Thank you for listening to The Unbound Podcast with Dr. Tony Evans. For more biblical teaching and ministry resources, visit www.TonyEvans.org, and if you’d like to go deeper in your study of Scripture, you can explore online courses at https://www.tonyevanstraining.org/

She grew up in the Evans family, but this conversation is not about a famous last name. It is

about memory, motherhood, family, loss and the kind of faith that gets built in ordinary moments long before anyone sees it in public.

In this episode of The Unbound Podcast, Dr. Tony Evans sits down with his granddaughter

Kariss Farris for a warm, funny and surprisingly honest conversation about growing up in the

Evans home. They talk about childhood memories, family traditions, being spoiled by Nanny

and Poppy, the rhythms of church life and the kind of closeness that shaped her from the inside out. What comes through most is not just legacy, but affection. The love in this family is easy to hear.

But the conversation also goes deeper. Kariss reflects on growing up without her biological

father, what it meant to be loved well anyway, and how, in more recent years, she has had to

learn to know God as Father in a more personal way. She shares how that search has looked in real life, and what she would say to others carrying that same ache.

They also talk about marriage, motherhood, homemaking, grief and the losses that have

marked their family, especially the death of Lois Evans. Kariss speaks openly about what it

means to let grief stay honest, to keep talking about the people you miss, and to build a home where faith is not forced but lived.

This episode feels like sitting in on a family conversation that is full of laughter, tenderness and the kind of truth that does not need to announce itself loudly to be deeply felt. If you have ever wondered how legacy really gets passed down, this one shows you. It happens in pancakes and donuts, in tears and storytelling, in discipline and delight and in the quiet decision to keep loving each other well.

You can connect with Kariss and explore more of her work here:

Photography & Business

Pharris Photos website: https://pharrisphotos.com/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/pharrisphotos/

Book & Writing

Jesus, Everywhere: https://a.co/d/0iXXsrBM

Jesus Everywhere on Substack: https://karissfarris.substack.com

Personal

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/karissfarris/

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The Unbound Podcast is a weekly space for conversations that don’t rush to conclusions. Each episode explores what it means to live free from what binds us—pressure, fear, reputation and the need to have it all figured out—through thoughtful dialogue and lived experience.

Senior Producer & Creative Director: Heather Hair

Technical Director, Audio & Lead Editor: Lee Sherman

#TonyEvans #TonyEvansPodcast #UnboundPodcast

He’s 93.

He believes some of his greatest ministry happened after 70.

And that alone will make a lot of people rethink what they call “too late.”

In this episode of The Unbound Podcast, Dr. Tony Evans sits down with Dr. Gene Getz for a conversation about church, leadership, discipleship and what it looks like to keep building when most people assume your best years are behind you.

Dr. Getz talks about why so many people in the church are still hungry for real teaching, why consumer Christianity keeps weakening discipleship, and why truth and love have to stay together if the church is going to stay healthy.

What gives this episode weight is not just what he taught. It is how he lived it. Dr. Evans reflects on how Gene shaped him in seminary and helped form his understanding of the church. Gene shares how his later decades became some of his most fruitful, including rewriting key books, expanding the Life Essentials Study Bible, and continuing global ministry well into his 70s, 80s, and now 90s.

If you have ever wondered whether your most meaningful work is already behind you, this conversation says otherwise. It is a reminder that calling does not expire, faithfulness still compounds, and God is not in a hurry the way we are.

This is a conversation about the church, yes. But it is also about endurance, usefulness and the hope that your later years may hold more purpose than you imagined.

For more about Dr. Gene Getz’s ministry, visit: https://bibleprinciples.org/

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The Unbound Podcast is a weekly space for conversations that don’t rush to conclusions. Each episode explores what it means to live free from what binds us—pressure, fear, reputation and the need to have it all figured out—through thoughtful dialogue and lived experience.

Senior Producer & Creative Director: Heather Hair

Technical Director, Audio & Lead Editor: Lee Sherman

#TonyEvans #TonyEvansPodcast #UnboundPodcast

Do we have a reliable Bible—or just a collection of stories shaped over time?

What happens when faith meets evidence?

In this episode of The Unbound Podcast, Dr. Tony Evans sits down with archaeologist and scholar Dr. Scott Stripling for a conversation that brings the ancient world into sharp, modern focus. Drawing from decades of excavation and research, Stripling explores how archaeology doesn’t replace faith, but it can illuminate it in ways many have never considered.

From uncovering artifacts at biblical sites like Shiloh to reexamining what we thought we knew about crucifixion, this conversation challenges assumptions and deepens understanding. Dr. Stripling explains how material evidence can serve as a bridge for those wrestling with belief—helping connect historical reality with spiritual truth.

But this isn’t just about digs and discoveries. It’s about what happens when Scripture becomes more than words on a page—when history, culture and evidence bring it to life. Together, Dr. Evans and Dr. Stripling wrestle with questions that matter today:

How do faith and evidence work together without competing?

What can archaeology reveal about the reliability of Scripture?

And how does a deeper understanding of the past transform the way we worship, believe and live?

Some of what you’ll hear may surprise you. Some of it may challenge what you’ve always assumed. But all of it points to a bigger reality: God has been at work in real places, through real events, across real history.

If you’ve ever wondered whether the Bible can stand up to scrutiny or how to engage people who don’t yet believe it, this conversation offers both clarity and conviction.

Because seeing the evidence doesn’t replace faith.

It strengthens it.

Learn more about Dr. Scott Stripling and his work:

The Bible Seminary – www.thebibleseminary.edu

Associates for Biblical Research – www.digshiloh.org

Scott Stripling – www.scottstripling.net

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The Unbound Podcast is a weekly space for conversations that don’t rush to conclusions. Each episode explores what it means to live free from what binds us—pressure, fear, reputation and the need to have it all figured out—through thoughtful dialogue and lived experience.

Senior Producer & Creative Director: Heather Hair

Technical Director, Audio & Lead Editor: Lee Sherman

#TonyEvans #TonyEvansPodcast #UnboundPodcast

Love is heavier than anger.

Forgiveness is harder than outrage.

And John Perkins spent a lifetime showing what that looks like.

In this special in-memory episode of The Unbound Podcast, we are sharing a previously unreleased conversation between Dr. Tony Evans and Dr. John M. Perkins, recorded a few years ago and now offered in honor of his life and legacy after his death on March 13, 2026. In it, Dr. Perkins speaks with the kind of clarity that only comes from suffering, friendship and decades of walking with Jesus. He talks about dignity, reconciliation, discipleship, race, forgiveness and why love is not weak at all. It is weighty. It is costly. And it is the only way forward.

What makes this conversation so powerful is that it does not sound polished or distant. It sounds lived. Dr. Perkins reflects on his grandmother’s love, his brother’s murder, the torture he endured in a Mississippi jail and the hard-won realization that suffering can become a virtue when it drives a person deeper into Christ. Again and again, he returns to the same center: discipleship is friendship, the Bible must be embodied, and the Christian faith is the outliving of the indwelling Christ.

Dr. Evans also makes this deeply personal. He honors Dr. Perkins not just as a public voice, but as a hero, mentor and living influence on his own life and ministry. What unfolds is more than an interview. It feels like a final charge. A conversation about what still matters when a life has been lived all the way down to the roots.

This episode is for anyone who has felt worn down by anger, division or the shallow versions of justice and faith that dominate so much public life. It is for the listener who wants something older, deeper and truer. And it is for anyone who needs to hear John Perkins say one more time that love, dignity and the gospel will always belong together.

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The Unbound Podcast is a weekly space for conversations that don’t rush to conclusions. Each episode explores what it means to live free from what binds us—pressure, fear, reputation and the need to have it all figured out—through thoughtful dialogue and lived experience.

Senior Producer & Creative Director: Heather Hair

Technical Director, Audio & Lead Editor: Lee Sherman

#TonyEvans #TonyEvansPodcast #UnboundPodcast

Streaming has changed how people learn, watch and grow. The question is what that shift means for the church.

In this episode of The Unbound Podcast, Dr. Evans sits down with Phil Warner, VP of Video Content at RightNow Media, for a conversation about how faith is being communicated in a media-driven world. Phil has spent decades helping shape Christian video resources, watching technology transform how people engage with teaching, discipleship and storytelling.

RightNow Media has grown into the largest streaming library of discipleship content in the world, but it began with a small team producing just a handful of Bible studies each year. Phil shares how those early efforts eventually led to a global platform now used by churches across the world, and what ministries can learn from the way media habits continue to change.

Dr. Evans and Phil also pull back the curtain on the realities of producing ministry media. Dr. Evans admits that while the finished videos look great, capturing those moments sometimes requires very, very, very long walks just to get the right B-roll shot. The conversation moves easily from those lighter behind-the-scenes moments into a deeper discussion about why the church shouldn’t fear new technology, how streaming platforms are reshaping the way people grow spiritually and why believers need to understand the tools shaping culture today.

Phil Warner serves as VP of Video Content at RightNow Media, where he leads the team producing films and video teaching used across the platform. During his time there, he has helped develop more than 250 video-based discipleship resources, driven by a passion to use media to boldly communicate the gospel.

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The Unbound Podcast is a weekly space for conversations that don’t rush to conclusions. Each episode explores what it means to live free from what binds us—pressure, fear, reputation and the need to have it all figured out—through thoughtful dialogue and lived experience.

Senior Producer & Creative Director: Heather Hair

Technical Director, Audio & Lead Editor: Lee Sherman

#TonyEvans #TonyEvansPodcast #UnboundPodcast

You will lose someone you love.

The question isn’t if. It’s when.

And when it happens, will your faith hold?

In this deeply personal episode of The Unbound Podcast, Pastor Tony Evans sits down with author and speaker John Onwuchekwa for a conversation about grief, faith and what hope actually looks like when life falls apart.

John shares the story of losing his brother unexpectedly, planting a church while his world was unraveling and discovering that grief is not a journey you finish but a language you learn. Together they talk about why rushing people to hope can actually wound them, how Scripture becomes alive in suffering and why everything we love in this world will one day be lost.

But they also talk about resurrection. About Good Friday moments that feel final. About how God meets us in the dark, not by turning the lights on, but by holding our hand.

If you have ever lost someone. If you are walking through grief right now. Or if you want to know how to help someone who is hurting. This conversation is for you.

John Onwuchekwa is a pastor, writer and speaker who helps people navigate grief and hope with honesty and depth. He is the author of We Go On. Learn more about John at https://www.johno.co/ and follow him on Instagram @jawn_o.

Find his book "We Go On" here: https://a.co/d/0gBsEIKY

Watch the full episode and subscribe for more conversations that connect Scripture to real life.

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The Unbound Podcast is a weekly space for conversations that don’t rush to conclusions. Each episode explores what it means to live free from what binds us—pressure, fear, reputation and the need to have it all figured out—through thoughtful dialogue and lived experience.

Senior Producer & Creative Director: Heather Hair

Technical Director, Audio & Lead Editor: Lee Sherman

#TonyEvans #TonyEvansPodcast #UnboundPodcast

What happens when faith feels fragile in a world that feels fractured?

In this episode of The Unbound Podcast, we sit down with Dr. Darren Provost—historian, professor and contributor to the documentary series Unbound: The Bible’s Journey through History—to talk about chaos, conviction and the quiet strength it takes to stand for truth without losing love.

Darren specializes in the history of Christianity during the late Middle Ages, the Renaissance and the Reformation. With a PhD from Yale University and years of teaching at Yale Divinity School, Southern Connecticut State University, Queen’s University and Trinity Western University, he brings deep scholarship to the table. But this conversation is not academic for the sake of information. It’s about what history teaches you when the Church is under pressure, when culture feels unstable and when believers are trying to discern how to respond.

We explore questions that feel incredibly current:

How do you hold conviction without becoming combative?

How do you love your neighbor without compromising truth?

What can figures like Erasmus, John Wycliffe and Jan Hus teach us about courage, discernment and spiritual wisdom today?

If you’ve ever wrestled with how to live faithfully in a polarized culture, this conversation will ground you. It reminds us that chaos is not new, reform is not new and God’s Word has outlasted every attempt to silence it.

History is not just about the past. It’s about who you choose to become in the present.

Watch, listen and lean in.

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The Unbound Podcast is a weekly space for conversations that don’t rush to conclusions. Each episode explores what it means to live free from what binds us—pressure, fear, reputation and the need to have it all figured out—through thoughtful dialogue and lived experience.

Senior Producer & Creative Director: Heather Hair

Technical Director, Audio & Lead Editor: Lee Sherman

#TonyEvans #TonyEvansPodcast #UnboundPodcast

There are moments in life when you realize you’ve been carrying more than anyone ever knew. Stories you never told. Labels you never chose. A version of yourself shaped by loss, instability or simply being unseen.

This episode of The Unbound Podcast is for anyone who knows that feeling.

Dr. Tony Evans sits down with Terence Lester, whose life didn’t follow a straight line. Before the degrees or the leadership roles, there were seasons marked by homelessness, fracture and being overlooked. Those years didn’t disappear. They became the ground where something deeper took root.

What unfolds here isn’t a résumé or a success story wrapped in neat conclusions. It’s an honest conversation about pain that lingers, dignity that has to be reclaimed, and what it means to let your past inform your purpose without being trapped by it. Terence talks about forgiveness that doesn’t rush, growth that tells the truth, and why truly seeing people is more than compassion—it’s an act of justice.

Today, his work spans city streets, classrooms and communities across the country. He leads Love Beyond Walls, teaches public policy and social change and writes about poverty, race and human dignity from lived experience, not theory. His life’s work is shaped by a simple conviction: no one should be invisible.

If you’ve ever wondered whether your story disqualifies you or whether the parts of your life you try hardest to forget might actually hold meaning, this conversation meets you there. Not with easy answers, but with clarity, humility and hope that feels earned.

Freedom doesn’t always come from escaping the past. Sometimes it begins when we stop hiding from it and move forward, unbound.

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Learn more about Dr. Terence Lester: https://terencelester.com/

Love Beyond Walls: https://www.lovebeyondwalls.org/

Watch on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@imterencelester

Follow on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/imterencelester/

Pre-order From Dropout to Doctorate

Amazon: https://a.co/d/0alHweur

Barnes & Noble: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/from-dropout-to-doctorate-terence-lester/1146878381

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The Unbound Podcast is a weekly space for conversations that don’t rush to conclusions. Each episode explores what it means to live free from what binds us—pressure, fear, reputation and the need to have it all figured out—through thoughtful dialogue and lived experience.

#TonyEvans #TonyEvansPodcast #UnboundPodcast

If your marriage looks fine on paper but feels disconnected in real life, this episode is for you.

This conversation goes where most couples don’t. The quiet resentment. The emotional shutdown. The moment you realize you’re still married, but you’re no longer with each other. It talks about what happens when faith, responsibility, kids and calling slowly crowd out connection—and no one knows how to name it without blowing everything up.

You’ll hear what it sounds like when someone finally says the thing they’ve been swallowing for years. When Scripture stops being inspirational and starts being disruptive. When love is no longer a concept but a mirror that exposes what’s actually missing.

This isn’t marriage advice or a highlight reel. It’s about the long middle. The season where you’re exhausted, loyal, committed—and still lonely. It’s about learning how to fight for the relationship instead of fighting inside it. About rebuilding trust through curiosity instead of control. About choosing honesty when silence feels safer.

If you’ve ever thought, “I love you, but I don’t feel close to you anymore,” this episode will hit home. And if you’ve wondered whether something that feels emotionally dead can actually come back to life, this conversation doesn’t hype the answer—it shows it.

Follow Jake and Nicci on Instagram:

https://www.instagram.com/thejakehamilton

https://www.instagram.com/niccihamilton

YouTube  @TheJakeHamilton 

Listen to Jake's music on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/artist/2axIibWxJGHJ5gqRRRlMWn

Read Jake's book "The Journey to Biblical Masculinity": https://a.co/d/03mYBIMp

The Unbound Podcast is a weekly conversation with Dr. Tony Evans about what it means to live free of what binds us, including fear, pressure, shame and the need to perform strength. New episodes release weekly.

#TonyEvans #TonyEvansPodcast #UnboundPodcast

If you have ever wanted to read the Bible consistently but felt overwhelmed, distracted or unsure where to start, this episode will feel like a deep breath.

Dr. Tony Evans sits down with Raechel Myers and Amanda Bible Williams from  @shereadstruth3958  for a warm, practical conversation about building a real relationship with Scripture in real life. Not a perfect routine. Not a guilt cycle. Just an invitation to open the Word, keep showing up and let God meet you there.

They talk about the most common barriers people face, like intimidation, inconsistency and the feeling that Bible reading has to look a certain way to count. You will hear simple, doable ideas for busy seasons, including reading out loud with kids nearby, listening in the car line and giving yourself permission to be faithful without being fancy. The goal is not to perform spirituality. The goal is to keep coming back.

You will also hear how She Reads Truth began as a small online invitation that unexpectedly grew into a global community, and why their heartbeat has always been to strengthen the local church, not replace it. This episode is for anyone who wants Scripture to feel less like a duty and more like a steady place to return to.

Links and resources mentioned in this episode:

She Reads Truth: https://shereadstruth.com/

She Reads Truth online store: https://shopshereadstruth.com/

The Bible Is for You (She Reads Truth store): https://www.shopshereadstruth.com/products/the-bible-is-for-you-a-devotional-journey-through-every-book-of-the-bible?_pos=1&_sid=44f4fee50&_ss=r

The Bible Is for You (Amazon): https://www.amazon.com/dp/1433688999

15% off code for the She Reads Truth store:

SHEREADS15

#TonyEvans #UnboundPodcast #TonyEvansPodcast