The UnSunday Show

If there's one thing reading church history has shown me, it's that we're swimming (or drowning) in 2,000+ years of religious traditions that we've been told are a necessary to stay in a good place or in good standing with God. But the problem of religious tradition has been around longer than that. Jesus confronted this issue with religious Pharisees of his day when they question why his followers didn't ob...

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Did you know that at least 3 times in the Old Testament book of Joshua, we're told that under Joshua's leadership, the Israelites rested in the Promised Land? But when we come to the New Testament letter to the Hebrews, we're told he didn't give them rest. So what gives? Why does Joshua tell us they experienced rest but Hebrews tells us they didn't, but that the promise of rest is still ...

The New Covenant, the cross, Jesus, church, grace, faith, a believer's identity, false ideas about the Bible and God's view of us, Matt's new podcast and YouTube channel, and Matt's story are some of the topics Matt and I talk about in this episode. This episode is packed with content that I hope encourages you and challenges you as Matt and I explore these topics that are so foundational to knowing who we are in Je...

A friend reached out to me recently asking about what's commonly called once saved, always saved. The mixed messages we hear in institutional religious settings can cast doubt on the sufficiency of Christ's once-for-all-time sacrifice for sins and the permanence of our salvation. In my experience, religion does this in two primary ways:

This episode is the last of five episodes exploring William Tyndale’s use of five words in his translation of the Greek New Testament into English, that resulted in his death at the hands of church leaders. In this series I’ve been concentrating more on the meaning of the words and their intent, than I have been about the religious climate of the day. The five words are:

This episode is the fourth of five episodes exploring William Tyndale’s use of five words in his translation of the Greek New Testament into English, that resulted in his death at the hands of church leaders. In this series I’m concentrating more on the meaning of the words and their intent, than I am about the religious climate of the day. The five words are:

This episode is the third of five episodes exploring William Tyndale’s use of five words in his translation of the Greek New Testament into English, that resulted in his death at the hands of church leaders. In this series I’m concentrating more on the meaning of the words and their intent, than I am about the religious climate of the day. The five words are:

This episode is the second of five episodes exploring William Tyndale’s use of five words in his translation of the Greek New Testament into English, that resulted in his death at the hands of church leaders. In this series I'm concentrating more on the meaning of the words and their intent, than I am about the religious climate of the day. The five words are:

This episode is the first of five episodes exploring William Tyndale's use of five words in his translation of the Greek New Testament into English, that resulted in his death at the hands of church leaders. The five words are: 

Tyndale (1494-1536) was murdered by church officials for refu...

How did we get to where we are today in an institutional church culture so firmly planted in the centrality of the pastor? This episode is a look at a few key moments in the history of institutional Christianity that have brought us to where we are today - into a church culture of top-down authority where the pastor has been handed all authority and cannot be questioned.

Links I mention:

Greetings everyone! This last-day-of-2021 episode is an unscripted rambling by yours truly about the dawn of a new year, what is ours in the New Covenant, the importance of having an Old Covenant/New Covenant distinction when reading Scripture, and how much gospel is actually in the gospels? Push Play to join in!

Links I mention in this episode:

My wife Susan joined me on this episode as we delved into our thoughts together about institutional Christianity and institutional religion and the effects and impact it leaves on people. Our view of institutional Christianity isn't neutral. Our view of God is directly impacted by our view of institutional Christianity in so many ways. This conversation explores some of the ways this happens, whether overtly, or covertly.  -Enj...

This is the concluding part of what I introduced last week concerning how modern institutional religion requires pastors to be something we don't see in the New Covenant scriptures. Church tradition tells us that Timothy was a pastor, carrying out the duties we see modern institutional church pastors doing. They insist that Paul's directive to Timothy to "preach the word" is one indication that Timothy was a pastor,...

I received a note from David, one of the listeners to this podcast, who asked for my take on Timothy as a pastor and how the function of modern church pastors differs from the function of their New Testament counterparts. I flipped the order of this to talk about the differences first and then next week, I'll be taking a look at Timothy while continuing to build on the differences. 

Comparing the differences between how modern i...

Let's talk about obedience. Doesn't that sound fun? I've found it to be true that in almost every institutional church setting, the topic of Christian obedience in one form or another, dominates the landscape. It's peppered throughout sermons to varying degrees (most of the time, overtly), it's written into our church membership contracts (yes, those are contracts), it's presented as the final solution in co...

Let's continue talking about pulpits and institutional religion's obsession with the pulpit and how it's been elevated to such a place of prominence in institutional Christianity. Charles Spurgeon said this concerning pulpits:

"The moment the church of God shall despise the pulpit, God will despise her."

This quote is one example of several that I share in this episode to show how the system of religion has elevat...

Let's talk about some of the pitfalls of professionalizing Christianity and relegating our time together to the professionals we've hired in our institutions and relying on them to do what all of us should be doing. The body of Christ suffers in this scenario because it's impossible for every member to function and exercise their spiritual gifts. It also assumes one person in the assembly is more qualified to participat...