Theology for the Curious

Click here to text us your thoughts and questions! From the atonement understanding of recapitulation propounded by Irenaeus the second century Bishop of Smyrna, to the theory of satisfaction expounded in the eleventh century by Anselm of Canterbury, the biblical understanding of atonement has not been without its fair share of exponents. In the ensuring years from Irenaeus, there has been theorie...

Click here to text us your thoughts and questions! What was the significance of death on a cross? Could Jesus have equally been stoned or beheaded? What does the New Testament mean when it speaks of Jesus “bearing our sins”? How are we to understand Jesus’s sense of dereliction on the cross as he cried; “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”—how could God have forsaken himself? Did a fracture...

Click here to text us your thoughts and questions! What do we mean when we talk about the Kingly office of Jesus? How do we understand the authority and rule of Jesus? How is the resurrection connected to that? What does the governance of Jesus look like in our day-to-day living? How does his Kingly office relate to his prophetic and priestly office? This week Pete and the Curious team will take a...

Click here to text us your thoughts and questions! What is meant by classifying Jesus as priest? Does he understand our shortcomings and problems? Is he still in touch with all the difficulties we experience? How is the idea of priesthood relevant to my life now and my continued daily walk in faith?  This week Pete and the Curious team investigate the priestly office of Jesus. How it relates to th...

Click here to text us your thoughts and questions! Is the teaching of Jesus only to be found in the gospels? What differentiated Jesus from the prophets? Why was his teaching so unique above that of any others? Why can we never simply take or leave Jesus’ teaching, what makes it so compelling?  This week the Curious team will be reflecting on the teachings of Jesus. They will be broadening the net...

Click here to text us your thoughts and questions! Books have been written and lectures given in an attempt to describe just what exactly happened in Bethlehem 2,000 years ago. Some say that a boy named Jesus came into existence, but is that exactly true? Some say it was God becoming human, but did he? Some say Mary gave birth to a remarkable amalgamation of divine and human, really? Where others...

Click here to text us your thoughts and questions! The Curious team preview their new upcoming series 'The King' - looking at the nature and work of Jesus Christ.  Send your questions or thoughts to: theologyforthecurious@gmail.com Support us on Instagram @theologyforthecurious Find us on TikTok: @theologyforthecurious

Click here to text us your thoughts and questions! What did Jesus mean when he said, “ before Abraham was born, I am ” (John 8:58)? How was Jesus different to angels, divine beings, anointed prophets? Why did the Arian’s cause so much trouble back in the fourth century? And what did Athanasius insist upon that turned him into the worlds most wanted man at the time?  This week Pete and the Curious...

Click here to text us your thoughts and questions! There are those who think that possessing faith is little more than wishful thinking. A nice, hopeful, positive thought to a reality very unlike what it represents.  If wishful thinking amounts to little more than the imagining of unlikely events, of things that might possibly one day happen; thinking founded on no objective truth, historical accu...

Click here to text us your thoughts and questions! How are we to understand the idea of a personified evil? Is the devil merely a principle of evil, an ideology, an historical manufactured being? Or is he something far more tangible and scarily realistic? In this episode the Curious team span through the medieval writings, from the hugely influential Dante’s Inferno from the twelfe century, to the...

Click here to text us your thoughts and questions! What exactly is prayer and why is it so important? Is it really heard by a personal God, or is it simply some form of therapeutic exercise, a cathartic activity? And if God already knows what I am asking for, what is the point of praying for it? Equally so, does God need my prayers? Is his will and intentions frustrated if I forfeit praying? And w...

Click here to text us your thoughts and questions! With so much injustice in the world, coupled with the prevalence of crime and the ascendancy of war, how can we really speak of a God who is just and fair? Why do we suffer what feels like meaningless tragedy and pain? Why can’t God just do something to lessen its intensity or dominance?   Fairness is a complex issue. Asking how we might define ‘f...

Click here to text us your thoughts and questions! As much as we would like, we cannot escape the negative press that emerges about the church. Time and again we read articles of adultery, abuse, embezzlement and so on. It leads many outside of the faith to condemn Christians as hypocrites!  This week the Curious team will be trying to come to terms with the hypocritical aspect of Christianity. Wh...

Click here to text us your thoughts and questions! When we consider the rising tide of evil and destruction; the constant presence of wars, and pressures of crime, alongside the violence humanity inflicts on itself; is it only fair to ask, is God really in control? Wouldn't things be different if he was? And if he is not, then where does that leave us as a planet? In this episode the Curious...

Click here to text us your thoughts and questions! How can a document that is thousands of years old, has been through countless translations, and carries some 400,000 variations, truly be trusted, let alone claimed to be the sacred, holy, infallible Word of God?  In this episode Pete and the Curious team take a deep dive into the validity of the Bible. What does the history say? How did we get ou...

Click here to text us your thoughts and questions! What lies at the heart of the Christmas story? Who was Jesus? Was he the product of Joseph and Mary coming together or was he something far more profound? What do we really mean by incarnation? And how are we to understand Jesus as both God and man?  In this festive episode, Pete and the Curious team ponder the message, the theology and the deeper...

Click here to text us your thoughts and questions! What is the church? Why is it important? Can you be a Christian and not go to church? What are the real benefits of being part of a church? Has Christianity always been intrinsically linked to church attendance? These are just some of the many questions that are asked whenever we think about the church. They are questions that come from either sid...

Click here to text us your thoughts and questions! How do we understand the term Christian? Does it relate to something that you believe strongly, or simply in living a good life? Is there an element of exclusivity about it? Or is it more true that everyone in one Way Or Another, is Christian? How does the church define what a Christian is? How does the secular culture define what a Christian is?...

Click here to text us your thoughts and questions! Exclusivity! Arrogance! Superiority! Is just some of the accusations that believers of other religions have leveled against Christians. Somewhere near 90% of the world population fall into either Christian, Islam, Hindu or Buddhist. How is it that Christians claim that Jesus can be the only true way? In this week's episode Pete and the Curiou...

Click here to text us your thoughts and questions! What is omniscience? How do we understand God’s all-knowingness? Does God know everything there is to know irrespective of it being present or thousands of years into the future? Does He know what we think and what we’ll do before we even think our do it? And if that is so, how does He know it? Is it because he simply foresees what we will do year...

Click here to text us your thoughts and questions! How do we define sovereignty? What kind of power does God hold, and is He really in control? What is the difference between God’s absolute and His ordinate power? When we look at all the evil and sin in the world, and the constant presence of wars; how can we really have confidence in divine sovereignty? Does God’s sovereignty stretch to the choic...

Click here to text us your thoughts and questions! Is God truly present everywhere at all times? And is his whole presence fully present in every moment and place of time? What do we mean by when we speak of God being immense and incorporeal? What do we make of classic statements of misdirection when it comes to God’s Omnipresence? Such as ‘diffusion’, ‘location’, ‘division’ and ‘mixed’?  This wee...

Click here to text us your thoughts and questions! Isaiah announced God as the ‘everlasting God’ (40:28). Paul likewise described God as ‘immortal’ (Rom.1:23) and ‘eternal’ (Rom.16:26). Theologian Paul Helm described God as existing as a “timelessly eternal being”. The sixth century Roman philosopher Boethius, classically defined God’s timeless eternity as, “the complete possession all at once of...

Click here to text us your thoughts and questions! What are we talking about when we talk about impassibility and passibility? What is meant be saying God feels things; be it love, pain, anger, compassion? Does God suffer like we suffer? How are we to understand God’s internal emotions? Did God really suffer on the cross? Can an immutable, perfect God be said to suffer and experience emotions like...

Click here to text us your thoughts and questions! The nineteenth-century Dutch Theologian Herman Bavinck wrote that the, “very distinction between Creator and creature hinges on the contrast between being and becoming”. Concluding that our reliance on God “depends on his immutability”; but what does it mean to have an unchanging God? Immutability is not the argument that God ‘will’ not change, bu...