Adventist Review Podcasts

Was the Advent movement just another religious experiment born in the ferment of nineteenth-century America, or something more? In this Experiences article, Alberto R. Timm traces the prophetic roots of Adventism back past William Miller to the evangelical scholars whose work Miller built on. Along the way he looks at a principle that once seemed settled: that in symbolic prophecy, a day stands fo...

In December 1844, five grieving women knelt in prayer in Portland, Maine. Among them was a 17-year-old girl weighing barely 80 pounds, too ill to finish school, her voice little more than a whisper. Why would God choose her, of all people, when capable, educated men stood ready? In this Sabbath School Reflection, Cindy Tutsch traces a surprising pattern through Scripture, from a flawed Abraham to...

As Christ grows greater in our minds, we lose our need to be authorities over what others think and do. The deepening awareness that we have been wrong more than we have been right—that we are only now approaching the starting point of faith—creates a gentle tolerance for those now camped where we once stopped, or mired in the stuff from which Christ freed us. We learn to smile at vehemence and vi...

So you’ve lived a good life, a moral life, a life of treating others as you wish you would be treated. You pay your taxes when they’re due. You let the elderly go first. You rescue fledglings fallen from the nest. Your colleagues count on you for steady work. Your dog adores you. Does all of this not matter when it comes to final reckonings? Is God not suitably impressed with upright choices we’ve...

What happens when the rules you were given for purity don't match the life you end up living? Beth Hill grew up inside purity culture's strict guidelines for dress, dating, and desire, and in this Lifestyle column she traces how those rules shaped her sense of self, her marriage, and even her faith in God. Some of it was good. Some of it, she came to realize, went further than Scripture ever did....

What does a 380-year-old fight over censorship have to do with the Seventh-day Adventist Church? In 1644, the poet John Milton published a furious defense of free speech — and Shawn Boonstra suggests it may have quietly helped set the stage for a movement that wouldn't emerge for another two centuries. From book burnings to Bible societies, this Perspectives column traces a trail of "coincidences"...

Drive in snow and overcorrect one way, and you'll end up in the ditch on the other side. Theologian John Peckham argues the same danger lurks around one of Christianity's most contested ideas: sola scriptura. Push too hard toward reading the Bible in total isolation, and you land in one ditch. Push too hard toward letting community or tradition control what Scripture means, and you land in the oth...

Between this moment and the final triumph of God’s love, there will be many moments when the outcome may appear in doubt. Hard-edged, hard-hearted people flourish in a world chilled by greed. Deceit—in all its printed, spoken, filmed and digitized dimensions—settles like a toxic fog over what was once a landscape formed by trust. Unforgiveness grasps our culture by the throat, insisting that no wa...

And you thought grace was just for individuals. When God’s mercy and affection are much-welcomed and deep-trusted, lasting impacts start to flow to all within the circle. Grudges soften at the edges; ancient bitterness begins to fade. Forgiveness flourishes in crevices, even between those who never thought they could be anything but enemies. Gentle, subtle acts of kindness replicate themselves lik...

3 billion people on Earth have never heard the name of Jesus — and most of them live in cities the Adventist Church has been quietly leaving for decades. Gary Krause, Director of Adventist Mission at the General Conference, sat down with Shawn Boonstra to explain what's actually being done, where it's working, and the 4-word principle that changed how both of them think about mission.

A minister who's raised his kids and an editor still in the trenches sit down over one question: what do you do when the most addictive thing your child will ever hold fits in their pocket? No easy answers — just honesty about the fear, the failures, and the grace that carries parents through. Shawn Boonstra and Justin Kim talk screens, dopamine, the anxious generation, the "bubble" trap, and why...

Three churches. Three continents. One thing they all figured out that most Adventist congregations still haven't. Shawn Boonstra opens the mission reports that reach the General Conference building — the ones most members never get to see. A district in the Scottish  Highlands that filled a Gospel Fest with people who'd never set foot in an Adventist church. A youth ministry in wartime Ukraine tha...

She once heard voices telling her she was about to hurt someone. Now she hosts one of Hope Channel's most-watched shows. This episode asks the question most Christian parents are afraid to say out loud: is it ever loving to let someone hit bottom?

Years ago Shawn Boonstra signed the guest book at a church that wasn't his own, just to see what would happen. They called him back in 32 hours. Meanwhile, interest cards from his own television broadcast were sitting in a filing cabinet for three months. Tim McTernan spent 30 years in marketing before he brought it into the church — supermarket brands, telecommunications, a million pieces of dire...

Shawn joined the Seventh-day Adventist Church six weeks before Waco burned. Justin comes from a country whose own society files Adventism as an official cult. So they took the actual checklist — the warning signs people use to identify a cult — and ran the church through it, line by line, including the ones it doesn't pass. Filmed at the General Conference world headquarters. No script, no talking...

Imagine sitting in biology class, staring at a diagram presented as settled fact—when a quiet voice whispers, what if they're right? For one pastor's kid, keeping faith in a public school meant missing Homecoming, sitting out the band parade where scouts handed out scholarships, and wondering whether her beliefs were costing more than they gave. This is an honest account of doubt, sacrifice, and t...

Of all the stories Jesus told, this one is our favorite. An arrogant, entitled son demands his inheritance from his father, but wastes it in riotous living. When the money and the morals are lost, he remembers his father’s house, and begins the awkward journey home, offering to be a servant, not a son. But the father runs to meet him, sweeps him up in his arms, and completely reinstates him in the...

Does God need a perfect generation of humans to prove His critics wrong? In 1947 one Adventist theologian argued exactly that—launching a debate that still divides believers today. If God's character is on trial before the universe, who actually clears His name? Us, through flawless obedience? Or someone else entirely? This piece digs into what Ellen White actually wrote, and the answer is bigger...

Two red cars came screaming around a mountain curve at over 70 miles per hour—headed straight at Michelle and her friends, with a rock wall on one side and a hundred-foot drop to the river on the other. There was nowhere to go. "This is it," she told her friend. "We're gonna die." Then came a deafening snap, the smell of sulfur, and silence. When Michelle opened her eyes, the car that should have...

Yes, we remember all too well. The teacher whose volcanic mood made one day bright and hopeful while the next we hardly dared to draw a breath . . . The parent who turned what should have been our safest space into a house of vigilance, where anger flashed erratically . . . The colleague whom we tiptoed past, just praying we didn’t trouble him . . . From all such stories, we deduced that God was j...

If grace was as fragile as many believe it to be, we could never be truly confident that our lives have been fully redeemed and deeply restored. We would always be unsure of what God wants us to be most certain of: “For as the heavens are high above the earth, so great is His steadfast love toward those who fear Him; as far as the east is from the west, so far He removes our transgressions from us...

Imagine publishing a book at twelve years old—one that started with nothing more than nature walks and a mother's simple question: "Where do you see God in that tree?" In this piece, a teenager shares how she's read the entire Bible four times, why one word in the story of Daniel changed how she makes decisions, and what she's learned about choosing right when convenient is so much easier. She's h...

Why do you believe what you believe? Because your parents told you? Because you grew up in church? The author says that kind of faith can crumble when life gets hard—and he's after something sturdier. He loves true stories: prison escapes, wartime survival, missionaries in danger. What makes them powerful, he says, is that they can be checked. So can faith. He points to a prophecy Isaac Newton cal...

If you are truly saved through faith, then you are daily praying grace down into the cracks and crevices of life, into the dim and unlit corners where fear and fate and faithlessness more often hold the keys. Understanding—really understanding—grace rarely happens through a flash of intellectual enlightenment: Paul’s own Damascus Road was just the first of many miles spent learning grace. Each wee...

It started with a nervous breakfast: a Seventh-day Adventist pastor across the table from an ordained Buddhist minister, both unsure what to expect. Then she explained what she does before eating—a silent thanks to everyone who made the meal possible, from the farmers to the bacteria in the soil—and the awkwardness melted away. There are 500 million Buddhists in the world. How much do we really kn...