Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:34:54 — 100.6MB)

DESCRIPTION: Jack sums up the Bible as the story of the many who didn’t listen to God, and of the few who did—some even after having started off as non-listeners. This is timely for the Easter week because Jesus was the one who had been telling humans all along what was right and just and true, and he was the one the non-listeners killed in order to silence him.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 56:32 — 57.7MB)

DESCRIPTION: Jack reads and discusses two related from his blog, concerning how we tend to size things up, both in our own minds, and as we describe them to others. The discussion contains many practical examples from real life, including religion and politics.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:16:30 — 78.3MB)

DESCRIPTION: Some say things like, “The goal of all good Bible study is application….”, but Jack takes a closer look at that idea, and gets into the nitty gritty of how consistently (or inconsistently) we apply (or don’t apply) various Bible verses. So this is a bit of a “get real” episode, in answer to how good we may think we are doing with the whole application business. Jack’s goal is to make you think it through, and to realize that good application is not always as easy as one might think.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 41:55 — 42.4MB)

DESCRIPTION: Jack reads from a recent blog post about how liars, not being able to twist the reality of things, have to twist themselves in order to pretend that things are different from how they really are. This is an extended discussion that’s highly relevant to the direction this podcast has been headed.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 14:33 — 14.6MB)

DESCRIPTION: What happens when you omit certain teachings from Christianity? You can end up with a big picture that looks very little like what Jesus taught. In this short episode, Jack reads his recent blog post.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:15:09 — 76.5MB)

DESCRIPTION: Jack reads from and discusses an article about his observations of various cognitive biases that were in play at the time of the controversial Freddie Gray death in 2015. He details a list of 46 biases he observed in various people of different social, racial, and political backgrounds, and then discusses how biases of that type keep us from understanding the Bible correctly.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:09:21 — 74.0MB)

The mass resurrection of “many holy people” just after Jesus himself was raised.

DESCRIPTION: In something of a follow-up to Episode 19 (Hebrews 11), Jack reads and comments on a blog article of his (pasted below from his blog, concerning how the “cloud of witnesses” from Hebrews 12:1 were the “many holy people” who were resurrected in Matthew 27:51-52.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:30:20 — 95.3MB)

DESCRIPTION: Continuing on the theme of “abandoned trails”, Jack opens many cans of worms that it’s difficult to get Christians to discuss today. He talks about changes that have occurred in the experience of believers from the First Century to now–and most of these are changes that most Christians would agree have happened (though some are controversial). The point, then, is that these facts have not been examined to their natural ends and to the discovery of their natural, logical consequences. In other words, even though many know that these things have changed, they still generally carry on as if they have not—because they simply aren’t processing the information.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:00:22 — 62.5MB)

DESCRIPTION: Jack discusses the ideas that “God loves everybody” and how they stack up with the actual words in scripture. Much is made of the “gold and silver” passages, as well as passages about worthiness, usefulness, and so forth.