EPISODE 1: Welcome to The G’news Project
(“Gospel” + “News” = G’news)

G’day everybody, and welcome to The G’news Project—a podcast dedicated to spreading the good news of our Lord and Savior, Jesus of Nazareth.

I’m Mat, and together we’re diving into the unified story of the Torah, the Psalms, the Prophets—and how it all culminates in the New Testament.

Each episode will begin and end with a reading from Scripture:
one from the Torah, Psalms, or Prophets…
and one from the New Testament.

Today’s readings are from Genesis 1:1–5 and Matthew 1:18–22 Luke 24:44.
 
In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.

And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. God saw that the light was good, and He separated the light from the darkness. God called the light “day,” and the darkness He called “night.” And there was evening, and there was morning—the first day.

Before you check out thinking this is just “Old Testament stuff,”
let me stop you right there.

This story is everything.

It’s the foundation Jesus stood on.
It’s the language He spoke.
It’s the Scripture Paul quoted.

And it’s packed with wisdom, depth, and relevance for our lives today.

From this first story in Genesis, we see many things happening—and there are always multiple layers to each story.

We need to humble ourselves every time we encounter Scripture.
Reading the Bible is like flying to a different country: it comes from a different time, language, and culture.

It’s always a cross-cultural experience.

But if we pause and reflect…
if we let each word carry its weight…
we start to see how deep these stories go.

A couple of layers of today’s reading shows a Creator bringing order from chaos—separating light from darkness…
creating space for life. The Heb phrase for Formless and empty is "Tohu va-vohu" or wild and waste  

There’s always more in every story.
And every story in the Bible gives us clues—not just about what God is doing, but why.

I’ve come to believe that the Bible’s main purpose is to reveal God’s character—through the naritve and God the father reveal to us though his son Jesus.

So, what is The G’news Project?

We’ll be reading through the Bible, beginning with the first five books—Genesis to Deuteronomy—known as the Torah, or the Pentateuch.

Torah in heb. means instruction—not just law.
It’s God’s guidance for truely living like a human being.

We’ll be learning some Biblical Hebrew—not to sound clever,
but to better understand what the original authors meant.

There’s so much hiding in plain sight…
lost in translation.

And no—Jesus and Paul didn’t put the Torah aside.
They lived by it.
They quoted it.
They fulfilled it.

Jesus fulfilled it all—by living for us, dying for us, and was raised for us—so we might have eternal life.

This first season lays the foundation:

Genesis 1–3: God’s good design

Genesis 3–11: The cosmic problem

Genesis 12 onward: The rescue mission begins—
and ultimately, it leads us to Jesus.

This project has been on my heart for a while.

I’ve been learning from Tim Mackie—
someone who’s helped me see the Bible as one big story that points to Jesus.

Now, I want to pass that on—plain, honest, and real.

Here’s what you can expect:

Weekly episodes unpacking Scripture

A segment called “Aleph & Beyond”—where we learn some Hebrew

A study group called “Torah Threads”—where we read together and ask honest questions

Let’s close with today’s second passage:
Matthew 1:18–22 (NIV)

This is how the bi