I slumped in an unpadded pew, half-listening to the morning Bible study. I wasn’t particularly interested in what the Bible teacher in this small Christian high school had to say. But, when the teacher commented that the Gospels always reported word-for-word what Jesus said, I perked up and lifted my hand. This statement brought […]
[Read More...]Search Results for: can we trust a copy of a copy
Josh McDowell: How to Know God Exists
If they made apologetics action figures, Josh McDowell would be one of the figures in the first set. If they made apologetics trading cards, Josh McDowell’s card would be in a collectible foil pack. He has toured with the pioneering Christian rock band Petra, and his book Evidence that Demands a Verdict was selected by […]
[Read More...]Huey Lewis and the News: The Holy Trinity and “The Power of Love”
Garrick Bailey and Timothy Paul Jones have already devoted one entire episode of this podcast to love. That was when they discussed Foreigner’s 1984 hit “I Want to Know What Love Is.” But Garrick and Timothy are far too full of love to fit all of their feelings about love into a single episode. That’s why they’re […]
[Read More...]J. Warner Wallace: What Could We Know About Jesus If Every Bible in the World Disappeared?
What if every single copy of the Bible went fluttering away, never to be seen again? If that happened, surely all of our knowledge about Jesus would be gone as well, right? Not so fast, says cold-case detective J. Warner Wallace.
[Read More...]Garrick Bailey and Timothy Paul Jones: Good Times with the End Times (Part 2) + “It’s the End of the World as We Know It” (R.E.M.)
Welcome to the stunning conclusion of this two-part series about the end of time! This episode focuses on four truths about the end times that matter far more than any particular perspective on how God will fulfill his eschatological promises. In the process of exploring these four truths, the dynamic duo considers how different views […]
[Read More...]Garrick Bailey and Timothy Paul Jones: Good Times with the End Times (Part 1) + “It’s the End of the World as We Know It” (R.E.M.)
It’s eschatology and R.E.M. in part one of this two-part almost-the-end-of-the-season mega-episode. The topic is the end times. After discussing some of the greatest apocalyptic tunes in the history of rock and roll, your intrepid cohosts settle on a 1987 hit from R.E.M., “It’s the End of the World As We Know It (and I Feel Fine).”
[Read More...]Sean McDowell: Getting the Gospel to Generation Z + “Baba O’Riley” (The Who)
“Generation Z.” “iGen.” “Centennials.” Whatever you happen to call this generation, the children who drew their first breaths in the years between Alanis Morissette’s “Ironic” and Lady Gaga’s “Born This Way” are the first generation of digital natives in human history. But how secure is the faith of these teenagers and young adults? And how […]
[Read More...]Russell Moore: The Search for a Satisfying Story + “He Went to Paris” (Jimmy Buffett)
Sometimes, the best defense of the gospel isn’t a better argument but a better story. That’s why the previous episode about Josh Chatraw’s book Telling a Better Story and this episode with Russell Moore both focus on narrative apologetics. Also: after an episode in which your intrepid cohosts dredged the depths of some of the […]
[Read More...]Timothy Paul Jones and Garrick Bailey: Are the Stories of Jesus Borrowed from Pagan Parallels to Christianity? + “We Didn’t Start the Fire” (Billy Joel)
This week’s podcast includes pagan parallels to Christianity, the Piano Man, and the most daring giveaway ever attempted on any human podcast. Paganism and plagiarism provide the theme for the first half. Even in ancient times, Roman philosophers claimed that Christians had “used pagan myths in fabricating the story of a virgin conception.” So is […]
[Read More...]Eric Johnson: How Can a Good God Allow Evil in the World? + “Free” (Stryper)
How can a good God allow so much evil and suffering in the world? And why do some people seem to suffer so much more than others? According to a recent survey of college students, the problem of evil is the question about Christianity that college students find most difficult to answer. This week, Eric […]
[Read More...]Jonathan Pennington: What Are the New Testament Gospels and Why Should We Trust Them? + “We Are the World” (USA for Africa)
According to bestselling religious scholar Reza Aslan, the New Testament Gospels “are not, nor were they ever meant to be, a historical documentation of Jesus’s life.” The Gospels are, Aslan claims, fictional compositions from early Christians who re-imagined a Jewish revolutionary named Jesus as an ethereal Christ of faith. But is it really reasonable to read […]
[Read More...]History: How We Got the Bible in Six Minutes or Less
I need your help! Here’s the challenge: I’m working on a video that summarizes the history of the Bible in six minutes. Below, I’ve posted the script so far—and I’d be interested to know what you think needs to be included and what might be left out. The narration for the video is already six […]
[Read More...]Garrick Bailey and Timothy Paul Jones: How to Be an Apologist without Being a Jerk
You don’t have to be a jerk to be an apologist. In fact, if you’re being a jerk, you’re not doing apologetics in a biblical way, because biblical apologetics calls Christians to defend the faith in “meekness and fear” (1 Peter 3:15b). So how can you be an apologist without being a jerk? One of […]
[Read More...]Garrick Bailey and Timothy Paul Jones: Abortion, Apologetics, and the End of Roe v. Wade
Christians have been talking about abortion far longer than you may have imagined. Abortion has even shown up in apologetics conversations, although probably not in the ways that you would expect.
[Read More...]Michael Kruger: What If Our Bibles Don’t Have the Right Words?
Michael Kruger, president of the Charlotte campus of the Reformed Theological Seminary and preeminent scholar of early Christianity, joins us to talk about the reliability of the copies and the canon of the New Testament.
[Read More...]Garrick Bailey and Timothy Paul Jones: Did the Council of Nicaea Choose the Books in My Bible?
The books of the Bible were selected in the year 325 at the Council of Nicaea, right? That’s what a lot of Christians seem to think. But is this story true? And, if it isn’t true, how did the tale of a council that created the canon begin in the first place?
[Read More...]Metallica (Part 1): Christian Science, the Problem of Evil, and “The God That Failed”
How a nineteenth-century cult known as the Church of Christ, Scientist, impacted James Hetfield and the music of Metallica.
[Read More...]Garrick Bailey and Timothy Paul Jones: The Logical Problem of Evil + Pop (U2)
According to a survey of recent college graduates, the problem of evil is the issue that makes it most difficult for many of these graduates to trust in the truth of Christianity. These students’ struggles mirror the struggle that biblical scholar Bart Ehrman describes in his book God’s Problem: “I felt compelled to leave Christianity […]
[Read More...]Timothy Paul Jones and Garrick Bailey: Why Everyone Needs Creeds + “Where the Streets Have No Name” (U2)
Welcome to the creed episode of Three Chords and the Truth! But don’t worry: we are not talking about the band Creed. (In case you’ve forgotten, Creed was the 1990s band whose videos were filled with embarrassingly-bad CGI and with way too many scenes in which the lead vocalist apparently couldn’t keep himself from flailing […]
[Read More...]Leadership: Prophets, Priests, and Kings in the Church Today?
This post on prophets, priests, and kings as leadership typology is excerpted from my book The God Who Goes Before You. You can purchase the book here. Does my personality as a leader land me in the category of prophet, priest, or king? And, if it does, what does that mean for my leadership in the […]
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