In the story of the Bible, cities are a bad thing. They’re a symptom of humanity’s violence and attempts to protect themselves instead of trusting God. In fact, in the second chapter of Genesis, God “builds” something for humanity’s protection. And i...
The theme of the city in the Bible is a surprising one. When cities are introduced in the story, they’re depicted as “bad”—a human response to increasing violence and the need for self-protection—and gardens are depicted as humanity’s ideal setting....
“Jesus the anointed one” is the literal translation of the Greek title “Christ,” frequently applied to Jesus. In this podcast episode, Tim and Jon discuss both this title and Jesus’ baptism, which the gospel writers depict as his anointing ceremony....
Do the biblical authors consider women the second-born siblings of men? Were Joshua and Caleb rivals? Why is Korah, the disgraced rebel, honored in the Psalms? In this episode, Tim and Jon dive into your questions from the firstborn series. Thank you...
David’s life gives us two parallel portrayals of what it means to be God’s anointed one: one is victorious—God’s anointed is the giant feller and the snake crusher. The other one is a suffering servant, waiting patiently in the wilderness for God’s d...
David was Israel’s greatest king, but even he failed to live as God’s anointed one. When Isaiah prophesied about the ultimate anointed one to come, he said that not only would this deliverer come from the line of David, but they would be a new David...
Israel’s first anointed king, Saul, consistently makes choices that put him in conflict with God and the responsibilities God has entrusted to him. This turns Saul into the first anti-anointed one—or put another way, the first antichrist. In this epi...
What’s so special about oil? Why does the Bible specify that oil—not water or wine—must be used to anoint a person or place? In this episode, Tim and Jon continue discussing the biblical theme of anointing, exploring why God designates oil to symboli...
The title most often applied to Jesus is “the anointed one”—that’s what the Greek word “christ” means! But what is the practice of anointing? What does it signify, and who gets anointed? The practice of anointing people with oil is a theme we can tra...
In our final episode of the Firstborn series, we look at the New Testament’s description of Jesus as the firstborn of creation. Join Tim and Jon as they explore some of Paul’s letters, the book of Hebrews, and the Revelation, and discover how Jesus r...
Under levitical law, touching anyone unclean would make you unclean too. But when Jesus touches people who are unclean, they get healed and become clean instead––it’s like his holiness is contagious. In this episode, Tim and Jon talk about the way Je...
The authors of the gospel accounts in the Bible—Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John—regularly refer to Jesus as the Son of God, a title that’s connected to the theme of the firstborn. In this episode, Tim and Jon explore what it means that Jesus is God’s S...
In the scroll of Samuel, Israel demands a king in place of the judges that have been ruling over them. It sounds like a simple enough request, but Yahweh calls it idolatrous. Why? In this episode, Tim and Jon discuss the motives behind Israel’s reque...
This episode is a special re-release of an interview we did in 2018 with Dr. Michael Heiser. Mike has been a significant influence to Tim’s own scholarship and, by extension, much of BibleProject’s content, as well as to thousands of other people. Mi...
Hannah was an oppressed woman, scorned by her husband’s rival wife because of her barrenness. But the way she prayed and trusted Yahweh through this hardship became a remarkable example of how God works through the lowly to subvert human notions of p...
