I recently launched the One Verse Podcast, and hundreds of people have subscribed so far.
And while most of the feedback has been overwhelmingly positive, I have also received a bit of negative feedback from people who subscribed and didn’t like what they heard.
So here are three reasons you should NOT subscribe to my Podcast:
1. Don’t Listen to My Podcast if you are a pastor or professor and want to keep your job.
If you are a pastor, and you are listening to these podcasts, or if you lead a Bible study in your church, let me provide a brief warning. Do yourself a favor and don’t teach any of what I am teaching you to the people in your church. In most cases, if you teach these things about Genesis 1, it will not go well for you.
I think churches are beginning to lighten up a bit on some of this stuff, and consider ideas that maybe they wouldn’t have considered ten years ago, but I have heard so many horror stories of pastors being fired and Bible study leaders getting booted out of the church simply because they taught some of the views I have been sharing in these podcasts.
In fact, when I first started learning about some of the things I am sharing on these podcasts about ten years ago, I was working for a non-profit Christian organization, and I made the mistake of writing a blog post about how I was studying and researching these things. Do you know what happened? I got fired from my job. There were seven things I was studying at the time, and one of them was the issue we have been discussing in this podcast, about whether or not Moses was writing a scientific treatise on how the earth came to be. My boss didn’t like that I was researching these things, and he fired me.
So be careful!
2. Don’t listen to my podcast if you get uncomfortable when your understanding of Scripture is challenged.
In my theological writing and Scriptural research, I have always sought (like Captain Kirk) to “Boldly go where no man has gone before.” But that doesn’t mean that what I write is science fiction! (Though some might think so! Ha!)
No, what I mean is that I have always sought to investigate a matter from every possible angle. While lots of Christians only read books and listen to teachers with whom they agree, I always do my best to listen to Bible teachers and read Christian books with whom I know I will disagree.
I figure that if what I believe is true, then it can stand up to any and every challenge thrown at it. If, however, what I believe is not true, then the only way to learn the truth is to be taught by those who believe something different than what I believe.
What this means, however, is that what I write and what I teach on my Podcast, is often a strange mixture of ideas gleaned from Dispensational, Reformed, Catholic, Pentecostal, Orthodox, and Jewish sources. Believe it or not, there are even some ideas from Atheistic sources thrown in.
Does that last part shock you? I listen to what Atheists say because the critics of Christianity often speak truths we ourselves are blind to.
Here’s the point: If you don’t like your theology and your views of Scripture to be challenged, you probably don’t want to listen to my Podcast. It will be too upsetting for you.
I am not saying I am right in everything I teach. I am learning right along with you. All I am saying is that the people who will most enjoy the podcast are those who also know that they are not right in everything they believe. This is the third reason you might not want to listen to my podcast.
3. Don’t listen to my podcast if you are a Bible expert and there is nothing else you can learn about Scripture.
I am not a Bible expert. I am a fellow traveler with you on this road of following Jesus.
My blog and podcast are places where I share with you my life-long hobby of reading theology and studying Scripture.
But if you have all your theology figured out and you know what every verse in the Bible means, then you have no need to listen to my podcast and you won’t enjoy it. You will probably just end up thinking I’m some sort of heretic.
On the other hand, if you know that you have much to learn about Scripture and theology, then you are exactly the type of person who should listen to my podcast, because you are the type of person I want to learn from.
Why You Should Listen to My Podcast
While my podcast is a place for me to teach what I have come to believe about various verses in the Bible, it is much more than that. More than anything, my podcast is a way for me to invite feedback from you, so that I might learn from you as you learn from me.
My podcast, just like this blog, is about inviting you into the conversation. I am not at all interested in telling you what to believe about Scripture and theology. I am very interested, however, in having a cordial conversation with you about Scripture and theology, and how to live it out in our lives so that you and I end up looking and acting more like Jesus.
That is what I hope my podcast accomplishes, and if that interests you, then I look forward to hearing from you about the content in my Podcast. See you there!
I would enjoy a nice, prolonged, face to face, discusion. Leaving comments on posts (blogs, podcasts, etc…) is vaguely unsatisfying.
Many years ago the head of a conservative religious organization told me “It’s all about keeping our supporters happy. Otherwise, we can’t pay the bills. They’re the tail that wags the dog.”
Unfortunately, this applies to many other organizations including those religious organizations that some refer to as “churches”. I’m convinced that people with plenty of money can convince many churches to support whatever doctrine/theology that person believes. If they’re paying the mortgage and everyone’s salary, many groups allow them to dictate “what the Bible says” and what that church must believe.
On the other hand, there are many of us who, when we discover churches, religious organizations and theologians/Bible teachers who think they have everything about God, Bible and church all figured out, decide to do what Dear Abby advised a woman to do regarding her boyfriend: “Not only should you abandon ship, you should run like heck once you reach dry land.”
If someone believes that the earth was created in six days, six thousand years ago, they have the right to believe what they choose to believe. I do not feel the need to try to convince them otherwise. I do not feel the need to call them a heretic, get them kicked out of the church or organization, or get them fired. Unfortunately, however, many of those folks think that you and I must agree with them, and if we do not then the name-calling and threats to get us kicked out of something or get us fired begin. That looks nothing like Jesus. Even non-Christians see that.
However, if you work for a church or other religious organization that must pander to those who pay the bills, you must pretend that you go along with them or quietly look for another job and when you find one, abandon ship and run like heck. I choose option #2.
Yes. It is sad when people try to control others for the sake of their paycheck. When money takes over how we follow Jesus, only disaster results.
FWIW, most of the inerrantists i know, and I mean inerrantist in the strictest sense, they don’t hold to a 6,000 year old earth, and that conclusion is not based on science, but the biblical text itself. The author of Genesis, when you look at the Hebrew, didn’t really address the age of the earth, how long creation took, or even if Genesis 1 primarily addresses the ‘original’ creation or a restoration/recreation and the planting of the garden of eden amidst a chaotic and fallen, previously created earth.
The church I used to go to, they are hardcore, literal inerrancy fundamentalists, and yet they openly mock those that believe in the 6,000 year old earth(church probably has over 5k members). You aren’t going to climb the church’s political ladder there if you believe in a young earth. They are old earthers, gap and/or gaps theorists. Not that they should mock anyone, but the point is, there are a lot more old earthers out there among conservatives than some realize.
That is true. Thanks for pointing that out. There is such a wide range of “literal” readings of Genesis 1, that it makes little sense to condemn anyone for rejecting “what God really said” in Genesis 1 just because they disagree with my preferred interpretation.
Ohhh! Me too me too!