History Archives - Page 3 of 7 - Timothy Paul Jones

Josh Chatraw: Apologetics at the Cross + “Word on a Wing” (David Bowie)

5th May 2020

Apologetics scholar Josh Chatraw joins Garrick and Timothy to talk about cross-centered apologetics, Augustine of Hippo, and what it takes to hang out with Tim Keller. Josh is the coauthor of several books, including Truth in a Culture of Doubt from B&H Academic and Apologetics at the Cross. Along the way, Josh makes the mistake […]

Timothy Paul Jones and Garrick Bailey: Is the Coronavirus Evil? + “Sympathy for the Devil” (The Rolling Stones)

28th April 2020

It’s a new season of Three Chords and the Truth: The Apologetics Podcast, and Garrick and Timothy are serious about social distancing. They are, in fact, so serious about being socially distant that they’ve installed a mile-wide river to separate them. In the first half of this earthshaking season premiere, your intrepid cohosts discuss a recent […]

Apologetics: Which Canon Contains the Right Books?

22nd April 2020

Believing What Jesus Believed About the Old Testament Canon Different communities of people who call themselves Christians use different Old Testaments. Here’s what I mean: Everyone agrees about thirty-nine of the texts in the Old Testament, but—if you attended Mass in a Roman Catholic congregation this weekend—the Old Testament readings would come from a canon […]

Church History: The True Story of St. Patrick

16th March 2020

This week, in the year AD 461, Patrick of Ireland passed away. Ever since the early seventeenth century, churches have designated March 17 as St. Patrick’s Day. Prohibitions on feasting during the season of Lent were traditionally lifted on this day, and green had been associated with Ireland at least as early as the seventeenth […]

Apologetics: Did Cornelius Van Til Really Teach that Non-Christians Know Nothing?

11th February 2020

I am not a Van Tilian presuppositionalist, though I am sympathetic with certain aspects of Cornelius Van Til’s approach. Over the past few years, I have—to the best of my knowledge—read every book and syllabus that Van Til wrote related to apologetics. Even after reading several thousand pages of Cornelius Van Til’s writings, I do […]

Family Ministry: Leaving Behind the One-Eared Mickey Mouse Model of Youth Ministry

28th January 2020

In the late 1980s, one student minister depicted the relationship between his ministry and the rest of his congregation as a “one-eared Mickey Mouse.” To understand this analogy, imagine with me the most basic depiction of Mickey Mouse in three circles—the two smaller circles represent his ears, while the larger circle is his head. Now, […]

History: Five Points from a Protestant Reformer to Remember on Your Birthday

16th January 2020

I recently ran across these words about birthdays in The Complete Psalter, a commentary penned in the sixteenth century by a little-known German Protestant named Nikolaus Selneccer. In his exposition of Psalm 139, Selneccer saw this song of David as a text that legitimates the celebration of one’s birthday. Along the way, Selneccer also listed […]

Timothy Paul Jones and Garrick Bailey: Are the Stories of Jesus Borrowed from Pagan Parallels to Christianity? + “We Didn’t Start the Fire” (Billy Joel)

31st December 2019

This week’s podcast includes pagan parallels to Christianity, the Piano Man, and the most daring giveaway ever attempted on any human podcast. Paganism and plagiarism provide the theme for the first half. Even in ancient times, Roman philosophers claimed that Christians had “used pagan myths in fabricating the story of a virgin conception.” So is […]

Rob Plummer: The Perplexing Problem of When Quirinius Governed Syria + “The Living Years” (Mike + the Mechanics)

16th December 2019

This week’s episode covers the birth of Jesus, death, resurrection, and everything in between! It’s only a few days until Christmas 2019—a celebration which, this year, Timothy has very helpfully renamed “The Star Wars: Episode IX After Party.” At some point between now and Christmas Day, millions of people throughout the world will hear these words […]

Dan DeWitt: Why Do the Apologetics of C.S. Lewis Matter? + “All Along the Watchtower” (U2)

13th December 2019

Welcome to a new episode of Three Chords and the Truth: The Apologetics Podcast, with Dr. Dan DeWitt, a discussion of C.S. Lewis, and a celebration of a duo of flagrant illegalities! This episode commemorates two illegal acts, both of which were captured on tape and involved live rock and roll. The first of these […]

Timothy Paul Jones and Garrick Bailey: Why Everyone Needs Creeds + “Where the Streets Have No Name” (U2)

10th December 2019

Welcome to the creed episode of Three Chords and the Truth! But don’t worry: we are not talking about the band Creed. (In case you’ve forgotten, Creed was the 1990s band whose videos were filled with embarrassingly-bad CGI and with way too many scenes in which the lead vocalist apparently couldn’t keep himself from flailing […]

Apologetics: Fragments of Otherwise Unknown Gospels

26th November 2019

Gnostic Gospels and other unorthodox texts receive a lot of attention in popular media. The Gospel of Judas and the forged Gospel of Jesus’ Wife both became major news stories, for example, and a wide array of Gnostic texts are mentioned in novels like The Da Vinci Code that feed on bizarre conspiracy theories. It’s worth remembering, however, that there are […]

Apologetics: An Overlooked Difference between the New Testament Gospels and Gnostic Gospels

19th November 2019

Richard Bauckham points out a distinction between the New Testament Gospels and most of the Gnostic Gospels which—while rather obvious when one reads the Gnostic Gospels—is frequently overlooked: The [New Testament] Gospels are biographical narratives whereas most of the Gnostic Gospels are post-resurrection revelations. Typically in Gnostic Gospels Jesus appears to the disciples after the […]

Eric Johnson: How Can a Good God Allow Evil in the World? + “Free” (Stryper)

18th November 2019

How can a good God allow so much evil and suffering in the world? And why do some people seem to suffer so much more than others? According to a recent survey of college students, the problem of evil is the question about Christianity that college students find most difficult to answer. This week, Eric […]

Apologetics: The Providence of God in Persecution

12th November 2019

In his article “For Whom Were the Gospels Written?,” Richard Bauckham points out that a small minority group experiencing alienation and opposition in its immediate social context could compensate for its precarious minority position locally by a sense of solidarity with fellow believers elsewhere and a sense of being part of a worldwide movement destined […]

Peter Gurry and Elijah Hixson: Mistakes Apologists Make About Textual Criticism + “Learning to See” (Van Halen)

4th November 2019

Finally, it’s the long-anticipated Van Halen episode, which manages to feature not only Eddie Van Halen and Alex Van Halen but also another important Dutch-born “Van”: Reformed theologian Cornelius Van Til! Plus, New Testament textual critics Elijah Hixson and Peter Gurry are back with us to discuss the mistakes that people defending the Christian faith […]

Peter Gurry and Elijah Hixson: Was the Bible Copied Accurately? + “You Belong to the City” (Glenn Frey)

25th October 2019

Has the Bible been copied accurately? Skeptics such as biblical scholar Dr. Bart Ehrman have suggested that it wasn’t. According to Bart Ehrman‘s book Misquoting Jesus, it makes no sense for Christians to refer to the Bible as God’s inspired Word “because we no longer possess the words that God supposedly inspired. … All that […]

Jonathan Pennington: What Are the New Testament Gospels and Why Should We Trust Them? + “We Are the World” (USA for Africa)

15th October 2019

According to bestselling religious scholar Reza Aslan, the New Testament Gospels “are not, nor were they ever meant to be, a historical documentation of Jesus’s life.” The Gospels are, Aslan claims, fictional compositions from early Christians who re-imagined a Jewish revolutionary named Jesus as an ethereal Christ of faith. But is it really reasonable to read […]

Doug Blount: What Is the Relationship Between Evidence and Faith? + “Jack and Diane” (John Cougar Mellencamp)

4th October 2019

“Faith is,” according to Christopher Hitchens, “the surrender of reason.” But is faith actually the antithesis of reason and evidence? That’s the question Garrick and Timothy explore in the first half of this week’s episode with Doug Blount, who completed master’s and doctoral degrees in philosophy at the University of Notre Dame, an institution that may be found—according to some reports—within the borders of Indiana.

Grady Adkins and Joshua Swindall: What Christian Beliefs Do College Students Struggle to Defend? + “Don’t Stop Believin'” (Journey)

13th September 2019

In this special back-to-school episode, Garrick Bailey and Timothy Paul Jones are joined by Dr. Grady Adkins and Dr. Joshua Swindall, two researchers who have spent the past year exploring which specific Christian beliefs are the most difficult for college students to believe and to defend.