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What is faith? What is a miracle? And how are the themes of promise, time, and ambiguity related to all of that?

Has God truly been speaking with us? Is Reality personal? Christians believe God speaks to them and walks with them, but what we’ve explored so far still remains open to the question on whether this is merely one possible way to relate to reality, a subjective way to perceive what reality unfolds in our lives. It is only with the narratives of God’s promise and its fulfillment repeated throughout the Bible that the belief in the truly personal reality of God is established in Christianity. It is in this context, that miracles have any meaning in Christianity.

Thus, the narrative of God making a promise with people and how that promise unfolds is central to Christian account of humanity’s relationship with God. And that is the  life-story of Abraham and Sarah.

This leads to the related question of faith. Faith has a dimension those of us today seldom notice, yet is probably the most important: time. Because promise implies waiting, and waiting implies time.

 2:03       Ambiguity, not absence, of God that confronts us       
 9:40      God breaks through the ambiguity with a Promise to Abraham       
 16:48      What is a miracle? How people today misunderstand         
 24:28      Faith and personal trust       
 29:43      Why Time is essential to Miracles and Faith        

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Moral teachings in the Bible, especially in the Hebrew portion (the Christian Old Testament) pose a problem. There are rules and regulations that do not seem very important to us, while there are practices, such as slavery, God either seems to ignore, or even condone. And we're not even getting to the laws that God commands that seem too harsh or even barbaric by our standards today. 

Then, to make this even more confusing, the New Testament portion of the Bible sometimes seem to present new moral teachings. God commands Abraham that the male members of God's people must be circumcised; apostle Paul writes that Christians who now belong to God do not need to be circumcised.  People in the time of the Old Testament engaged themselves in terrifyingly savage wars; Jesus Christ teaches his disciples to love their enemies, and instead of condemning people for their sins, died for them.

Why do moral views change in the Bible?

Or, is it perhaps, the Bible is trying to teach something far more important regarding morality than any particular law or precept?

 3:09     The problem of outdated morality in the Bible       
 8:24     Why God accommodates to our moral level       
 17:20    What the Bible is teaching about morality       
 23:58    Why Christians shouldn't follow some OT laws       
 27:15    What the Bible teaches is people       
 30:49    Where God seems to lead Abraham by conversing with him        
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Is God good? And if God is good, why are moral laws and commands in the Bible, sometimes  not so good? And of course, why do bad things happen, if God is good?

But, before we can ask those questions, we should've asked this more basic question: Why would you think that God is good?

What does it mean to say that God is "good"?

We will begin to explore  this question in this episode. Then, we can start asking what the Bible is trying to teach us about morality and goodness. 

[ Update: the previous version of this episode has been split into 2 episodes. The new version of this episode expands on the first half, and explores the Genesis account of the city of Sodom and its destruction. The next episode (S3E7) will expand on the second half. ]

 1:56     Morality, evolution, and gods     
 9:55     God, as Being, Truth, Goodness     
 18:24    Judgment of God, revisited     
 23:00    The account of Sodom’s destruction     
 29:19    The meaning of Sodom’s destruction            
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For ages, people have ascribed personality to their deities. What was their reasoning?

And what would be the personality of God that speaks forth all things? How should we start thinking about this? And what about Abram, Sarai, and their family? What was the personality of God that spoke to them? How did they begin to learn Who God was in their lives, and what did they experience?

 2:12     Our cognitive predisposition to belief in gods       
 8:40     How we ascribe personality to gods       
 14:39    What would be the personality of “God”?       
 19:00    The role of Promise in personal relationship with God       
 25:50   Abram and Sarai try to fulfill God’s promise themselves       
 30:25    God makes a separate promise to Hagar       
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The first extra episode for Season 3; the next main episode (S3E5) will go live early July.
(update: there were more delays, so I couldn't complete the new episode by the end of June as I had originally planned. I apologize for the delay!)

This episode addresses the more "meta" question about this series that I wanted to go over before releasing the next episode--what this series has been doing, how it has approached the questions and issues it has explored so far, and where this series is now heading. It also drops hints of future plans, and some long overdue thanks at the end. 

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To hear God speak to you, is to be presented with truth; they are the same thing. And God speaking to you often begins with uncertainty, because we don't know whether what is being presented to us really is true.

Abram and Sarai hears God speak to them in how they are moved, or inspired, to follow an inner call. "Something" guides them, and that "something" unfolds events in their lives that enable them to follow the call. Because of this, they learn that what this Voice speaks, is really true.

But, something more happens, and they gradually learn Who is speaking to them. Let's follow their journey (or for this episode, Abram's portion) to explore what happened.

 2:02       Why there is uncertainty in hearing God speak
 8:25       What Abram learned in Egypt       
 14:28      Abram's developing inner strength shown in Canaan       
 23:25      Abram's fateful meeting with Melchizedek         
 29:14      Abram learns that "God Most High" was speaking to him         

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The Genesis account of Abraham, Sarah, and their children, invites its readers to follow in their path, and continue their journey toward God.  There's one, big problem: it doesn't tell us how to start. Their journey begins with God speaking to Abraham (Abram), but Genesis does not describe how God first spoke to Abram, and how Abram heard God for the first time. So, can we get an answer?

This episode will explore and consider what it means to say Abraham, Sarah, and their family were real people, and what it was for them to begin their journey with God.

 2:04     What can we say about Abraham as a real person?       
 6:54     What Christians are concerned about regarding the Bible       
13:17     The silence on Genesis about how God spoke to Abram         
19:10     How God speaks to all people according to Genesis         
22:01     The voice that spoke to Abram         
27:58     Did Abram know it was God speaking?                       

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 Abraham, Sarah, and their family--are they "historical" figures?
The simple answer? No... and Yes. (Ok, so it's not a simple answer)

Another answer is the actual title of this episode:
"Historical in/significance of Abraham's story"

This odd title can refer to four things.
1) The "insignificance" of Abraham as a "historical figure" for historians
2) The significance of Abraham's story in history
3) The historical dimension  "in the significance" of Abraham's story
4) The significance of Abraham in how history has unfolded ever since.

And all of that leads us back to God's original promise to Abraham in Genesis, to bless him, to make him great, and to make his name significant, so that he will be a blessing to all people.

 1:33    Primeval History in Genesis versus…       
 8:29     … the Ancestral History in Genesis       
 13:02     Who wrote Genesis and why?       
 21:12     The question of Abraham as a "historical" figure       
 27:35     Historical in/significance of Abraham        

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What does it mean to say, “There’s no God?” 

What it means for us today, to say, “there’s no God,” is quite different from what it meant for people living just several centuries ago, to say, “there’s no God.” 

That's because people back then did not merely believe that God exists. They perceived God in their world. Then, some time ago, God disappeared from our perception. We forgot what it meant to hear God speak, or see God in our lives, and so, one day, ‘God’ was no longer "there.”

 * Revised on April 3 for greater clarity and flow in the 2nd half.

 3:00       How the ancients perceived their gods        

 10:10       What it means to perceive God        

 20:58      A metaphor made God disappear from the cosmos        

 27:53      A metaphor made God disappear from our lives               

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A short prologue to the 3rd Season of What do you mean God speaks?  -  "Those who wrestle with God. 

1st main episode of Season 3 is scheduled to go live next week. 

 Music : "True Genesis" by Tenacious Orchestra - Licensed from PremiumBeat.com

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