Renewtheology

In this episode, we do a deep dive into the covenant that God made to David regarding his family line. We work our way through the succession of the royal family and explore God's faithfulness despite some very evil kings. We also look at how the line of kings gets progressively worse, the story of a power-hungry queen mother who murders her grandchildren to keep the throne, and the king who foolishly showed visiting Babylonian dignitaries his wealth.

This week, we pick up where we left off with the covenant that God made with Abraham. We continue to follow the story through Abraham's son Isaac and grandson Jacob. Then we jump ahead 400 years to Moses & the covenant God makes with Israel through him. We also explain why this covenant is conditional, unlike some earlier covenants.

We kick off a new series on the covenants of God, starting with the very first covenants God made with key characters from the biblical narrative: Adam and Eve, Noah, and Abraham. We explain the significance of covenants in the ancient Near-East, discuss the difference between conditional and unconditional covenants, and take an in-depth look at the first three covenants God makes with His people.

We took a break from theology this week and had fun looking at some medieval history; namely, the religious lives women could opt for in the Middle Ages. We explore why most women who chose to lead a religious life were actually well off, how married women could lead a religious life, and why some women lived in tiny rooms for 40 years.

We explore a few more creeds: the Apostles' Creed, the Chalcedonian Creed, and the Athanasian Creed. We talk about the real authors of these creeds and why the creeds got longer later on in history. We even share Apelles' Creed, who was a Gnostic. It gets a little weird . . . it may be the only creed that uses the word "moist".

In this first of two episodes on the creeds of the Church, we give some background on the reasons early creeds were written. We also explain why the Greeks believed the spoken word was more valuable than the written word and how an ancient manuscript instructed the Early Church on detecting false prophets.

You maybe haven't heard the term "dominionism," but there's a good chance you've heard its teachings. Dominionism advocates for complete Christian influence on the world in seven spheres of society. But there's a problem with how dominionism seeks influence: it's not biblical. We explain how this framework directly opposes what Jesus taught about power, the line from the Lord's Prayer dominionists use to support their beliefs, and how this worldview appeals to our pride and egotism.

The public ministry of A. W. Tozer is lauded today, but there has been controversy around his personal life and the way he treated his family. He is recognized as a prophetic voice for the church of the 20th century, but he also flirted with Gnosticism in his personal life. Join us as we explore the life of this Christian leader.

We wrap up our series on hell by exploring the traditional view of hell: eternal conscious torment. But before we get to that, we take a brief detour and explain why the ancient Jews of the Old Testament didn't have a concept of hell or the afterlife and why they eventually started to change their minds. We give arguments for eternal conscious torment, and offer some different theories as to why those who deny God deserve eternal ongoing punishment.

If you were raised in a traditional Christian home, you were probably taught about hell from the eternal conscious torment perspective. But did you know that annihilation is also thought of as a valid option by many orthodox Christians? We explain what annihilation is all about in this episode, along with the unbiblical perspective of annihilation Jehovah's Witnesses promote.

In the first of our 3-part series on hell, we do an introduction to the topic of hell and explain the universalist view of hell. We also explain who God created hell for, whether people become unconscious at the point of death, and the difference between Sheol, Hades, & Gehenna–all terms the Bible uses to describe hell.

Roman Catholics believe anointing the sick is important although it doesn't guarantee healing, while hyper-charismatic denominations believe healing is always for everyone. We dig in to discuss the varying beliefs surrounding anointing with oil, plus what the Bible has to say about it. We also discuss how ministers/priests are ordained in the Roman Catholic & Protestant churches, as well as marriage.

We explore two sacraments in today's episode, one of them being practiced by Protestants as well: the Lord's Supper and Confession. We explore the fact that Roman Catholics & Protestants have two very different beliefs about what the body and blood of Christ actually are, as well as how Roman Catholics practice confession.

If you're familiar with Roman Catholicism, you know that the seven sacraments are an important element of the tradition. When the Reformation happened in 1517, the Reformers did away with all but two of these sacraments: baptism & communion. In this episode, we discuss the differences between the ways these two sacraments/ordinances are celebrated in the Roman Catholic & Protestant churches.

Among Christian denominations, there are two main camps when it comes to whether there are rules about how to worship God. One says we can only do what Scripture says, while the other states anything but what's forbidden in the Bible is allowed. We discuss the biblical support for these two principles, their strengths & weaknesses, and how they're similar–and different.

We wrap up our missions 4-part series by answering questions like "Should we give to non-Christian organizations?" and "Is meeting physical needs or preaching the gospel more important?" We also discuss some of the current challenges many missionaries face (aside from poisonous snakes) and where we go from here.

We give you a brief history of missions in both the Roman Catholic & Protestant churches and explain how their missions efforts were different. We also get specific about two Protestant denominations that were founded on missions: the Salvation Army and the Christian & Missionary Alliance. We conclude by sharing the stories of three missionaries: William Carey, Amy Carmichael, and Jim Elliot.

This week's episode is a bit heavier but necessary. We take a close look at some examples of missions done badly as far back as Christopher Columbus and as recently as 2010. We also discuss the problem of the "white saviour complex" that exists in many areas of the world and deal with some common, unhelpful platitudes such as, "God doesn’t only use missions to change others; God uses missions to change us."

We kick off a new series this week about missions! In part 1, we dig into the Scriptures and see what the New Testament said about missions, explain why missions didn't exist in the Old Testament, and work through some definitions related to missions. This intro episode is a bit shorter, so stay tuned for the rest of the series!

In the final episode of our problem of evil series, we explore how three distinct views deal with the problem of evil: Calvinism, Arminianism, and Open Theism. Each of these has a different perspective on man's free will & God's sovereignty, and (spoiler alert) one of them is heretical.