This bonus episode of the Starting Point Podcast is a recording of a live interview between Andy Stanley and Dr. John Dickson, a world-renowned author, speaker, and professor of ancient history. In this engaging conversation, Dr. Dickson offers a helpful perspective on the confusing and often conflicting history of the church.

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Jesus predicted he would start a movement—the church—that would change the world. Here we are, two thousand years later, and Jesus’s church gathering is still going strong. So, what exactly is this movement called “the church”? And what could it mean for you?

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For many of us, our religious beliefs were not so much chosen as they were inherited—passed down to us when we were children by trusted adults. We take our beliefs about faith, on faith. But, is that all faith is? Can faith—specifically the Christian faith—stand up to investigation?

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We often settle into a bargaining posture with God: “God, if you will... I promise I will…” We all do it. But is that really the kind of relationship God wants to have with us?

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Guilt is powerful and shame can be crippling. If we're honest, all of us have had experiences—or even entire seasons of life—that we wish we could go back and relive… times when we failed to live up to what others expected of us or even our own expectations. So, how does the Christian faith help us with our pasts?

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The perception many people have of the Christian faith is that it is primarily a code of conduct that you must adhere to if you want to be on good terms with God. If you can do it, you’re in. If you can’t… you’re out. This leaves people with a picture of God that looks more like a cosmic police officer than a loving father. So, what role does our behavior play in our relationship with God?

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Conversations about faith often end up circling around a common question: If God is good and he loves the world, why isn’t he doing anything about all of this suffering and evil? For thousands of years, followers of Christianity, Judaism, and Islam have claimed that God HAS done something, or at least that he has begun something. And they all trace it back to the same man—Abraham. So, how did God begin to pick up the pieces of his broken creation?

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Any conversation about faith will eventually have to face one very important question: What’s wrong with the world? And every faith tradition has some kind of explanation to offer. Even people who don’t claim any sort of religious belief would usually agree that the world is not as good as we would want it to be. And, if we’re honest, we are not as good as we want to be. So, what do we do about the tension we feel when there’s a gap between our behavior and our standards? And how does God respond when we fail to meet his standards?

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During childhood, you may have been handed a faith framework through which you began to view the world. For many of us, that childhood faith didn't survive the challenges and pressures of adulthood. So, if we’re going to begin the process of discovering or rediscovering our faith, where do we start?

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