In this episode we talk a short time about what big picture or reason why the book of Jonah was written, as well as covering the first two chapters in brief. It's not a verse by verse full coverage teaching, but pulling out different observations from the text. 

The audio for this episode is not the greatest. I was walking to and from the white board writing things down, our class is small enough that we didn't use a microphone for discussions or comments - so I apologize for the quality! 

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In this episode, we cover the historical background and context for the book of Jonah! This will help us better understand what the author intended to communicate to his audience.

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This is a teaching I gave in the School of Biblical Studies on the book of Jonah. In this (short) episode, I introduce the book! The second episode would have been HUGE so I decided to split up the introduction and the historical background. 

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    This is the final episode of my Psalms teaching, and the part two of walking through the different genres in Psalms.

     We look at the three most prevalent genres of psalms: hymns, laments, and thanksgivings. We talk about the characteristics, structure, and different sub-categories within these three genres. There's good discussion on the imprecatory psalms (the angry, violent ones) as well as student comments on laments as a whole. 

     I hope that listening to this class has helped you understand more about the book and given you tools to help deepen your own study of the Psalms!

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In this episode, we start with a brief introduction to genre within Psalms. There are different types, important things to keep in mind while studying the genre of individual Psalms, and an understanding of why the tool of genre is so useful for Psalms study. 

The reason why genre is so useful for studying this book is because of the sheer amount of psalms! For example, when we take the time to study the genre of lament, that will help us have an understanding of large portions of the book and also help better equip us to understand and dig into a lament when we come across one in our reading. 

The rest of the time is spent taking a deeper look at themes, structure, and characteristics of the different genres: wisdom, royal/kingship, confidence, and remembrance. We will look at the three other genres in the next episode! 

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In this episode, we talk about the second major characteristic of Hebrew poetry (and many different cultures' types of poetry), which is imagery! I summarize a few relevant observation labels we use to go through the text. We do a couple of exercises, practicing identifying images as well as understanding images. 

I close out by talking a little bit about how Psalms were used by God's people in the past and why we need to continue using them today, too. 

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In this episode, we are talking all about poetry! First, I give an introduction to poetry in general, and then an introduction to Hebrew poetry. 

When discussing Hebrew poetry, the first thing we spend time on is something called "Parallelism", one of Biblical poetry's most defining characteristics! We talk through a lot of different verses, and so if you are able to I highly suggest opening a Bible up in front of you so you are better able to understand what I'm talking about! 

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This is the first episode of my Psalms teaching at the School of Biblical Studies over here in Kona. There will probably be quite a few episodes because this lecture was two sessions instead of one! 

In this episode, I give an introduction to Psalms as well as briefly cover some of the historical background of the book. At the end I spend a little bit of time talking about the history of Psalms interpretation. I hope you enjoy! 

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This is a little teaching I did at a local Hawaiian church, Helani Congregational Church. They have been studying through every book of the Bible before their sermons, and some of us staff of the SBS were asked to come in and help teach! 

I briefly go over the book of Jonah, quickly covering the historical context before talking through the book. I hope you enjoy! 

Disclaimer: Towards the end I mention the prophet Zephaniah, and I misspoke here! I meant to say the prophet Nahum. 

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We have arrived at the end of Paul’s letter to the Philippians. These last verses contain many of Paul’s most well known verses. In 4:4-9, Paul gives his final encouragements. He writes a thank-you note for their generous gift in 4:10-20, and gives his final greetings in 4:21-23! 

Some scholars call this the “Epistle of Joy” because it is infused with joyfulness! We take a look at Paul’s joy, Jesus’ joy, and try to define it a little more clearly. It was so fun to take a deeper look at joy, and so I hope you enjoy this last bit of my Philippians lecture! 

Before ending class, I give the students some time to process what God was speaking to them throughout the teaching. I encourage you to take some time and ask yourself the same questions, and see what God is wanting to speak to you, too. 

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