Gospel Talktrine

Both Matthew and Luke show in grand poetic fashion how Jesus is not only the Messiah, but the very purpose of the entire Law of Moses, Emmanuel, God Himself. And they both do it in Chapter One.

The “New Testament” describes not just a book of scripture but an agreement between God and His people. What is that agreement and how do we keep it?

Mark and Bry revisit the important themes of the Old Testament by reviewing their favorite scriptural Hebrew words. Hilarity ensues.

Our Old Testament course draws to a close, and we discuss Zechariah’s and Malachi’s counsel to their people and their visions of the last days. In their time, and ours, the question is the same: when will the day of the Lord come?

When the Jews returned from exile, it wasn’t a victorious procession back to Jerusalem and a sudden return to faithfulness. It was a long, slow process that required faithfulness and determination from three very important people—Zerubbabel, Ezra, and Nehemiah.

The most important message in Daniel wasn’t that we should resist worldly influences over the substances we take in, or that God can save us from a lion’s den, or even a fiery furnace. It is that Christ overcomes the world precisely when it rejects him, and it is delivered—figuratively speaking—straight from the horse’s mouth.

Bry Cox joins the program, for a discussion of the children of Israel in exile. Daniel and his friends refuse the King’s food, survive the fiery furnace and the lion’s den, and Esther saves the Jewish people from a Persian genocide.

Ezekiel’s vision of an idealized temple has everything to teach us about God’s plan, our need for a Savior, what it means when we sin, and how we ourselves are a sanctuary for the Spirit.

When Israel was carried away captive, God promised them a miracle every bit as amazing as raising a valley of dry bones up from the dead. What was the miracle? Believe it or not, it’s God changing YOUR heart!

How could the ancient Israelites have discerned between Yahweh’s prophets and the many false prophets among them? How can we?

Jeremiah had perhaps the hardest job of any prophet—calling people to repentance when he knew for a fact that they wouldn’t listen. We discuss his particular gifts that helped him endure, specifically courage, faith, and his perception that the word of God burned inside of him like a fire.

The last 11 chapters of Isaiah are a series of poetic prophecies which sum up the life’s work of this legendary prophet—foretelling the all-encompassing hope of a new heaven and a new earth, where the whole world would be invited to partake of God’s blessings forever.

Isaiah foretells the woes of God’s “suffering servant,” and testifies of Yahweh’s power over chaos, sin, and death. We discuss the meaning of the word “gospel,” and, just to top it off, study the most powerful passages in all of scripture.

We discuss the incomparable nature of God, the origin of the word “gospel,” and the theory of “Deutero-Isaiah.”

Isaiah warned Israel of the dangers of blindness, the inevitability of justice, and, most of all, the transforming power of choice.

Latter-day Saints aren’t the first people whom God commanded to be a temple-going people. This has been a practice since Adam and Eve, a practice first described in scripture with any detail as the Tabernacle of Moses. LDS Content Developer Mike Madsen joins us for a discussion of the Tabernacle, how when it was revealed it reflected the Exodus the Jews had just endured, and what it still teaches us today.

When he was called to be a prophet, Isaiah learned that the refiner’s “fire” might have one of two effects: God could purify those who came into his presence, if they approached with the right attitude. Those who failed to humble themselves, on the other hand, faced a dangerous situation.

Part of what makes Isaiah hard to understand is that, at times, it's difficult to know what antecedents his pronouns refer to. As it turns out, that uncertainty is by design.

Though separated by centuries and perhaps hundreds of miles, Amos and Joel were surprisingly united in their warning of the “Day of the Lord,” in which God would visit wickedness with justice, and in their visions of the latter day glory he would bring to the earth.

Hosea marks the beginning of our study of the “prophetic” works of the Old Testament, and we discuss both the historical context of Hosea, and what he adds to Israel’s own understanding of its history. We also discuss the themes of insult to God and Forgiveness found in this powerful and poetic book of scripture.