Gospelbound

As Christ's church continues to expand across the world, so does persecution.In this episode of Gospelbound from TGCW22, Collin Hansen talks with Karen Ellis and Kori Porter about how God's people fight for faith when it can cost their lives. Through this discussion, we'll learn how other Christians can support the persecuted church in prayer and advocacy.

On today’s bonus episode of Gospelbound, we’re featuring a selection from TGC’s narrative podcast, Recorded. In "Escape from Kabul", TGC senior writer Sarah Zylstra tells the story of God's dramatic work through the underground church in Afghanistan. To hear the full episode, subscribe to Recorded on Apple Podcasts. 

In her book, Find Your People: Building Deep Community in a Lonely World, bestselling author Jennie Allen describes our problem today like this:“We fill a small, little crevice called home with everything we could possibly need, we keep our doors locked tight, and we feel all safe and sound. But we’ve completely cut ourselves off from people outside our little self-protective world.”Jennie Allen joins Collin Hansen on Gospelbound to discuss the difference between complaining and vulnerability, the importance of time, and the complication of ministry relationships.

In his book, Rembrandt Is in the Wind: Learning to Love Art through the Eyes of Faith, Russ Ramsey  helps his readers learn how to appreciate art without needing to be an expert.  “If you have not yet learned to love beauty,” he writes, “learn to love it late.” We’re made to achieve perfection, at least on the other side of glory, he says. Beauty is glimpsing a preview of that perfection in what we make here and now of goodness and truth. God didn’t need to make this world beautiful. He didn’t need to make humans in his image, concerned with goodness and truth. But he did, so that beauty might awaken us from spiritual stupor. On this episode of Gospelbound, Russ Ramsey and Collin Hansen discuss Rembrandt and Van Gogh, Kincaid and Caravaggio, and how appreciating art mirrors the Christian life. 

The podcast discusses the impact of Christianity on Western culture, exploring topics such as patriarchy, consent, and the influence of Christian values on ethics and equality. It delves into the contrasting views of justice between the classical world and Christianity, highlights the concept of radical monogamy, and emphasizes the importance of genuine friendships and finding calm in chaos.

Starting May 4, The Gospel Coalition is releasing a five-part video debate series called the "Good Faith Debates", featuring prominent Christian thinkers discussing some of the most divisive issues facing the church today—ranging from gun control to woke churches to abortion to racial injustice to evangelical self-identity.When we keep the gospel central, we can disagree on lesser but still important matters in good faith. In the Good Faith Debates, we hope to model this—showing that it’s possible for two Christians, united around the gospel, to engage in charitable conversation even amid substantive disagreement.The moderator of these debates is Jim Davis, teaching pastor at Orlando Grace Church and host of the As in Heaven podcast. He joins Collin Hansen on this episode of Gospelbound to discuss what surprised him, what helped him as a pastor, and whether he changed his mind on anything, among other issues.

What happens when you get diagnosed in April 2021 at age 33 with a rare form of cancer—so rare, in fact, that the odds of contracting it are 25 million to 1? What happens when the doctors can’t tell you if you have five months or five years to live? And what happens with your son, born at the end of March 2020 at the outset of a global pandemic?That’s the story of Jonathan Tjarks, who has covered basketball for The Ringer since 2016 and is a host on The Ringer NBA Show. He loves Jesus and Dallas, in that order. And he wrote about cancer, his son, and his church in a remarkable essay for The Ringer called “Does My Son Know You?” In his essay, Tjarks concludes this way:“I have already told some of my friends: When I see you in heaven, there’s only one thing I’m going to ask—Were you good to my son and my wife? Were you there for them? Does my son know you?”Jonathan Tjarks joins Collin Hansen on this episode of Gospelbound to discuss basketball, his journalistic career, and the reception to his memorable essay.

In singer-songwriter Sandra McCracken’s new book, “Send Out Your Light: The Illuminating Power of Scripture and Song”, you’ll find the same depth of spiritual insight and emotion that characterize her songs. She writes, “If we sing songs with thin ideas, superficial hopes, and more hype than authenticity, we will find ourselves depleted in the times when we need some truth to fall back on. We need songs sturdy enough to sing at the bedside of a dying friend.”Sandra joins Collin Hansen on this episode of Gospelbound to discuss embodied worship, tortured artists, the Nashville sound, deconstruction, and more.

In his latest book, Recovering Our Sanity: How the Fear of God Conquers the Fears that Divide Us, Michael Horton argues that we can only conquer the wrong kinds of fear by embracing the right kind of fear, and that’s what he means by sanity.For Horton, revival breaks out when Christians show up to church and hear from God and his Word. It’s so simple, and that’s his point. We don’t need spectacular miracles—we need basic obedience.Michael Horton joins Collin Hansen on Gospelbound to discuss preaching and practicing, hating and fearing, persecution and apostasy, among other serious topics.

Did education give you a love of learning and a desire to cultivate your mind over a lifetime? Or did you learn how to pass tests to graduate and get a job?These goals don’t need to be mutually exclusive, but they are for many of us. Any serious attempt at reforming Christian political witness must include a vision for education. Jake Meador offers such a classical vision for education but also ventures into sex, race, technology, family, the environment, and more in his new book, What Are Christians For? Life Together at the End of the World, published by IVP.Jake Meador joins Collin Hansen on this episode of Gospelbound to discuss industrialism, technology, debt, whiteness, and more.