Restitutio

Pentecost, as described in Acts 2, was a strange event. We read about unusual miraculous signs such as the sound of a great wind and tongues of fire. Still, the most interesting moment is when the apostles of our Lord began speaking in foreign languages that they didn't know. Such divine utterance is called speaking in tongues and everyone, it seems, has an opinion about it. But, have you ever ask...

Last week Joshua Michael Smith began sharing his testimony from childhood to his college years when he changed his mind about Jesus's identity. In part two he talks about cage stage unitarianism--where one seeks to confront everyone about this important truth regardless of their interested or antagonism. Smith shares how he matured while continuing to work within Assemblies of God and Baptist chur...

Joshua Michael Smith grew up in northern Florida in a Baptist church. In this interview he shares his journey of faith, including how came to Christ as well as how he ended up in ministry training at Word of Life before earning a bachelors at Tennessee Temple University in Chattanooga. While there, he began questioning his received doctrinal package based on the Bible. As a result, he came to disc...

Many believe there is 400 years of silence between the Old and New Testament. My guest today is Professor George Athas, director of research and senior lecturer in Hebrew, Old Testament, and Early Church History at Moore Theological College in Sydney, Australia. He's the author of Bridging the Testaments , which covers four major periods, including Persian, Hellenistic, Hasmonean, and Roman. By st...

Christians have approached the first chapter of Genesis differently over the centuries. There are those who hold to young earth creationism, day-age theory, gap theory, and progressive creationism, just to name a few. Oftentimes defenders of a particular view will provide biblical, scientific, and historical evidence for their position. Our focus today is on the use of church history to find witne...

Scholars and pastors regularly point to specialized "technical" language in Paul's epistles to make the case that Paul was intentionally subverting Roman power by applying to Jesus terms that the ancients commonly applied to the Caesars. My guest today has done the hard work of analyzing the inscriptions, coins, and material remains of several key ancient cities to see how they talked about the Ro...

Something is going on in New Zealand...and I'm excited to tell you about it. In today's interview I speak with Zach Mayo who along with his wife, Kayla, were serving as youth pastors at an evangelical church when they came to change their minds on the doctrine of the Trinity. Now they're organizing a conference to unite one-God believers in New Zealand and invite folks from Australia and beyond to...

Kermit Zarley was a professional golfer who had an interest in studying the Bible about the end times when he came across a disturbing verse. Reading Jesus's words in the Olivet Discourse, he noticed that only the Father knew the day and hour of the end. Neither the angels nor the son of God were privy to it. As a good trinitarian evangelical, Zarley was familiar with the dual natures idea, but ju...

From her childhood in a Jewish family to a 7-year stint with the Jehovah's Witnesses to attending evangelical churches, Susanne Lakin never felt comfortable with the doctrine of the Trinity. She signed up to attend Phoenix Seminary, a conservative evangelical school, thinking they would help her finally get to the bottom of it. She was willing to agree to the idea, thinking, surely, studying with...

This is part 18 of the Read the Bible For Yourself . What tools can help you understand the bible better? Today we'll cover some recommended resources for you to deepen your study of the scriptures, including bible dictionaries, commentaries, bible software, AI, and more. Of course, it's impossible to cover everything in a reasonable time frame, so I'll just recommend two or three of each resource...

This is part 17 of the Read the Bible For Yourself . After reviewing the resources you can use to learn Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek, we delve into the sources that translators use for their work. Next, we'll look at translation philosophies, including formal and dynamic equivalence. Lastly we'll cover the controversial issues of gender accuracy and translation bias. Over all, this episode should gi...

This is part 16 of the Read the Bible For Yourself . Revelation is a complicated book of the Bible. It contains some of the most incredible and awe-inspiring descriptions of God's throne room and the final paradise on earth. It also describes sinister mayhem, wanton destruction, and toe-curling persecution. How can we make sense of it? In today's episode we'll go over the basics of authorship, aud...

This is part 15 of the Read the Bible For Yourself . In previous episodes, we've looked at Paul's church epistles and pastoral epistles. Today we move into the third section of epistles in the New Testament--the general epistles. Instead of surveying each of the eight general epistles, we'll just focus on two: Hebrews and 1 John. We'll ask about author, audience, occasion, purpose, and mode for ea...

This is part 14 of the Read the Bible For Yourself . The Pastoral Epistles are letters to church leaders, instructing them how churches should function. Though they are not well read by most Christians today, they remain authoritative for pastors, elders, and deacons. Today we'll cover 1-2 Timothy, Titus, and Philemon. We'll explore the major theme of how the church should be a well-run household...

This is part 13 of the Read the Bible For Yourself . Before getting to the Church Epistles, we'll begin with an overview of how letters were written, read, and performed. Then we'll see how they are arranged in our Bibles. We'll spend a good deal of time talking about occasion. Why did Paul write each letter? What was going on that prompted him to initiate the expensive and elaborate process of wr...

This is part 12 of the Read the Bible For Yourself . Acts is an action-packed book full of excitement and wonder. We learn about the early expansion of the Church from a small group of ragged Christ-followers to dozens of house churches throughout major cities in the Mediterranean world. How did Christianity "go public"? The book of Acts tells that story. In this episode you'll learn four major em...

This is part 11 of the Read the Bible For Yourself . The Gospels are evangelistic biographies of Jesus. In today's episode you'll learn the basic storyline of the four biblical Gospels: Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Then we'll go through them from shortest to longest to see how each brings a unique and helpful perspective in telling the life of Christ. We'll also hit some important concepts like...

This is part 10 of the Read the Bible For Yourself . We've taken our time working through the Old Testament, section by section. Before we tackle the New Testament and look at the Gospels, we need to talk about the time between the Old and New Testaments. In the gap of roughly four hundred years, massive political and cultural changes occurred. Nowhere in the Old Testament do we see anything about...

This is part 9 of the Read the Bible For Yourself . The 17 books of the prophets comprise 27% of the Old Testament. Although some parts can be difficult to comprehend, they reveal the heart of God with raw pathos and brutal honesty. To read the prophets, then, is to draw near to God. No other section of scripture so beautifully and tragically reveals God's feelings. In this episode you'll learn ab...

This is part 8 of the Read the Bible For Yourself . The Book of Psalms is an eclectic collection of poetry that you can use to connect to God. In today's episode you'll learn about the different kinds of psalms, who wrote them, and how Hebrew poetry works. The goal, as always, is to equip you to read and understand on your own. Whether you've been reading the Psalms for years or are brand new to t...

As the dust continues to settle from last week's debate between Dale Tuggy and James White, reviewers are coalescing on a rather exciting conclusion. Tuggy handedly won the debate! Rumor has it that James White has even requested a rematch! We'll have to wait and see if anything happens on that front, but requesting a rematch is not something the winner typically does. In today's episode, I bring...

We're taking a break this week from our class on Reading the Bible for Yourself. By the way, did you know that there's a separate podcast just for classes without any interruptions like this? You can find it if you search your podcast app for Restitutio Classes. Anyhow, I had an opportunity to speak with Dr. Dale Tuggy about his recent debate with Dr. James White and wanted to share that conversat...

This is part 7 of the Read the Bible For Yourself . The Bible contains a treasure trove of wisdom literature that can help you navigate the ups and downs of life. Today you'll learn how to read and understand the books of Proverbs, Song of Songs, Job, and Ecclesiastes. Proverbs and Song of Songs teach us how to handle ourselves when the world is working the way it should while Job and Ecclesiastes...

This is part 6 of the Read the Bible For Yourself . Tragically, many Christians skip over reading the Torah. They focus on the Gospels or Epistles of the New Testament. However, the first five books of the Bible contain many rich insights into God's heart and how he asked Israel to live. In fact, it's impossible to understand the rest of the Bible, or even Jesus, without first becoming familiar wi...

This is part 5 of the Read the Bible For Yourself . Now we begin the second main part of this class on reading the Bible for yourself. We'll be breaking the Bible into major sections so I can explain how each works. To start we'll consider the first 17 books of the Bible--the books of Old Testament historical narrative. You'll learn what to look for while reading, the major events covered, the var...