David Burge is the pastor of the Takanini Church of Christ in Auckland, New Zealand. He also leads the Advent Christian Conference of New Zealand and the Conditional Immortality Association of New Zealand (www.afterlife.co.nz). He has researched, written, and spoken extensively on the topic of conditional immortality (the belief that dead people are asleep until the resurrection at the return of Christ).

Conditional immortality has already been discussed in these previous shows:

• The Truth about Heaven with Steve Taylor
• The Truth about Hell with John Cortright
• The History of Hell with John Roller
• Resurrection with Joe Martin

In this episode, rather than asking David to present a positive case for this doctrine, I pummeled him with difficult verses for him to explain. Amazingly, time after time, he was able to show where the misunderstanding was, and how to interpret each sensibly. Verses discussed include:

1. Luke 16.19-31
2. Luke 23.43
3. 2 Corinthians 5.8
4. Philippians 1.23
5. Revelation 6.9-11
6. Revelation 14.11
7. Revelation 20.10

Also, as of right now David is fighting for his life against acute lymphoblastic leukemia. Please pray for him, his wife, and their eight children. Updates about him can be found here.

Sir Anthony Buzzard was born in Surrey, England and educated at Oxford University and later at Bethany Theological Seminary in Chicago. He holds Master’s degrees in languages and theology. He came to the USA with his wife and daughters in 1981 and has taught Bible at Atlanta Bible College since then. He is the author of numerous books including The Law, the Sabbath, and New Covenant Christianity (other books and articles are available at restorationfellowship.org).

Do Christians need to keep the Law of Moses? Is it wrong to work on Saturday? Should the people of God avoid pork and shellfish? Questions like these may seem obvious to many of us but there are several groups of Christians who insist that unless one keeps the Law he or she will be condemned on the day of judgment. Amazingly, this same Judaizing tendency was rampant in the first century church as well. Listen in to the discussion to find out more about this as well as hear first-hand what it was like for Anthony when he came to these conclusions after observing Torah for fourteen years.

“Servetus the Evangelical” is the pseudonym for an evangelical scholar who recently published a book called The Restitution of Jesus Christ in which he describes who God and Jesus are from a biblical unitarian perspective including exegesis of several texts typically used to teach that Jesus is God (i.e. John 1.1; 20.28; etc.). Though he has been a Bible-believing evangelical all his adult life he began to question the doctrine of the Trinity when he couldn’t make sense of certain Scriptures within a trinitarian mindset. In particular Matthew 24.36 (also Mark 13.32) convinced him that Jesus was not omniscient since he confessed that he did not know when he would return. Texts like this began “Servetus” on a quest for truth which ended in his confession of the historic creed of the people of God that Yahweh alone is God (Deut. 6.4; Mark 12.29) and that Jesus is the human Messiah divinely begotten by God via the Holy Spirit.

“Servetus” has a website at which many articles are free for download including this tract which describes in a couple of pages what his research on God and Jesus has revealed. Furthermore, there is a contest on www.servetustheevangelical.com to guess his identity. Since 2008 he has revealed a clue each month. He will continue to do this until 2011 (the 500th birthday of Michael Servetus) when he will reveal his identity and publish a new book about his personal journey. Listen in to this conversation to hear the mysterious “Servetus the Evangelical” describe why he changed his views on these critical matters. (Thanks to JP Smajda–audio engineer extraordinaire–for his help in disguising Servetus’ voice).

Dear Pastor Sean Finnegan;

This is to inform you that we will not be renewing our agreement with Living Hope International Ministries for the program entitled, “Truth Matters.” It has come to our attention that our “statement of faith” does not agree with your doctrinal beliefs.

This occurred shortly after Nathan Crowder’s show, “A Journey to Monotheism,” had aired. However, by then I had already recorded the next three shows and had even finished producing the episode with Patrick Navas. The Sunday that Patrick’s show was supposed to air Truth Matters was replaced with Truths that Transform by the deceased Dr. D. James Kennedy. Even so, I was able to convince the radio station to air Patrick’s show the next week because they had accidentally repeated a show earlier in the year due to a computer glitch (thus they technically owed us one more airing). As a result, the next Sunday Patrick’s show, “Is the Trinity Biblical?,” did air, though unfortunately it was the last show to broadcast.

Even though I knew that the radio station would eventually kick us off, and was frankly surprised that we lasted this long, it still stings to be censored. I do hope that in the future these shows may be aired on another Christian radio station, but even if not I believe they are a valuable contribution to the recovery of biblical Christianity which is occurring in our time. Do feel free to pass on these mp3s to your friends, pastors, and neighbors.

Subsequent shows will be released on this website but not aired on WHAZ.

George Littler has been leading a home Bible fellowship for the past 30 years in Poughkeepsie, New York. As a child he attended the local Catholic church but never really connected with God so that by the age of 13 he quit going. Subsequent to this and throughout his troubled twenties he considered himself an anti-theist (someone who believed in God but was mad at him). Not until a Christian shared the faith with him in an apartment bathroom during a party did George finally come to the place of accepting Jesus as his Lord and Savior.

Listen in to this conversation to hear not only a riveting story of how God in his love pursued George throughout his early tumultuous years, but also how he was saved apart from believing in the Trinity or other complex doctrines which made little sense to a street-smart New Yorker. His engaging tone, sense of humor, and poignant ability to state the logical make for an insightful and memorable discussion.

Danny André Dixon is a graduate of Abilene Christian University (1981: B.A. In Biblical Studies, New Testament emphasis; 1984: M.A. in Bible and Related Studies, stressing New Testament text). He has served churches as a Youth Minister in Nevada, Kansas, and California. He has also served as a Campus Evangelist with churches in discipleship ministries with students at Virginia Tech, UCLA, and USC in Los Angeles. In May of 2009 he graduated with a Master of Education in Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages from Grand Canyon University in Phoenix, Arizona.

As a minister Danny was sent a copy of Anthony Buzzard’s The Doctrine of the Trinity: Christianity’s Self-Inflicted Wound and as a result began to question whether or not the doctrine of the Trinity was biblical. He was surprised when two of the elders at the church where he served adamantly discouraged him from even investigating this subject. Nevertheless, the other two elders supported him and Danny pressed on to unravel the mind-numbing nuanced distinctions endemic to the doctrine of the Trinity. After some time, he found the texts which support the ancient Jewish-Christian belief that God is strictly one individual to vastly outweigh the handful of trinitarian proof-texts he used to cling to and he found himself changing his position on the issue.

In our conversation, Danny describes what this process was like and also how shifting from complex “monotheism” to simple monotheism has aided him in following Jesus more closely. If this show interests you, feel free to visit Danny’s online discussion forum 4OneGod.net, watch the documentary The Human Jesus, or check out his free downloads from christianmonotheism.com.

Patrick Navas has been a Bible student for the last fourteen years–ever since one of the Gideons handed him a free pocket New Testament and he was gripped by John 3.16. In his quest to understand Christianity he quickly learned that there were quite a few differences between various groups which all claimed to have the truth. This propelled Patrick into long years of study as he researched the biggest question of all–who is God?

The result of that work was his 2006 book titled Divine Truth or Human Tradition?: A Reconsideration of the Roman Catholic-Protestant Doctrine of the Trinity in Light of the Hebrew and Christian Scriptures. His book not only lays out the clear biblical teaching about God, but it also interacts with top trinitarian defenders such as Dr. James R. White, John MacArthur, Dr. Wayne Grudem, Robert Bowman Jr., Dr. Robert Morey, Dr. R. C. Sproul, and others. Patrick defends his position with cogency and humility as he enumerates the reasons why the Trinity is not a biblical doctrine.

Nathan Crowder of Schenectady, NY, has bachelor degrees from the University of Florida in Political Science and Zion Bible Institute in Theology and Pastoral Ministry. Throughout his Christian life he has diligently searched to discover biblical truth. This quest began when he discovered that the Bible taught that the destination of the redeemed was the kingdom of God on earth in fulfillment of the promises made by God to Abraham and David. He was surprised to learn while at Bible College that they did not teach this simple truth but instead ascribed to the mythological view that at death righteous souls escape the body to go to heaven. This first discovery prompted more investigation and more skepticism in regard to other teachings commonly accepted in mainstream Christianity.

As time went on, Nathan came to see that the phrase “Son of God” in the Bible did not in any way imply deity, but rather this was a title for the Messiah. He learned that the Hebrew concept of Messiah was that a human being would be divinely empowered by God to rule the world on his behalf. As time went on he increasingly came to question the traditional doctrine of the Trinity and found himself reading books by biblical unitarians like Anthony Buzzard, which made more sense of the biblical data. Listen in to this show to hear Nathan’s journey of faith.

Also, if you would like to listen to or read his paper entitled Christ the Firstborn Head of the Universe, stop by www.christianmonotheism.com where it can be downloaded for free.

During over three decades of ministry, Tennessee pastor J. Dan Gill has observed a tendency within evangelicalism to preach the gospel without telling people about the doctrine of the Trinity. In fact, large crusades that Billy Graham preaches at do not inform people about these matters at all. Is this modern tendency good news or bad news? Some, in their zeal to uphold their church’s traditions have declared that those who do not believe in the doctrine of the Trinity or the dual natures of Christ are not Christians. Who is right?

In his authentic and endearing southern style, pastor Gill brings us to the Scriptures, especially the book of Acts, in order to decipher an answer based on the evangelism of the first Christians. In the end, Dan assures us that we are not stuck between loosing our mind or loosing our soul as the famous quip has it:

If you try to understand the Trinity, you lose your mind
If you don’t believe in it, you lose your soul

Alex Hall of London tells the story of how the church vacillated between Arius and Athanasius during the fourth century. By focusing on the dueling councils during that period (a.d. 318-381) Alex paints a picture, which, although disturbing to those of us who would like to think that such matters as the deity of Christ were always clear, accurately describes how politics heavily influenced the development of theology during that time. A good deal of Alex’s work was influenced by When Jesus Became God by Richard Rubenstein. If this conversation has piqued your interest in this subject I highly recommend reading Rubenstein’s book as it fills out the details in a readable manner. Alex’s conclusion is that we should not trust either side since both used ungodly means to achieve their goal of winning the debate, rather, we should practice the Berean exercise of searching the Scriptures to see whether these things are so (Acts 17.11).

Alex Hall of London, UK, describes with gusto and detail how the early Christian movement shifted away from the Hebrew mindset as it was persecuted in its native land and driven out into the Greco-Roman world. Alex basis his commentary on volume one of the German church historian Adolf Harnack’s tome called History of Dogma. (Accessible online at ccel.org)

Listen in as Alex discusses the major reasons why Christianity began to shift its thinking towards Greek philosophy and how important it is that we be informed about this great shift.

Brian Kelly has been studying the Bible for over three decades and leads a home fellowship in Syracuse, NY. On this show he talks about the importance of the core creed of the Bible: the Shema. The word “Shema” means “Hear” or “Listen up” and it is the shorthand way of referring to Deuteronomy 6.4-5.

 Deuteronomy 6.4-5 
4 “Hear, O Israel! The LORD is our God, the LORD is one! 5 “You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might.

When a Jewish scribe asked Jesus what the foremost commandment was, Jesus immediately quoted this text. This tells us that the God Jesus worshiped is the same as the God of Moses and the Old Testament.

In this show, Brian leads us to consider the two parts to the Shema. (1) To recognize that Yahweh alone is our single God (2) to love this God with everything (holding nothing back). Download this file to learn more about biblical monotheism and how to avoid the pitfalls of ancient Israel’s idolatry.

Dr. Joe Martin earned his MA in sociology from Arizona State University, a second MA in Theology from Fuller Theological Seminary, and his doctorate from Columbia Theological Seminary. He is the academic dean of the Atlanta Bible College and has been professor of Old Testament for almost twenty years.

The subject focused on the resurrection of Jesus as well as the coming resurrection of the people of God. Dr. Martin explains the Old Testament underpinnings of the idea of resurrection and demonstrates conclusively that the biblical idea is incompatible with the pagan notion of the immortal soul. By comparing Jesus’ death with that of Socrates, we are able to see that, for Christians, death is not a friend to be greeted with kindness, but the bitterest of enemies. Furthermore, Dr. Martin points out that a good deal of modern scholarship is moving in this direction, which means that people are coming to understand with more clarity that God is not planning on destroying the earth, rather his goal is to redeem it at the return of Christ. Therefore, as Christians, believers in the resurrection of Jesus and the future resurrection of the righteous, what sort of people are we to be?

Richard Elton converted to Christianity from atheism more than thirty years ago. He led a home fellowship for decades and now is active in prison ministry. Furthermore, he recently made a trip to Israel with another of our guests, John Cortright, and therefore he brings a fresh Hebraic perspective to our topic for this show–Jesus the Messiah.

Though many may not realize it, Christ is not Jesus’ last name. Rather, the word simply means Messiah–one who is anointed to rule God’s people on his behalf. From the birth narratives to his triumphal entry and beyond, the humble recognized that Jesus was the Messiah. But, sadly, today many of us who confess the words, “Jesus is the Christ,” do not even know what they mean. Download this show to learn the biblical meaning of Jesus as Messiah.

Between the Left Behind movie series, big selling apocalyptic books, and end-of-the-world Christian radio pundits, the Christian notion of the rapture has become fantastically popular. No one would guess that this upstart doctrine is only 179 years old. Now that may seem like an antique to some, but in light of the fact that church history spans twenty centuries, a 19th century doctrine is a spring chicken. But, just because the idea that Christ will come to rapture the church to heaven for seven years is young, does that automatically make it wrong? Of course not. Ultimately, as Christians, the Bible is our source for making such determinations, though we would have to admit that any doctrine that eluded the church for eighteen centuries should be subjected to the most rigorous testing.

Author and speaker, Delroy Gayle of London is our guide to discuss the history and biblical support for the pre-tribulation rapture. He has done his homework, and confidently explains where the idea came from, why it is incorrect, and what we should believe instead. Tune in to this show and you too will become equipped with what you need to know in order to distinguish between the hype and the truth.

Matt Elton is a senior at Glens Falls high school in upstate New York and he has recently been accepted into Messiah College in Pennsylvania. He intends to major in communications and concentrate in film and digital media. He attends Living Hope Community Church and is the co-founder of Plasma Productions, a Christian videography studio, which has produced several short documentaries and promos for Living Hope. Their latest video addresses the greed that is at the root of the current economic crisis.

This show focused on Matt’s high school experience with Christianity. Today’s schools emphasize tolerance and pluralism in an effort to provide an atmosphere that is non-sectarian and peaceful. However, in Matt’s experience, this thinking has produced a religious climate which really just favors agnosticism while looking down on anyone who has firm convictions in anything. In our discussion, we address the issues of timidity and its polar opposite–coercion–in order to find the biblical balance between standing up for our faith without stepping on others.

Greg Deuble was born in Queensland, Australia. He graduated from the Churches of Christ N.S.W. Bible College in Sydney and had pastoral ministries in New South Wales, Victoria, and Queensland. Greg has conducted many evangelistic meetings in a wide variety of settings in all of the Australian states except Western Australia. As he searched the Scriptures he became increasingly convinced that the gospel he and others were preaching didn’t sound like what Jesus preached in the Gospels. As a result, he embarked on a journey that led him to peer under every doctrinal stone and repeatedly carry out the Berean exercise in order to discover the truth.

In this episode we focus on what one needs to believe in order to become saved. Is the gospel solely a matter of believing in Jesus’ death for our sins? Is it solely about God’s dream to redeem the whole world when his Son returns? Greg shares with us what he has discovered in this inspiring and biblical conversation, or as he would put it, “chin wag.”

Mary Ann Yaconis has a Bachelor’s in education from Indiana University of PA, a Master of Science degree from the University of Maryland in Family Counseling, a Master of Arts degree from Regent University in Counseling, and she is currently a Ph.D candidate in Pastoral Counseling at Loyola College in Maryland. She was a high school teacher for many years in Fairfax County, Virginia, and now volunteers at Living Hope Community Church as a licensed mental health counselor.

Mary Ann tells her story of how different beliefs about salvation affected her relationship with God throughout her life. She started out with a fairly typical “churchianity” background where she and her husband participated in the church a lot but didn’t really experience God in a profound way. Then, she joined another group in which she was taught the doctrine of permanent unconditional salvation. During this time she grew a lot regarding faith and walking with God, but her conscience kept pestering her about her sin. Even though the leadership kept telling her that she was saved no matter what, and that all she had to do was ask for forgiveness, she couldn’t help feeling distant from God. Then, by God’s grace, she learned about repentance–that sin was not to be forgiven alone but that corresponding life-change was necessary. As time went on she found herself moving steadily closer to God as she partnered with him to overcome sins one at a time. Since then, Mary Ann has been very active in counseling ministry and she shares some deep insights into the barriers we erect between ourselves and God.

Rev. Bob Mathieson has been serving as the pastor of a congregation in Newark, Delaware for the last twenty years. When he was in his twenties he first accepted the gospel of Jesus Christ and learned theology from an ultra-dispensationalist perspective. As a result, for the first thirty years of his Christian experience, Bob believed and held firmly to the doctrine called, “once saved, always saved.” However, in the last four years or so, Bob has been researching the topic of dispensationalism and salvation and has come to a better understanding.

Throughout this conversation, Bob not only shows the errors of dispensational theology, but he also lays in its place the foundation for a holistic view of Scripture. In our discussion on the possibility of someone losing his or her salvation, Bob remarked:

Many people are concerned about this, and I understand their concern initially, because they have made themselves feel good about the fact they could never lose it–it scares them. Someone says, “Are you telling me I can lose my salvation?” My response to that is, “That’s the wrong way to put it. You lose your car keys; you don’t lose your salvation. You forfeit your salvation; you walk away from your salvation. You don’t lose it. It not something where you are going to be surprised. This is a deliberate saying, ‘I’m going to do what I want to do with my life, I’m not going to continue to make Jesus Lord, and I’m going to continue on in some kind of sinful way.’ The only thing left then, is a fiery judgment that God will judge.”

Listen in to hear a masterful and balanced presentation of a subject that in the hands of less skilled exegetes has crumbled into either “easy believism” or “works salvation.” Is their a third option? Tune in to find out.

Jason Benedict grew up in the church but went through a period of rebellion all too common among those in college. Then after he observed a massive life-change in his brother, which included some convicting preaching as well, Jason chose to repent and accept the forgiveness available through Jesus Christ. But, his story doesn’t end there, from that time he embarked on an extremely zealous quest to earn God’s love which eventually led to burnout and despair. Even so, God did not leave him there, but sent a messenger, Jason’s cousin, to share truths about Jesus which opened Jason’s eyes and brought his relationship with God to the next level–where he could accept God’s love without feeling a need to work for it.

Through his story Jason Benedict talks about how his perception of salvation shifted from one side to the other and what the biblical balance is between grace and responsibility. Listen in to this lively conversation as we embark on a series of shows to address the critical subject of salvation.

Jason pastored a home church for a number of years and now contributes at Living Hope Community Church as one of the teachers for our Biblical Education Classes.

Dr. John Roller has served as an interdenominational youth evangelist, as a pastor of churches in Illinois, Florida, and West Virginia. He has a Ph.D. from Bethany Theological Seminary in Dothan, Alabama, where he specialized in tracing the early christian history on the afterlife and the doctrine of hell. Dr. Roller has written an e-book, The Doctrine of Immortality in the Early Church, which is available for free upon request by emailing him (johnroller@faithbiblechristian.com). More information about John Roller can be found at www.JohnRoller.com.

In this show John articulates with lucidity the shift from the biblical notion of annihilation to the pagan mythology of eternal torment. From the earliest days Christians believed that at death one was asleep until the resurrection when Jesus returned to establish his kingdom. Only then would hell exist as a means by which God would destroy the wicked and rebellious. However, through the late second century influence of Athenagoras of Athens, Clement of Alexandria, and Tertullian of Carthage, the hell doctrine combined withe the Greek philosophic idea that souls are immortal into the grotesque abomination that is so popular today. Join us as we delve into the history of hell to document the remarkable shift that occurred in the second century.

Rev. John Cortright brings thirty years of biblical teaching experience to bear on the critical subject of hell. Most Christians believe that hell is the place that one goes to immediately at death if he or she is unsaved. In hell a person is supposedly tormented without relief, not for ten, twenty, or thirty years, nor even for a million years, but for all of eternity. This grotesque mythology has grown out of exaggerations by people like Dante whose imaginations, no doubt, got the better of their exegetical powers.

John demonstrates from the Scriptures that the dead are in Sheol (also called Hades) where they are unconscious (“asleep”) until Jesus comes to resurrect. Even so, after the millennial rule, a great white throne will be set up and the final judgment will occur. At this time everyone whose name is not found written in the book of life will be thrown into the lake of fire (gehenna) to be burned to death.

John shows that the idea of gehenna (the word translated hell in the New Testament) came from an actual place–the Valley of Hinnom (see picture at right). What’s more, John has actually been there–to the Valley of Hinnom–in modern day Israel and he describes it with chilling detail. Furthermore, John shares what took place there historically so that it became the prototypical way of talking about God’s fiery judgment to be delivered in the last day. If you have ever questioned the typical view of hell, and have been at a loss to reconcile the belief that God will torture people forever with the notion that “God is love,” then this show would be well worth your time.

Pastor Steve Taylor has extensive ministry experience, having served as the pastor of churches in Ohio, Michigan, Indiana, and Georgia prior to moving to Arizona. Over the past thirty years of his ministerial career he has had a lot of time to research Bible topics including Heaven.

Steve shares with us a truth that many are coming to realize: that at death Christians are unconscious until the resurrection when Jesus returns to establish God’s kingdom on the earth. Steve draws not only from decades of Bible study, but also from his vast experience in ministry as he has counseled with those who have lost loved ones. Listen in to hear what the Bible really says about the afterlife.

Daniel Fitzsimmons is currently a senior at the University of Albany where he studies investigative journalism with a concentration on international relations. Dan shares about what it means to live out the kingdom lifestyle in a college environment. When I asked him, “How does the kingdom affect your lifestyle?” he replied, “It doesn’t affect any part of your life, it is your life. Everything is different.”

Throughout the course of our discussion Dan was courageously transparent in sharing his own past experiences with the college lifestyle and how God has helped him to realize that following Jesus needs to be taken as a serious priority. Furthermore, Dan makes an emotional appeal to those who grew up Christian but now rationalize their belligerent rebellion by saying, “I have time to change; God will forgive me.”

A primary theme that resurfaced several times was how being a kingdom citizen should affect how we live here and now, even before Jesus returns to establish God’s kingdom on earth. Listen in to this show to hear not only a stimulating theological discussion but also how belief in the kingdom can affect our daily lives in radical ways.

Sir Anthony Buzzard was born in Surrey, England and educated at Oxford University and later at Bethany Theological Seminary in Chicago. He holds Master’s degrees in both languages and theology. He came to the USA with his wife and daughters in 1981 and has taught Bible at Atlanta Bible College since then. He has a number of books including The Coming Kingdom of the Messiah and Our Fathers Who Aren’t in Heaven.

The gospel preached in churches usually only includes the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus. However, Jesus never even mentioned his death and resurrection until the 16th chapter of Matthew, yet he and his disciples were out preaching the gospel tirelessly prior to this. So, if the original gospel did not include the information about Jesus’ death for our sins, then what was he preaching about?

Sir Anthony Buzzard shares from his vast biblical knowledge to help us uncover the missing foundation of the Christian gospel–the kingdom of God. In fact, Jesus (like John the Baptist) was a kingdom gospel preacher. Then after he died and was raised, this new information was added onto the existing gospel of the kingdom. Sadly, in modern Christianity, there is an endemic tendency to jettison the foundation of the gospel by solely focusing on Jesus’ death for our sins. Thus, we are left with a gutted gospel. Listen in as we probe the Scriptures (and the Gospels in particular) to sort out the whole saving gospel.

If you would like to contact Sir Anthony Buzzard, you can email him at this address: anthonybuzzard@mindspring.com

Dustin Smith has his Bachelor’s in Theology and is currently working towards his Master’s of Theological Studies at Bethel College in Misahwaka, Indianna. Currently, he serves as the pastor of Timberland Bible Church in South Bend, Indianna (the home of Notre Dame).

In this show Dustin explains several verses that are typically used to contradict the idea that the kingdom of God is a future, political, realm to be established on earth at the second coming of Jesus the Messiah. First, Dustin summarizes what the kingdom is, and then I ask him to explain several key texts. Throughout our conversation, Dustin repeatedly emphasizes that the kingdom should not be understood as solely future nor should it be “spiritualized” into a personal experience, rather the kingdom is something yet future even though it was somehow present in Jesus’ ministry through his gospel proclamation, teachings, miracles, and deeds.

Throughout this show the following texts are explained in detail:

1. Matthew 12.28
2. Luke 17.21
3. John 18.36

Furthermore, Dustin answers why should we even be concerned about what the kingdom of God means. The show concludes with a discussion of how we as ambassadors of the kingdom are meant to bring forth signs of the kingdom in order to testify to God’s magnificent plans for the future of his creation. We are God’s restorative agents to give people a foretaste of the kingdom by reaching out to everyone with cross-shaped love, truth, justice, and forgiveness.

Victor Gluckin expertly navigates through the Bible from Genesis to Revelation stopping at critical points along the way in order to elucidate the primary theme of all Scripture: the kingdom of God. Victor has a B.A. from the University at Albany (SUNY) in history and Judaic studies. He also attended Atlanta Bible College where he studied theology. Now he serves as one of the pastors at Living Faith Christian Church in Warwick, RI.

Victor talks about the twin pillars of the Old Testament without which one is sure to lose his way while journeying through the pages of Scripture–the promises made to Abraham and David. To Abraham, God swore that his descendants would receive the land. To David, God made a covenant, that one of his lineage would sit upon the throne and rule forever. These two grand promises converge when one arrives at the first verse of the New Testament–Matthew 1.1. Jesus the Messiah is descended from Abraham and David and is God’s chosen one to ruler over the land, which he calls “the kingdom of God.” Listen to this podcast to discover the missing link which joins together both Old and New Testaments, both the prophets and Jesus, both the messianic Psalms and the epistles into one coherent whole, one grand narrative of paradise lost and how God through the course of redemptive history plans to at last make everything wrong with the world right.

This inaugural show divides roughly into two sections. The first part Richard Wilkinson talks about why biblical truth is important by telling his story of conversion. While at medical school in Scotland he was educated in chaos and despair and found himself at the end of his rope. Then he took drastic action–he moved to the USA to be near a Christian community. Even then, it would take several years before God finally got his attention and incontrovertibly revealed himself so that Richard found himself unmistakably transformed. This testimony serves as the background to our discussion about biblical truth.

The second half of the show taps into Richard’s forensic science background to give some insight into how one can investigate competing biblical interpretations. Since he is studying forensic science at the University of Albany (SUNY), he is able to bring a unique perspective to sniffing out deception and exonerating truth. Listen in as we discuss how to discern biblical doctrine from deception.

Here is a promo I just finished putting together. I think it will be the one to go on the air.

Truth Matters

The show will air each Sunday morning at 9:00 am and cover the Capital District of New York State.

Right now, we are doing a lot of work on developing a list of programs along with guests. Each week we will have a different guest. One week it will be someone live in the studio and the next week the guest will participate via phone. Sean Finnegan will be hosting the show from week to week asking the guests questions about the topic of the day.

As each show is recorded it will be posted here on this site as an mp3 for free download. Pray for us as this is a large undertaking.