What do you mean God speaks?

Send us Fan Mail “Organized religion” seems to have a bad rep nowadays. It’s associated with authoritarian hierarchies, dogmatic beliefs and rigid rules. Many of us instead want to identify ourselves as simply “spiritual”; we want to be people connected with some greater reality, some deeper truths and higher ideals, to something Divine, but without the confines of organized religion. Fair enough....

Send us Fan Mail After the Israelites escape the Egyptian army that pursued them, they find themselves in the desert. In one sense, this was expected since geographically and physically, Egypt was surrounded by the desert. Yet, the narratives in Exodus, just as in Genesis, are archetypal stories—that is, they describe a kind of templates or pattern of what happens whenever a people follow the call...

Send us Fan Mail We’ve now returned to start the second half of Season Four. We closed the first half at a key point, exploring the meaning of the blood of the Lamb in the final plague of Exodus, and we'll now begin with the parting of the Sea. Both, it turns out, are closely connected with the ideas weaved through the accounts of Creation and the Flood in Genesis, which in turn points to tha...

Send us Fan Mail The manuscript of the book is complete and is now in the hands of the editors. It will still be around the end of this year at the earliest for it to be published, but my work--the writing part--is more or less finished! Thank you for your continued support!  This series will return to the main episodes in June, covering the second half of Season Four, "God awaits you in the...

Send us Fan Mail I'll be working on the book until end of April, and so in the meanwhile, more extra episodes!  This episode, I discuss material that did not quite make it into a main episode. One is from Season Three on science and belief-corrections in regard to God. One is from Season Four on Galileo's example of science vs religion. And one that actually doesn't fit anywhere yet...

Send us Fan Mail We’re back! Sort of. First, this bonus episode is to announce an update and news. The first season of this series is being re-adapted(?) / rewritten as a book and will be published next year. If everything goes as scheduled.   So, what with the title of this episode? “A World where God seems no more believable than UFOs” is the catch-phrase of the book, or rather its starting poin...

Send us Fan Mail What do we need to make a better world? In a world filled with the news of wars, injustices, human-made catastrophes, what do we need? In a world where our future seem so uncertain and bleak at times, even with all of the marvels we accomplished and progress we’ve made, what will lead us to tomorrow? And the Christian Bible poses an answer in the form of a symbolic act; long ago,...

Send us Fan Mail We’re back again for another episode! This is a kind of milestone for the series, as we cover a key narrative in Exodus—that of the final tenth plague, which connects to the Gospel account of Jesus Christ. And the question we must first wrestle with is: why does God strike down every firstborn in Egypt? The plague horrifies with us with the image of dead children, though according...

Send us Fan Mail Were the plagues that struck Egypt in Exodus Divine intervention or natural events? This is a question that is raised by those who present natural explanation for these plagues. But, things that follow laws of nature are God speaking, just as things that do not seem to. The real question is: what distinguishes these events in Exodus from just any other things that happen? Because...

Send us Fan Mail One of the more perplexing and disturbing part of the Exodus account is when God hardens Pharaoh's heart so that he does not  listen to Moses and let the people of Israel go. But then, God punishes him it by unfolding disasters--the plagues--upon Egypt. But, this seems profoundly unjust! What is the idea that the Bible is presenting about God? That nothing we do matters? Howe...

Send us Fan Mail God that spoke to Moses is " Yahweh ," unfolding everything around him. But, the question was: will reality unfold what this voice spoke to him? What if things go wrong? What if Moses was deluded, or mistaken, or deceived? How Moses, and people who hear God speak to them, find out whether what they hear is true--whether God really is speaking with them--is actually a ste...

Send us Fan Mail Consider what it means for things to have names. Names point to things, and at least to some extent, tells us what they are. But, what could possibly be the name of God ? After all, it would need to "point to" all of reality as a whole. According to the Bible, the name of God spoken to Moses is "I am that I am ," which in turn is presented as the meaning of the...

Send us Fan Mail It is an iconic scene in the Bible: God calls Moses from the burning bush. But, why the burning bush? After all, God can speak through an immeasurable number of things. It is because the bush that does not burn up, and the flame that blazes, yet will not burn itself out, means something to Moses-- and to us --which connects us to how God, speaking all of reality, can speak to huma...

Send us Fan Mail The fourth Season opens to explore the question of the people of Israel described in Exodus. Who were they? What is the significance of their story, regarding their oppression and slavery? What remnants or echoes, if any, remain of their story in the records and memory of ancient history, and what are their significance? And where are we headed from here?  2:21     Biblical storie...

Send us Fan Mail  Merry Christmas, and a Happy New Year! To celebrate(?), here is the trailer for Season 4 of "What do you mean, God speaks?" God awaits in the desert The prologue,  "They were born in the desert" Music : "Exodus" by Tenacious Orchestra - Licensed from PremiumBeat.com ----------------------------------------    Support the show  -----------------------...

Send us Fan Mail The final 3rd Season’s post-season episode returns to some issues to wrap up before we move on to Season 4.  First, part of this Season wrestled with the question that historians today has raised regarding the historicity of the life-stories of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and their family—as they are recounted in the book of Genesis. But, what do I personally believe regarding the posi...

Send us Fan Mail There’s this adage that says, “Don’t talk about religion or politics unless you want to get in trouble.” Well, this series is all about religion, so we might as well go the rest of the way this episode, and talk about politics! Now, politics is not what we usually explore in this series. But, it might be good to listen to me thinking aloud on topics outside my area, especially if...

Send us Fan Mail It seems, at least from popular conversations in the News, opinion articles, or the constant postings on SNS, we are labeling more or more things or people as racist.  Now, racism does remain a significant problem even in countries and societies that have made significant progress against it, and strands of it do seem to have been woven into the societies and institutions we have...

Send us Fan Mail Thank you for listening and following this series!  But, what does it mean for me to tell you this? These simple words mean much more than you may know. It has to do with what I've experienced, the fears I've faced and the encouragements I received in doing this series. To a very important extent, it has to do with, like the rest of this series,  what God seems to speak...

Send us Fan Mail We have finally arrived at the final main episode of the third season. Here, we will survey what it means to believe in God, formed and expanded through the journeys of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and then Joseph. However, this account reveals that there will be times when those who are on this journey, become suspended between belief and unbelief, fear and faith. That was how it was fo...

Send us Fan Mail What began as a supplemental episode has become a rather long and hefty discussion about the question of suffering or evil in a world spoken forth by God. This is far from a complete answer. What this episode is doing is to outline a larger framework, along with a set of prior questions and considerations in order to really understand this question.  Too many of us today think thi...

Send us Fan Mail The series is back again, as it nears (steadily and slowly) the completion of Season 3! Thank you everyone for waiting! This episode will explore,  as we conclude the life of Joseph, this perplexing question.  If everything that happens is what God speaks forth, could God not have spoken something else? Could God not have brought about different happenings, different things, diffe...

Send us Fan Mail We are often faced with the question of ambiguity in our wrestling with God. That was the question Joseph faced alone in prison. What was God speaking to him? Had God ever really spoken to him? God spoke to him insights into dreams and wisdom to lead people. Yet, he was in prison, seemingly forsaken and forgotten by God. However, God was doing something during those years, which w...

Send us Fan Mail We’ve now started the final set of episodes of the 3rd season, as we explore the life-story of Joseph, and the question he confronted: what happens when what God has spoken to you, seems to have been proven false? What do you do when listening to God seems to have thrown you into a pit? How does your journey with God continue from there? What can you still hold on to? Also, I was...

Send us Fan Mail Full title: "Questioning the Bible, and Risking Belief for Faith"  Thank you for the loooong wait!  We continue from the previous episode, which followed the trail of questions that begin when I thought to myself years ago, “Maybe there is no God.” In the previous episode, we followed how I wrestled with the questions about what we really mean by “God,” what it is to try...