Series Archive

In this four-part series, Ron and John invite you to "see the sites"! In each episode (and based on their own travels), they'll take you to a major archaeological location associated with the Bible. Along the way, they will discuss archaeology itself and how it helps to inform our understanding of the biblical story.

The Old Testament was the Bible of the New Testament authors, and they saturated their writing with quotations and allusions to it. Ron and John examine some of those places and discuss precisely how the New Testament uses the Old Testament and how the two work together in the single story of scripture.

Modern secular myth wants to pit faith and reason against each other. They aren’t. Christians have reasons for what they believe, and those reasons are defensible. Ron and John will sample some arguments from Christian history, and perhaps most surprising, they insist there is no virtue in a "blind leap of faith"!

The story of Ruth is a book of struggle, hope, and the power of a God in control. John and Ron work through each chapter of this masterful example of Old Testament narrative to follow the story of God's faithfulness. From unexpected turns to the important place in the broader biblical story of redemption, these episodes will engage some of the best of Hebrew storytelling.

John's gospel tells the story of Jesus' life, death, and resurrection differently from the other gospel writers. In this series, Ron and John focus primarily on four sections of the Book of John and highlight what makes the fourth gospel so distinct, even while telling the same story.

The Bible narrates several times what seem to be direct encounters with God's presence in the divine throne room. Mortal humans' seeing God is serious business in scripture. Ron and John look at passages from Isaiah, Ezekiel, Daniel, Revelation, and others to understand these important experiences.

The Old Testament story of Samuel narrates an important transition in Israel's history and in God's redemptive plan. Focusing on the early chapters of 1 Samuel, John and Ron look at the key role Samuel played in Israel's move to monarchy and, ultimately, toward its hope for Messiah.

A longstanding tension in Christian theology is that between human choice and what many call "predestination." This series takes a biblical, historical, and theological look at how these two interact and what their far-reaching implications are for everyday Christian believers.

There are fascinating connections between the Old Testament and the New in the story of Jesus being tempted by the devil in the wilderness. John and Ron look closely at this episode in the gospels to see what's going on with each of the offers that the devil makes, the background to Jesus' responses, and how that informs our reading.

Genesis 1-3 establishes a foundation for everything that follows in the Bible. The stories told there are crucial to the way Christians describe God's work in the world—just not always the way we expect! Ron and John look at these opening chapters carefully and in context to discuss how and why they are so theologically important.

Ron and John revisit an introduction to basic Christian theology in this update to the series that launched Orthodocs.faith. Join us as we articulate in nine sessions what we believe is the core of the Christian faith.

Bitter divisions in the church drive the author of First John to write bluntly to Christians about some key themes. Ron and John examine them in this series: the concreteness of the gospel, good vs. evil in the world, the importance of what we believe alongside of what we do, and love. Does the Bible have something to say about love that might challenge our subjective human definitions?

God's covenant faithfulness is front and center in the Book of Joshua. This series follows the nation of Israel into the promised land and into a new season in which to live out a special relationship with God. Ron and John take a close look at their highs and lows, as well as some of the challenges in reading this drama-filled narrative.

We find some of Jesus' most well-known teaching in Matthew 5-7, the Sermon on the Mount. There, Christ answers the question, What does life in the kingdom of God look like? Ron and John take a close look at what he has to say and how unexpected much of it is.

The Bible looks forward to a future "day of the Lord" when God will make everything right. Ron and John look into what the Old and New Testaments say about that day. Where are things headed? Where does our Christian perspective on the future come from?

The "problem of evil" is the problem of accounting for evil that happens in the world around us given what we say we believe about God. Ron and John explore a Christian way to think about some of the natural questions that we ask, such as, Why do bad things happen in a world created by a good God? And, Where is God in all of this?

Many know the Old Testament story of Jonah, but few have studied its text and message carefully. This four-episode series through the book of Jonah explores the story as a whole and how it speaks to our Christian theology and lives.

In the context of real suffering, Paul the apostle offers some profound observations about the place of Christians in the world and where Christians' central focus belongs in all circumstances.

In five episodes, Ron and John survey the basic outline of the biblical story, from Genesis to Revelation. Learn, brush up, or take issue with us as we make a broad flyover of the whole Bible!

Jesus fulfills the hope of God's people, ancient and modern. This series looks at how the gospels celebrate Jesus' arrival through the lens of Isaiah's prophecy in chapter 40. All four gospel writers famously apply this to John the Baptist, as he cries out, "Prepare the Way!"

We all need hope, but many Christians don't understand what true hope really is. Ron and John explore a biblical understanding of hope and ask, If real hope exists, can we name it? Where do I anchor hope in my life so that it can flourish like never before?

Ron and John sample the various kinds of psalms that we find in the Bible. How do we read them, and how can they lead us in expressing ourselves authentically to God? Join us as we explore the dramatic landscape of the Book of Psalms, from the mountaintops to the valleys.

Beginning with an Easter special, Ron and John explore the core Christian doctrine of resurrection from the dead. Why is it such a critical, indispensable foundation for our faith? From the Old Testament into the early Church, we take this topic into a multi-episode study of 1 Corinthians 15, where the Bible meets this question head-on.