How can God be one and three? How can Jesus be God and yet not another God? And what about the Spirit, where does he fit in? In the last episode of Thinking Theology, we saw that God promised in the Old Testament that a day would arrive when he would come in person to save his people and be with them. But astonishingly, that happened in the coming of the man Jesus. Jesus did all the things that only God himself does like creating the world, miracles and forgiving sins. Jesus showed himself to be God, distinct from the Father. But how does that work? That’s what we’re thinking about in this epi ..read more

Who is Jesus? The identity of Jesus lies at the very heart of Christianity. But what is it about Jesus that’s so important? In the last episode we looked at the problem of sin. God made the world good. He made a world without death and decay. He made a world in which humanity could dwell with him in love and fellowship, ruling over and developing God’s world under him. But the world is not like that anymore. It’s broken. And the reason it’s broken is because human beings have sought to rule themselves and God’s world without God. We’ve tried to get rid of God. The result is judgement, which is ..read more

What is sin? Where did it come from? How has it affected us as human beings? How has it effected the world in which we live? In the last episodes of Thinking Theology we saw that God created human beings. He created human beings to reflect him, to rule over the world under him. He made us to relate to him. But things are no longer as they were created to be. Our world is broken and we are broken. But what happened to get us from there to here? That’s what we’re thinking about in this episode of Thinking Theology ..read more

In the last episode of Thinking Theology we thought about what it means to be human. Who has God made us to be?   In this bonus episode  I sit down with Rob Smith, one of my colleagues at SMBC. Rob teaches theology, ethics as well as music ministry. Rob has just completed his PhD on what the Bible has to say about gender. He's written a short book on that topic too.   But in this episode I'm talking with Rob about what it means to be embodied. What does that Bible have to say about human bodies ..read more

Episode Intro What does God do? In the last few episodes of Thinking Theology we’ve been thinking about what God is like: what is his nature, what is his character and what he does. Last time we looked at God’s work in creation. But God not only created the world, he also sustains it, upholding it at every moment. In theology, that’s called providence. But what does it mean that God is upholding the world? What does he control? Is there anything outside his control? That’s what we’re thinking about in this episode of Thinking Theology. Podcast Intro Hi. My name is Karl Deenick. I write about t ..read more

Thinking Theology is starting again and alongside the normal 15–20 minute episodes looking at key theological topics will be interviews with others that build out some of those topics. As a bit of taster of what’s to come, here’s the first interview with my colleague Dr Ian Maddock. Ian’s an expert on John Wesley and George Whitefield, two towering figures in the history of evangelical Christianity. But they’re also two figures who disagreed over the doctrine of election—whether God chooses people for salvation, or whether people choose God ..read more

In that last episode of Thinking Theology we began to look at the actions of God, and we began with God’s act of creation. God created everything that is, on his own, without help from anyone else. He made the world for his own sake and purpose. He made it by speaking. He made it good. It’s separate from him but it depends completely on him for its continued existence. God’s creation of the world also establishes his authority over us and our obligation to him. But what we didn’t get to consider is how the Bible’s account of creation fits with modern science. Genesis 1 says God created the wor ..read more

Links  Two Ways to Live Episode Intro What does God do? In the last few episodes of Thinking Theology we’ve been thinking about what God is like: what is his nature and what is his character. But in this and the next few episodes we’re moving on to think about what God has done and what he continues to do. In this episode we’re thinking about what God has done in creating the world. What does the Bible tell us about creation and, importantly, how does that shape our life? That’s what we’re thinking about in this episode of Thinking Theology. Podcast Intro Hi. My name is Karl Deenick. I ..read more

Episode Intro Over the last couple of episodes we’ve thought about the nature of God or what we’ve called the non-moral attributes of God. That is, we’ve focussed on his being. God is present everywhere, he knows everything, and so on. But in this episode we’re beginning to think about the character of God. What God is like to relate to? What is he like in personal terms? That’s what we’re thinking about in this episode of Thinking Theology. Podcast Intro Hi. My name is Karl Deenick. I’m a pastor, theologian, writer, and Bible college lecturer. Welcome to Thinking Theology, a podcast where we ..read more

What is God like? What does he know? What does he control? Where is he? What is his relationship to time? Those are the kinds of questions we began looking at in the last episode of Thinking Theology. We began looking at what are often called the attributes of God. We looked at some of the non-moral attributes: God’s self-existence, his eternity, omnipresence, omnipotence and sovereignty. In this episode we’re thinking about some of God’s other non-moral attributes: his omniscience, wisdom, immutability, infinity, unity and simplicity ..read more