Restitutio

Let’s face it; it’s difficult to talk about pornography, especially among Christians.  We get overwhelmed with feelings of shame and embarrassment while fearing how others will regard us with disgust or disdain.  However, this issue is a huge struggle for a ton of Christians (and non-Christians) in the world today.  Drawing on some of what he shared last week about spiritual discipline...

The prophet Isaiah spoke more about the kingdom than any other prophet in the Hebrew bible. Consequently, his book is a phenomenal place to begin developing our understanding of what the kingdom will be like.  Stitching together his various snapshots, we encounter a magnificent collage detailing a new world full of peace, justice, and healing. This is lecture 3 of the Kingdom of God class , origin...

What spiritual disciplines do you practice?  We’re all familiar with reading our bibles and prayer, but there’s so much more available.  In this interview, Blake Cortright guides us through his own journey into discovering ancient Christian disciplines that can help us today, including prayer, fasting, meditation, bible study, simplicity, solitude, submission, service, confession, wors...

It’s impossible to understand the kingdom of God or Jesus without having a grasp of the history-changing promises God made with Abraham and David.  To Abraham God covenanted the land and to David, a descendant to rule.  Ultimately these two covenants find their fulfillment in Jesus of Nazareth–the Messiah. This is lecture 2 of the Kingdom of God class , originally taught at the Atlanta...

What role does doubt play in your life?  Do you think of it as something to push aside and ignore or do you pursue your doubts to get answers?  In this episode we examine the role of doubt for Christians, avoiding both extremes of refusing to engage with doubt as well as obsessing on it.  Our goal is to face doubt honestly and ask God for help as we do the hard work of getting good answers. Links:...

Today we begin a new class on Restitutio on the Kingdom of God. Jesus said the kingdom was like a treasure hidden in a field—it’s so valuable it’s worth selling everything to purchase. He said to seek the kingdom of God and his righteousness above what we eat or wear. In this class we’ll spend a great deal of time exploring what the bible teaches about the kingdom, including hope, gospel, and way....

Christians protecting Muslims while they prayed in Tahrir Square, Egypt in 2011 On January 27, 2017, President Trump issued Executive Order 13769, called “Protecting the Nation from Foreign Terrorist Entry into the United States,” in which he banned immigration from seven countries, including Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, and Yemen.  This unpopular order caused much controv...

In the last episode ( Boundaries for Same-Sex Attraction ), we looked at what the bible says about same-sex attraction.  In this one, we consider seven important questions about gay and lesbian Christians: How should same-sex attracted Christians think of themselves? Isn’t the Christian sexual ethic harmful to gays and lesbians? Is having same-sex feelings a sin? Can someone go from gay to straigh...

Is it a sin to be gay? What does the bible say about same-sex attraction? In this episode you’ll become familiar with the relevant scriptures that talk about homosexuality. You’ll also learn what arsenokoitai (ἀρσενοκοῖται) means in 1 Corinthians 6.9, a key battleground text for discussions of biblical sexuality. Here the Apostle Paul pulls from the Greek translation of Leviticus 20.13...

Jackie Hill-Perry used to dress like a boy to go out and pick up girls. She ended up in a long-term relationship with another woman, but then she came to a sudden realization that she was living a lie. She’s completely changed her life and now embraces her femininity and even got married to a man (Preston Perry). She’s a poet, a hip-hop artist, and a powerful speaker.  This is her test...

Meet Becket Cook.  He’s a very well-connected gay fashion set designer who has traveled the world, attended the Oscars, Golden Globes, Emmys, etc., and rubbed shoulders with Hollywood’s A-list actors.  One day he saw Christians reading their bibles in a trendy coffee shop in LA and engaged them in conversation.  One of them invited Cook to church and he went to check it...

The best chapter on resurrection in the bible is 1 Corinthians 15. In it, the Apostle Paul masterfully lays out the Christian position on resurrection while overcoming common objections in the culture. As it turns out, people living in Corinth thought the idea of resurrection seemed real bizarre.  Looking at tombstone inscriptions, Plato’s Phaedo, and Celsus’ criticism of Christianity,...

How does salvation work?  Is Israel still God’s chosen people or are they on the same footing as everyone else now that the Messiah has come?  In Off Script episode 17, Is Jesus the Only Way to God? , Brian wrote in , inquiring if a Torah-observant Jew could be saved even if he or she didn’t believe in Jesus.  He sharpened his question by pointing out how painfully aware many Jews are...

Are you embarrassed of your non-traditional beliefs about God? Victor Gluckin says that it’s time to stand up for what we believe. Believing God is one (instead of three-in-one) is not some sort of fringe doctrine; it’s at the very heart of biblical faith. After all, Jesus himself identified the Jewish “shema” as the most important command.  He said: The most important is,...

Back in Interview 11 , Joe Martin talked about how he was soon to step down from his leadership position at the Church of God (General Conference).  In this episode, you’ll hear from Seth Ross, who has taken up the mantle and who casts his vision for the future.  You’ll learn about his background, his twenty years pastoring a church in Ohio, and how he came to be the executive director...

No one joined the Pharisees out of desire to practice professional hypocrisy. They were the devout, the separated, the ones who took God and holiness seriously. However, by the time of Jesus, they had confused godliness with self-righteousness and lost compassion in the process. It’s so easy for us to root for Jesus as he calls them on their hypocrisy. Nonetheless, this same attitude–t...

Now that we’ve worked through several counterfeit gods, including love, money, success, and power, it’s time to dig in a little deeper.  Do you understand your own heart?  Can you discern where you are tempted to idolize something or someone?  In order to figure this out, ask yourself these four questions: What do you daydream about? What do you spend your money on? What happens when y...

Covetousness, self-reliance, and envy can rob us of gratitude and contentedness.  So much of our world programs us to feel restless, entitled, and discontent regarding our possessions, how we look, our work, and our relationships.  Have you ever asked yourself, “How much is enough?”  Taking his cue from the Apostle Paul, John Cortright shares the secret of being content: recognizing th...

The 19th century philosopher, Friedrich Nietzsche, believed that our desire for success, money, or love really went back to our “will to power.”  Whereas other philosophies focused on calibrating our internal state to accept reality, Nietzsche focused more on conforming reality to our desires.  Although it’s terribly out of fashion to admit one desires and pursues power, this cou...

Saint Patrick is one of the most courageous missionaries of Christian history. Although revelers mark his day with debauchery and drunkenness, he pursued holiness and risked his life to preach to the Irish barbarians. He held out to the ancient Irish tribes a promise of protection from their gods and demons, if only they would come to Christ. Not only is he an example of virtue and courage, he als...

Everyone enjoys accomplishment and achievement, but what happens when we take success and make it our ultimate goal in life?  When you reach the pinnacle of success in any field, it’s easy to get depressed, asking yourself, “Is this all there is?”  Furthermore, you may begin to fear that you won’t be able to maintain your position as other star-eyed would-be achievers are c...

The history of Christianity can sometimes be really depressing, especially when we look at the “heresy hunters.” From Justin Martyr and Irenaues in the second century to Athanasius and Epiphanius of the fourth century, as Christians we progressively came to define ourselves on the basis of what we don’t believe.  As a result, so much energy focused on precisely defining and polic...

I bet you don’t think you struggle with greed. In fact, I’ve never met anyone who told me this was a problem for him or her. But greed is subtle. It sneaks up on you when you think you’re just working towards financial security or building your confidence or taking control of your life. In this episode we discuss how greed lurks in the shadows as well as how to slay the beast thr...

We all have competing impulses within us vying for our attention and expression. How do you know which ones to amplify and which to repress? How should we think of ourselves? Are we powerful and valuable creatures made in God’s image or accidental byproducts of time plus chance plus matter? In order to live out authentic humanity we need to grasp who we are and how God calls us to live. Only...

Today we are starting a series based on Tim Keller’s book, Counterfeit Gods , wherein we’ll consider a number of idols that vie for worship in our society.  In this episode we consider Aphrodite, the ancient goddess of love, and her modern counterparts.  We begin by examining the somewhat dysfunctional love story of Jacob and Rachel in the book of Genesis.  We conclude that love and ro...