The Biblical Mind

Literature students who can analyze a passage from East of Eden with ease often flounder when trying to analyze a Bible passage. Why?  Dr. Andrew Abernethy explains how people can overcome barriers to understanding Scripture by using skills they already have, and by seeking not just to understand, but also to savor. Dru asks Dr. Abernethy, Professor of Old Testament at Wheaton College in Illinois,...

The rich and sad story of jazz has shaped both its sorrowful sounds and its joyful hope. William Edgar, the author of A Supreme Love: The Music of Jazz and the Hope of the Gospel , discusses the subtle and not-so-subtle ways the Bible has informed the movement and music of jazz throughout its history. William (BA, Harvard University, MDiv, Westminster Theological Seminary, DTh, Université de Genèv...

"Knowing is an activity that all of us are involved in, all of the time," writes Dr. Esther Meek in her book Longing to Know , which turns 20 this year. "Usually knowing happens without our taking great thought to the process. But sometimes we stop and think about what we're doing. When we stop and think, what we were doing without much thought becomes murky indeed." Think of learning to ride a bi...

Readers of the Book of Joshua (and many other parts of the Bible) are inevitably confronted with the poblem of violence in Scripture. Texts referring to the destruction of whole cities or the killing of men, women, and children can cause us to question whether God is truly loving and just. In this episode, Dr. Matt Lynch discusses violence in Scripture from his new book Flood and Fury: Old Testame...

This episode was originally published on October, 2020. We thought it was worth a reissue for our newer listeners. The poetry in Scripture can be hard to understand. And, especially when it is embedded within a story, such as the Song of Deborah, we might be tempted to skip over it. It uses a lot of allusion and metaphor and is pregnant with imagery and historical detail. We would rather the autho...

Despite their shared foundations and concern for the Word of God, Christians and Jews rarely interact on the basis of faith in the modern world. Many Jewish communities, in response to centuries of antisemitism and persecution, have shielded themselves from Christians, while modern Christians often know very little about the Jewish faith. Dru interviews Rabbi Pesach Wolicki about the state of rela...

Western culture relies extensively on written text to communicate. But the majority of people across the world rely far less on reading than they do on speech, body language, story, images, and their other senses. Charles Madinger joins the podcast this week to explore the concept of orality—the multifaceted way in which people were created to communicate. Though well-meaning pastors and missionar...

Despite the rich history of Armenia as an ancient Christian community, many Christians know very little about the Armenian ethnicity, culture, nation, and faith. In this episode, Dru interviews Dr. Heather Ohaneson, pastor of Armenian Martyrs' Congregational Church, about Armenian history from the early days of the church until now, along with her experience as an evangelical Protestant Armenian p...

How do we approach the Bible? Do we see it merely as a "perfect rulebook"? A piece of literature to be picked apart? Or do we see it as something that threatens to transform us and upend our preconceptions, helping us live in accordance with God and His activity? In this episode, Dru interviews Marty Solomon, cohost, creator, and Executive Producer of The BEMA Podcast and President of Impact Campu...

How do we read the Bible like adults? For many people who grew up in communities of faith, the Bible stories have been a part of their lives for as long as they can remember. But it's often not until later in life that the richer meanings of the stories come alive, misconceptions are corrected, and the voices of the biblical authors become clearer—even as we relinquish naive certainties and the ex...

What does it mean for Christ to reign over every sphere of life? Many Christians relegate faith to "spiritual" activities, such as reading the Bible, going to church, and praying. However, the Christian tradition—and especially the Reformed tradition—can guide Christians in everything from personal ethics to politics to raising chickens. In this episode, Dru talks with Jessica Joustra, Assistant P...

In case you missed it, this was our most popular episode of 2022. We hope this conversation encourages Christians with the biblical hope of the resurrection and the age to come. What happens to you when you die? Many Christians picture eternal life as spending time in an ethereal heaven with God, either immediately after death as a disembodied spirit or after a "rapture" of Christians. Books and f...

Christians know that we should read the Bible. But often, the "should" eclipses the "why"—the fact that Scripture presents a unified, powerful, mysterious story written by God for the benefit of his people. In this episode, Dru interviews Kat Armstrong, a Bible teacher, speaker, and author who aims to cultivate joyful, imaginative reading of Scripture. The Bible contains rich networks of imagery,...

The Near East carries a strange set of connotations in the modern West. On the one hand, it is the origin of our most significant ethical traditions. On the other, it is an area full of political tensions and years of violent conflict. In this episode, Robert Nicholson (Founder and President of Philos Project and CHT Senior Fellow) helps Christians evaluate their attitudes toward the Near East and...

Is it biblical to "follow your passion"? How do you know if the law is written on your heart? In this week's episode, Dru interviews CHT Fellow Ryan O'Dowd on engaging deeply with the Bible, living in accordance with the Torah's instruction, and ministering as the church. Scripture provides a host of instructions about how to live: everything from the proper view of our passions to helping the mar...

Constant cries of " fake news " and misinformation point to a central issue in our culture: we have far too much information from far too many sources, and we do not know whom to trust. Whether captivated by online communities and YouTube personalities or glued to Twitter and news sites, we consume a lot of content but remain ignorant, apathetic, and anxious. In this episode, Dru interviews Bonnie...

Christianity is a truly global religion, and every strand of Christianity has its own theological emphases. Western Christians tend to focus on individual salvation and the question of what happens when we die . But as we amplify other Christian voices, we find that the riches of the gospel might stretch far beyond our original conceptions. In this episode, Dru interviews Dr. Jangkholam Haokip, an...

Hitler is evil. Helping an old lady cross the street is good. Simple, right? But there’s an underlying question here: Why? What are good and evil? In this crossover with our partner organization Passages Israel , Dru Johnson (CHT Director) and Mattanah DeWitt kick off Season 2 of Discover Your Roots, which aims to unpack weighty questions about the nature of good and evil. In this episode, Dru giv...

Dru interviews Mariam Wahba, a Coptic Christian born in Egypt who immigrated to the U.S. as a child. They discuss the multiple facets of her identity and experience, including how being a Coptic Christian shaped everything from her interactions with Muslim Egyptians to how she now celebrates holidays in the U.S. She also describes some of the distinctives of Coptic Christianity, in contrast with W...

"Why wasn't I trained to read this way as a child?" —Rachel Wilkowski Over the last several decades, the Christian world has eagerly produced a host of children's Bibles—retellings of biblical stories in "kid-friendly" language, complete with cute, colorful illustrations. Many of these children's Bibles, however, come laden with assumptions about the nature of childhood, which parts of Scripture a...

What do we mean when we say that "Jesus was a Jew?" Scripture uses a lot of labels to refer to God's chosen people, including "Israelite," "Judahite," "Hebrew," and, of course, "Jew." In this episode, Jason Staples helps us sort through the etymologies, histories, ethnicities, and nationalities behind these labels, examining the earliest usage of "Jew" in the Hebrew Bible, its role in the Second T...

In this week's episode, Khalil Sayegh shares his experience as a Palestinian Christian. The territory of Palestine contains two regions: the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. Though they share a people and a history, the two areas are separated by the country of Israel and are ruled by two different governments (the West Bank by the Palestine Liberation Organization and the Gaza Strip by Hamas). Khali...

"This is a revelation of how things are, not so much how things have been." -Jason Staples Modern Christians reading the Book of Revelation tend to filter it through the lens of popular fiction (such as the Left Behind series) and a very modern concept of its strange language and imagery. From the four horsemen, to the secret thunder in chapter 10, to the mixing of metaphors throughout the text, R...

The Biden Administration's recent student debt forgiveness act in the U.S. has sparked conversations—many of them heated—about the nature of fairness, justice, poverty, and economic well-being. In this episode, Michael Rhodes joins Dru to discuss debt forgiveness in Scripture and the modern world. Rhodes surveys the radical Torah policies of cyclical debt forgiveness and the Year of Jubilee, and h...

For Christians accustomed to certain ideas of heaven and hell, other views of the afterlife in Scripture may seem strange. But Jewish views of the afterlife have a storied and fascinating tradition of their own. In this episode, Dru is joined by Dr. Jeremiah Unterman, Senior Fellow at the Center for Hebraic thought. They discuss Jewish views of the afterlife from the ancient to modern times, encou...