i...

Can a genealogy list present a gold challenge to the powers that be? Matt and Nick discuss the violent and wild history of intertestamental Israel under priests who gained tremendous wealth and power. They consider the varying messianic hopes in Judaism and why the arrival of the Son of David was hoped for by some and feared by others. It turns out that a genealogy list really can be exciting, eve...

Do the biblical promises God made to ancient Israel apply to the modern nation state that goes by the same name? Was its formation in 1948 a fulfillment of prophecy? Believing so, many evangelicals have fervently supported the state of Israel, sometimes in ways that aren’t consistent with the ethics of Jesus. In this episode Nick and Matt take a look at the idea of Israel according to the Bible, t...

The Bible has some extraordinary things to say about Christian community and the body of Christ. What we think about church should have a major impact on the way we think and live.  We take a look at the language behind English translations of church , connections to the Old Testament that get lost in translation, and the politically loaded history of its translation. Lastly, we consider the...