The Ezra Institute Podcast for Cultural Reformation

In this episode Joe Boot discusses the Ninth Commandment about bearing false witness, times where it is godly to withold the truth, and draws out the implications for law and society, as well as the ever-present question of who is my neighbour. We also look at the move by the Trudeau government to replace the crown on Canada’s coat of arms with a new version bereft of Christian symbols. Get your tickets to the Mission of God conference in Bonaire, Georgia, May 20. Apply to the Worldview Leadership Academy USA. Tax-deductible giving is now available for American supporters!

In this episode Joe Boot reflects on the recent coronation of King Charles III, focusing on the nature of national oaths and covenants, and the proper place of the monarch in a role of delegated authority, living under God’s law. It’s a heavy responsibility and Scripture enjoins us to pray for our civil rulers. Get your tickets to the Mission of God conference in Bonaire, Georgia, May 20. Apply to the Worldview Leadership Academy USA. Tax-deductible giving is now available for American supporters!

The connection between all these themes becomes clear in this special guest episode with Dr. Vishal Mangalwadi. He explains the Third Education Revolution movement, the role of technology, and the historic impact that the gospel has had, through education, on the family, church, and all other spheres. Vishal is currently on a lecture tour of southern Ontario. Find a session in your area. Get Joe Boot’s latest booklet, For Reformational Thinking, at Ezra Press.

The connection between all these themes becomes clear in this special guest episode with Dr. Vishal Mangalwadi. He explains the Third Education Revolution movement, the role of technology, and the historic impact that the gospel has had, through education, on the family, church, and all other spheres. Vishal is currently on a lecture tour of southern Ontario. Find a session in your area. Get Joe Boot’s latest booklet, For Reformational Thinking, at Ezra Press.

Joe Boot explains the biblical understanding of penology – the study and practice of punishing crime. Despite modern objections about the harshness of biblical justice, the penology outlined in God’s law is in fact true justice, and its practice leads to a more just and free society. Apply for the Worldview Leadership Academy USA Get Joe’s newest book, For Reformational Thinking American supporters – tax-deductible giving is now available!

This week we pause our Ten Commandments series to reflect on the shooting at Covenant School in Nashville. In a de-christening culture, those who worship the true and living God should expect to suffer hatred and violence from those who worship the false god of self, even unto death. But the Christian's hope is the promise of light and life dispelling darkness and death.

In this episode Joe Boot discusses the narrow and broad definitions of adultery in light of both Moses and Christ, explaining how sexuality is much more than the modern notion of consent. Contrary to contemporary thinking, sexual activity outside of the blessed structure of covenant marriage has drastic personal and social consequences. This is the last week to get The Mission of God at a discount Applications are still open for the Runner Academy USA.

Kyle Thompson of the Undaunted Life podcast joins us for a discussion of the commandment "You shall not murder." We talk about war, self-defense, and the failure of the state to properly prosecute justice on murderers, as well as the responsibility of the individual to defend his family and neighbor. Kyle speaks at length on related issues here and here. Get The Mission of God on sale as the March book of the month. Applications are open for the Runner Academy. Apply today

We begin this episode by examining the biblical definition of murder, and looking at cases where the taking of life is prohibited, where it is permitted, and the single situation where it is required by God. We also consider how our society’s rejection of God is evident in legalized murder in the form of abortion and euthanasia, as well as Jesus’ teaching about murderous talk and attitudes that break this commandment. The March Book of the Month is The Mission of God! Get it on sale here. Register for the Runner Academy, Christianity & Culture Colloquium, or Worldview Leadership Academy.

We take a short recess from the Ten Commandments series to talk about drag queen story hour protests, global Anglicanism, and other important news from around the world. And is the Ezra Institute going to be on the CBC? Register for 2023 training programs: Runner Academy; Worldview Leadership Academy; and the Christianity and Culture Colloquium. Get The Mission of God as the March Book of the Month on sale now

In this episode Joe Boot and special guest, pastor Joel Webbon, discuss the fifth commandment, how it applies not only to young children, but to everyone, and how a worldly mindset has led us to neglect this commandment when it becomes uncomfortable or burdensome. This March, the book of the month is The Mission of God. Get it on sale now at Ezra Press. Hear more from Joel at Right Response Ministries. Apply for this year’s Runner Academy.  

Sabbath rest is a biblical principle that seems to invite a level of controversy: how often, when, who, and in what ways are is the Sabbath to be observed. Joe Boot discusses the connection between work, rest, and worship, why Sabbath-breaking was a capital offense in ancient Israel, and the difference that Christ makes to the form of our observance. Application for the Runner Academy are now available Don’t miss February’s discounted Book of the Month: Why I Still Believe

n this episode Ezra Institute Fellow Michael Thiessen discusses what it means to take the name of the Lord, both rightly and wrongly, in the church, in politics, and in any other sphere. We also talk about the nature of oaths and authority, the Sermon on the Mount, what it means for something to be damned by God, and door-to-door sales. NOTE: we do not use language flippantly, but this episode contains language that parents may not want your children to hear. Students at Bryan College are eligible for scholarship funding and course credit at the Runner Academy or Worldview Leadership Academy.

Idolatry takes any number of forms at the individual, church, and national levels, but its temptation is always the same: you shall be as God. And the results always lead to death. As churches capitulate to antichristian cultural pressures, they often keep their outward form, but lose the power and vitality that ought to sustain and animate them. The Lord reserved some of His hardest words for those who led their people in this apostate way. Register today for our spring training programs in the USA. Get the February Book of the Month, Why I Still Believe.

We continue our series in the Ten Commandments with the command against idolatry. In this episode, Joe Boot discusses the root of idolatry in the heart, and deals with some listener questions about the possibility of making work or family into an object of worship. We conclude by examining idolatry within the church itself. Register today for our spring training programs in the USA. Get the February Book of the Month, Why I Still Believe.

We’re officially underway with our series on the Ten Commandments. In this first episode, Joe Boot explains why this section of Scripture begins with the Lord declaring who He is, and why the commandments are ordered in the way that they are. If you’ve never thought about what our worship has to do with law, don’t miss this one. Applications for the Runner Academy are now open. Registration for the Christianity & Culture Colloquium are open. The Heidelberg Diary is on sale until the end of January. New Book of the Month next month.

In this episode, Joe Boot explains how the opposite of law is not grace, nor love, but lawlessness, which often masquerades as love. Joe pulls illustrations from throughout Scripture to demonstrate the enduring validity of God’s law in the era of Christ’s resurrection. If Christ took the law seriously, and if we are to be imitators of Him, then it behooves us to take the law seriously as well. Applications are now open for the 2023 H. Evan Runner International Academy, in Chatsworth, Georgia. Get the book of the month, on sale all of January, The Heidelberg Diary: Daily Devotions on the Heidelberg Catechism.

We’re kicking off the new year with a new series, dealing with ethics and law generally, and the Ten Commandments specifically. In this episode, Joe Boot talks about the distinction between laws and norms, the fact that we live in a universe designed by God that is made to work according to His instruction, and what love has to do with fulfilling the law. Get our BOOK OF THE MONTH, The Heidelberg Diary, on sale all of January. Learn more about Biblical Sexuality Sunday.

On this episode Joe Boot and Ezra Institute Fellow Aaron Rock discuss the themes, issues, and ideologies related to the contemporary environmentalism movement. For those who didn't get their questions answered during the conference Q&A session, we deal with several more of those questions here. Get our book of the month, The Heidelberg Diary, on sale at Ezra Press all January.

We bring our series in Thomas Aquinas to a close by restating six significant differences between Thomistic thought and the reformation worldview that we believe is more consistent with Scripture. On the question of origins, nature and grace, ontology and anthropology, apologetics and Christian philosophy, the medieval thought of Aquinas falls short of the biblical position. Get The Heidelberg Diary. On sale now for our book of the month. Make your year-end donations here.

This Christmas season, Joe Boot reflects on the staggering reality of God’s glory revealed to His people as he takes up residence, or tabernacles, among us. This fact ought to be a great source of strength for Christians, greater than any hardship we could ever experience. Make a year-end donation to the Ezra Institute here. Get the December/January book of the month, The Heidelberg Diary: Daily Devotions on the Heidelberg Catechism.

This Christmas season, we talk about the question of public, national worship, and the state in direct relation to God. Read Joe Boot’s recent article on Diwali and Dechristianization Start off 2023 with daily readings and meditations from the Heidelberg Catechism  

In this episode Joe describes the influence that Thomas Aquinas has had on the field of Christian apologetics, and discusses the areas where the Thomistic approach falls short of vindicating the full Christian doctrine of God. Joe’s classic apologetics work, A Time to Search, is available at Ezra Press.

Ezra Institute Fellow Dr. James White joins us this week to talk about the Protestant fascination with Aquinas, and the path that leads from Thomism to Roman Catholicism. Dr. White explains some of the reasons why Protestants are induced to follow Thomas, the fundamental issue of authority that is at stake, and what Thomas would have thought of the current Pope. Get a philosophical assessment of Aquinas and Neo-Thomism from Ezra Press.

Joe Boot addresses the realm of medicine and healing, and demonstrates how much of the contemporary thinking surrounding medicine has been reduced to mere biology. In contrast, the Christian should think of health in terms of wholeness – both wholeness of the created reality, and wholeness in the sense of health. Get tickets to the Mission of God Canada conference. Read Keeping Faith in Medicine by Dr. Ted Fenske.

In this episode Joe Boot discusses the thought of Thomas Aquinas as it relates to the Christian understanding of history. To speak of history is inescapably to speak about God’s relation to and activity within His creation. Get a reformational assessment of Thomas Aquinas and the Neo-Thomist Tradition at Ezra Press. Register for the Mission of God Conference Canada, December 10.  

This week in the thought of Thomas Aquinas, we examine the idea of natural law, and conclude that, as articulated by Aquinas, it is an idea that gives unwarranted scope to human reason, and effectively makes God equal with His law. In contrast, Scripture teaches that God is the source of all definition, and that human law must be positivized in an historical context.

We could have also titled this episode How the Reformation delivered us from ecclesiocracy. Here we discuss Aquinas’ political philosophy, the problem with his adoption of Aristotle’s teaching that man is a political animal, and the need for an utterly transcendent authority. Get Joe Boot’s book Ruler of Kings. Register for the Mission of God Canada conference

There is a common assumption in Christianity that at the fall, man lost a supernatural gift of grace, but retained his natural faculties intact and unscathed – including the faculty of reason. In this episode, Joe Boot explains that the biblical distinction is not nature and grace, but wrath and grace: those who belong to Christ and those who war against Him. Read Joe’s recent Jubilee article on Reformed Scholasticism and Reformational Thinking. Get tickets for the Mission of God Canada conference, December 10.

We have new music and a new theme as we get rolling in Season 6. In this episode we begin a short series on the life, thought, and influence of Thomas Aquinas, the medieval scholastic philosopher and theologian, introducing his person and major works, and considering why there seems to be a recent revival of interest amongst Reformed Protestants in this Roman Catholic thinker. American listeners! We now offer domestic shipping rates from Ezra Press!  

Aaron Rock joins the podcast this week to discuss the scheduled expiry of Canadian border restrictions and the ArriveCan app. We also discuss Canada’s latest Federal Action Plan to advance LGBTQ rights, and the inescapability of religious commitments. The Christianity and Culture Colloquium is coming soon! Register here. Listen to Aaron’s podcast, Leadership Now.

In this episode Joe Boot reflects on the funeral ceremonies of Queen Elizabeth II, the historic role of the English monarch as “Defender of the Faith,” and the error of contemporary Two Kingdoms thinking. Get Joe Boot’s book, Ruler of Kings, at Ezra Press. Read The Servant Queen

In this episode we reflect on the legacy of Elizabeth II, the role she played in influencing culture, and the Christian virtue she exhibited as a monarch who was self-consciously under the authority of God. Scripture has much to say about thrones and kingdoms, and Joe Boot discusses some of the major passages for how a king is to rule.

We're back with a brand-new season of the Podcast for Cultural Reformation! Joe, Nate, and Ryan discuss the recently published Frankfurt Declaration of Christian and Civil Liberties, and the relationship of the Cultural Mandate and Great Commission. In its most basic formulation, we tend to see Christians desiring to conform to culture or to escape culture, though the biblical calling is for God's saints to transform and build culture. Read and consider signing the Frankfurt Declaration. Get the new book, Failed Church, at Ezra Press.

Ezra Institute Fellow Andrew Sandlin responds to listener questions on prayer: why it is difficult to develop a habit of prayerfulness, how to pray boldly and faithfully, and what happens when we pray.

A distinctly Christian way of thinking means returning to the Word of God as the source of all true knowledge and insight, and building an understanding of the world from that foundation. It is our starting point that makes all the difference. Register for the Christianity and Culture Colloquium, October 18-21. This episode originally aired September 29, 2021. We’re revisiting it for all our new listeners this summer.

Jacob Reaume, pastor of Trinity Bible Chapel, joins us to talk about an upcoming documentary he is producing, Antichrist and His Ruin, dealing with the life and witness of John Bunyan, the biblical teaching on the doctrine of antichrist, and the call to the church for courage and faithfulness. Learn more about the documentary and how you can be involved.

This episode started out with John Cooper asking Joe Boot about pacifism, and became a wide-ranging dialogue on what it means to be an image-bearer of God, and the implications that reality has for war, self-defense, and living in a state that is hostile to God. We also discuss the descriptions of God in Scripture as a warrior and the fact that the obligation to give honour and obedience is always qualified except when it is due to God. Get Joe’s book, Ruler of Kings, at Ezra Press. This episode was produced in partnership with John Cooper and the Cooper Stuff Podcast. Hear more from John here.

In this episode, we discuss Edmund Burke and the origins of modern conservative ideology; we consider the validity of the sentiment that there is a crisis in conservatism, as well as the historic connection between conservatism and Christianity. Joe Boot explains how the contemporary attempt to distinguish between fiscal and social conservatism is a practical impossibility. Get Joe Boot’s book, For Government, at Ezra Press.  

On this week’s episode we consider the biblical conditions necessary for human flourishing, which always manifests in economic prosperity. Jonathan Wellum, CEO of Rocklinc Investment Partners, shares how a biblical approach to economics handles inflation and private property, and how contemporary theories and policies cause the greatest harm to the world’s poorest people. Learn more about Jonathan. Read about how all of life, including our economic life, is to be submitted to Jesus.

Dale Partridge joins us as a guest this week to discuss how his organization is working to fulfill the Great Commission on a national and international scale. We also discuss the masculinity of Jesus, and the eschatological hope that motivates our evangelistic efforts. Find out more at www.mailthegospel.org. Get Joe Boot’s book, For the Hope that is in You, at Ezra Press.  

What does the recent Dobbs decision of the US Supreme Court mean for the practice of abortion? We discuss why it’s fitting for Christians to loudly celebrate this ruling, as well as the reason we must approach issues related to life in terms of God’s standard, for any other standard is ultimately arbitrary and subject to change. Get “For Life: Defending the Unborn” at Ezra Press.

Andrew Sandlin joins us from the Runner Academy to talk about the nature of God’s covenant with man, how the new covenant relates to earlier covenants, and what the covenant has to do with our responsibilities as citizens of the kingdom of God. Andrew’s new book, Failed Church, will be available soon from Ezra Press.

At the conclusion of the 2022 Runner Academy, Joe Boot explains why the Ezra Institute exists and why we run training programs. We explore what it means for man to be made in the image of God, and how we are to steward creation and build culture for the sake of the kingdom of God. Get Joe’s book, Gospel Culture, at Ezra Press.

Andre Schutten, Ezra Institute Fellow for Law and Civil Discourse, joins us to talk about how the idea of constitutional government arose, and how, from King Alfred to Charles I to Justin Trudeau, societies have benefited from checks and balances on the power of their leaders. He also illustrates recent cases where our constitutional heritage has been threatened, and some ways we can work to involve ourselves in our society as Christians and citizens, for the good of the nation. Get Joe Boot’s book, For Government, at Ezra Press.

In this episode, we investigate the worldview and origins of proto-feminism as well as first-wave feminism. This movement often gets tacit approval from Christians because of things like universal suffrage, but at its root, this movement, led by figures like Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Stanton, and Margaret Sanger, is a self-centred, resentful ideology that opposes the family and fosters a bigger state. Tickets are still available for the Mission of God West conference in Edmonton, June 18. Get Ezra Institute Fellow Peter Jones’ book, Whose Rainbow, for a thorough treatment on biblical sexuality.

In this week’s episode, we dive into a few recent news stories as we work to discover meaning in a world that has increasingly abandoned truth and reason. We consider some of the causes and responses to the recent Texas school shooting, as well as the growing realization that the biggest victims of the Sexual Revolution have been women.

We conclude our introduction to Critical Theory by identifying some of the key personalities responsible for this school of thought and their major ideas. You may have heard of some of these men: Georg Lukacs, Antonio Gramsci, Herbert Marcuse, Wilhelm Reich, and Erich Fromm. From their own writing, it is clear that Critical Theory is more than an analytical tool, but is in fact a self-consciously religious worldview, complete with doctrines of sin, justice, and salvation. We have a new shipment of Ruler of Kings available now! Register for the Mission of God West conference in Edmonton, June 18.

Many Christians have heard of Critical Theory, but are unclear what it is and what it entails. In this first episode of a short series, we introduce the nature of Critical Theory, its Marxist origins in the Frankfurt School, and how it uses language to set itself up in opposition to the Christian worldview of the Bible. Contact us to help beta test the forthcoming Ezra Learning Portal. Register for the Mission of God Conference East, or West. Apply for the Runner Academy.

Our newest Fellow, Dr. Ben Merkle, joins us on this week’s episode. Dr. Merkle is President of New Saint Andrews College, and we talk about the current state of higher education, the need for foundational worldview formation in critical thinking, and the fact that half the students in universities don’t need to be there. Tickets are on sale for the Mission of God conference East, happening May 21 in Niagara, and Mission of God conference West, June 18 in Edmonton.Learn more about New Saint Andrews.