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This is part 4 of our response series on The Incarnate Christ and His Critics. Only God has power over nature. Jesus walked on water. Therefore Jesus must be God. Right? Does that line of reasoning convince you? How about this one. Only God has power over nature. Elijah called down fire from heaven. Therefore Elijah must be God. Or how about this one? Only God has power over nature. Moses split the Red Sea. Therefore Moses must be God. Listen in to today’s episode to find out why this kind of argument doesn’t hold water as well as how the evangelists who wrote the Gospels intended Jesus’s miracles to be interpreted.   Listen on Spotify   Listen on Apple Podcasts —— Links —— Support Restitutio by donating here Join our Restitutio Facebook Group and follow Sean Finnegan on X @RestitutioSF Leave a voice message via SpeakPipe with questions or comments and we may play them out on the air Who is Sean Finnegan?  Read his bio here Get Finnegan’s book, Kingdom Journey to learn about God’s kingdom coming on earth as well as the story of how Christianity lost this pearl of great price. Get the transcript of this episode Intro music: Good Vibes by MBB Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported (CC BY-SA 3.0) Free Download / Stream: Music promoted by Audio Library.

This is part 3 of our response series on The Incarnate Christ and His Critics. Today we get to the heart of the case for the deity of Christ to see if it holds up to scrutiny. In addition to considering whether the name “Jesus” and the title “son of God” implies divinity, we look at the 8 major texts in which the New Testament allegedly applies the title “God” to Jesus, including John 1.1, 18; 20.28; Romans 9.5; Hebrews 1.8; Titus 2.13; 2 Peter 1.1; and 1 John 5.20. In each we briefly explain why evangelicals take the passage to teach the deity of Christ and then show what it really means in its context. Over and over we find that these foundation texts are actually built upon the unstable sands of manuscript differences, translation ambiguity, and strained interpretations rather than solid bedrock.   Listen on Spotify   Listen on Apple Podcasts —— Links —— On John 1, watch What John 1 Meant by Dale Tuggy on YouTube Check out Jerry Wierwille’s Jesus “God and Savior”? Problematizing the Granville-Sharp Rule See episode 521 The Deity of Christ from a Greco-Roman Perspective (Sean Finnegan) to learn more about how ancient people thought about the word “god” Support Restitutio by donating here Join our Restitutio Facebook Group and follow Sean Finnegan on X @RestitutioSF Leave a voice message via SpeakPipe with questions or comments and we may play them out on the air Who is Sean Finnegan?  Read his bio here Get Finnegan’s book, Kingdom Journey to learn about God’s kingdom coming on earth as well as the story of how Christianity lost this pearl of great price. Get the transcript of this episode Intro music: Good Vibes by MBB Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported (CC BY-SA 3.0) Free Download / Stream: Music promoted by Audio Library.

This is part 2 of our response series on The Incarnate Christ and His Critics. Most of us understand of what deity means. Generally we think to be God is to be eternal, uncaused, and indestructible. This gets at the word aseity, which is a fancy philosophical term for a being that doesn’t depend on anyone or anything else for existence. To be a se (from the Latin a = from, and se = self) is to be uncaused and non-contingent. This cuts to the very essence of what it means to be God in the proper sense of the word. So, if Jesus is God in the same way in which the Father is God, then Jesus, too, must have aseity. Right? We’ll see about that in today’s episode. But, here’s the thing. It’s actually even harder than establishing Jesus’s aseity. To claim Christ’s deity, entails claiming he has all the other divine attributes as well. Deity-of-Christ apologists like Bowman and Komoszewski know that this is a problem. In fact, in part two of their book, The Incarnate Christ and His Critics, they outline seven conflicting attributes between Jesus’s alleged divine and human natures. They say he is both eternal and born, immutable and able to grow, impeccable and tempted, omnipresent and able to walk, omniscient and not knowing something, omnipotent and capable of sleep, and lastly, immortal and mortal–all at the same time. Although they revel in such “paradoxes,” this list presents grave difficulties for the classic dual natures view from Chalcedon that we covered last week. In this episode we’ll consider several of these contradictions as part of our second episode on whether or not Jesus had the divine attributes.   Listen on Spotify   Listen on Apple Podcasts —— Links —— Check out Andrew Perriman’s book, In the Form of a God for an in-depth explanation of Philippians 2.6-10 Read Wisdom Christology in the Gospel of John by Dustin Smith for an excellent exploration of the prologue of John Also on John 1, watch What John 1 Meant by Dale Tuggy on YouTube Check out episode 503: The Dual Natures Controversy of the Fifth Century to learn more about the politics behind the development of the Chalcedonian definition of the dual natures of Christ Support Restitutio by donating here Join our Restitutio Facebook Group and follow Sean Finnegan on X @RestitutioSF Leave a voice message via SpeakPipe with questions or comments and we may play them out on the air Who is Sean Finnegan?  Read his bio here Get Finnegan’s book, Kingdom Journey to learn about God’s kingdom coming on earth as well as the story of how Christianity lost this pearl of great price. Get the transcript of this episode Intro music: Good Vibes by MBB Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported (CC BY-SA 3.0) Free Download / Stream: Music promoted by Audio Library.

This is part 1 of our response series on The Incarnate Christ and His Critics. Today we’re shifting gears. We’ve had an eighteen-episode class delving into biblical and contextual study of 1 Corinthians. Then last time we had an interview with someone struggling with mental health. For the next several weeks we’re going deep into Christology. This is going to be a five-part series of interviews with Brandon Duke reviewing an important book that came out last November defending the deity of Christ from a trinitarian perspective. In what follows Brandon and I discuss the arguments they make and respond to them. Our hope is that this series will (1) build your confidence in your biblical unitarian faith, (2) train you to see the flaws in their approach, and (3) equip you with responses to these types of arguments. Together Brandon and I offer two complimentary lenses through which to analyze and respond. Whereas Brandon is well versed in analytic theology and the philosophical approach, I’m more specialized in the exegesis of biblical texts in their original languages and historical context. Together I think we make a great team to guide you through this journey. Today’s episode is about divine honors. Did Jesus receive honors only appropriate for God? If so, does that imply that he just is God? Listen in to find out.   Listen on Spotify   Listen on Apple Podcasts —— Links —— Dale Tuggy’s Stanford Encyclopedia Article on the Trinity. Here’s a link to the subsection on Positive Mysterianism Here’s the link to the Chalcedonian Creed from CARM. Learn more about apophatic theology here Support Restitutio by donating here Join our Restitutio Facebook Group and follow Sean Finnegan on X @RestitutioSF Leave a voice message via SpeakPipe with questions or comments and we may play them out on the air Who is Sean Finnegan?  Read his bio here Get Finnegan’s book, Kingdom Journey to learn about God’s kingdom coming on earth as well as the story of how Christianity lost this pearl of great price. Get the transcript of this episode Intro music: Good Vibes by MBB Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported (CC BY-SA 3.0) Free Download / Stream: Music promoted by Audio Library.

Suicide is such a sad part of our world today. The latest stats from the CDC indicate someone dies of suicide every eleven minutes in the United States. 30 times more people attempt suicide than die from it annually. And a staggering 12.8 million seriously think about it. Sheila is one of these people who has attempted it and seriously thinks about it from time to time. But, here’s the thing, she doesn’t want to. She’s not trying to attract attention or crying for help. She’s broken from an abusive childhood, bad relationships with men, and a conman who kidnapped her. Now in her sixties, Sheila continues to attend church regularly and find relief from suicidality through an interconnected network that includes reading the scriptures and prayer, pastoral care, psychiatrists, psychologists, loving family and friends, and occasional trips to the psych ward when nothing is working. By hearing her tragic and larger-than-life story, you’ll not only gain important insights into this terrible affliction, but you’ll grow in compassion for those living with suicidality. Sheila is a member of my church and I have worked with her off and on for twenty years and I’m happy to say, she’s a fighter whose tenacity I find inspiring and hope you will too.   Listen on Spotify   Listen on Apple Podcasts —— Links —— Support Restitutio by donating here Join our Restitutio Facebook Group and follow Sean Finnegan on X @RestitutioSF Leave a voice message via SpeakPipe with questions or comments and we may play them out on the air Who is Sean Finnegan?  Read his bio here Get Finnegan’s book, Kingdom Journey to learn about God’s kingdom coming on earth as well as the story of how Christianity lost this pearl of great price. Get the transcript of this episode Intro music: Good Vibes by MBB Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported (CC BY-SA 3.0) Free Download / Stream: Music promoted by Audio Library.

We’ll begin by reviewing what we’ve covered in this class before asking the question, “What happened after Paul sent 1 Corinthians?” Did the church receive his instruction? Did they reject it? How does 2 Corinthians fit in? We’ll take a look at the timeline to understand Paul’s three visits to Corinth and the three epistles he wrote them: 1 Corinthians, the severe letter (now lost), and 2 Corinthians. Then we’ll move through time to see how the church at Corinth continued to develop over the next one hundred years. Lastly, I’ll share some insights I’ve gained as I’ve come to appreciate Paul’s words in 1 Corinthians even more after studying this text so diligently. I hope you will enjoy this final episode of 1 Corinthians in Context. Scriptures covered: 1 Cor 1:10-11; 5:1, 11; 6:1-2, 12, 18; 7:1, 10-11; 8:1; 10:19-20; 11:4-5, 17, 33-34; 12:1; 14:12; 15:12-13; 16:1-2   Listen on Spotify   Listen on Apple Podcasts —— Links —— See all the episodes in this class: 1 Corinthians in Context Check out Sean’s other classes here Get the transcript of this episode Support Restitutio by donating here Join our Restitutio Facebook Group and follow Sean Finnegan on Twitter @RestitutioSF Leave a voice message via SpeakPipe with questions or comments and we may play them out on the air Intro music: Good Vibes by MBB Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported (CC BY-SA 3.0) Free Download / Stream: Music promoted by Audio Library. Who is Sean Finnegan?  Read his bio here Get Finnegan’s book, Kingdom Journey to learn about God’s kingdom coming on earth as well as the story of how Christianity lost this pearl of great price.

We’ll begin by surveying what 1 Corinthians tells us about the end times. Then we’ll consider why Paul spent so much time in chapter fifteen making a case for the resurrection of the saints when Christ returns. By examining tomb inscriptions and literary sources you’ll learn about the four major options for the afterlife in the Greco-Roman world: (1) non-existence, (2) ascension to the stars, (3) the Hades myth, and (4) reincarnation. My hope is you’ll come to see how radical and fresh the Judaeo-Christian idea of resurrection was to the people of Corinth and understand why Paul felt the need to expend so much effort convincing them of it. Scriptures covered: 1 Corinthians 1:7-8; 3:12-13; 4:5; 5:5; 6:2-3, 9-10, 14; 11:26; 15:3-8, 12-14, 20-28, 35, 58; 16:22   Listen on Spotify   Listen on Apple Podcasts —— Links —— See all the episodes in this class: 1 Corinthians in Context Check out Sean’s other classes here Get the transcript of this episode Support Restitutio by donating here Join our Restitutio Facebook Group and follow Sean Finnegan on Twitter @RestitutioSF Leave a voice message via SpeakPipe with questions or comments and we may play them out on the air Intro music: Good Vibes by MBB Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported (CC BY-SA 3.0) Free Download / Stream: Music promoted by Audio Library. Who is Sean Finnegan?  Read his bio here Get Finnegan’s book, Kingdom Journey to learn about God’s kingdom coming on earth as well as the story of how Christianity lost this pearl of great price.

Today we’re going to look at chapters 12, 13, and 14 of 1 Corinthians as a unit. We’ll see that the body analogy in 12, the love poem in 13, and the repeated concern for upbuilding in 14 are all slightly different angles of approach to the same goal. When the Corinthian Christians were getting together to worship, it was chaos. People were talking over each other, eager to manifest the holy spirit. Rather than telling them to cease from divine speech in the assembly, Paul instead focused their attention on the priority for being considerate of one another. Actually, he was way more radical than that, but I don’t want to give everything away in this little intro. You’ll just have to keep listening if you want to know more. Scriptures covered: 1 Corinthians 12:12-29; 13:1-13; 14:1-40   Listen on Spotify   Listen on Apple Podcasts —— Links —— See all the episodes in this class: 1 Corinthians in Context Check out Sean’s other classes here Get the transcript of this episode Support Restitutio by donating here Join our Restitutio Facebook Group and follow Sean Finnegan on Twitter @RestitutioSF Leave a voice message via SpeakPipe with questions or comments and we may play them out on the air Intro music: Good Vibes by MBB Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported (CC BY-SA 3.0) Free Download / Stream: Music promoted by Audio Library. Who is Sean Finnegan?  Read his bio here Get Finnegan’s book, Kingdom Journey to learn about God’s kingdom coming on earth as well as the story of how Christianity lost this pearl of great price.

Last time we looked at how Greco-Roman people talked about inspired speech. Today we turn to 1 Corinthians and the book of Acts to focus on speaking in tongues. We’ll consider the idea that tongues are angelic languages, how tongues relates to prayer, and how tongues differs from ecstatic speech. Lastly, we’ll dip our toes into the debate over whether tongues ceased with the apostles or not. Whether you personally speak in tongues or not, I think you’ll find the information in this episode helpful. Scriptures covered: 1 Corinthians 12:7, 10; 13:1, 8-12; 14:2, 4, 6, 11, 13-19, 27-28; Acts 2:1-11; 10:44-46; 11:15-17; 19:6-7   Listen on Spotify   Listen on Apple Podcasts —— Links —— See all the episodes in this class: 1 Corinthians in Context Check out Sean’s other classes here Get the transcript of this episode Support Restitutio by donating here Join our Restitutio Facebook Group and follow Sean Finnegan on Twitter @RestitutioSF Leave a voice message via SpeakPipe with questions or comments and we may play them out on the air Intro music: Good Vibes by MBB Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported (CC BY-SA 3.0) Free Download / Stream: Music promoted by Audio Library. Who is Sean Finnegan?  Read his bio here Get Finnegan’s book, Kingdom Journey to learn about God’s kingdom coming on earth as well as the story of how Christianity lost this pearl of great price.

This episode is a deep dive into the world of prophetic utterances, frenzied manifestations, divine possession, and all other sorts of inspired speech that I could find in Greco-Roman literature. Honestly, I wasn’t thinking I would find much. I was wrong. This episode is probably the longest of the entire 1 Corinthians in Context class. Still, I wanted to keep it as one episode so you get the full survey of what kinds of divine speech ancient Mediterranean people knew about. Then, after going through all the data, we turn our attention to 1 Corinthians 12-14 to see how Christian spiritual experiences differed. My hope is that this background information will make this section of 1 Corinthians come alive for you. Scriptures covered: 1 Corinthians 12:4-11; 13:1-2; 14:2-4, 27-33   Listen on Spotify   Listen on Apple Podcasts —— Links —— See all the episodes in this class: 1 Corinthians in Context Check out Sean’s other classes here Get the transcript of this episode Support Restitutio by donating here Join our Restitutio Facebook Group and follow Sean Finnegan on Twitter @RestitutioSF Leave a voice message via SpeakPipe with questions or comments and we may play them out on the air Intro music: Good Vibes by MBB Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported (CC BY-SA 3.0) Free Download / Stream: Music promoted by Audio Library. Who is Sean Finnegan?  Read his bio here Get Finnegan’s book, Kingdom Journey to learn about God’s kingdom coming on earth as well as the story of how Christianity lost this pearl of great price.