The Blue Collar Scholar

The previous three episodes built a brief apologetic case for the existence of God. Now comes the closing argument, where we present the evidence for Jesus Christ as the Messiah of the Jewish people, prophesied frequently in the Old Testament, as powerful evidence for the existence of God. This closing argument also helps us move past apologetics arguments that argue for a generic deity, and now we are clearly talking about the Triune YHWH: the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. And Jesus, as God the Son, shows us God's character and identity. NOTE: This episode was cut off abruptly by a faulty internet connection. So this Sunday School lesson ends in the middle of an argument and lacks a conclusion.

This episode makes the positive case that the existence of objective moral values and duties proves that there is a God. This episode also addresses the arguments against God's existence collectively known as the Problem of Evil or the Problem of Suffering.

This episode analyzes the Cosmological Argument for the Existence of God. Or, rather, the cosmological arguments, plural. There is the Kalam, the Leibnizian, the Argument from Contingency, etc. I invite you to dive into this episode as we discuss these arguments, as we advance our mission to lead someone to Christ who does not even have a concept of God.

Apologetics has nothing to do with apologizing, even though "apologetics" and "apology" share similar etymology. Rather, apologetics is the intellectual defense of the faith. Over the next few episodes, we will explore both apologetics and evangelism as we engage in a thought experiment: how to talk about God and Jesus Christ to someone who is such a tabula rasa that they don't even have a basic concept of God (such a space alien, or a member of a tribe that has been completely untouched by modern society). In this episode, I give a quick survey of some of the apologetic arguments I find the most appealing.

Most people want to imagine God as a Mr. Rogers-type, friendly deity. And as we all learned in Vacation Bible School, Jesus is your friend. However, He is also a righteous Judge. And our understanding of God is incomplete if we don't have a rigorous theology that includes understanding God as Judge. But our great Judge is fair, mercy, thorough, and consistent as Judge. In this sermon, we explore the idea of God as Judge, and hopefully we will see that God as our righteous Judge is a good thing.

Our Sunday School series on marriage comes to an end with several topics that don't warrant their whole lesson: homosexuality, polygamy, and premarital sex. The episode closes with a brief survey of what a healthy marriage looks like, scripturally-speaking.

Diversity is a wonderful thing. But not every incarnation of diversity is inherently good. In the last episode, we saw that interracial marriage is not only ok, but it is occasionally lauded in the Bible as wonderful. But what about interfaith marriage. Most liberals (and I am not using that as a particularly bad term) that I know would laud interfaith marriage as an excellent example of tolerance and diversity. However, Scripture does not support the idea. Those who belong to Christ have a different purpose and a different destiny from those who do not call on the name of Christ. This does NOT mean that Christians are good, and non-Christians are bad. There are plenty of deplorable believers and also remarkable non-believers. That is, ultimately, irrelevant. Interfaith marriage is prohibited because both persons have different goals and destinies. ... However, many people find themselves in such marriages. What are we supposed to do in such situations? Well, give this episode a listen and we will find out.

My wonderful wife and I are part of an interracial marriage. I am proud of that fact. But does the Bible support the institution of interracial marriage? Many Christians have believed that the Bible prohibits these kinds of relationships. Spoiler alert: They are wrong. In this episode, we examine the Biblical texts involving interracial marriage. In short, if a man and a woman love Christ and they love each other, their racial and ethnic background does not at all prevent the relationship.

This episode expands on the previous episode and explores what the Bible says about divorce and remarriage.

Divorce is not ideal. It can even be described as an evil. That does NOT mean that those who have been touched by divorce are evil, defiled, unredeemable, yada, yada, yada. This episode begins to survey the Biblical texts on divorce, talking about what divorce is, what it is not, when it is allowable, etc.

This episode starts a new Sunday School series about marriage. This series was done via Facebook Live in the summer of 2020 while we were in lockdown.

This episode concludes our Sunday School series on the controversial topic of the End Times. This lesson talks about the Millennial Kingdom, Judgment Day, and New Heavens & New Earth. Soli Deo Gloria!

In this episode, we talk about some of the chapters of Revelation that appear to be out of chronological order. Then we look at the 3rd set of 7 judgments called the Vials of God's Wrath. Following that, this episode discusses the physical return of Christ, Armageddon, the Millennial Kingdom, the Final Rebellion of Satan, and Judgment Day.

The middle chapters of the Book of Revelation mirror the early chapters of Exodus, showing an active God who uses a series of judgements to achieve His aims. These chapters describe events that ought to be interpreted literally, as well as events that ought to be interpreted figuratively. This Sunday School lessons quickly surveys the first 14 of the judgements in the Book of Revelation, which the text refers to as seven seals and seven trumpets.

The figure that evangelical Christians know as "the Antichrist" is an archetypal figure that informs many of the great villains in fiction, especially Nicolae Carpathia in the Left Behind novels. However, the Book of Revelation does not even refer to this person as the Antichrist, preferring to refer to him as "the Beast." In this episode, we will take a brief look at what the Bible says about this person, and consider whether this is a person who has already come in history or who is still yet to come.

After discussing various interpretations of the End Times, this series will continue in a basic premillennial understanding of eschatology. The central event - or series of events - to this interpretation of the End Times is the Tribulation, a 7 year period of hardship and judgement on the Earth that precedes the physical return of Christ. Just a reminder to hold your End Times theology loosely. We are living before these events and so there is an incredibly wide range of acceptable, orthodox positions one can hold. This episode opens with a tribute to Ravi Zacharias, who had recently died in late Spring 2020. This means that I had to add an addendum to my tribute, as much of the legacy of Ravi has been tarnished by revelations of his sexual predatory behavior.

The Rapture is almost certainly the least-agreed-upon topic in eschatology (the study of the End Times). Men and women who are dedicated to studying Scripture and are careful to let the Scriptures dictate doctrine (and not the other way around) will disagree vehemently about the Rapture. So, in this episode, we will look into the Scriptures that premillennial dispensationalists use to form the doctrine of the secret, pre-Tribulation Rapture. ... Don't worry, we will define our terms.

This episode opens with a nice little time capsule: a discussion about when and how to reopen after quarantine in 2020, a process that ended up happening three times as we had to thrice go into quarantine during surges of Covid. The main thrust of this episode is a frank discussion of the 4 different "schools" or interpretations of eschatology (i.e., the study of the End Times). Those interpretations are Premillennialism (both historic premillennialism & premillennial dispensationalism), Postmillennialism, Amillennialism, & Preterism.

After the completion of our church's Church History series, we began a series on the End Times. This episode of the podcast is the introductory lecture of that series. There are major themes that Revelation, the prophetic books of the Old Testament, and other New Testament books teach us. These themes are important to establish before one digs in to deeper the details of eschatology.

2 Kings 22 is one of the more subtly shocking chapters in Scripture. In it, the high priest *FINDS* the Book of the Law in some chamber of the Temple as they are engaged in renovations. The implication is the Israel and Judah went generations when even the priests did not not read Scripture, and seemingly, they weren't even aware that they were missing it. Their religious system went on for generations without studying the Word of God. This sermon applies that cautionary tales to our lives. Let no one who calls themselves Christian fail to constantly reinvest the actual Words of Scripture into our minds.

If the faithful Christian life for you is an impossibly long checklist of things you have to do (or things you must not do) and that list is mostly things that are not dictated by Scripture, then do I have good news for you! In Christ, the believer has liberty. In this lesson, we examine Freedom of the Believer. (1) Freedom of the Believer is not there to give you free reign to sin. (2) Freedom of the Believer exists to free you to honor God without having to worry about everyone else’s standards. And (3) be careful how you use this freedom.

In this episode a take a crack at 10 conspiracy theories. Here is the list that I use. Link: https://gemini.google.com/share/eb9af94fd1f5?fbclid=IwZXh0bgNhZW0CMTAAAR3uGG6FCaMsdeCUFkOj26Ky2MPegW7IPE5vW5nRcyg95hDAA4OOpIaRylQ_aem_AdPi1pqPdikY-b5wE1XlaFZCv7JiSMuErAq42zIYIUWoftlIA9SRqQ_vULuVO02-0UIF3VAxYjhpx6R9NFhLOz_0 This episode is a direct rebuttal of the Trying to Like It podcast, episode 109. Link: https://im-trying-to-like-it.simplecast.com/episodes/conspiracy-theories-we-sorta-believe Here is a great rebuttal of the Moon Landing Hoax Conspiracy, via Adam Ruins Everything. Link: https://www.google.com/search?q=Moon+Landing+hoax+debunked+adam+&sca_esv=7008f87381b9388d&sca_upv=1&biw=1848&bih=892&tbm=vid&sxsrf=ADLYWIKW2_pUZof649NT2iMNmckS7OM6TQ%3A1717536782115&ei=DohfZq-qBrrLp84P0fTB6Q4&ved=0ahUKEwiv6aSO88KGAxW65ckDHVF6MO0Q4dUDCA0&uact=5&oq=Moon+Landing+hoax+debunked+adam+&gs_lp=Eg1nd3Mtd2l6LXZpZGVvIiBNb29uIExhbmRpbmcgaG9heCBkZWJ1bmtlZCBhZGFtIEjJHlD3CFijF3AAeACQAQCYAXagAdUFqgEDMi41uAEDyAEA-AEBmAIAoAIAmAMAiAYBkgcAoAeDBA&sclient=gws-wiz-video#fpstate=ive&vld=cid:2fc35430,vid:dWBYAxhH3u4,st:0 Here is a link to a great book debunking JFK conspiracy theories, Case Closed, by Gerald Posner. Link: https://www.audible.com/pd/Case-Closed-Audiobook/B00UUHZ526 Here is a Wikipedia link about the fascinating Phoebus Cartel. Link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phoebus_cartel

This is the finale of our church's Sunday School series on church history. In this episode, we discuss how the Gospel has expanded and prospered in a post-WWII world. We also look at trends that will likely define the next few decades.

My parents have been an extraordinary blessing to me. Growing up in a healthy, loving, nuclear & unbroken family is a treasure not everyone gets to enjoy. My parents are persons of high character who passed on great lessons. My father taught me the value of hard work, and my mother taught me the value of studying hard, even when the task to difficult-to-impossible. She is the original Blue Collar Scholar. So, for our 100th episode, enjoy this interview with my mother, Vanderbilt graduate Dr. Robin Reitz, Doctor of Nursing Practice.

As the pandemic carried on into its second month, our church continued its 2020 quarantine. This episode brings our Sunday School lessons at the time up to nearly the present in our exploration of church history, as we take a look at developments in Christian history in the 19th & 20th Centuries.

This episode is the audio lifted from the Facebook Live broadcast of our Sunday School lesson at Living Hope Southern Baptist Church of Parsons, KS, for Easter 2020. It was April 12th, the 4th week of quarantine. The Sunday School lesson was recorded on Good Friday because I had to be on the way to the airport on Sunday morning, quite an ordeal amidst Covid Quarantine. Nevertheless, the show must go on. And our Sunday School lesson was the continuation of our church history series. In this episode, we take an extremely "broad strokes" look at church history in the 17th & 18th Centuries.

The history of the English Bible goes all the way back to the mid-1300s when John Wycliffe decided that English speakers needed our own Bible. His version was available as of 1382. For the next 229 years, there were a variety of English translations that appeared, but none of them were as excellent as the Authorized Version - commonly known as the King James Version or the KJV - which appeared in 1611. The reason the KJV has persisted for 413 years and counting is because it was a magnificent translation. But the translators did not have access to thousands of manuscripts that have been found in the last few hundred years, and the way English is spoken has naturally evolved. So several modern translations are objectively better than the KJV, if by "better" you mean "closer to the original Scripture documents that were written in Koine Greek, Ancient Hebrew, and Aramaic." In this episode, we take a brief look at at the KJV and English translations.

This episode explores the distinctive beliefs and practices that make Baptists different from other Christians. Note: This episode was recorded 4 years ago. I refer to COVID-19 as "Coronavirus" because "COVID-19" wasn't the popular term for it yet. I refer to the pandemic as something that was just beginning. Some of my political, social, and religious opinions are subtly different now than they were 4 years ago. But I still stand by this teaching, which was Week 2 of out church in quarantine.

In March 2020, COVID-19 snuck up on us and caused most of our institutions to close. We had to wear masks and only walk down the Walmart aisles in a single direction, and the TP aisle was empty. It was a weird time. Our church made the decision to go online for a few weeks, which ended up becoming several months. And even after coming back in person, we had to do quarantine again, and yet once more a few weeks later. When quarantine kicked in, I was in the middle of a church history series, so when going to Facebook Live, we suddenly had the lessons recorded for posterity. So, this is where we pick up, in the middle of a Sunday School series on Church History. And as a Baptist Church, we set aside an entire lesson just on Baptist History. And this episode of the podcast is that lesson.

In this, the grand finale of the American Revolution class, we examine the Constitutional Amendments. First, we take a look at all of the proposed amendments that were approved by Congress & sent to the states, but failed to be ratified by 3/4 of the states. Next, we look at each of the 27 Amendments that are part of the US Constitution. Finally, we explore several possible Constitutional Amendments that would be excellent additions to the US Constitution.

In this final episode in the Women in the Bible series, I introduce the concepts of Complementarianism & Egalitarianism as philosophical positions one might take when deciphering the New Testament's teachings on gender roles. We go through four of the most potent and controversial passages in the New Testament on the topic. As to whether Complementarianism or Egalitarianism represents the correct, more-Biblically-faithful way to interpret these passages, well, I leave that up to you.

The Revolutionary generation in the United States of America could not lead the country indefinitely. Eventually they had to pass the torch to the next generation. This episode surveys the history of the early American Republic in the early 1800s. We will discuss the major events, trends, and controversies during the Jefferson, Madison, & Monroe Administrations as three men from the same party and from the same state hold the White House for 24 solid years. After that is the passing the torch moment as leadership is passed from the Revolutionary generation on to the likes of John Quincy Adams and Andrew Jackson. There are also a few bunny trails that examine Martin Van Buren, William Henry Harrison, John Tyler, and even a bit deeper into American History.

This episode surveys all the women who appear in the narrative of Acts, or who are mentioned in any of the books of the New Testament after the Gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke, & John).

With the Constitution firmly established as the Law of the Land, the federal government was up and running, and in much better shape than it had been under the Articles of Confederation. Probably the most obvious change was that the United States finally had an executive officer as head-of-state. George Washington and then John Adams were our first two Presidents to fill that role, and in these 12 years, many patterns, traditions, and precedents were set that affected the United States of America for centuries.

This episode examines the Scriptures from Matthew, Mark, Luke, & John which involve female characters in the narrative. Note: The Virgin Mary is the focus of a separate episode, and is only mentioned in passing in this episode.

In this episode, we will look at the last acts of the Congress under the Articles of Confederation, the great debate between the Federalists and Anti-Federalists which was carried out mostly via letters/editorials in newspapers and journals, the timeline of ratification of the Constitution done by ratification conventions in the 13 states (plus Vermont), and - as always - we chase bunny trails!

Mary the Mother of Jesus is almost certainly the most recognized, significant, and important female character in Scripture. There are many misunderstandings concerning this person, too. In this episode, we will look at the Scriptural passage where Mary's story is told.

Previous episodes brought us to the point where the Constitutional Convention presented a final draft of the Constitution to the states for ratification. We will discuss the ratification process next week. In the meantime, let us go through the original Constitution (pre-Amendments) line-by-line and discuss it. Join us in this episode as we analyze the USA's most important state document.

In this sermon, I break down the Beatitudes (Matthew 5:1-12). Some of the Beatitudes have instant, obvious application: Make Peace. Be merciful. Seek righteousness. But some of the Beatitudes - Blessed are those who mourn, or the poor in spirit - are directed at those who are hurting. Through Jesus Christ, even the downtrodden are living the good life, despite their hardships.

Solomon is the likely author of Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and the Song of Solomon. In those books, Solomon is unafraid to use female imagery to make his points. And he is unafraid to use female imagery in an unflattering light, such as a dangerous adulterous or the personification of folly. But he also gave us Proverbs 31, and he uses a woman as the personification of wisdom itself. And compared to his contemporaries, Solomon's treatment of women in his writings is strikingly positive.

The United States government under the Articles of Confederation was toothless and broke, unable to raise money, and with little to no international clout. Something had the change. And Shays' Rebellion in Massachusetts was the final straw. So James Madison, Alexander Hamilton, Benjamin Franklin, George Washington, and other advocates for a more robust federal government began taking steps that would result in a convention in Philadelphia in 1787 which hammered out a Constitution that still exists today as the most important state document of the United States of America.

The Bible is full of villains, like Satan, Haman, Pilate, etc. Four of those villains are women, and therefore are the purview of this class. So in this episode we will look at the stories of Delilah, Jezebel, Athaliah, and Herodias.

The United States of America has existed for 236 years under the same government, perpetuated by the United States Constitution. But the Constitution is a strong document that establishes a rather strong central government, and the American citizens of the late 1770s and early 1780s would never have adopted such a document. First, we had to go through the weeds and suffer the slings and arrows of a national government founded on a much weaker document, one that allows only a toothless and perpetually broke national government. Only after the failure of that document would the United States be ready to try something else. That original document was the Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union, commonly known as Articles of Confederation. In this episode we go through that document and see just where it failed. Also, *bunny trail warning*, this class and its professor chase several bunny trails in this lecture.

The story of Esther is one of the most well-written, gripping, cinematic stories found in the Bible. It has a good hero, a compelling villain, high stakes (an attempted genocide), and such great story telling devices as irony and poetic justice. This episode looks at the characters of Vashti & Esther and each woman's relationship with the Persian Emperor Xerxes I.

This episode closes out our discussion of the American Revolutionary War. First, we track the French contribution to American victory. France's alliance was perhaps vital to America's victory, so much so that perhaps the US does not win the war without them. And, the French Navy's incredible victory in the Chesapeake Bay was necessary to make the siege of Yorktown possible. The heart of the episode is a brief look at the siege, the battle, and the results of the Franco-American victory at Yorktown, VA. We close by looking at some of the events in the final years of the war, including the loss of the founding father John Laurens, a brief mutiny by a small group of soldiers in Philadelphia, the negotiations and ratification of the Treaty of Paris, and the birth of the Society of the Cincinnati.

This episode surveys the major female characters in the Bible from the books of Samuel, Kings, and Chronicles, as well as Ezra, Nehemiah, and the Hosea.

"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. ... And the Word became flesh and made His dwelling among us." (John 1:1 & 14) This episode of the podcast is a collection of Bite-Sized Theology lessons (5-minute-or-so sermonettes) that together form a sermon that takes a look at the Christian theology of "The Incarnation," which is the belief that God the Son became a human person - namely, Jesus of Nazareth - and maintained both true humanity and true divinity.

“Don't you understand this parable? How then will you understand any parable?" Jesus asked in Mark 4:13. Jesus Christ Himself gave us a hint that the Parable of the Sower is somehow foundational to understanding all of his parables, which were his most-oft-used figurative devices to make spiritual points. So, in this episode, let us dig into Mark 4 and look into the Parable of the Sower.

This episode of the pod opens with a 5-minute Bite-Sized Theology about Americanism in the Gospel. After that, I give one of the most difficult sermons I ever preached. The Church has a bad habit of knee-jerk conclusions that sexual assault allegations are fake, despite the statistics that show that such false accusations are rare. In this episode, we go back to Deuteronomy to dig into a much-needed frank discussion about sexual assault, and how we, as the church, can be part of the solution.

Living Hope Southern Baptist Church of Parsons, Kansas, does something called Bite-Sized Theology. These are 5 minute (or so) lessons/sermons that are designed to be meatier but much shorter than the average sermon. Our church did not record every single one of these lessons, so this presentation is a bit random. Nevertheless, here is a random selection of the Bite-Sized Theology lessons I preached at our church.