vocational channels archives

The Letter of Paul to the Ephesians is filled with excellent teachings to guide us theologically and practically. We work through many of the key passages found here, including Christ’s work to unite humanity and the passage about wives submitting to their husbands.

We have invited Lynn H. Cohick, PhD, to discuss Ephesians based on her new commentary in the New International Commentary on the New Testament (Eerdmans, 2020). Dr. Cohick is Distinguished Professor of New Testament and Director of Houston Theological Seminary at Houston Christian University.

To help us, as Christians, have a clear understanding of modern-day Israel and how it relates to the Bible, we have asked one of the nation’s foremost authorities on the subject onto the podcast.

Dr. Gary Burge (Ph.D., from King’s College at the University of Aberdeen, and M.Div., from Fuller Theological Seminary) is a New Testament scholar, professor, author, and ordained minister. After 25 years teaching at Wheaton College and Graduate School, he is now Adjunct Professor of New Testament at Calvin Theological Seminary.

Dr. Burge has written biblical commentaries and scholarly books on the New Testament. He has also tackled the theological and practical issues surrounding the people and the land of Israel and Palestine, including Jesus and the Land: The New Testament Challenge to “Holy Land” Theology (Baker Academic, 2010), and Whose Land? Whose Promise?: What Christians Are Not Being Told about Israel and the Palestinians (Pilgrim Press, 2003, Revised 2013).

There was a time, back in the 70s and early 80s, when the study of Revelation, with speculations about the end times and being “left behind,” was in vogue. But today, most Christians stay away from Revelation. Preachers either ignore it or choose to teach from the safer passages. The reason is that so many of us have become frustrated by how people have portrayed it, enamored with the violence, speculation, and false predictions.

Our guest on this episode is Scot McKnight, who, along with Cody Matchett, has written the book Revelation for the Rest of Us: A Prophetic Call to Follow Jesus as a Dissident Disciple (Zondervan, 2023). They say that all the future foretelling that speculative dispensationalists have been doing over the past century has distracted us from the real message of Revelation. Scot McKnight is a New Testament scholar, historian of early Christianity, theologian, and author.

“The Great Commission” (Matthew 28:16-20) is the central driving mission for God’s people. But here is a question to consider: How does this commission that churches have for people relate to the mission that God has for every aspect of life? Before we know what our mission is, we must first know what God’s mission is.

Christopher J. H. Wright (PhD, Cambridge) is the Global Ambassador of the Langham Partnership, strengthening leaders in churches around the world. He was chair of the Lausanne Theology Working Group and the chief architect of The Cape Town Commitment from the Third Lausanne Congress of 2010. He has written many books including commentaries on Deuteronomy, Jeremiah, Lamentations, and Ezekiel. Two incredibly influential books have been The Mission of God: Unlocking the Bible’s Grand Narrative (IVP Academic) and The Mission of God’s People: A Biblical Theology of the Church’s Mission (Zondervan Academic).

His latest book is The Great Story and the Great Commission: Participating in the Biblical Drama of Mission (Baker Academic, 2023).

Author of “On Getting Out of Bed.”

Many Christians must deal with some sort of mental or emotional suffering. While life is a good creation from a loving God, in a fallen and broken world, normal human life can be really difficult. While we have made tremendous advancements in therapy and psychiatry, the burden of living still comes down to the mundane choices that we each must make each moment, starting with the daily choice to get out of bed.

Our guest on this episode is Dr. O. Alan Noble, the author of On Getting Out of Bed: The Burden and Gift of Living (InterVarsity Press, 2023). This is a book in which Alan sits with us and puts words to our experiences of mental or emotional suffering.

What does it mean to be human? We live in an age of many voices trying to shape our understanding of who we are and what we are supposed to do.

Our guest on this episode is Dr. Carmen Joy Imes (PhD, Wheaton). She is Associate Professor of Old Testament at Biola University and the author of Being God’s Image: Why Creation Still Matters (InterVarsity Press, 2023).

Our identity is rooted in Genesis 1, where humanity is created in God’s image. Imago Dei is our human identity, made to represent God in his very good creation. And what we do in our vocations flows directly from who we are as the Imago Dei.

For many American Christians, the presumptive next big event in redemptive history will be the Rapture. Many believers have been influenced by the fictional stories of the Left Behind novels and movies which depict military conflict in Israel, the Rapture in which all true believers are taken to Heaven, and the great tribulation in which those who are left behind must endure seven years of war and suffering.

In this episode of the podcast, we explore the key theological ideas of a theological system called Dispensationalism, which was the predominant default theology of American Christianity for most of the 20th Century.

Our guest is Daniel G. Hummel, Ph.D., (American History, University of Wisconsin-Madison), the author of the new book, The Rise and Fall of Dispensationalism: How the Evangelical Battle Over the End Times Shaped a Nation (Eerdmans Press, 2023). 

This episode of the Reintegrate Podcast is a little different in that we live-streamed it in conjunction with the Logos Daily Circle. Our guest is Jason Stone, the founder of the Logos Daily Circle.

This is the first of what we are hoping will be a new joint venture between Reintegrate and Logos Daily to feature our guests to the huge community in the Logos Daily Circle.

TIME STAMPS
What we discuss in this episode:
0:00 Getting to know Bob, David, and Jason
8:30 What is Logos Daily Circle?
13:42 What is Reintegrate?
18:52 How should “online community” (like Logos Daily) be different than “social media?”
25:22 What is “calling,” and how can we reintegrate our vocations with God’s mission?
35:30 What is the connection between callings and the kingdom of God?
41:09 Does what we do in our work in a fallen and temporary world really matter?
52:40 How can pastors better equip people to be missional in and through their vocations?

We all are fascinated with the End Times. What is our final destiny? This is eschatology. If we were to take a random survey of Christians in North America, we would hear something like this: Our destiny is heaven. When we die, we go off to our home with Jesus, worshiping God for all eternity in an otherworldly existence. We will finally shed this earthly life and live as God wants us to live, with Jesus and away from this earthly life. Most pastors preach that the earth is not our home, that what God has for us is to live forever in another place, Heaven, and that Earth will be no more.

Our guest on this episode is J. Richard Middleton. In his book, A New Heaven and a New Earth: Reclaiming Biblical Eschatology (Baker Academic, 2014), he makes the case that the Bible teaches that the ultimate hope for the believer is not an otherworldly heaven. Instead, it is full-bodied participation in a new heaven and a new earth, brought into fullness through the coming of God’s kingdom. Dr. J. Richard Middleton (Ph.D. (Free University of Amsterdam) is Professor of Biblical Worldview and Exegesis at Northeastern Seminary.

Our guest is Christian philosopher and apologist Paul Copan, author of Is God a Vindictive Bully?: Reconciling Portrayals of God in the Old and New Testaments (Baker, 2022), winner of the Christianity Today 2023 Award of Merit in the category of Apologetics and Evangelism.

Dr. Copan takes on some of the most difficult Old Testament challenges and places them in their larger historical and theological contexts. He explores the kindness, patience, and compassion of God in the Old Testament and shows how Jesus in the New Testament reveals both God’s divine kindness and also God’s divine severity. The God of the Old Testament is definitely fully revealed in the person of Jesus Christ, but it turns out to be the same God.

You’re not supposed to “let God take control” of your life and work. You’re not supposed to “hear God’s voice in your heart.” And, you’re not supposed to be guided by God’s Holy Spirit by inner feelings of peace, intuitions, or impressions.

These are three things believers have recently come to believe as being essential to being Christian. But according to our guest Phillip Cary, they are not found in the Bible and actually will cause harm – psychologically, morally, and spiritually. Phillip Cary is a Professor of Philosophy and the Chair of the Philosophy Department at Eastern University. Brazos Press has just released the expanded second edition of his best-selling book, Good News for Anxious Christians: 10 Practical Things You Don’t Have to Do.

Dr. Michael F. Bird is an Australian biblical scholar and Anglican priest who writes about the history of early Christianity, theology, and contemporary issues. He is Academic Dean and a lecturer at Ridley College in Melbourne.

He is the author of 30 books, including The Gospel of the Lord: How the Early Church Wrote the Story of Jesus (Eerdmans, 2014), Evangelical Theology,(2nd edition published by Zondervan in 2020), The New Testament in its World (with N.T. Wright) (Zondervan, 2019), and his latest, Seven Things I Wish Christians Knew about the Bible (Zondervan, 2021).