Forging Ploughshares

The Wise Men of Matthew traditionally represent the Gentile world and religion, and demonstrate the best of religion and human thought is a guiding star to Christ. (Sign up for our next class, World Religion and Culture, starting the week of January 22nd: https://pbi.forgingploughshares.org/offerings) Become a Patron! If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work.

Brian, Jon, Matt, Jim, and Jeff raise central questions about Douglas Campbell's theory of the false teacher in Romans 1-3 and Paul Axton offers possible explanations. Become a Patron! If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work.

The Aramaic term transliterated into Greek, Maranatha, sums up the final word of the Bible which is the creative aim toward which human effort and human history are moving. This prayer encompasses the meaning of time's movement and history's end. Become a Patron! If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work.

In this introduction to Douglas Campbell's notion of the false teacher, Paul Axton explains justification theory, how it perverts Paul's Gospel, and the unconditional nature of Paul's Gospel. Jim, Brian, Jonathan and Matt act as interlocutors. Become a Patron! If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work.   

The virgin birth is a sign of both the deity and humanity of Jesus. It signals the even more miraculous event of the incarnation, God with us, which reverses the typical human understanding portrayed in Plato's parable of the cave, which imagines the absolute requires escape from the created and material world. Become a Patron! If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work.

The birth of Immanuel, God with us, means that a Person is at the center of reality. Other forms of conceiving reality will conceive of the categories of the mind as ultimate and fall short of personhood, but Christmas means personalism is final and full reality. Become a Patron! If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work.

In this podcast, Jordan Wood discusses his departure from Hart and focuses on the personhood of Christ. They explore the sequential nature of Bogakov's reading of the incarnation and the concept of deification. The debate between retaining the personal aspect in historical moments and the challenges of prioritizing interpersonal relations and love are also discussed. The inseparability of hypostasis, nature, and person in Maximus's Christology is explored, as well as theological concepts like deification and modalities of actual freedom. The tension between uniqueness and commonality in personhood and the importance of dialogue and critique are highlighted.

Ever since the decree of Pope Nicholas in A.D. 1059, focus in the Eucharist has turned to the transformation of elements, rather than the transformation of persons into the person of Christ. Luther aggravates and moves the conversation forward, but the formula of Maximus combined with the developments of Aquinas and Luther, recaptures the early church understanding of the Love Feast.  Become a Patron! If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work.

The podcast discusses David Hart's critique of Jordan Daniel Wood's work on Maximus the Confessor, focusing on Hart's depiction of nature and the role of the Person of Christ. The hosts also introduce Jonathan, an Episcopal priest, and explore the relationship between abstractions and the person of Christ in Christological discourse. They delve into the concept of humanity's divine nature, the structure of desire and intentionality, and the role of love in Christology and overcoming evil.

In Corinthians, Paul says some are sick and dying due to their practice of the Lord's Supper. Is this crude magical thinking or does it accord with the picture in modern science of mind/body holism in which sick meaning systems give rise to literal sickness? Paul's  answer is to be incorporated into the body of Christ, inclusive of a new ethic, a new love, a new economy, and a new humanity. Become a Patron! If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work.