Podcast Episodes

Numbers 22; Psalms 62-63; Isaiah 11-12; James 5

Recently I was phoned by a man who told me he wanted to put me on a retainer as his private theologian. Then, when he phoned or wrote again, I would …

1 week, 3 days ago

Numbers 21; Psalms 60-61; Isaiah 10:5-34; James 4

The brief account of the bronze snake (Num. 21:4-9) is probably better known than other Old Testament accounts of similar brevity, owing to the fact …

1 week, 4 days ago

Numbers 20; Psalms 58-59; Isaiah 9:8-10:4; James 3

There are few passages in the Pentateuch which on first reading are more discouraging than the outcome of Numbers 20:1–13.

Yet the account carries so…

1 week, 5 days ago

Numbers 19; Psalms 56–57; Isaiah 8:1–9:7; James 2

American coins have the words “In God we trust.” In our pluralistic age, it is not unreasonable to respond, “Which God?” Even if the answer to that w…

1 week, 6 days ago

Numbers 17–18; Psalm 55; Isaiah 7; James 1

At one level, the brief account in Numbers 17 wraps up the report of the rebellions in the previous chapter. God wishes to rid himself of the constan…

2 weeks ago

Numbers 16; Psalms 52-54; Isaiah 6; Hebrews 13

Two more wretched episodes of rebellion now blemish the history of the Israelites in the wilderness (Num. 16).

The first is the plot engineered by Ko…

2 weeks, 1 day ago

Numbers 15; Psalm 51; Isaiah 5; Hebrews 12

Guilt. What a horrendous burden.

Sometimes people carry a tremendous weight of subjective guilt — i.e., of felt guilt — when they are not really guil…

2 weeks, 2 days ago

Numbers 14; Psalm 50; Isaiah 3–4; Hebrews 11

Another day thinking about rebellion — this time the rebellion displayed by the people at Kedesh Barnea, when they forfeited the opportunity to enter…

2 weeks, 3 days ago

Numbers 12-13; Psalm 49; Isaiah 2; Hebrews 10

Rebellion has many faces.

Numbers 12-13 reports two quite different and complex forms of rebellion. The first finds Aaron and Miriam bad-mouthing the…

2 weeks, 4 days ago

Numbers 11; Psalm 48; Isaiah 1; Hebrews 9

One of the ways God talks about the future is . . . well, by simply talking about the future. There are places in the Bible where God predicts, in wo…

2 weeks, 5 days ago