Was Jesus just another version of an ancient pagan, resurrected sun god? And were the early Christians actually heliognostics ("sun-knowers" who worshiped the sun as a deity), using Jesus as a metaphor to represent their astrological beliefs? That's an "idea" floating around the dark recesses of the internet these days, but one with some serious problems. Mainly, how could such a belief ever make sense of the thoroughly Jewish roots of Christianity? Listen in as Dr. Pete Goodman breaks down the inherent flaws of such a novel sounding conspiracy and demonstrates how the in initial Jewish movement of Jesus followers would never have bought into such an idea.

Also, how should we make sense of what appear to be "promises" in the Scriptures when they don't happen in our lives - like the book of James telling us if we call the elders to pray for the sick they will be healed? Is it our fault - do we just not have enough faith? Or is it God's fault - is He not actually faithful to His own promises? Or... should we take a step back and seriously examine what is and isn't actually a Biblical promise? In the second half of this week's podcast, Pete discusses the difference between a Biblical promise and Biblical wisdom; whereby one is something we should count on and trust will always happen, but the other should be seen as ideas that are "generally" true about life but not guarantees.

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