After a long hiatus we are back with a bonus episode on Jesus's temptation in the wilderness. The more we've thought about it, the more we feel this episode captures just about everything you could possibly want in one biblical scene : Jesus through images and biblical quotes manages encapsulate everything of Israel story and even all of humanity into this one encounter with the devil. Yet the scene is also intimate, as it invites reflection upon everything that it means to be human and to be tested, especially in our relationship to God. Why does this testing matter? How does Jesus face it? And what might it provide for those of us in the midst of our testing?

In our final episode of this inbetween series, we explore the surprising close of Augustine's Confessions, which decides to go back to the beginning, to God's work in creation. As we do, we pick up as many threads as possible that has gotten us to this point: what is our identity? Why is it so hard to find? What do we need to navigate the crisis in identity our current culture faces?

Augustine will choose to let the words of Scripture speak as he closes his page, yet this is not your Sunday School teacher's interpretation of Genesis. Instead, Augustine shows us how within the creation account, all of Scripture, and indeed all of our story can be found. Thank you for journeying with us through Augustine, and we'll look forward with you to new studies coming soon!

This episode, our seventh, we get to some of the deepest questions that humanity has pondered about our own existence. What is memory? What is time?

These questions have haunted many of the great thinkers and artists. They press up against our sense of being small and finite. They point to our existence in a universe simultaneously vast and intimately personal all at the same time. They will define us: our memory and our time. Yet they also always seem to escape easy mastery.

No wonder a filmmaker like Christopher Nolan has repeatedly turned to time and memory as key concepts in his own exploration of storytelling. No wonder they will become central themes in Augustine's own reflections as he attempts to move beyond his own story into a Confession of what it means to live as a human before God. This episode, I hope to press in to these complex and vast questions asking what it would look like if Christopher Nolan had a chance to discuss identity with St. Augustine.

In this inbetween series, we want to ask some hard hitting questions about Christian identity. What is a person's identity? Why are identities so contested? Why is it that my own identity so often seems so hard to find?

In our sixth episode, we explore Books 8-9 of Augustine's Confessions. This is the big one. The infamous scene. The moment when Augustine, worn out and exhausted with in inner conflict of identity, throws himself in tears in front of a fig tree, only to hear children sing, "Pick up and read!"

Much ink has been spilled about this story. Much could be said. But what perhaps most interests us is the fact that it is impossible to understand this scene without all that went before, or even without the fascinating insights Augustine is going to offer in his final book of self-reflection, book 9. As with so much in the Confessions, there is more going on than can sometimes meet the eye. So in this episode we'll be unpacking the many "conversions" of Augustine that led him to this confession, and the deep significance book 9 has to the whole story Augustine has shared thus far. Yet this episode inevitably will ask us each the most personal of questions, that could only be won by Augustine's own personal honesty, "are you ready to confess your own conversion?"

In this inbetween series, we want to ask some hard hitting questions about Christian identity. What is a person's identity? Why are identities so contested? Why is it that my own identity so often seems so hard to find?

In this second episode, we turn to an often proposed solution: maybe if we just get the right Christian practices: the habits, disciplines, and rituals of a good Christian life in place, maybe then we’ll finally get all those good Christian results in solidifying our identity. But is that how Christian practice actually works? John offers a deep dive into recent studies in Practical Theology to set the record straight: liturgy and practices don’t always form the desires they intend and as a result, this can become quite a problem. Many communities, from Catholic to Protestant to Orthodox to Evangelical all find themselves assuring their communities that simply picking up the practices of being a Christian will shape who they are, when in reality we are just as easily compromised by the cultural ebbs and flows as anyone else.

So how do we practice rightly? How do we pick up Christian practices that actually last, that truly and deeply form not just our external behaviors but the deeper rhythms of our hearts? Much as episode 01, this question will lead us back to St. Augustine and offer the final preparation before we begin a study of Christian Identity in the Confessions.

In this inbetween series, we want to ask some hard hitting questions about Christian identity. What is a person's identity? Why are identities so contested? Why is it that my own identity so often seems so hard to find?

To explore identity requires us to confront ourselves with some difficult questions. Why has my identity so often failed me? Why am I not the person that I want to be? Why does it sometimes seem like my identity is so clear to me, and other times it feels like my identity slips right through my fingers?

In books 2-4 of the Confessions, Augustine is going to wrestle with just such questions, as he stares honestly into the face of his own sin. Self-love and loss for Augustine are intricately connected. He cannot be himself because at his core, he only loves himself, and the self he loves doesn't really have any substance at all.

These books are heavy, necessary, and intriguing. They don’t quite land their answers but invite you into the story of Augustine’s life and ask questions of your own story. Where have you found yourself wandering in this land of shadows? Where have you seen (or perhaps more accurately felt) your identity fall apart?

In this inbetween series, we want to ask some hard hitting questions about Christian identity. What is a person's identity? Why are identities so contested? Why is it that my own identity so often seems so hard to find?

In this third episode, we finally turn to the text you've been waiting for: The Confessions. Why is this book so important? What was Augustine doing when he composed it? What significance does it have for our identities?

This episode we'll be exploring The Confessions Book 1, where Augustine opens up some of the most profound categories of western thought: language, memories and how our identities begin to take shape. Everything from psychology to speech matters in our quest to discover where we began, yet Augustine relentlessly will pull us back to the one who witnessed us even before we could witness ourselves: to God. By taking us to the start, Augustine reveals how difficult it is to truly know ourselves, and yet, also pushes us to see the invitation and the gift that such a journey could hold if we choose to make it with the one who created us.

In this inbetween series, we want to ask some hard hitting questions about Christian identity. What is a person's identity? Why are identities so contested? Why is it that my own identity so often seems so hard to find?

In this second episode, we turn to an often proposed solution: maybe if we just get the right Christian practices: the habits, disciplines, and rituals of a good Christian life in place, maybe then we’ll finally get all those good Christian results in solidifying our identity. But is that how Christian practice actually works? John offers a deep dive into recent studies in Practical Theology to set the record straight: liturgy and practices don’t always form the desires they intend and as a result, this can become quite a problem. Many communities, from Catholic to Protestant to Orthodox to Evangelical all find themselves assuring their communities that simply picking up the practices of being a Christian will shape who they are, when in reality we are just as easily compromised by the cultural ebbs and flows as anyone else.

So how do we practice rightly? How do we pick up Christian practices that actually last, that truly and deeply form not just our external behaviors but the deeper rhythms of our hearts? Much as episode 01, this question will lead us back to St. Augustine and offer the final preparation before we begin a study of Christian Identity in the Confessions.

In this inbetween series, we want to ask some hard hitting questions about Christian identity. What is a person's identity? Why are identities so contested? Why is it that my own identity so often seems so hard to find?

In this first episode, we set the stage by exploring the story of how we got here. Modern Identity didn't simply fall in our laps. Instead a number of key thinkers, figures such as Rene Descarte, Jean Jacques Rousseau, Friedrich Nietzsche and Sigmund Freud all had a part to play in the challenge of naming your identity today. We'll explore how these thinkers crafted the central markers of what it means to be human in 21st century Western society, and why ultimately, the identities that these thinkers offer will fail us. Yet this is just the beginning of a road back to your true identity, back to your heart, a road that will eventually introduce us to our guide back to ourselves in St. Augustine.

In our final episode, we bring together all the themes of the Songs into a sweeping and epic proclamation of what love truly is between ourselves and between humanity and God. Don’t miss our final episode of “Sex and the Search for Intimacy” available now.

We’ve been promising this whole study to explore why our culture has set the baseline for “consent” when it comes to sex and whether or not that can possibly be enough. This episode asks what a vision for “belonging” means when it comes to “Sex and the Search for Intimacy”

In Episode 04 of our study of the Song of Songs, we turn to the “gaze” which has so frustrated and harmed our culture’s obsession with each other. But what if we could redeem it? Check out our latest episode of “Sex and the Search for Intimacy”

So far, our talk about sex and the search for intimacy has largely been constructive and positive. But what happens when love goes wrong? Check out our newest episode “Terrors in the Night” as we continue our study of the Song of Songs.

In Episode 02 of our new study Song of Songs: Sex and the Search for Intimacy, John Perrine unpacks the allure of beauty as the “Rose of Sharon” and why beauty is so important to sex and what beauty has to do with God.

What does sex have to do with God? What does desire have to do with our search for intimacy? Check out the first episode of our brand new study as we explore Song of Songs: Sex and the Search for Intimacy.

The Burning Word is back and we have a brand new study! Introducing “Sex and the Search for Intimacy: A Study of the Song of Songs”. Find our latest resources and links to our newest study, and keep an eye out for new episodes releasing on Mondays!