Christian Questions Bible Podcast

We live in a time of great contradiction. There are voices that shout, rant and insist for all in our society to embrace and accept everyone no matter what their choices in life are and no matter what their actions in life may be. Their message in many ways is framed as one of love – love for those who are opposite, love for those who are different. Then there are those like myself who say that while I am willing to accept and love people regardless of their choices, I will not embrace anything I believe is not moral or righteous. I will love the person but not the action. For this I have been called a "hater" by those who preach that you should embrace those who are different than you. Jesus told us to love our enemies, but what exactly does that mean? Am I not loving enough? Do I need to change?
Love your enemies. It is a principle for living that is looked up to and striven for by some and laughed and scorned by others. No matter how you look at it, loving ones enemies is a difficult and rare occurrence because it involves some level of acceptance we are not inclined to want to give.
There is a lot of talk around about accepting and embracing those who are different than you – those who in some ways would represent an enemy or opposition. Not only is there talk, but there is a movement as well – a movement that demands an unequivocal acceptance and embracing of people and their alternative behaviors. At first glance this movement appears to be founded in love and respect for all, and that would certainly be a good thing. The problem arises when those of us, who for the sake of moral belief and conviction, are willing to accept peopl, but not embrace behavior that we deem inappropriate or immoral. It is here where, based on personal experience, we suddenly become enemies who are to be shut down and ridiculed. ...Hardly an example of the very acceptance that this movement claims to preach!
Jesus lived and taught the concept of loving our enemies. He not only told us to love our enemies, he told us to pray for them and even to bless them. Wait a minute. Bless them? How do you bless someone who you think is wrong? How do you bless someone who does evil? How do you bless someone who wants to hurt you? Isn’t this going a little too far?
Our May 8th, 2016 broadcast entitled “Why Should We Love Our Enemies?” focused on these very questions. We not only examined what Jesus was saying about loving our enemies, but we took significant time learning the why and how of what he said. And no surprise, it turns out that in Jesus’ words and actions there are several profound lessons for every day application waiting to be put into practice. Jesus didn’t make loving our enemies an easy task but he did make it a desirable and attainable one.
One lesson that is an important building block for learning to love our enemies is that of blame. Sometimes we think that in order to love our enemies we need to not blame them for wrongs they have committed but this is not right. Blame is not only appropriate it is a necessary step in love. That being said, we need to understand how to blame in a godly way. On top of this we need to learn the other necessary steps that help us to complete the process of loving our enemies. Check out the broadcast and see how loving our enemies can not only work but can enhance our everyday lives!

“I think that God is telling me to look for another job,” or “God wants me to buy this house instead of that one,” or “It’s God’s will that I be happy.”  As Christians, we may have made statements like this and we would assume that anyone making these types of statements has some way to know what God wants for them.  The real question is how do we really know?  Is there a formula or a ritual or a feeling that shows us what God wants for us?  You would think that if God is working with real and true Christians, then he would have a really clear way to show them what He wants.  So, is there a really clear way for us to see God’s will?
This answer, like any answer to really difficult questions, has several moving parts because the subject of God’s will is enormous.  Is God’s will explicit or implicit?  Is His will specific or general?  Does God really care about the mundane parts of our lives - is His will present in the kind of phone we have or the dish washing detergent we buy?
In this broadcast, we tried to simplify and focus the matter.  We began by establishing what God’s will is not. It is not like a dot on a piece of paper - so small and precise that the odds of hitting it are like the odds of nailing the exact center of the bulls-eye on a dart board.  These odds would be slim and frustrating at best.  Rather, God’s will is much more like a circle.  There is room for creativity, diversity and thoughtfulness within this circle because we as Christians are a collection of creative, diverse and free moral beings.
So, if we can picture God’s will as a circle, then the next logical thing to look at is what makes up the borders of that circle.  Are there things (be they principles, actions or morality) that present themselves as definitive guidelines that separate us from being able to operate within or outside of God’s will?  Can we know what these borders are and therefore better know how to keep the scope of our decisions within the "safety zone" of the will of God?
It turns out the answer is yes.  There are many clear and concise scriptural guidelines that define what kinds of decisions would be within the scope of God’s will and what kinds of decisions are wandering around outside those protective borders.  Check out our May 1st, 2016 program “How do You Know What God Wants You to Do?” and see if it can help to define and hone the relationship between God’s will and your decisions.

Courage. It is an attribute we all can envision somehow or other. Courage is digging deep within to do what others won’t. It is acting in spite of fear, it is standing up when no one else will, it is joining with others against the odds, it is facing an enemy when you are overmatched. Courage is being, doing, seeing and thinking beyond what you thought possible – it is strength personified, perseverance in action and focus revealed. Courage changes things. So, can you develop courage? Can you actually make yourself more likely to be courageous?
How would you describe courage?  To me, courage is digging deep within to do what others won’t – it is acting in spite of fear, it is standing up when no one else will, it is joining with others against the odds, it is being overmatched and still facing your enemy.  Courage is being, doing, seeing and thinking beyond what you thought possible – it is strength personified, perseverance in action and focus revealed.  Courage changes things. Dramatically.  The problem with courage is that it is an attribute that seems to be waning in our present day.  Rather than digging deep to find the strength to answer calls to courage we now just barely scratch the surface of character as we settle in and answer calls to conformity.  How can we change this?
One way to rekindle the call to courage is to look back in time and find someone who was faced with a serious dilemma and see what they did to gather themselves, focus and plow through the problem. For us this search is easy, for the Bible is full of examples of courage. Think of Noah, or Moses, or Elijah or Daniel. All of them are heroes of faith and all of them are heroes of courage.  For the sake of today’s conversation, we will consider another – we will look to Joshua.
Joshua’s call to courage was different than the others because he was called upon to take the place of the great deliverer Moses. Moses had died before he could lead Israel into their Promised Land so God laid the mantle of leadership upon the shoulders of Joshua.  Talk about an impossible task – how could anyone have ever taken the place of Moses?
God knew how daunting this would be, so in the book of Joshua the first chapter, God explained what he needed from Joshua as his new leader.  The great thing is that as God walked Joshua through the steps to becoming a courageous leader, he was also teaching us how to make courage an integral part of our daily lives.
God told Joshua three times to be strong and courageous within the first nine verses of chapter one. He was delivering a very specific message – that is that strength is a necessary basis for true enduring courage. Without internal strength of character as a foundation, courage cannot survive long term, because courage needs to be fed by strength. It is on this basis that the five principles used to develop courage are built.
Listen in to our April 24, 2016 broadcast “What Does Courage Look Like?” and watch how those five principles of courage are related by God to Joshua.  Then, listen to how those five principles of courage can change your own thinking, perspective and even change your life!

Regret stinks.  And it stinks for so many reasons.  Think about it - you do something and the result for whatever reason is just not good, so you end up deeply regretting that action.  Now, it’s not enough to just look back over what happened and feel that twinge of pain just once - no, of course not.  Because you have a deep regret, you get to play that experience over and over again in your mind.  You get to feel the pain, experience the guilt and relive those messy choices, sometimes multiple times in one day!  And guess what happens the next day and the next day and the next?  See, regret stinks!
We are here to tell you that it doesn’t have to be this way.  Really.  What you need to do is to understand and apply few things and by so doing you can take your nasty and destructive regrets and actually transform them into practical tools to navigate your present and set up your future.  Once you know the “what” and the “how” of the fix, all that will be left are the daily choices to apply the fix.
We walked through this whole thing in our two-part series “Will My Regrets Ever Leave Me Alone?” from April 10th and 17th, 2016.  In these two broadcasts, we discovered some amazing and life-changing biblical principles that squarely focus on dealing with our regrets. These principles are revealed by the Apostle Paul, who was previously known as Saul of Tarsus and as anti-Christian as one could be before being converted by Jesus himself.  The regret that Saul, now Paul, would have had to deal with was enormous, for he had persecuted, imprisoned and even sanctioned the murder of the very Christians he would spend the rest of his life serving.  Jesus knows this and talks Paul through the process of managing his regrets so he would be able to focus on the critical work of spreading the Gospel instead of constantly reminding himself of how bad his past was.
It turns out there are five basic step-by-step principles that Jesus taught Paul to manage regret.  Like any series of steps, the first few are really foundational and need to be securely in place before the rest can be applied.  Accept and embrace the pain of your actions and assume responsibility are the first two steps we begin with to manage our regrets.  Oftentimes we do these steps naturally, but the BIG problem is that we stop there and don’t apply the next three steps of transformation.  Again, don’t stop there as it is hazardous to your well being!
Please check out “Will My Regrets Ever Leave Me Alone?” parts 1 and 2 from April 10th and 17th.  Life can change if you know how to change it and these five principles just might help!

Daniel was a prophet in the Bible who lived many many years before Jesus and he was given glimpses into the future that were extraordinary. The odd thing about his future glimpses was that he was told that he would not understand them and to “seal them up in the book until the time of the end”. This would have been a bummer for Daniel, but not so much for us because we happen to live right at the time when the mystery surrounding his mysterious prophecies can be unraveled.
In our April 10, 2016 program “Did the Prophet Daniel See the Future?” we had a special guest with us as we embarked on the unraveling process. Now, because there is SO much by way of future glimpses in the book of Daniel, we chose to focus on just a few very powerful lines of prophecy from Daniel the 12th chapter. The first several verses of this chapter laid out several profound things:
Standing up for the children of God’s people/ Israel
The Time of Trouble
Resurrection
Reconciliation
The Time of the end
Knowledge increased
Running to and fro
Some of the basic principles of understanding these things are as follows – The time of the end is a long time – hundreds of years. Once you figure out when the time of the end starts you begin to see that housed within that long time frame are the many other details mentioned above. While this might sound complicated it is far more amazing than complex.
We spent about half of the program looking at the unmistakable proofs that this prophecy really does unfold and apply in our very day. Did I say that these proofs were unmistakable? Did I mention that these prophecies were amazing? I meant every word! Please, take some time and listen, then tell us what you think!

Regret is one of those things that takes up residence in our heads and always seems to have a long term lease – it just does not want to go away.  You know the drill - you do or say or think something that should not have been and then the regret loop starts.  You play the scenario over and over in your head and each time you come up with the same old dusty conclusions - what was I thinking?  How could I have been so stupid?  If I only would have… Why didn’t I?… It is a nasty loop that sucks you in and doesn’t easily let you go.  Ever.
There is good news!  Regret can be treated, tamed and turned into something of immense value in life.  You see, we need regret.  What we don’t need is that painful repetitive experience that regret brings us.  Regret left unmanaged ends up being a destination of defeat; whereas regret handled with focus discipline and the proper principles becomes a tool of growth.  How do we know this?  The Apostle Paul and Jesus showed us.
Let me explain:  Before his conversion to Christianity, the Apostle Paul was known as Saul of Tarsus, a man who was dedicated to God and the Jewish Law but was living out that dedication in a warped, dark and evil way.  He hunted down Christians - literally - he mocked them, imprisoned them and even had some of them killed.  Then one day Jesus appears to him, tells him he is doing evil things and tells him to change.  He changes and becomes a follower of Jesus.  Now, think about the deep regret and guilt that Saul, now Paul, would have to live with - he had tried to destroy those who followed his own Messiah!
The best part of this unlikely conversion is that Jesus actually walked Saul through the principles necessary to make regret a tool of growth as he was calling him to convert.  Jesus understood that Saul’s heart was good but his passion was evil, so Jesus talked Saul through not only changing his passion to match his heart, but making the inevitable regret of his former life and actions become tangible tools to build his new life and passion in Christ.  This process Jesus brought to Saul is truly amazing and is a template for us to handle our regrets as well!
You owe it to yourself to check out our program “Will My Regrets Ever Leave Me Alone Part 1."  What you will find are the beginning steps necessary to take the misery out of regret and turn it into a tool of growth.  Check it out - you won’t regret it!

Easter Sunday is the Sunday that the Christian world traditionally celebrates the resurrection of Jesus. Obviously this follows Good Friday, the day we honor his suffering and crucifixion.  These events would change the world, both immediately after they happened as well as forever after that.  Somehow these miraculous world-changing accounts of crucifixion and resurrection have become tied up with things like colored eggs, candy and an Easter Bunny.  Too bad, but that is another story entirely…
It is an uncomfortable question, but we have to ask.  If you knew that you were going to die, what would you do the night before?  What did Jesus do?  How often have you thought about what happened the night before his crucifixion?  Have you ever taken the time to focus on what he did, where he went and who he was with on that fateful last night of his earthly life?
The answer to this question is staggering in its breadth, for Jesus invested countless hours into his followers - those who had walked with him for years.  These were the same followers who would be scattered and desert him in the face of the onslaught of the darkness that would take Jesus away.  He knew they would be scattered and scared and so he gave them strength, courage and conviction through his words and actions.
In a way, the legacy of Jesus’ life and death - all that he stood for and all that he came to accomplish - was summed up in his words and actions of that night and the following day.  If you begin with Jesus washing his disciples' feet, it really sets the tone for his legacy.  Humility and service were the foundation.  These are two simple things the Apostles had overlooked, for they had been too busy clamoring for attention and rank.  Jesus stopped them in their tracks as he demonstrated what true godly leadership was.  He served them.  He even washed the feet of Judas his betrayer.
This is just one small lesson he taught that night.  He would go on to teach legacy lessons of courage, hope, promise, connection and many more.  To us, the most remarkable part of this whole night before his crucifixion was the fact that he devoted himself to those whom he loved, even though he was the one who would be taken, tried, beaten, mocked and killed.  Selflessness - that in itself is a legacy!
Get the whole story.  Check out our program “What is the Legacy of Jesus’ Death and Resurrection?” from March 27, 2016 and see what real leadership and real legacy are all about.

Did you know that Jesus raised three different people from the dead? Most of us remember the raising of Lazarus and the dramatic scene when Jesus has the stone removed from the tomb and Jesus says with a loud and commanding voice “Lazarus come forth!” It is an event that sends chills down your spine as the power of God and the voice of Jesus conquer death. As dramatic as this was, it was only one of three such death to life events. The other two while different, relate to this account in showing just what it means for Jesus to conquer death and evil.
Jairus’ daughter was only twelve years old when she became gravely ill. Jesus happened to be in town when she was sick, so Jairus sought him out and emphatically begged him to come and heal her. Jesus agreed, but seemed to get sidetracked on the way and the young girl died before he got there. Jesus raised her – he woke her from the sleep of death. So, what are the similarities and differences in these two accounts? Is there a significant connection to the true meaning of conquering death and evil?
There was a young man who died in Nain (a city in Israel) and he was the only son of a widow. She would now be destitute and the funeral procession was proceeding down the street when Jesus showed up. He stopped the procession and raised the young man back to life. Dramatic? Yes! But what does it mean? How is it connected to the other two events to tell us details about what it means to truly conquer death and evil?
Check out our broadcast from March 20, 2016 “How did raising others to life prepare Jesus for death?” and see the surprising connections for yourself. These are three inspiring stories that blossom into an amazingly descriptive narrative that details the battle of life and death being waged by the forces of good and evil.

ISIS has become a household name.  Most of us don’t even know exactly what the initials stand for, but we do know what the ideology stands for:  Terrorism, violence and crimes against those who don’t think, act and believe the way that they do.  Somehow these radical Islamist terrorists seem to believe that by brutalizing, maiming and murdering those of different ideologies - those who are content to live and let live - they are showing their power and strength.  What they actually show is that they are heartless, mindless and without any true religion. They are just blindly violent men.
With this being said, we have to ask the question, because of the indelible mark that ISIS and other radical Islamic terror groups have made on our world in this present century, do they show up in Bible prophecy in any way?  Did God foresee their degraded and evil ways and essentially tell us that they were coming?
To work on answering such a question, we had David Stein join us for our conversation.  David is a good friend and a fellow student of the Bible and always has a studied and thoughtful take on biblical prophecy and perspective.  He stressed that we are all students of prophecy and not prophets, and therefore our understanding of the deep things of scriptural foresight are certainly subject to interpretation and clarification as time goes on.
Here are a few of the basic points we looked into:
What does the Bible have to say about Muslims?  Many of us assume that Arab nations are all Muslim and therefore any Scriptures that focus on those Arab nations must be focusing on Muslims.  This is far from true! Arabs are NOT mostly Muslim and the Bible actually does give us a way of seeing the differences between these nations and the religion in Jeremiah 9.
Not only does the Bible give us that distinction, but we believe it also goes as far as to identify the two primary factions within Islam, the Sunnis and the Shiites.  One of these identified factions had produced far more violence than the other and the Bible seems to bear this out as well.
So, is ISIS in the Bible?  Yes, but not in the way that we might think.  What does the Bible say about them and about radical Muslim extremists?  Check out our broadcast from March 13, 2016 and find out, as there are some surprising and encouraging answers!

ISIS has become a household name.  Most of us don’t even know exactly what the initials stand for, but we do know what the ideology stands for:  Terrorism, violence and crimes against those who don’t think, act and believe the way that they do.  Somehow these radical Islamist terrorists seem to believe that by brutalizing, maiming and murdering those of different ideologies - those who are content to live and let live - they are showing their power and strength.  What they actually show is that they are heartless, mindless and without any true religion. They are just blindly violent men.
With this being said, we have to ask the question, because of the indelible mark that ISIS and other radical Islamic terror groups have made on our world in this present century, do they show up in Bible prophecy in any way?  Did God foresee their degraded and evil ways and essentially tell us that they were coming?
To work on answering such a question, we had David Stein join us for our conversation.  David is a good friend and a fellow student of the Bible and always has a studied and thoughtful take on biblical prophecy and perspective.  He stressed that we are all students of prophecy and not prophets, and therefore our understanding of the deep things of scriptural foresight are certainly subject to interpretation and clarification as time goes on.
Here are a few of the basic points we looked into:
What does the Bible have to say about Muslims?  Many of us assume that Arab nations are all Muslim and therefore any Scriptures that focus on those Arab nations must be focusing on Muslims.  This is far from true! Arabs are NOT mostly Muslim and the Bible actually does give us a way of seeing the differences between these nations and the religion in Jeremiah 9.
Not only does the Bible give us that distinction, but we believe it also goes as far as to identify the two primary factions within Islam, the Sunnis and the Shiites.  One of these identified factions had produced far more violence than the other and the Bible seems to bear this out as well.
So, is ISIS in the Bible?  Yes, but not in the way that we might think.  What does the Bible say about them and about radical Muslim extremists?  Check out our broadcast from March 13, 2016 and find out, as there are some surprising and encouraging answers!