Thoughts from a lamenting heart on behalf of the victims of the elementary school shooting in Texas, the supermarket shooting in Buffalo, the church shooting in California, the deadly car accident in my neighborhood, and more...

Intro/Outro Music: Starstruck | Beat provided by freebeats.io - Produced by White Hot

What is the similarity between Daniel, Adam & Eve, and Jesus?

They all were tested and their first tests were all connected to food/eating.

After a long intro (lol) I dive deeper into this idea from Daniel chapter 1.

In this episode I give an update on Good News for the Hood, then I dive into Daniel 1:1-8 in an attempt to find true meaning based on the author's intent and what implications it has for the black experience.

In the next episode I will discuss some of the implications of the testing by food.

In this episode I got to speak with the highly regarded Dr. Carmen Joy Imes. Carmen has been one of the scholars that's been crucial in my own journey of biblical understanding over the past 3 years because she just seemed to keep popping up on all of my favorite scholarly podcasts. She is an Old Testament Scholar whose work on the meaning of bearing God's name and taking the Lord's name in vain has been widely recognized. You can hear some of her discussion on the topic on other popular podcast such as The Bible Project ep. 186; The Disrupters season 1 ep. 4; The Naked Bible Podcast 302 and dozens of other podcasts.

In this discussion I wanted to touch more on her own journey and other work that she finds interesting that lay people often miss. Even more, I wanted to pick up on some of the themes of inclusion and representation of women, black and brown people, and other minorities in the world of biblical scholarship. I first heard her touch on some of those ideas in her discussion with Dr. Esau McCauley on the Disrupters podcast.

You can check out some of Carmen's and other resources below:

Carmen's Books & Social Media:

Praying the Psalms with Augustine & Friends

Bearing God's Name: Why Sinai Still Matters

YouTube Channel

@CarmenJoyImes on Twitter

Black Biblical Scholars:

Bibliography of Black Old Testament Scholars

You can find the Good News for the Hood team on Instagram at:

@AverageIsFailure

@GoodNewsfortheHood

@RandallLaurence

In this episode, Vaughn and Randall discuss what praise and worship is, as well as its current state in the church.

Be sure to connect with us on Instagram: @averageisfailure @randalllaurence @theblackseminary

Be sure to interact with us at:

https://www.instagram.com/theblackseminary/ ... and ... https://www.instagram.com/averageisfailure/

For those who are more visual, you can check the YouTube version of this episode here: https://youtu.be/KzvIE45D8FM

In this episode we simply discuss and reflect on our journeys as black Christians and observe the current state of the Christian faith in Black spaces. We were just setting the groundwork for future conversations and directions for the work we look forward to doing with hopes to focus even more squarely on the biblical text in the future.

Connect with me: @averageisfailure

Oh Holy Night is one of my favorite songs, especially during Christmas time. One of the verses in the song is also what I believe to be one of the most important verses of any song written in last several hundred years. It is a reminder that the Christmas story loses its power if we forget its implications for the social injustices that take place in the world. The Christmas story is more than an inspirational holiday. It has real meaning to address real problems that we do our best to be a part of solving now, but will ultimately be set right when Christ reconciles all things. Take a look at the often overlooked verse below:

Chains shall He break

For the slave  is your brother

And, in His Name all oppression shall cease

Connect with me: @averageisfailure

I received the unfortunate news about the death of a former colleague this week. Being that this is the year 2020 and we're so close to Christmas, I wanted to talk about the implications of the Christmas holiday as a response to death.

In short, I argue that Christmas is a response to the reality of death, and without this core meaning, Christmas loses its essence. Christmas, when only mitigated to good deeds during a season, loses the ultimate hope. The hope of Christmas is that the child that was born has saved us from the oppression of sin and death through the gift of his life, death, and resurrection, and will one day lead death to its own death, and renew us with eternal life.