The podcast episode “Between Heaven and Earth,” hosted by Justin and Amy Howard, delves deeply into the complex and often challenging topic of suffering from a Christian perspective. They position suffering as an inevitable part of living in a broken world that exists in tension between the kingdom of God and earthly realities. The hosts emphasize that suffering is universal—everyone experiences it, either as the sufferer or as one who causes suffering. They explore different types of suffering: suffering caused by the broken world, by our own sin, by others’ sin, and sympathetic suffering, which is sharing in the pain of others, especially in intimacy with Jesus.

Justin and Amy articulate that suffering, while painful and difficult to discuss, holds redemptive potential when engaged with God, transforming hearts and producing empathy, compassion, and hope. Their theological framing highlights the promise of the kingdom of God, where suffering and death will ultimately end. However, until that divine restoration occurs, believers must navigate suffering with courage, discernment, and God’s presence.

The episode also critically challenges common pitfalls in responding to suffering, such as trying to rationalize or solve all suffering logically (“head responses”) versus attending to the emotional and spiritual realities (“heart responses”). They critique simplistic or harmful Christian responses like blaming the sufferer (exemplified by the friends of Job) or offering superficial platitudes. Instead, the Howards advocate for thoughtful engagement that includes repenting for one’s own sin, practicing authentic forgiveness without rushing reconciliation, and being present without trying to “fix” others’ pain.

A significant portion of their discussion focuses on the practical outworking of faith amid suffering—embracing missional living, serving others, praying boldly, and discerning the nature of the suffering in order to respond appropriately. They reject the narrow focus on human justice or equal rights as the ultimate resolution, reminding listeners that the kingdom of God operates on the upside-down principle of servanthood and humility modeled by Jesus.

Finally, they give hope that none of our suffering is wasted and invite listeners to bring their pain before God, allowing Him to transform it into growth and deeper fellowship. They preview a follow-up episode that will further explore suffering caused by others and sympathetic suffering, promising a continued journey toward understanding and healing.

🌪️ Suffering as a Theological and Existential Reality: The podcast situates suffering as an inescapable aspect of the “veil of tears” in which believers live until the full manifestation of the kingdom of God, where suffering will cease. This theological framing helps listeners understand suffering as both a present challenge and a future hope, preventing despair while encouraging perseverance.

🕵️‍♂️ Necessity of Suffering Discernment: The Howards emphasize discerning the origin of suffering—whether it stems from the fallen world, personal sin, others’ sin, or empathetic sharing—as a crucial step in how one responds. This insight encourages a nuanced approach that avoids one-size-fits-all solutions, instead promoting wisdom and spiritual sensitivity.

💔 The Danger of “Head-Only” Responses: The temptation to “solve suffering” intellectually or to blame the sufferer is critiqued using the example of Job’s friends. Head-only responses often fail to address the deep emotional and spiritual wounds that suffering causes. This combats unhealthy Christian rhetoric that oversimplifies suffering or equates faith with immediate healing.

🤗 Redemptive Suffering as Soul-Making: Rather than suffering merely being something to endure or escape, the podcast highlights its potential to produce spiritual growth, obedience, compassion, and Christlikeness through engagement with God. This adds a transformative, hopeful dimension to Christian suffering, encouraging listeners to bring their pain to God rather than hide or deny it.

🛑 Forgiveness Doesn’t Equal Reconciliation: Forgiveness is a personal, unilateral action handing over injustice to God, while reconciliation is a mutual, relational process requiring time, trust, and healing. This distinction is crucial to prevent pushing victims into premature reconciliation, which can re-traumatize or hinder genuine healing.

🤲 Servanthood Over Equality in Kingdom Justice: The podcast critiques the cultural fixation on equality as the ultimate justice goal, contrasting it with the kingdom’s upside-down values where humility and servanthood lead. This counters simplistic socio-political narratives and invites Christians to embody kingdom values even amid social injustice.

🙏 Practical Christian Response Involves Service and Intercession: The Howards emphasize that living missionally by serving others’ practical needs (Matthew 25), alongside bold intercessory prayer, is a key way to respond to suffering. This practical call moves beyond abstract theology to incarnational action that expresses the kingdom of God in tangible ways.

Overall, this episode offers a richly textured theological, pastoral, and practical approach to suffering. It invites listeners into a mature Christian engagement with pain—one that acknowledges complexity, resists easy answers, fosters compassion, and points ultimately toward hope in God’s redemptive work. The integration of biblical stories, personal testimony, and theology creates a solid foundation for anyone wrestling with suffering either personally or in ministry.

The podcast episode from Between Heaven and Earth features hosts Justin and Amy Howard interviewing Pastor Shea Fitzgibbons from Bethany Church, New Hampshire, about the transformative impact of Encounter Culture Mission Collaborative (ECMC) on his ministry and congregation. Pastor Shea shares his personal journey to pastoral ministry, highlighting the deep challenges of pastoral life, including stress, loneliness, and burnout. He emphasizes the critical need for holistic discipleship that addresses emotional, spiritual, and physical healing while fostering authentic community within the church.

Shea describes his introduction to ECMC events like Encounter God weekends, Encounter Equip trainings, and Encounter Life cohorts, and how these have reshaped his perspective on prayer ministry and healing in a practical, non-weird way suited to his culturally reserved church context. The interview explores common pastoral and congregational concerns around charismatic expressions and the balance of spiritual openness with structure and respect. Shea reveals how these programs promote genuine healing, transparency, and community through practices like confession, prayer ministry, and mutual support. He shares encouraging stories of congregants empowered to bring healing prayer into everyday life and evangelism without formulaic approaches.

The episode also addresses broader cultural and spiritual struggles in churches that reflect the brokenness of society, such as addiction, loneliness, and complacency. The hosts and Pastor Shea urge church leaders and followers to pursue authentic encounters with God’s love and healing power that extend beyond information to embodied transformation and mission. The conversation closes with a hopeful call for churches to foster honest, healing environments where people can bring their pain openly and experience the power of community and the Spirit. The interview highlights ECMC’s role in equipping ordinary believers for ministry and prayer that bridges heaven and earth with practical love and restoration.

This episode underlines the urgent need for churches to shift from surface-level discipleship and disconnected ministry toward embracing holistic healing, authentic community, and Spirit-led prayer ministries. ECMC’s resources and model serve as exemplars for building vibrant churches where heaven and earth converge in healing and mission.

In today's episode of “Between Heaven and Earth,” hosted by Justin and Amy, they explore the crucial yet challenging subject of physical healing within Christian faith, especially as practiced and understood in Western evangelical contexts. The hosts aim to provide listeners with a deeper vision of physical healing, moving beyond mere theoretical acceptance to functional, faith-driven practice that aligns with Jesus’ example. The discussion emphasizes that physical healing was a priority in Jesus’ life and ministry, and thus it should be for believers today. However, many Christians struggle to fully embrace supernatural healing due to intellectualism, theological misunderstandings, and cultural influences like Gnosticism—a worldview that devalues the material and physical in favor of the spiritual, often leading to complex issues around gender and the body.

The podcast critiques the prevalent Western Christian tendency to emphasize intellectual knowledge over experiential obedience and faith, which can hinder the practice of healing ministries. It also challenges cessationist views that suggest miraculous gifts, including healing, are no longer necessary in the present age, pointing out the ongoing presence of sickness and suffering as evidence to the contrary. An important theological underpinning for healing is the incarnation of Jesus Christ, whose physical resurrection affirms the intrinsic goodness and eternal significance of the human body and physical matter.

The hosts also address Gnosticism's pervasive cultural and church influence, linking it to contemporary debates on gender and sexuality, specifically how separating “gender” from “sex” has led to confusion, brokenness, and an erosion of biblical anthropology. They argue for a balanced worldview that embraces the physical body as good and meaningful rather than evil or merely a prison for the spirit. Practical steps toward healing include renouncing lies about the body, forgiving oneself and others for past hurts, and actively engaging in prayer and community support. The episode closes with encouragement to embrace a holistic, embodied Christian spirituality that brings heaven and earth together through faith in God’s healing power.

✝️ Jesus’ Example Validates Physical Healing as Kingdom Priority: The podcast highlights how Jesus’ life and ministry, heavily marked by physical healing and deliverance, showcase God’s intention for healing as central to the kingdom. If healing mattered to Jesus, it must matter to His followers, as obedience to God means living like Jesus did. This underscores a practical, embodied faith rather than a detached intellectual assent. Many Christians intellectually affirm healing but fail to engage it functionally in the church or personal prayer life.

🧠 Intellectualism as a Barrier to Healing Faith: Western evangelicalism’s strong emphasis on theology, doctrine, and rational study often leads to “theoretical charismaticism,” where believers hold to charismatic doctrines but do not actively practice healing or supernatural gifts. This intellectual dominance fosters paralysis in obedience, where knowledge replaces action and interaction with God’s power. The hosts call for a balance that nurtures both sound theology and courageous faith-in-action.

💔 Gnosticism’s Ongoing Influence Shapes Negative Views of the Body: Gnosticism, a heresy rooted in Platonic dualism, separates spirit and matter, elevating the spiritual as “more real” and disparaging the physical as evil or meaningless. The podcast traces how this worldview infiltrates modern church culture, contributing to confusion over gender and sexuality, particularly the division between “gender” (internal, spiritual) and “sex” (physical body). This theological error fuels cultural issues such as transgender ideology and other distortions and diminishes the biblical affirmation of creation’s goodness.

🙌 Incarnation as the Ultimate Affirmation of Matter’s Goodness: Jesus’ historic incarnation—born fully human and bodily resurrected—definitively affirms that God cares deeply about physical matter and the body. Jesus’ resurrection body and promised resurrection for believers guarantee that matter is not irrelevant or evil but part of God’s eternal plan. This theology forms a foundational basis for Christian belief in physical healing and the ultimate restoration of all creation.

🦋 Practical Steps Toward Healing are Spiritual and Relational: Healing involves renouncing lies about the body (e.g., it’s useless, dangerous, or shameful), forgiving oneself and others for abuses or neglect, and embracing God’s love and healing power through prayer and community support. The hosts emphasize that healing is often a process requiring vulnerability, faith, and communal participation, including receiving prayer, laying on of hands, and anointing with oil.

💡 Healing is Part of Integrating Heaven and Earth: The podcast frames healing as a priestly act of bringing heaven and earth together, repairing the brokenness where God’s kingdom intersects with the present age. It urges Christians to move beyond disappointment and passivity towards hopeful, active participation in God’s restoration work, trusting in the Spirit to teach how to love what Jesus loves—including our bodies and the physical world.

Between Heaven and Earth offers a deeply biblically rooted and pastoral reflection on physical healing that challenges the Western church’s intellectualized Christianity and cultural compromises. It calls for renewed faith in God’s healing power, a rediscovery of the goodness of the physical body, and an embodied discipleship modeled on Jesus’ healing ministry. The podcast underscores the ongoing relevance of supernatural gifts and healing, the necessity of forgiving and correcting faulty beliefs, and the importance of living faith that unites spiritual truths with tangible reality. It challenges listeners to courageously join Jesus in His great project of healing, restoration, and bringing heaven and earth together.

In this episode of “Between Heaven and Earth,” hosts Justin and Amy Howard dive deep into the theme of healing the disconnect often experienced between intellectual beliefs and emotional truth—specifically, between one’s head and heart. The discussion centers on the premise that followers of Jesus may often know theological truths but struggle to embody those truths emotionally. Justin and Amy interactively explore this disconnect and frame it as the “head-heart difference,” using personal anecdotes and theological insights. They emphasize the importance of recognizing blocks that hinder spiritual emotional growth and healing, including bad information (misconceptions about God), traumatic experiences that have not been processed, and mal-formed emotional connections. The episode aims to empower listeners to embrace their healing journey, invite God into their emotional struggles, and potentially facilitate healing not only for themselves but also for others. Inviting Jesus, or the concept of love, into painful memories is vital for healing. This approach helps to create a deep emotional bond that acknowledges one’s suffering while offering profound healing.

Call to action: Listeners are invited to engage their stories, seek healing counsel, coaching, or spiritual direction through OneLife Group, and participate in upcoming Encounter Culture events designed to support their spiritual and emotional growth.

In today's episode of “Between Heaven and Earth,” we delve into the debate of oppression vs. possession. Key questions raise the issue of whether Christians can be afflicted by demons, exploring biblical theology and the early church’s views on deliverance. Justin and Amy draw upon personal experiences and scriptural references to argue that while believers are secure in Christ, they are still susceptible to spiritual influences and must actively engage in spiritual disciplines for healing and renewal. The episode promotes a vision of empowering individuals within communities to participate in God’s mission of restoration and healing, emphasizing the need for ongoing discipleship that includes healing and deliverance.

🗝️ Affliction in Faith: It is argued that although Christians are protected in their relationship with Jesus, they can still experience spiritual affliction similar to how they can sin or encounter physical illness. This understanding is essential for approaching healing in a Christian context, focusing on the reality of ongoing spiritual warfare even among believers.

🤔 Biblical Misinterpretation: Many biblical passages are often cited to support the belief that Christians cannot be demonized. The hosts invite listeners to consider that the context of these scriptures may not outright dismiss the possibility of demonic interaction but rather provide a call to vigilance and active engagement in spiritual disciplines.

🏛️ Historical Context of Deliverance: The podcast draws attention to the practices of the early church regarding deliverance, revealing a time when new converts underwent thorough preparation for baptism, including exorcisms and teaching on the kingdom, emphasizing the ongoing need for deliverance.

⚖️ Possession vs. Oppression: Justin and Amy explore the idea that the terms “possession” and “oppression” may not fully encapsulate the spiritual realities faced by believers. They suggest there’s a spectrum of influence, where individuals may experience varying degrees of demonic influence that affect their spiritual agency and decision-making.

🌍 Valuing Community in Healing: The hosts stress the importance of community in the healing process, not only for accountability but also as a means to love and be loved. They emphasize that true discipleship and healing can’t be achieved in isolation, echoing the biblical call for the body of Christ to coalesce around one another to share in the Divine Life.

💼 Curating Discipleship Models: There’s a critique of modern discipleship models that often overlook the importance of addressing demonic influence and healing in the life of a believer. Instead of solely focusing on theological understanding, the podcast advocates for equipping believers to engage meaningfully in the practice of deliverance as part of their journey of sanctification.

🧠 The Necessity of Therapy and Deliverance: The conversation acknowledges that trauma and emotional wounds often intertwine with demonic influence. This highlights the necessity of integrating spiritual healing practices that address both psychological and spiritual aspects, validating a holistic approach to healing.

“Between Heaven and Earth,” hosted by Justin and Amy Howard, dives into the complex discussions surrounding generational sin and curses, aiming to equip listeners with the understanding needed to navigate these themes Biblically. In their latest episode, they explore the Old and New Testament contexts for generational curses, how these can manifest psychologically and spiritually, and their impact on future generations. The hosts distinguish between biblical references to curses and discuss patterns observed through modern science, notably epigenetics. They emphasize that while individuals are not held accountable for their ancestors’ sins, they do experience the consequences and are called to address and break these patterns in the power of the Holy Spirit. Throughout the episode, Justin and Amy offer listeners practical steps, such as creating a genogram, to identify and confront generational issues, facilitate healing, and cultivate freedom through prayer and community support.

🌱 Epigenetics and Spiritual Sickness: The discussion focuses on the interaction between external stressors (like trauma and sin) and their biological effects, outlining how generational pain can manifest in future generations. This scientific evidence highlights how patterns of behavior and trauma can biologically affect families beyond mere hereditary factors, creating a link between physical health and spiritual brokenness that resonates with biblical teachings.

🔄 Breaking Generational Patterns: A key point made is that individuals can identify and break free from generational curses, affirming the belief that while they are not guilty of ancestral sins, they are responsible for addressing their consequences. This involves active participation in healing and restoration, emphasizing one’s authority in Christ to identify and renounce the power and effects of sin.

🕊️ The Role of Community: The hosts stress the importance of community in the healing journey, suggesting that support from others who have walked similar paths is invaluable. This communal aspect reflects both a biblical principle and practical wisdom, inviting listeners to engage with others in recovery and growth.

⚖️ Understanding God’s Nature: Listeners are prompted to view curses not as expressions of divine wrath but rather as reflections of the consequences of covenant-breaking, and resultant alienation, as outlined in scripture. This perspective emphasizes God’s fundamental character as loving and redemptive rather than punitive.

✝️ Salvation and Continuous Healing: The conversation distinguishes the initial conversion experience (being made righteous) from the ongoing process of sanctification (the journey to wholeness). Salvation doesn’t lead to instant freedom from all past issues; rather, believers are to continuously seek transformation and healing - this is intimacy, real communion with God.

📈 Practical Steps for Freedom: The episode provides tangible steps, such as creating a genogram, to help individuals understand familial patterns of sin and trauma. This method encourages self-reflection and reinforces the importance of recognizing inherited issues that may affect one’s current life.

🔮 Expecting the Unexpected: The hosts emphasize that healing from generational curses is complex and may not follow a predictable path. This unpredictability invites practitioners to remain open to diverse experiences and approaches, trusting the Holy Spirit to guide them through moments of discernment and deliverance.

Overall, the episode is a robust guide for individuals seeking to understand and combat generational curses while firmly rooted in scripture, science, and community support. The Howards’ compassionate and knowledgeable approach encourages listeners to actively engage with their faith, pursue freedom, and bring restoration to their families.

Genogram Worksheet - Christian Healing Ministries

To work through your genogram and find freedom, work with a trained OneLife Spiritual Director

Today's episode of “Between Heaven and Earth,” hosted by Justin and Amy Howard, is dedicated to exploring the intersection of spiritual healing and community engagement from a Christian perspective. The hosts, who lead a mission agency in New England, aim to empower listeners to understand their role in bringing the spiritual kingdom into the physical world, promoting healing and restoration in everyday life. The current series delves deeply into the concepts of inner healing and deliverance, explaining the foundational ideas of their ministry, including the ‘Kingdom Prayer Ministry training manual’ authored by Amy Howard. The podcast emphasizes the importance of holistic healing that encompasses not just the mind but also the heart and body, recognizing the emotional and physical narratives carried within individuals. Practical initiatives—such as Encounter Weekends and Encounter Life cohorts—are also highlighted as methods for individuals to engage in deeper healing processes. The hosts tackle common misconceptions surrounding inner healing and its proximity to New Age practices, defending its biblical foundations and the significance of understanding how trauma affects faith. Through a blend of personal anecdotes, theological insights, and practical advice, the Howard’s aim to equip listeners with tools for spiritual growth and community connection.

🌌 Intersection of Healing and Community: The podcast highlights how followers of Christ are called to participate actively in the healing of others, emphasizing that bringing heaven and earth together is not just a spiritual endeavor but deeply interconnected with family and community life. The emphasis on community supports the idea that healing happens within the context of relationships.

👩‍⚕️ Holistic Healing Approach: There’s a growing recognition that healing should address not only the intellectual (mind) aspects of faith but must also engage emotions (heart) and the physical body (strength). The hosts cite contemporary research, such as that by Bessel van der Kolk, demonstrating how trauma is not just a mental event but is stored in the body, urging a more comprehensive understanding of healing.

✝️ Biblical Basis of Inner Healing: The podcast asserts that inner healing isn’t antithetical to Christian faith and references biblical scripture to support its practices. This approach counters skepticism about inner healing and reaffirms its validity through examples such as scriptural grounding found in 2 Corinthians 10:4-5, emphasizing the need to dismantle harmful beliefs and experiences with God’s truth.

🧩 The Importance of Imagination in Prayer: The hosts introduce the concept of “imaging prayer,” emphasizing that engaging the imagination can be a powerful tool for healing. The practice involves visualizing personal traumas in the presence of Jesus, allowing individuals to release pain and receive healing in ways that traditional prayer may not sufficiently address. This creative approach reinforces the idea that God can meet us in our imagined realities.

🌍 Cultural Sensitivities and Misunderstandings: Misconceptions about inner healing are discussed, mainly the fear that it resembles New Age practices. The hosts draw distinctions between practices that are inherently good and those that may need to be discarded for their incompatibility with Christian beliefs, thus leading to constructive conversations about integrating modern psychological insights with faith.

🤲 Spiritual Agency and Healing: They underline that spiritual healing is an active choice; individuals need to renounce negative labels and experiences, reflecting a deep understanding of one’s agency during the healing process. This agency emphasizes that God comes through the gate of consent and that one must choose to release their burdens to Him, nurturing a more engaged faith.

⚔️ Addressing Strongholds: The discussion introduces the concept of spiritual strongholds, noting how past traumas create barriers that prevent individuals from experiencing God fully. This point emphasizes a need for inner healing where these strongholds are addressed not only through prayer but via communal support, creating an environment for transformation.

Overall, the podcast creates an enlightening discourse on how everyday believers can engage with deeper facets of their faith through healing practices that intertwine psychological understanding and spiritual truths. By tapping into both community and personal stories, the hosts provide a rich tapestry of ideas that motivate listeners to confront their pain and seek wholeness in their spiritual journeys.

In this episode of “Between Heaven and Earth,” hosts Justin and Amy Howard embark on an exploration of the scriptural foundations for healing and deliverance, focusing particularly on the concept of the “priesthood of all believers.” They delve into how this identity has shaped Christian understanding and practice from the time of Adam and Eve through the Reformation and into contemporary life. The discussion highlights God’s original intention for humanity to serve as priests who mediate between heaven and earth, ultimately discussing how this theme reemerges with Jesus and carries forth through the Apostolic church, encouraging listeners to embrace their roles in bringing God’s kingdom into their various spheres of influence. The episode emphasizes the importance of understanding one’s identity in Christ to effectively participate in God’s mission of restoration.

🌟 Hosts’ Background: Justin and Amy Howard discuss their roles as church planters, parents, and mission leaders in New England, emphasizing community engagement.

📖 Identity as Priests: The episode highlights the transformative nature of understanding believers as priests, integral to fulfilling God’s purpose on earth.

🔥 Healing and Deliverance Ministry: The Howards stress the connection between one’s identity and the practice of healing and deliverance, suggesting it flows from understanding who we are in Christ.

🔄 Old Testament Foundations: The hosts draw parallels between the calling of Adam and Eve as the first priests and the establishment of the Levitical priesthood in Exodus, highlighting humanity’s inherent priestly roles.

✨ Transformation Through Jesus: Discussion centers on how Jesus redefined the priestly function, making holiness contagious and empowering ordinary people to act as agents of healing and reconciliation.

🙏 Active Participation: The hosts encourage listeners to actively engage with their communities, bringing the healing power of Jesus through prayer, service, and shared faith.

🌍 Global Movement: They highlight the contemporary movements led by ordinary believers to spread the Gospel and establish communities that reflect God’s kingdom on earth.

🌱 Fundamental Human Roles: The foundational understanding of humanity as priests in the Garden of Eden establishes the telos (ultimate purpose) of being in continuous communion with God. Adam and Eve’s role in tending creation illustrates humanity’s calling to govern and sustain the world in alignment with divine order.

💡 Reformation’s Impact on Believers: Martin Luther’s assertion on the “priesthood of all believers” revolutionized Christian thought, emphasizing that every follower of Christ holds the potential to mediate God’s presence, moving away from a strictly professional clergy and allowing grassroots ministries to flourish.

⚡ Cleansing and Authority: The historical responsibilities of the priests—as seen in the Old Testament—reveal that they not only facilitated sacrifices for atonement but also diagnosed spiritual and physical ailments, showing that understanding the source of suffering is crucial to healing.

🔥 Jesus as the Great High Priest: The understanding of Jesus as the great high priest reshapes the nature of priesthood, illustrating how His holiness and authority to heal are now accessible to all believers, who are tasked to continue His mission in their lives.

🌍 Ongoing Mission of Restoration: The mission of restoration is not limited to a select few; it is a collective endeavor where every believer actively participates in mending relationships, advocating healing, and demonstrating God’s love in everyday interactions.

🌊 Transformative Community Building: The podcast stresses the emerging trend where ordinary believers are planting churches and creating communities where the principles of healing, love, and restoration are enacted, countering the thirst for professional-led ministries.

📣 Direction for Contemporary Believers: The Howards challenge listeners to engage effectively in their realms of influence, asserting that understanding one’s identity as a priest enables proactive involvement in bringing heaven and earth together in their day-to-day lives.

Overall, this episode emphasizes the significant and accessible role that all believers play in God’s grand narrative, calling them to live out their identities as priests to bring healing and restoration to a world in need. The conversation weaves biblical theology with practical application, encouraging a transformative lifestyle rooted in Christ’s example and empowerment through the Holy Spirit.

Summary: 

In this episode of "Between Heaven & Earth,” hosts Justin and Amy Howard discuss the essential role of the priesthood in the spiritual journey of believers, framing their conversation through a biblical lens. As they navigate topics such as the priesthood’s historical context, the relationship between sin and contagion, and the implications of Jesus as the ultimate high priest, they aim to illuminate how followers of Jesus today can embody these principles in their own lives. The Howards explore the challenges of communicating spiritual health in a broken world and advocate for active participation in community confession and healing. Employing a practical model called the Four R’s—Repent, Renounce, Release, and Receive—they provide listeners with actionable steps to engage in directed confession, thereby fostering a vibrant Christian community where believers can support and nurture one another emotionally and spiritually.

 Historical Context of Priesthood: The origins of the priesthood in the Bible serve a dual role: enabling communion with a holy God and facilitating a healthy community. The Levites were tasked with ensuring the land was a habitable space for God’s presence by managing sin and preparing the people spiritually to engage with divinity. This historical lens underlines the ongoing relevance of priestly functions today, as they lay the groundwork for understanding the dynamic between humanity and holiness.

 Sin as Contagion: The discussion centers on the metaphor of sin as contagion, indicating how unaddressed spiritual sickness can affect the collective moral and emotional landscape. The priestly role historically included diagnosing and addressing these issues within the community, highlighting the contemporary need for communal accountability and active engagement in nurturing one another’s spiritual health.

 Jesus as High Priest: Unlike ancient priests who were made unclean through contact with sin and death, Jesus embodies a new paradigm where His holiness is contagious and transformative. This transition emphasizes that believers can now approach God without fear, enhancing the understanding of direct engagement with the divine in personal and communal practices.

 Empowerment through Community Confession: The podcast advocates for community confession to break the cycle of isolation and shame. It emphasizes that believers can support each other through confession and shared vulnerability, ultimately moving toward healing and restoration. This communal aspect of confession is crucial for overcoming feelings of alienation that arise from sin.

 The Four R’s model: Repent, Renounce, Release, and Receive function as practical steps for directed confession. This model is framed not as a mere formula but as an invitation to personally engage with God’s Grace, transforming remorse into tangible actions that promote spiritual growth and healing.

 The Nature of Spiritual Growth: The podcast encourages patience in spiritual development, portraying sanctification as a journey rather than a destination. Engaging in community confession, guided by the Four R’s, shows that spiritual maturity is a shared experience requiring humility, openness, and grace from one another.

 Application Beyond the Individual: The implications of engaging in priestly ministry extend beyond individual practices to foster a healthier church culture. The conversation underscores the call for all believers to actively participate in the process of healing and restoration, reinforcing the idea that spiritual health is communal and interdependent. As believers, they are collectively responsible for embodying the priesthood role within their communities.

Through lively dialogue and thoughtful insights, Justin and Amy Howard’s podcast encourages listeners to embrace their identities as modern-day priests, actively participating in the work of God’s kingdom on earth. They advocate for vulnerability, compassion, and practical tools that empower individuals to navigate the complexities of faith and community in the contemporary world.

For more info on the expansion of the early church through exorcism and healing read:

"The Rise of Christianity," by Rodney Stark

"The Patient Ferment of the Early Church," by Alan Kreider

"The Deepest Place," by Curt Thompson

In this episode of “Between Heaven and Earth,” hosts Justin and Amy Howard, a married couple and parents to six sons, explore the themes of priesthood and spiritual duties as followers of Jesus. They emphasize the ongoing work of restoring communities to bring heaven and earth together, suggesting that listeners engage deeply with the work of God in their lives. The episode introduces the concept of "directed confession,” a vital tool for spiritual and emotional maturity. It explains how confessing one’s sins should not be a solitary act but part of a community process where believers support each other in identifying the roots of their sin and pain. The Howards advocate for a model of confession that fosters spiritual growth and community involvement. Eventually, they unpack the “Four R’s” of directed confession (Repent, Renounce, Release, Receive), emphasizing that healing and transformation come from recognizing sin, taking action through the power of community, and accepting God’s grace and healing. They encourage the practice of directed confession among families and in church communities as a means to break the cycle of shame and foster a culture of support and understanding.

🤝 The Role of Community in Spiritual Healing: Justin and Amy argue that the healing process must happen within a community context where individuals can be seen and supported. By fostering openness, believers can break free from the isolation that sin and shame often perpetuate.

🔄 Four R’s Framework: The framework of Repent, Renounce, Release, and Receive empowers individuals to articulate their struggles, take decisive spiritual actions, and ultimately receive the healing that comes from God. This structured approach encourages believers to engage thoughtfully in their spiritual lives.

⚖️ The Nature of the Priesthood: The concept of priesthood in the modern era transcends traditional roles; every believer participates in a priestly calling, enabling them to mediate and facilitate relational healing among others.

🚨 The Contagion of Holiness and Sin: The hosts discuss the dangerous nature of sin and holiness, where the consequences of God’s holiness were severe, unlike the contagion that occurs today. Jesus’ perfect priesthood redefines this dynamic, allowing believers to access God’s holiness without fear.

🌍 Restoration as a Collective Mission: The mission of bringing heaven and earth together reflects a collective responsibility among believers. By working together and supporting one