This episode gives an overview of all the Apostles of Christ, as well as all of the individuals who could possibly be called Apostles based on the text of various New Testament verses. This episode depends on the evidence of New Testament texts, but mostly on church tradition. Where did all the Apostles go during and after Acts? How did they die? What can we learn from these Apostles?

Now that we have examined each of the books of the New Testament, we will begin to synthesize the material. We shall start with an overview of the life of Jesus of Nazareth, called Christ, or Messiah. In this episode, we look at Jesus' birth, His ministry, His miracles, His death, His Resurrection, and His prophesied return.

You will certainly hear multiple talking heads on documentaries or semi-educational programming talking about how the 27 books of the New Testament were chosen "arbitrarily," and that there are hundreds of books that were "erased" or "removed" from the New Testament canon, with the implication being that the Christianity that emerged from the first 3 centuries was really just the survivor of a no holds barred grudge match of multiple Christianities, and that there is no reason to believe that "orthodox Christianity" is the correct one. Needless to say, I do not think much of this hypothesis. Indeed, these other books that were "removed" from canon were never considered to be real contenders as orthodox documents, and for good reason. In this podcast, we will discuss the Gospel of Thomas, the Gospel of Mary, the Infancy Gospel of Thomas, the Gospel of Peter, and the Gospel of Judas as we look at the history of Gnostic writings and their rediscovery in the 19th & 20th Centuries.

This episode gives a brief overview of the Church Fathers. We discuss the importance of the Council of Nicaea, the Ontological Argument, The Schism between the Eastern and Western Church, and the Protestant Reformation. Unfortunately, I do not have the time or the expertise to spend as much time on the text of the Early Church Fathers' writings as I would like. But the good news is that most-if-not-all of these writings are available for free online, so you can look these texts up on your own.

We complete our study of the text of the New Testament by taking a look at Luke & Acts, which together make Luke the Evangelist the most prolific author of the New Testament. Through Luke, we have most of Paul's ministry accounts which puts the many letters of Paul in their proper context.

The New Testament opens with four accounts of Jesus life. The first two of these Gospels, Matthew and Mark, are the topic of discussion in this lecture. In this episode we will discuss the two earliest written Gospel accounts. We discuss which of the Gospels, Matthew or Mark, is the first written. We also look into the mysterious Q source, and make an argument that Q represents the oral traditions of the earliest Christians.

The four books with the word "John" in them plus the book of Revelation all all written by an author named "John." This could be several different Johns, or it could be The Apostle John. In this episode, I make the case that the Apostle John could be the author of all five books, even though the books are very, very different.

The #1 disciple, Simon (who Jesus named Peter) left us 2 letters. And Jude, the half-brother of Christ, gave us a short letter that is very similar in style and substance to 2 Peter. So in this episode we analyze these three epistles. Why, for instance, do these three letters refer to &/or quote the non-canonical book First Enoch? What warnings do these epistles give us to avoid false teachers? What relationship does the ministry of Peter have with the ministry of Paul and the other apostles?

This episode explores the incredible, academic, and very Jewish book called Hebrews. Who wrote it? Who is Melchizedek? What about those warning passages? ... In the second half, we look at the epistle of James. Also written to a predominately Jewish audience, the half-brother of Jesus gives us a robust defense of good works in the closest thing in the New Testament to Proverbs.

There is significant disagreement amongst scholars as to whether the Apostle Paul really wrote 1 Timothy, 2 Timothy, or Titus, collectively known as the Pastoral Epistles. In this episode we will discuss the possibility of pseudonymity and also the possibility that Paul is the author. We also look into some of the content of the books. We also look at Titus and Timothy, the men who received these instructional letter. Finally, we look at why 2 Timothy is so different in tone from any other Pauline epistle, since this letter seems to have been written shortly before his inevitable execution.

As the Book of Acts comes to a close, the Apostle Paul finds himself in prison. While under guard in house arrest, Paul is able to commune with the Roman church and to communicate with other churches via letters. It is highly likely that Ephesians, Colossians, Philemon, and Philippians (known collectively as the "prison epistles") were written at this time.

The church at Corinth was the Apostle Paul's most messed up church. But he loved them and stuck with them. In this episode we analyze two of his largest letters, both sent to the Christian church in this important Greek city.

Salvation is an important part of theology. Indeed, it is one of the core doctrines of Christian theology and the Gospel is the core theme of all of Paul's writings. Since Romans is a letter written by Paul to a church he has not yet visited, he seems to have been careful to lay out his teaching about the Gospel more clearly in Romans than in any other epistle. In this episode we will examine "The Romans Road to Salvation" that uses verses exclusively from Romans to show a person how to be saved.

Romans is the best theological text ever written. In this episode, we will examine who wrote it, why it was written, to whom it was written, and what are the major themes taught by the epistle to the Romans. This episode also contains an impromptu classroom discussion over the role of women as presented in Paul's writings.

In this episode, we begin our discussions about the actual text of the New Testament. We start by introducing the author of much of it, the Apostle Paul. Next, we briefly look at Galatians and both epistles to the Thessalonians.

Knowing about the Roman Empire is key to understanding the context of the New Testament. Jesus, His disciples, and the Apostle Paul all ministered in the Roman Empire. Judea, Galilee, Asia Minor, Greece, Egypt, and (obviously) the Italian Peninsula were all part of the Empire. Every person who heard one of their sermons, received healing, or joined the growing church was a subject of Rome. This episode covers Roman history from Romulus to the Fall of the Empire.

In this episode we take a brief look at the world created by Alexander the Great's monumental conquests, and by his early death and the fracturing of his empire. We will then focus in on the Jewish people living in this time, and add another layer to our knowledge of the world that the New Testament was introduced to.

This is a valiant attempt at a thorough overview of the Old Testament in a single lecture. In this episode, we examine the story of the Old Testament in chronological order as presented in the texts of the Old Testament. We also take a look at major themes of the Old Testament.

This episode is a brief survey of the major civilizations and empires that constitute the appropriate context for the Old Testament, which itself is the most important bit of context for the New Testament.

This fall we are starting a new class as we dig into the New Testament. In this episode, we preview the order of topics we will cover along the way, look at the Koine Greek text that the New Testament was originally written in, and discuss the importance of reading the texts in chronological order so as to identify and assess theological development in the New Testament.

This is a sermon given at a local United Methodist church in my hometown on 8/21/2022. This sermon acts as an introduction, of sorts, to the New Testament class that will dominate this podcast feed for the next few months. I hope you enjoy!

In this episode, we wander into dangerous, controversial waters: namely, current events. The events of January 6, 2021, have put Donald Trump in hot water and in danger of criminal prosecution. Once upon a time in the '70s, another former President was in a similar situation. Back then, President Ford chose to pardon Nixon, almost certainly ending his chances to win in 1976, but saving us all from an incredible legal/political circus. Should Biden consider making the same offer to Trump? What are the advantages and disadvantages of such an admittedly unlikely move?

The Civil War changed the United States of America. Just how the war changed our country is explored in this episode of the podcast. We will also take on many controversies related to the Civil War, like the Confederate battle flag and Confederate statues.

Reconstruction was the process by which all the states that had seceded from the United States were reintegrated into the Union. It is also the time when Constitutional Amendments were ratified that laid the framework to give Civil Rights to African-Americans. Those amendments, thankfully, proved to be resilient as nearly every other bit of social justice progress made in the Reconstruction era was challenged and repressed by a white supremacist society, by hostile Southern state and local governments, and by the Hayes Administration that removed federal military protection in the South. The 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments laid the framework for the Civil Rights Era a century later.

Even before the Civil War was over, the attempt to reframe the entire Confederate project was underway. The result was "The Lost Cause," which asserted that the South was a superior culture with superior warriors, and that the war was only lost because the North had overwhelming numbers and supplies. But mostly, The Lost Cause begs us to believe that slavery was not the cause of secession or the war. In this podcast, we will analyze The Lost Cause philosophy.

What if the South had won the Civil War? What if Stonewall Jackson had not died at Chancellorsville? What if Abraham Lincoln was never assassinated? What if McClellan had taken Richmond and won the war in the Peninsular Campaign?

This episode documents the final battles and offensives that resulted in the surrender of the military forces of the South and the collapse of the Confederate States of America. We will also look at the assassination of Abraham Lincoln.

In this podcast episode, we examine the African-American experience in the American Civil War. Early in the war, Blacks were not allowed to fight, and Union Generals struggled with crafting policies regarding escaped slaves who were fleeing from the enemy's land. Eventually, African-Americans were given opportunities to show their value to the Union war effort, and they performed spectacularly. Unfortunately, the South refused to treat Black soldiers as if they were the equals of Northern white prisoners-of-war. Captured African-American Union soldiers were treated like runaway slaves and put into slavery. Therefore, prisoners exchanges came to an end, and the result was horrific prisoner-of-war camps like Elmira and Andersonville.

Nearly every combat engagement of the American Civil War occurred on land. But let us not forget the extraordinary contributions by the US Navy. Without their increasingly successful blockade of the Confederate coastline and their indispensable assistance to the US Army on the Virginia Peninsula and on the Mississippi River, it is unlikely that the Union would have succeeded as they did. Any study of the Civil War is incomplete without examining the Naval War.

Gettysburg & Vicksburg represented perhaps the greatest individual victories for the Union Army in the Civil War, and those battles ended at virtually the same time. Lee's retreat from Pennsylvania and Pemberton's surrender of Vicksburg to Grant represented the high water mark of the Confederacy.

This episode examines the most significant Generals for the United States of America (the "Union") in the Civil War.

This episode is a quick glance at the most consequential Generals of the Confederate States of America.

From Bull Run to Chancellorsville, we will look at all of the significant battles of the first half of the American Civil War.

South Carolina was the first to secede from the United States, in late 1860. But they were not the only state to do so. For the first half of 1861, nearly half of the states in the United States left the Union. This podcast tracks the momentum that led to each state's decision to secede.

This episode summarizes political developments that have already been discussed in previous episodes, explaining how these developments led directly to the founding of the Republican Party. We spend most of the podcast talking about Abraham Lincoln, the second man that the Republican Party nominated for President, and the first Republican to win a Presidential election. But opposition to Lincoln was so strong that South Carolina decided that it was done being a state within the USA.

The American Civil War had a warm-up game in Kansas, as Free State Advocates and Pro-Slavery Advocates rushed into the territory to influence its development. Political war figuratively broke out, and literal war also reared its ugly head as scores of men on both sides of the debate died. Many Pro-Slavery Missourians inserted themselves in both the voter fraud and violence. Yet, in the end, the secession of Southern Senators finally made it possible for Free Staters and their prospective state constitution to be adopted, leading to the Free State of Kansas joining the United States just as that Union was being dissolved by Confederate states.

Antebellum (from the Latin for "before the war") America was a significantly different place than the United States of America that emerged from the American Civil War. This episode examines the culture, economy, religion, and society of Antebellum America.