Having written three posts two months ago to catch up in general to the present time, I also realized that while I have even talked about listening to many podcasts during this same time period, I did not write yet about the latest podcast I have been intense on listening to called The BEMA Podcast .
After some six months or so had past since the start of the New Year, I had already caught up to all of the available podcasts that I was listening to. While some of them were accessible on the web site, it also meant having to download them individually on my phone. I also had listened to a half dozen books on "Audible". I was really at a loss about what else to listen to, and rather frustrated in tone mentioned as much to my wife Cindi.
My point was that I did not want to continue the long drive in the truck to Ohio and back for 8 hours plus.. riding in silence, but I also did not want to go back to listening to the news since I was still done with that whole political garbage, and indeed since it was once a big contention between us since we were on the opposite sides of the political spectrum, Cindi was anxious to help guide me into options for things to listen to. She even suggested somehow listening to books from the library.
I was still at the place where I did not want to break the cycle of listening to spiritual teachings, even though I do have a couple of aviation podcasts that I will on occasion fill in some time gaps if I overload on sermons! (I mean how many sermons can you listen to in 8 hours and not go a little stir crazy?)
Anyway, there was a few days of frustration while I also downloaded some books on YouTube, by A.W. Tozer, and also C.S. Lewis. and some of the older ministries, such as Spurgeon. (who was a favorite preacher of mine in my earlier Calvinism days) as well as Martin Lloyd Jones. And while there is much that can be gleaned from their preaching and writings, and God has greatly used their "voices" as a stepping stone on the path to a greater understanding of the ultimate revelation of the limitless love and grace of God!! The fault with both Armenianism and Calvinism is simply that they both deny the end purpose of God is to Reconcile ALL CREATION unto Himself, and that NONE would be lost!! YES that is right!! They may disagree with how most of creation will remain lost forever, but they do agree on the fact they believe it is so, that God will only be able to save a few souls out of all of His creation... try as He might, He just could not bring His plan to a successful end.
And while this post has gotten way off topic, I will just say that they are both in common with being wrong on the most fundamental Truth of Scripture and that is that "God was in Christ Jesus reconciling the world to Himself, NOT imputing their trespasses against them....." Along with countless other Scriptures that support the fact that NOT ONE person born will be lost!
Now, back to a couple paragraphs earlier... at the same time as I was trying to figure out what I wanted to spend my hours listening to next, Cindi happened upon a podcast that had a discussion about the T.V. series called The Chosen it is a multi season crowd funded series based on the life of Jesus. It is now finished season two, and about seven seasons are planned. As it turns out she sent me a link to listen to their discussion with the director Dallas Jenkins, and after listening to that one episode I decided to go back to the beginning of the podcast episodes to start to listen to the very first one of the The BEMA podcast . And what a gold mine of great biblical teaching!!
They are going through the entire bible book by book (I am at post #96 now) and discussing the "Story of the Bible" so to speak from a Jewish perspective. What is so unique about this is that the bible was written by Hebrews with an Eastern mindset to a Hebrew audience, and we as Westerners try to understand this with a Western mindset, and miss so much of the deeper Truth of the Word of God!
Without a better understanding of what we call the Old Testament and also the history of the events of the 400 years between the end of the Old Testament canon and the start of Jesus' birth, we lack so much understanding of the life and times of those that lived at that time 2,000 years ago, and why Jesus taught the things he did and how he interacted with all those He came in contact with, and most importantly.... How all of that affects our life today!! This is much more enhanced in our Christian walk as we would spend more time... Learning About Our Jewish Heritage
