The Analytical Preacher - Bible Discussions For The Modern World

Many people, both believers and non-believers, wonder why Christians today don't follow all of the food and ceremonial laws in the Old Testament.  Within the Old Testament itself, though, scripture began preparing us for the replacement of the Old Covenant with the New.  The Bible tells us that Jesus accomplished and fulfilled the Old Covenant in ushering in the New.  And the book of Hebrews in the New Testament provides a multifaceted explanation of the transition.

What did Jesus mean when He told us to take up our crosses daily and follow Him?  In this podcast, we explore the best way to apply this teaching to our lives today.

Exploring the significance of hope in combating anxiety and stress, holding onto faith during trials, advocating for a more optimistic view of global issues, discussing the impact of money on satisfaction levels, and emphasizing the enduring presence of hope amidst human imperfection.

Jesus confirmed that the most important commandment found in all of scripture is to love God with everything we have?  But how do we do that?  In the same conversation about the greatest commandment, Jesus begins to answer that exact question for us.  In this podcast, we will look at the greatest commandment and explore how we can best live that out.

The death of Christ on the cross was one of the defining and most efficacious moments in all of history.  But the Resurrection is equal to it in importance and impact.  In this sermon, we examine what the scriptures say about the resurrection, its relation to the crucifixion and two of the main results of its occurrence.

The most important questions we must answer in life are "is there a God and can I know Him?"  A number of ways to answer that main question have been employed.  For example, the Greek philosophers used deductive logic to prove the need for an Uncaused Cause or Prime Mover.  The empirically based inductive reasoning of modern science has concluded that an infinite and eternal multiverse is necessary to explain what we see around us.  And the Bible, of course, says that in the beginning, an infinite eternal Creator was responsible for the universe and all that is contained therein.  These approaches are all different and yet they all lead to the same answer - a god-like entity must exist!  Given this readily accepted fact, scripture explains why we should come to understand that his Uncaused Multiverse of an entity is the God of the Bible.

Is Hell a real place or just a concept based on figurative language used in scripture?  If real, are those who end up there destroyed once and for all or do they exist in eternal torment?  The Bible has a lot to say about the final place of those who rebel against God and we use those verses to cover the topic in this podcast.

We all have a perception of what heaven will be like but those ideas don’t always line up with scripture.  Though the language about heaven is often figurative and symbolic, the Bible does have some powerful things to say about our final home with God.  In this podcast, Andy goes through the relevant Bible verses to paint as clear a picture of heaven as we can.

Anyone who has ever addressed a serious habit or addiction knows how difficult they can be to overcome.  As Christians, we must provide dedicated, prayerful support to those who are working through such struggles.  But in order to successfully address and conquer most habits and addictions, one needs to take a two-pronged approach.  We must address why we were driven to the habit in the first place - which is almost always because we have a false view of who we are, where we belong, what is going to make us special or significant and how we achieve love and security - and become more Christ-centered.  Some speak of this as being the mental or emotional aspect of addiction recovery but there is also the very real aspect of being physically addicted or dependent on the substance or behavior we have come to rely on.  Both fronts must be dealt with and they must be dealt with each in their own way.  In this podcast, we look at both the emotional / spiritual area and the physical aspect of addictions and discuss how to go about successfully addressing each.

Should churches split their worship services based on the attendees preferred style of music?  Does this in any way (unintentionally) create a church consumer?  And, if so, does meeting that church member's consumer demands make them naturally resistant to the message of sacrificial love and service at the center of the Gospel?  In this podcast, Andy addresses the issue by providing some examples to pray over.