Spooky season is here! Since it is time for (Holy) Ghost Stories, we’re having casual talk about Demon Hunters (the K-Pop kind) and a little about weather Christian should celebrate Halloween (the Hallowed-Evening, anyone?) 

We’re having fun talking about Christian moms and other cultural topics this October. 

Regarding Halloween and Samhain (pronounced sow-een), the earliest written sources date around the 9th century onward, which All Saint’s Day has early Christian roots from the 2nd Century forward, until it fairly landed on it’s October-November date in the 700’s. There is much talk about pre-christian celebration of the Samhain festival, but it is based off speculation of oral-tradion recorded much later at a date, which is why we figure that the practically universally celebrated turning-of-the-season festivals celebrated by most cultures is simply something we have to consider. 

That Christians would celebrate at this time is not co-opting a pagan holiday, it is simply a time of year where celebrating and remembrance happens, and Christian’s have culture and celebrations as well! So, let’s celebrate! Honor God and remember the faithful heroes of the past. Eat food and have friends over! 

Side note - the audio exported strangely this time around, so we apologize for that as we hammer out our technical stuff! Captions are provided in our video versions of this episode.

READ FURTHER:

• “All Saints Day,” Cross, F. L., and Elizabeth A. Livingstone, eds. 2005. In The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, 3rd ed. rev. Oxford;  New York: Oxford University Press.
• “Samhain,” Hillary Smith, World History Encyclopedia
• Langgärtner, Georg. 1999–2003. “All Saints’ Day.” In The Encyclopedia of Christianity. Grand Rapids, MI; Leiden, Netherlands: Wm. B. Eerdmans; Brill.

BIBLE READING SUGGESTIONS:

• Colossians 2:16-17 - Paul’s thought on the freedoms to celebrate
• Romans 14 on matters of conscience and integrity
• 1 Corinthians 10 on freedoms, idolatry, and glorifying God

Tired of hearing: “Go to church, read your bible, and pray” when you express feeling distant from God? It can feel like a one-size-fits-all to your unique place in life… This episode might be a good dive into a new way of looking at connecting with god through Gary Thomas’ “Sacred Pathways.”

Similar to how we can understand the way people work and relate through personality assessments like Enneagram and Myers-Briggs or Love Language tests, Thomas presents a great framework that may help many of us reconnect with God in a way that is both biblical and fits our personal spiritual temperaments.

**COMMENT YOUR SACRED PATHWAY TEMPERAMENT IN THE COMMENTS BELOW!**

Let’s talk all things personality and spirituality today on Hello Bible!

“Good spiritual directors understand that people have different spiritual temperaments, that what feeds one doesn’t feed all. Giving the same spiritual prescription to every struggling Christian is no less irresponsible than a doctor prescribing penicillin to every patient.” - Gary Thomas

TAKE A SACRED PATHWAY ASSESSMENT HERE.

READ FURTHER: All About Personality!

- Sacred Pathways - Gary Thomas (Highlighted book!)

- Celebration of Discipline - Richard Foster

- Five Love Languages Series - Gary Chapman

- The Road Back to You - Ian Cron*

- Discover Your God-Given Gifts -Dn & Katie Fortune

- StrengthsQuest (StrengthFinder Assessment) - Donald Clifton, et al.

BIBLE READING:

- 1 Corinthians 12:14-20 - One Body, Many Parts

- Romans 12:4–8 - The “Motivational Gifts”

- 1 Corinthians 12:4–11 - The “Gifts of the Spirit”

- Ephesians 4:11-14 - The “Gifts/Offices of the Church”

- - - - - - - - 

*We totally understand that there are varied views on the Enneagram, so choose wisely. It’s included here because the framework has been helpful to Michelle and myself, even though there is a debate on its origins and place within Christian life. We find that the general thoughts and categories are useful, similar to other personality assessments like MBTI, Big 5, DiSC, etc. and are seen as tools, supplemental to understanding ourselves. We would totally agree that Scripture is designed to be central in our understanding personal identity and not any personality assessment.

What is Heaven like? Do we stay there, is it the place we are supposed to go to after we die?

The Bible's story may actually tell us a different answer than we assume... That's right, "Heaven" as we imagine it from the cartoons of our childhood, may not be where our "forever home" is.

Scripture points us to a New Heaven and New Earth, where our forever is much more of an Eden on Earth 2.0 - a physical place of fullness that we get to adventure in and enjoy for eternity with God's presence. Embracing a totally and solely spiritual afterlife apart from a material restoration is a platonic (even gnostic) belief that rejects the physical world as irredeemably corrupted.

From the first page of the Bible, we see God create a beautiful, pure, physical world created for embodied, physical humans. And the place that God started is where He wants our Human Family to continue on in our forever!

"When Paul says that his desire is ‘to depart and be with Christ, which is far better’, he is indeed thinking of a blissful life with his Lord immediately after death, but this is only the prelude to the resurrection itself.... the early Christians hold firmly to a two-step belief about the future: first, death and whatever lies immediately beyond; second, a new bodily existence in a newly remade world."

-N.T. Wright from "Surprised by Hope"

Let's dive in and talk about what things may be like after our life here is done.

Scripture to Read:

• Ezekiel 37:27
• Isaiah 65:17; 66:22
• Romans 8:19-23
• 2 Peter 3:10-13
• Revelation 21-22

Additional Reading: (Study using Logos Bible Software!)

• C.S. Lewis, "The Great Divorce"
• N.T. Wright, "Surprised by Hope"
• Dr. Kenneth Gentry, "The new Creation," Tabletalk Magazine, March 2004: The New Heavens and the New Earth. 2004.
• P. S. Johnston. “Heaven.” In New Dictionary of Biblical Theology, Downers Grove, IL: IVP, 2000.

It's Easter Week! Let's talk Holy Week, Palm Sunday, the moments that take place throughout the final days of Jesus before the cross and His Resurrection. Also, a brief convo at the end about Easter tradition and its "possible" pagan roots.

Lent: The 40 days before Easter Day, often celebrated with fasting

Holy Week: Palm Sunday through the week, ending on Easter Sunday

Eastertide: The 50 Days after Easter Sunday leading to the celebration of Pentecost/Shavuot

Bible Reading Ideas:

- Psalm 22

- Isaiah 53

-Jeremiah 7 (Jeremiah's Temple Sermon)

-Psalms 120-134 (Songs of Ascent)

Jesus' Final Week in the Gospels:

- Matthew 21-27

- Mark 11-15

- Luke 19-23

- John 12-19

Helpful Info on Easter's Christian Roots from Wes Huff

Is the Grand Canyon just another hole in the ground… or something bigger than your eyes can fully grasp?

Creation is a HUGE topic to cover and the story has to be retold various times from numerous perspectives in scripture - each building on the themes of each other.

Today we are viewing four additional accounts of creation in the Old and New Testaments that fashion a type of “Creation Language” that echoes through all of scripture. Each one uses the same theme to shine a new light on the moments God fashioned the physical world together.

Why does this matter? Understanding the order and purposes of Creation helps us to live life in a way it was designed to function, leading us to a functioning, fulfilling life. Creating a road map to help us correct course by knowing the Designer’s BluePrint for life.

Jesus is Wisdom, the Creative Agent of Genesis and Proverbs:

"…the prologue to John’s Gospel (John 1:1–18) emerges out of the Old Testament wisdom tradition in Prov 8:22–31. There, Wisdom is personified and reveals that she was not only in existence prior to creation, but assisted God in the creative process. John’s prologue hypostasizes wisdom in the figure of Jesus, who becomes the λόγος (logos, “word”) of creation. The author of John’s Gospel holds that Jesus is the pre-existent creative word that brings all things into being. "

-John E. Anderson, PhD, Baylor

Scripture to Read:

• Job 38-41 (focused on Job 38:1-7)
• Psalm 104
• Proverbs 8:22-32
• John 1:1-18

Additional Reading:

• Richter, Sandra L. 2008. The Epic of Eden: A Christian Entry into the Old Testament. Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic.
• Anderson, John E. 2016. “Creation.” In The Lexham Bible Dictionary, edited by John D. Barry, David Bomar, Derek R. Brown, Rachel Klippenstein, Douglas Mangum, Carrie Sinclair Wolcott, Lazarus Wentz, Elliot Ritzema, and Wendy Widder. Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press.

*The LBD is available for free with Logos Bible Software. DM or message us for more info!

In the beginning God had two… creation stories? Plural? Many people are surprised to hear the opening chapters of Genesis contain TWO creation stories. And then even more surprised to hear the rest of Scripture contains a small handful more of creation accounts!

Genesis 1:1-2:4 gives the account of a watery beginning, where God speaks from outside creation to tame and form the universe.

Genesis 2:5-24 gives account of God creating the Garden of Eden from a barren wilderness, using His own hands to shape and form His creation. Genesis 3 continues this account telling of the fall of mankind.

This episode of HelloBible dives into the two stories of creation, what they mean, and how we can read them faithfully. We also dive into what it means to read scripture “literally” and what to look out for when we approach the Bible with our well intentioned questions.

Scripture to Read:

Genesis 1-3

Additional Reading:

• Richter, Sandra L. 2008. The Epic of Eden: A Christian Entry into the Old Testament. Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic.
• Walton, John H. 2009. The Lost World of Genesis One: Ancient Cosmology and the Origins Debate. Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic.
• Anderson, John E. 2016. “Creation.” In The Lexham Bible Dictionary, edited by John D. Barry, David Bomar, Derek R. Brown, Rachel Klippenstein, Douglas Mangum, Carrie Sinclair Wolcott, Lazarus Wentz, Elliot Ritzema, and Wendy Widder. Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press.

*The LBD is available for free with Logos Bible Software. DM or message us for more info!

It's time to meet your Bible for the first time again. Richard and Michelle introduce the HelloBible Podcast sharing the heart and goal behind our conversations where we share some of the conversations we have about scripture, finding curiosity and wonder in some of the familiar stories and pages of Scripture.

Let's talk about discovery and our love-hate relationship with the B.I.B.L.E acronym...

Hello and thanks for coming along for the ride!

Most people don't think of Revelation as the first place to look for a solid Christmas, nativity story. Turns out, it's an often overlooked starting point a cosmic Christmas battle that we are still fighting today.

In HelloBible's first episode, Richard and Michelle talk about the Nativity Story from a Heaven-down view and discuss dragons, sea monsters, Baby Jesus, and a few other ideas on how to calm down the Christmas crazies and settle into peace this holiday season.

Read for Yourself:

⁠Revelation 12⁠; ⁠Ps 74:13-14⁠; ⁠Is 27:1⁠ ; ⁠Ezek 29:3⁠; ⁠Is 30:7⁠

Additional Reading:

1. Michaels, J. Ramsey. 1997. Revelation. Vol. 20. The IVP New Testament Commentary Series. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press.

2. Akin, Daniel L. 2016. Exalting Jesus in Revelation. Edited by Daniel L. Akin, David Platt, and Tony Merida. Christ-Centered Exposition Commentary. Nashville, TN: Holman Reference.