This episode of the Bible Bard podcast is Lesson Ninety-nine (99) God Has No Favorites. The Apostle Peter says something quite astonding: “I now realize how true it is that God does not show favoritism but accepts from every nation the one who fears him and does what is right.” This episode discusses what this means to Christianity historically.

The letters of the Apostle Paul to early Christian believers are wonderful because they show us what Christianity was like when it just began. These texts become for us a history of what was said about Jesus and what was believed by those who listened to the early message from those who had been with Jesus himself. Our methodology of literary analysis takes a particular text and gains clarity because of the context in which that text is placed in the story.

When we read the Bible as literature we often notice such wonderful things. In John Chapter 12 we find something revealed that we didn’t expect — there are three different classes of believers in Jesus. This episode discusses what they are.

In John 5:16-47 we are given a long passage that discusses who Jesus is. These 31 verses declare a lot about Jesus that is ignored by another lot of people. This person Jesus, this historic figure Jesus, is not a shadowy figure of legend. He is not a mythic person, the concoction of novelists. What the Bible actually states about Jesus is shocking.

The text of 2 Corinthians 5 provides an unusual instruction on how to live our lives. This is a very strange thing to talk to people about. The subject is what are you living for? What are you living to accomplish? In trying to answer that question, we look at how a few great pagan thinkers have answered it including Aristotle, Siddhartha Gautama, Epicurus, Epictetus, Seneca, Marcus Aurelius, and Jean-Paul Sartre. For most of us the goal of living is to get through the week! Most of the rest of us live like slaves, we are forced by circumstances to do one thing or another, and there isn’t much time to think about how we are living, except to be sad or angry that our lives are filled with difficulty and trouble over which we have little control. This episode discusses what the Bible actually teaches about this topic.

Luke 18:18-27 tells a story of a conversation Jesus has with a man who is called the rich young ruler. This man asks Jesus a question, “Good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” The answer Jesus gives to the basic question at the heart of all religions is shocking and totally different from the answers provided by other religions.

There are three conditions that plague humanity: they are fear, worry, and anxiety. Surveys indicate that in the world about 70% of humanity spends a lot of emotional and mental energy on these three internalizing, affective states. What the Bible Bard is interested in is how the Bible addresses this human problem.

The Bible speaks of two contrary terms: "the mind governed by the flesh" and "the mind governed by the Spirit". The text we analyze appears to suggest that the believing human being has access to either mind because they can “set” their mind (agree with) either what “the flesh desires” or what “the Spirit desires”. This episode discusses what the text is teaching us about that willful choice.

There is a term in the New Testament that Jesus created called born again. Alive today, 2.38 billion people claim to be Christians. This number is about 31% of the global population. Within that group of Christians, and within the evangelical and historically black Protestant traditions in the U.S.A., only 28% to 35% of US adults (about 50 million adults) consider themselves "born-again." Statistics are missing for counting born again Christians in the rest of the world. But exactly what did Jesus say when he created this term and how does it affect you?

Social justice has been a human desire ever since the first city state developed during the Bronze Age, about 5,500 years ago. In the U.S.A. social justice warriors sought to end slavery (1,700- 1,800 ad, get women the right to vote (1920), end child labor (1938), end segregation and racial discrimination (1950s-1960s), and then broadened in our times to include seeking rights and protections for Native Americans, Mexican Americans, homosexuals, sexual harassment, and sexual assault, police brutality, and wealth inequality and environmental justice.

The Bible promoted social justice in the law of Moses (circa 1400 BCE), which was written about 3,500 years ago. This episode discusses some of the basic laws that are part of the law of Moses that provide the beginning of social consideration for special classes of persons