Was Cain’s city a good thing initially? If Israel was just as bad as Sodom and Gomorrah, why didn’t God destroy it too? And how will God redeem the city in the new creation? In this episode, Tim and Jon respond to your questions from the second half...
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...
Nahash, tanin, leviathan––the Bible is full of strange words describing a creature many modern readers can’t quite categorize. All these words are ways of referring to a monster of the deep, a dragon. In this episode, Tim and Jon kick off a brand ne...
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...
In the Bible, cities have a bad reputation as centers of immorality and unrighteous living. First-century followers of Jesus continued to live in cities, but they lived by an other-worldly ethic set by Jesus. Their way of living was so different that...
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...
Israel was meant to be a picture of the heavenly city of God, but over time, it began to look more like Babylon, Nineveh, and Sodom and Gomorrah. In the scroll of Isaiah, the prophet announces Yahweh’s coming judgment on Israel because of their oppre...
When Jesus tells Nicodemus people must be born again of water and Spirit, is that connected to the anointing theme? Is Jesus’ anointing in the Jordan supposed to remind us of the flood story? Does an antichrist have to first be a christ (anointed one...
You may have heard that Babylon was the biggest, baddest city in the Bible, but where did that reputation come from? Who founded the city, and what made it so detestable to God? In this episode, join Tim and Jon as they explore the story of the half-...
The theme of the city in the Bible is a surprising one. When cities are introduced in the story, they’re depicted as “bad”—a human response to increasing violence and the need for self-protection—and gardens are depicted as humanity’s ideal setting....
“Jesus the anointed one” is the literal translation of the Greek title “Christ,” frequently applied to Jesus. In this podcast episode, Tim and Jon discuss both this title and Jesus’ baptism, which the gospel writers depict as his anointing ceremony....
Do the biblical authors consider women the second-born siblings of men? Were Joshua and Caleb rivals? Why is Korah, the disgraced rebel, honored in the Psalms? In this episode, Tim and Jon dive into your questions from the firstborn series. Thank you...
David’s life gives us two parallel portrayals of what it means to be God’s anointed one: one is victorious—God’s anointed is the giant feller and the snake crusher. The other one is a suffering servant, waiting patiently in the wilderness for God’s d...
David was Israel’s greatest king, but even he failed to live as God’s anointed one. When Isaiah prophesied about the ultimate anointed one to come, he said that not only would this deliverer come from the line of David, but they would be a new David...
Israel’s first anointed king, Saul, consistently makes choices that put him in conflict with God and the responsibilities God has entrusted to him. This turns Saul into the first anti-anointed one—or put another way, the first antichrist. In this epi...