Episodes
Thursday Sep 14, 2023
Episode 178: Psalm 4: What on Earth Is Going on Here??
Thursday Sep 14, 2023
Thursday Sep 14, 2023
There is so much debate about this Psalm. Not only does it contain two words that we don’t know what the heck they mean, but the context is quite the mystery. Is the Psalmist (David?) being lied about? Are the Kingdom elites resorting to Ba’al worship in order to bring an end to a famine? Is this Psalm 3 part 2 where David’s advisors are defecting to Absalom? Lots of questions and lots of debate.
Transcript: https://theancientbridge.com/2023/09/episode-178-psalm-4-what-on-earth-is-going-on-here/
YouTube: https://youtu.be/42lW87CiS08
Friday Sep 08, 2023
Episode 177: Psalm 3-- ”Mimzor l’David?”
Friday Sep 08, 2023
Friday Sep 08, 2023
What is a Psalm of David? Or is it a Psalm by David? A Psalm in the style of David or about him? This week we will talk about irritating Hebrew conjunctions and why context is incredibly important—and sometimes unknowable. And what about the fourteen titled Psalms? How do we read this one in light of David and Absalom? The Bible is a messy book about messy people and messy situations and so this Psalm is going to be really messy too.
Transcript: https://theancientbridge.com/2023/09/episode-177-psalm-3-mimzor-ldavid/
YouTube: https://youtu.be/IXKgCjbL4DA
Thursday Aug 31, 2023
Episode 176 Psalm 2: More than Messianic
Thursday Aug 31, 2023
Thursday Aug 31, 2023
Psalm 2 is one of the most famous “Messianic” psalms out there but it also pairs with Psalm 1 to teach the readers how to view the entire collection of hymns, laments, and royal tributes. How do Psalm1 and Psalm 2 work as a team in introducing the rest of the psalter? Why is it important for wisdom and kingship to dwell side by side in Covenant relations?
Transcript: https://theancientbridge.com/2023/08/episode-176-psalm-2-more-than-messianic/
YouTube: https://youtu.be/fyonTJg9AjM
Friday Jul 28, 2023
Episode 175: Psalm 1--A Proverb in the Psalms?
Friday Jul 28, 2023
Friday Jul 28, 2023
This is the beginning of a new series exploring the Psalms. I am going to alternate between the Psalms and the Gospel of Matthew because knowing the Psalms will help with understanding this Gospel and Yeshua’s/Jesus’s role as the Greater Moses as well as the Greater David. It won’t be obvious at first, but after a while it really will begin to make sense.
Transcript: https://theancientbridge.com/2023/07/episode-175-psalm-1/
YouTube: https://youtu.be/05Vnl-DvsgU
Friday Jul 14, 2023
Episode 174: Help! How do I explain Hagar’s story to my kids?
Friday Jul 14, 2023
Friday Jul 14, 2023
I have actually been dreading this moment since I began the Context for Kids radio show and knew that one day, I would have to cover the Biblical account of Abram and Sarai’s use of Hagar to produce a child. In context, it’s an ugly tale, albeit a common one in the ancient world. I can’t be as blunt about the situation with the kids as I can be with adults and so I am devoting a program over on this side of my ministry with the hopes of helping adults know how to teach children about what is going on in this chapter from beginning to end. As these sorts of accounts are often used in the cultish justification of sexual abuses in the Church, kids really do need to have a decent working knowledge that this sort of situation isn’t okay.
Transcript: https://theancientbridge.com/2023/07/episode-174-help-how-do-i-explain-hagars-story-to-my-kids/
Youtube: https://youtu.be/yDki5L7lTNk
Thursday Jun 29, 2023
Episode 173: The Study Series 18—Inerrancy, Inspiration, and Authority
Thursday Jun 29, 2023
Thursday Jun 29, 2023
What is inerrancy? Depends on who you ask. And yet, with so many definitions and no absolute agreement even on the basics, people sure do a lot of fighting about it. It’s a word that means different things to different people and so, based on what we have covered so far in the study series, what can we believe about the Bible? And does the Bible claim to be inerrant, or something else entirely?
Transcript: https://theancientbridge.com/2023/06/episode-173-the-study-series-18-inerrancy-inspiration-and-authority/
YouTube: https://youtu.be/MSzugzF9s-w
Monday Jun 19, 2023
Episode 172: The Study Series 17—Psalms and Laments
Monday Jun 19, 2023
Monday Jun 19, 2023
How come, when forty percent of the Psalms are laments, plus whole sections of the prophets and the entire book of Lamentations, are worship songs so focused on how hunky-dory life is? Sure, some of the Psalms are praises, but there are fewer praises than sad songs of complaint and hopelessness. As my next series is going to be about the Psalms, it is important that we have a healthy and balanced perspective on how psalms work, what we should expect to find in them, and what they tell us about how to relate to God.
Transcript: https://theancientbridge.com/2023/06/episode-172-the-study-series-17-psalms-and-laments/
YouTube: https://youtu.be/m5w8Q_7z604
Friday Jun 02, 2023
Friday Jun 02, 2023
We’re almost done with genre studies, I promise, so next week will be it. But this time, we have to look at the differences between the Sermons that Yeshua/Jesus delivered and the letters to specific congregations written by Paul, Peter, James and others. When we read a letter (aka epistle) as though it is a sermon, it can lead to some really bad problems. Maybe most importantly, how are we supposed to read the “law codes” in the Bible?
Transcript: https://theancientbridge.com/2023/06/episode-171-the-study-series-16-the-torah-the-sermons-and-the-problem-with-epistles/
YouTube: https://youtu.be/c0yX5u1iclg
Thursday May 11, 2023
Episode 170: Why Gender and Identity Confusion Are All YOUR Fault…and Mine Too.
Thursday May 11, 2023
Thursday May 11, 2023
Last summer, I did a series on my kids show about gender identity issues and I wrote this at that time to help adults understand how it is absolutely not the kids or just the liberal media who have created this problem—we’ve been just as bad and even worse as believers. How can that be? What can we do? This week we are going to explore just that. There is an extensive book list on this issue at the end of my transcript.
My series for kids can be found here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nu85aHCKqEA&list=PLyGci9v9u1suH86q2pBxL3jL5pmfiuR0m
Transcript: https://theancientbridge.com/2023/05/episode-170-why-gender-and-identity-confusion-are-all-your-faultand-mine-too/
Sunday Apr 30, 2023
Sunday Apr 30, 2023
Alonso Schökel once said that “what has been written with imagination must be read with imagination,” and although we completely understand the difference between reading one of Shakespeare’s sonnets and Shirer’s Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, we tend not to do that with Biblical poetry, which makes up roughly a third of the Hebrew Scriptures. We have the same problem when we don’t understand the original purpose of wisdom literature in general, and parables and allegories. Learning how to read these will revolutionize your Bible studies.
Transcript: https://theancientbridge.com/2023/04/episode-169-the-study-series-15-wisdom-literature-poetry-parables-and-allegories/