The biblical theme of the dragon is a way to think of a personal foe, the Satan, and an impersonal force—the relentless power that exerts itself over humanity and all of creation. In this episode, Tim and Jon look at how the Apostle Paul talked about...
The theme of the chaos dragon runs all through the story of the Bible—along with the biblical authors’ expectation of a coming king who will one day slay the dragon for good. That dragon-slaying king is Jesus, but the way he defeats the dragon is not...
As we’ve traced the theme of the chaos dragon in the Bible, we’ve come to expect what the biblical authors expect: a dragon-slaying king to come. When the gospel authors introduce us to Jesus, they’re quick to show that Jesus is human, yet he wields...
Daniel 7 describes an incredible, apocalyptic dream had by the prophet Daniel where he sees four chaos monsters oppressing the people of God. Just like the other dragon stories we've encountered in the Bible, Yahweh shows up in Daniel's vision as the...
In the story of the Bible, the dragon is a recurring symbol of chaos, death, and destruction. The good news is, Yahweh is the dragon slayer, and he gives humans power over the dragon too. But in the Bible—and in our own lives—we can encounter stories...
While the chaos dragon is not God’s rival--it’s the rival of creation--it is God’s enemy. The Psalms sometimes portray creation as the ordered result of Yahweh’s battle with the dragon, to bring order out of chaos. In this episode, Tim and Jon discus...
The theme of the chaos dragon raises some challenging questions. For instance, if God created a perfect world and humans messed it up, why did the dragon and the chaos waters exist at the beginning of the universe? Why would God allow the potential f...
When Israel chooses to act like the chaos monster instead of living like the people of God, God brings judgment on them. How? He sends other bigger monsters after them, namely, Babylon and Egypt. In this episode, Tim and Jon discuss the scrolls of Je...
So often the symbol of the chaos monster shows up embodied by a human bent on oppressing other people. Goliath, one of the Bible’s most well-known bad guys, is depicted as having scaly armor like a snake and defying not just Israel, but Yahweh. In th...
In today’s episode, we once again encounter a theme that’s becoming all too familiar: humans becoming chaos monsters. Jabin, king of Canaan, and Sisera, the commander of his army, are depicted as serpents in Judges 4, and the humans who overcome thes...
God created humans to bear his image, but sometimes we choose our own destruction and start to look a lot more like chaos monsters instead. In this episode, Tim and Jon discuss a human who the prophets frequently called a sea dragon: the Pharaoh who...
Genesis 3 is probably the most famous serpent-featuring story in the Bible—the moment we get to see humans and the nahash interact for the first time. Because the serpent lures the humans into choosing their own demise, it’s also the moment Yahweh an...
When we read the word “myth,” often what comes to mind is a fictional story. However, a myth is a way of exploring universal concerns of human existence, using symbols for things we may or may not have words to describe. The dragon is one such myth—a...
How could Abraham have anticipated a coming City of God, like the author of Hebrews said? What’s the connection between the shame of Adam and Eve and that of their son Cain? Was Genesis first an oral tradition, and how did it become a written account...
Cities appear to be inherently bad in the story of the Bible. So when Jesus calls his followers a city on a hill, what does he mean? And why is the vision of the new creation a city instead of a garden? In this episode, Tim and Jon review some of the...
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