According to bestselling biblical scholar Bart Ehrman, the New Testament Gospels “were not written … by people who were eyewitnesses, but by people living later.” Ehrman goes on to say that “sometimes Christian apologists say there are only three options to who Jesus was: a liar, a lunatic, or the Lord. But there could be a fourth option—legend.” And legend is the possibility for which Ehrman argues. But is it true that the circulation of stories by word of mouth necessarily results in changes that turn testimony into legend? That’s what Timothy Paul Jones and Garrick Bailey discuss with New Testament scholar Jonathan Pennington on the Three Chords segment of the show.
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Timothy Paul Jones and Garrick Bailey: God, Humanity, and Gender in Captain Marvel + “All Along the Watchtower” (Bob Dylan)
At first, Vers seems like an ordinary alien with an extraordinary power. But, in her dreams, she remembers that she was once something different—and perhaps even something greater. That’s how Captain Marvel, the newest film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe begins. In this special episode of Three Chords and the Truth, Garrick and Timothy take a look at Captain Marvel and the larger metanarrative of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Then, in the second half, Garrick reveals his wrong opinions about Bob Dylan as he and Timothy examine the song that inspired this podcast in the first place, “All Along the Watchtower.” This week, the Infinity Gauntlet throws the webslinging wonder Peter Parker into the ring against the mighty Shazam.
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Podcast: Leave a Review, Receive a Free Book
I recently launched a podcast focused on defending the Christian faith entitled Three Chords and the Truth: The Apologetics Podcast. If you’re interested in any way in apologetics, here’s something that I’m wondering if you might be willing to do.
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Timothy Paul Jones and Garrick Bailey: What Is Apologetics? + “The Age of Aquarius” (The 5th Dimension)
Click here to subscribe to the podcast on iTunes. Three Chords and the Truth is a new podcast that brings together apologetics, theology, and the history of rock and roll. In the Three Chords segment of this week’s program, Garrick Bailey and I talk about what apologetics is and why Christians should care about it; […]
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Timothy Paul Jones and Garrick Bailey: Why Apologetics? + “God Gave Rock and Roll to You” (KISS)
Click here to download this episode from iTunes and learn why apologetics matters. Welcome to a new episode of Three Chords and the Truth: The Apologetics Podcast! Three Chords and the Truth is a new podcast that brings together apologetics, theology, and the history of rock and roll. In the Three Chords segment of this week’s program, Garrick Bailey […]
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Podcast: Partnering with Other Organizations in Urban Contexts
Click here to subscribe to this urban ministry podcast on iTunes. GUEST: Jesse Eubanks The gospel that we proclaim as believers in Jesus Christ is an all-sufficient for salvation. But the compassion of Jesus calls us not only to seek the salvation of people’s souls but also to care for physical and emotional needs. In […]
[Read More...]Podcast: Preaching in Urban Contexts
Click here to subscribe to this urban ministry podcast on iTunes. GUEST: Jamaal Williams A sermon is far more than merely a speech that tells the truth about a biblical text. A sermon also applies this truth to people’s lives in a particular place. If that particular context is urban, the application changes even though […]
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Apologetics: A Quick Introduction to a New Apologetics Podcast
Subscribe to the Three Chords and the Truth: The Apologetics Podcast on PodBean or iTunes. One week from today, I’ll launch the first episodes of Three Chords and the Truth: The Apologetics Podcast. Until then, here’s a quick overview of why this podcast exists and what you’ll hear each week. Think of this post as the superhero origin story […]
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Apologetics: Introducing a New Apologetics Podcast
Click here to listen to the podcast trailer. Click here to subscribe to the podcast on iTunes. A New Podcast for People Who Enjoy Apologetics and Classic Rock Apologetics and classic rock. If either of those two topics interest you, I want to invite you to subscribe to Three Chords and the Truth: The Apologetics […]
[Read More...]Podcast: What Is Urban Ministry?
Click here to subscribe to this urban ministry podcast on iTunes. GUEST: Kevin Jones In 2010, for the first time in human history, more than half of the people on this planet lived in urban contexts. That’s why urban ministry matters, because people matter. But what are we really talking about when we use the […]
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Apologetics: Jesus of Faith, Jesus of History, or Jesus of Eyewitness Testimony?
“The more I probed the Bible,” Reza Aslan declares in the introduction to his bestseller Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth, “the more distance I discovered between the Jesus of the gospels and the Jesus of history” (xix). The result of this discovery—at least in Aslan’s estimation—is that the New Testament Gospels should be […]
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Culture: The Marvel Cinematic Universe and the Metanarrative of God
Every human being is hungry for a single overarching storyline that ties all of our smaller stories together. Since 2008, evidence for this hunger has been as close as your nearest cinema. That’s when the release of Iron Man marked the genesis of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. The Marvel Cinematic Universe is not merely a series of movies, neatly […]
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Apologetics: Evaluate a New Podcast, Earn a Chance to Win Books
I’m excited to announce that I’ll be launching two new podcasts in 2019! The first one, Urban Ministry Podcast, is being produced in coordination with the Dehoney Center for Urban Ministry at Southern Seminary—I’ll post more later about the Urban Ministry Podcast. The second podcast is a 24-episode personal project entitled Three Chords and the Truth: […]
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Apologetics: How Aristides Spoke Truth to Power in the Second Century
Apologetics: How Can the Bible be Inerrant if Copyists Made Mistakes?
How can the Bible be inerrant if there are variations among the manuscripts and even between different accounts of the same events? That’s the question we’ll explore together in this post. How Can We Have the Word of God If Some of the Words Are Different? I slumped in an unpadded pew, half-listening to the morning […]
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Apologetics: New Heresies Are Rarely New
At least once or twice every year—usually around Christmas and Easter—popular magazines and blogs seem to go out of their way to locate some shocking fact that supposedly debunks what Christians believe about Jesus. In most cases, these supposedly-shocking data are recycled from one of the many failed quests for the historical Jesus that have ebbed and […]
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History: How We Got the Bible in Six Minutes or Less
I need your help! Here’s the challenge: I’m working on a video that summarizes the history of the Bible in six minutes. Below, I’ve posted the script so far—and I’d be interested to know what you think needs to be included and what might be left out. The narration for the video is already six […]
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Apologetics: How Do We Know Who Wrote the Gospels?
Open your Bible to the table of contents and take a look at the list of books in the New Testament. There, you’ll find the Gospels according to Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John leading the list. But did this quartet of early Christians actually have any connection with the books that bear their names? Were Matthew, Mark, Luke, […]
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Apologetics: How the Obscenity of the Crucifixion Supports the Truth of the Gospel
With few exceptions, even the most skeptical scholars admit that Jesus was crucified—and with good reason. Not only the authors of the New Testament but also later Christian writers, the Roman historian Tacitus, and quite likely the Jewish historian Josephus mention the crucifixion of Jesus. And it’s highly unlikely that first-century Christians would have fabricated […]
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Apologetics: Can We Trust the New Testament Gospels?
The witch’s knife plunged deep into the lion’s heart, and the majestic creature quivered and died. For a few seconds, complete silence descended on the movie theater. A slight sniffling beside me broke the stillness, and that’s when I heard my 9-year-old daughter whisper a rather profound word of wisdom to her friend—wisdom that reminds […]
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