The Burning Word: Recent Episodes
John Perrine
Many of us struggle when it comes to reading our Bibles.
Whether from boredom, disinterest, or just plain distraction, our attempts to crack open our Bibles and hope for answers has fallen short over and over again. We want to know God. We really do. But reading our Bibles often feels more like an obligation than an opportunity to encounter the Living God.
Yet as one surveys the scriptures, over and over, the word of God was not information to understand, or doctrines to believe. The word of God was and still is an invitation to encounter. Like Moses who sees a bush burning with flames that wouldn’t go out. Like Jeremiah who feels the burning in his chest, of a word that he must speak. Like the disciples with Jesus on the road to Emmaus, who reflected, “Were not our hearts burning within us as he opened up the Scriptures to us?”
What if the Bible is actually a burning word, where you were invited to bring the most urgent and pressing questions of your life and discover in your search, a reply from the living God?
The Burning Word is a podcast hosted by John Perrine that invites you to return to the Word. Each series of the podcast will explore a book of the Bible with a burning question, and that offers an opportunity to encounter the living God in his Word again.
Listen To go deeper in your bible study. To encounter God again. And to apply ancient truths to your life.
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!
Check out our other studies and resources available at www.burningwordpodcast.com
as well as all our print study guides and journals over at https://www.blurb.com/user/jhperrine
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?
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.
Check out our other studies and resources available at www.burningwordpodcast.com
as well as all our print study guides and journals over at https://www.blurb.com/user/jhperrine
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?"
Check out our other studies and resources available at www.burningwordpodcast.com
as well as all our print study guides and journals over at https://www.blurb.com/user/jhperrine
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 fifth episode, we explore Books 5-7 of Augustine's Confessions where Augustine finds himself slowly, ever so slowly beginning to turn back to God. Yet the slowness of his turn is a result of the many distractions and delays that he found himself occupied with.
I find this comforting.
Part of the crisis we experience with identity is that our identity hasn't seemed to arrive yet. We take one step forward only to find ourselves two steps back. We discover something that seems so important to us, only to distractedly turn to focus our energy on something else.
Augustine understands this confusion, and he offers us vivid images from his own journey to God: his bewilderment seeing a drunken beggar who is joyously happy. His half-heartedness as he experiences Ambrose's sweeping sermons. His shame as we puts away his common-law wife to prepare to get ahead in marriage.
Join us as we continue to navigate the crisis of identity on the road with St. Augustine, even if you, like him, find yourself distracted and delayed.
Check out our other studies and resources available at www.burningwordpodcast.com
as well as all our print study guides and journals over at https://www.blurb.com/user/jhperrine
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?
Check out our other studies and resources available at www.burningwordpodcast.com
as well as all our print study guides and journals over at https://www.blurb.com/user/jhperrine
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.
Check out our other studies and resources available at www.burningwordpodcast.com
as well as all our print study guides and journals over at https://www.blurb.com/user/jhperrine
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.
Check out our other studies and resources available at www.burningwordpodcast.com
as well as all our print study guides and journals over at https://www.blurb.com/user/jhperrine
In this in-between 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.
Check out our other studies and resources available at www.burningwordpodcast.com
as well as all our print study guides and journals over at https://www.blurb.com/user/jhperrine
In our final episode, we want to get into the heart of the bible's description and summary of love. What is love really? How do we think about love? What is best that love can be? In the closing chapter of the Song of Songs we receive one of the finest pieces of love poetry the world has ever seen and are given some insight into what this search for intimacy has really been all about.
If you've enjoyed this series, you can find more available at our website, along with a companion study, and you can sign up to our newsletter or subscribe to stay in touch with new studies as they become available, all over at:
www.burningwordpodcast.com
In our fifth episode on the Song of Songs, we explore what it means to live in a culture where the bottom line of sex is simply whether or not we consent. The Song of Songs paints a radically different picture of covenantal belonging as the lover declares "I am my beloved, and my beloved is mine." What would it take to live in that kind of belonging in our search for intimacy? What would it look like to experience that kind of belonging with God? Join us for episode five and be sure to check out companion study and videos, available at our website:
www.burningwordpodcast.com
In episode 04, we want to return to a theology of beauty, and specifically go after the culture we find ourselves in that so often turns to an "objectifying gaze" of beauty. Beauty becomes something we try to seize and possess. But what if the Song of Songs is offering us a vision of how to redeem the gaze of love? What we find in all the strangeness and glory of a culture that is different to our own, is the feature of a wasf in the Song of Songs that depicts a steady, intentional adoration of one beloved to another. Is it possible that just such a vision is what God beholds us with? Is it possible that such a vision could be learned and embraced in our own love? If we are going to find intimacy, we will need to redeem the gaze of love.
Check out our videos and companion study, available over at www.burningwordpodcast.com
So far we've spoken rather postively about our search for intimacy, but anyone who has tried to love knows that love is not only a positve search. Sometimes there are terrors in the night. In this episode we explore the fears that drive us away from love as we look at Song of Song 3 & 5, as the lover finders herself lost in looking for the beloved.
Be sure to check out our accompanying videos and companion print study available at:
www.burningwordpodcast.com
Have you ever wondered where beauty comes from and why it matters so much to sex, our relationships, our social media presence, and to God? This episode we explore Song of Songs chapter 2 and the opening salvo, "I am a rose of Sharon" as a call to press in to beauty as one of our deep needs, etched on the human heart in order that we look for its true source in God. Be sure to check out all our studies and our companion print study available at our website
www.burningwordpodcast.com
In our first episode, we set up the conversation on sex by looking at all its complexities, confusion and abuses, before asking "what vision does the Song of Songs want to offer us when it comes to sex, God and intimacy?" Is it possible that there's more to sex than we've been led to believe? Is it possible that sex actually has something to do with our even deeper desire for God? Check out all our latest episodes and companion study by heading to our website www.burningwordpodcast.com
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!
In our fifth episode on Revelation and the Politics of Jesus, we're going to look at what Charles Taylor calls the "age of anxiety" and how we are motivated, and at times even controlled by the politics of fear. How are Christians call to respond to such politics? What does it look like to both trust God and protest the injustices around us? As we open up Revelation 8-11, we're to find that prayer and protesting brings together the prayer of the saints gather around the thrones, the seven trumpets, and the two witnesses, that culminates in a powerful practice we can share in today, as we each seek to live the politics of Jesus in our cities and communities.
Be sure to check out our companion bible study, available at our website: www.burningwordpodcast.com
In our fourth episode of our study of Revelation, we're going to look at Revelation 6-8 as begin to get into some of the bizarre and contested texts on judgement. Yet the question of judgement, leads us to God's vision for his people. What does it mean to hold these texts, while living in our highly contested partisan world of politics? How do we navigate the constant assaults, character assassinations, virtue signaling and cancel culture that accompanies our present political discourse? Do these texts of judgement offer us any vision of guidance for the people of God to follow the politics of Jesus in a highly contested partisan world? While these images may seem strange, they open our eyes to the world God is forming, intervening with, and redirecting, even as they cause us to pause over how we interact with our perceived enemies in this world. Check out our companion study available at www.burningwordpodcast.com/store and journey with us as we continue Revelation and the Politics of Jesus.
In our third episode in our study of Revelation, we're going to look at Revelation 4-5 and John's stunning vision of the throne room of God. However this vision, which brings us into God's presence and the heart of the gospel of Jesus Christ, confronts us politically with the divisive and embittered struggle taking place around Racism in America and beyond. How do we as Christians respond and engage with racism in light of John's vision in Revelation 4-5? How do I as a white Christian pastor, humbly approach this talk, seeking to learn, love and engage racism as an urgent matter of the gospel? One day, every tribe, tongue and nation will gather around the throne. How do we live out that vision of politics in the present? Check out episode 3, of our study of Revelation and the Politics of Jesus, and check out out our digital companion study, available at www.burningwordpodcast.com/store
In our second episode in our study of Revelation, we're going to look at Revelation 2-3 and Jesus' seven letters to the churches. But before we do, we want to begin by asking, "how is our current moment shaped by the contract of modernity, and the politics of capitalism?" As we survey the pressures and specifically the three temptations that were bearing down on these seven churches, what temptations do we find today, that draw our hearts towards idolatry, towards power, and towards the promise of more? And what public practice could we as the church use to curb the insatiable pressures of capitalism and idolatry that continue to confront us today? This episode dives deep into the text, and compares the politics of Jesus to the politics of Caesar, even as we ask how we as the church, are called to be formed and live today. As you journey with us, check out out our digital companion study, available at www.burningwordpodcast.com/store
In our opening episode to our study of Revelation, John begins by returning to the root of our politics. What does it mean to live in community together? How do our actions serve the common good or the interest of ourselves? And what does our politics have to do with Revelation, this massive mysterious book written to the church struggling with similar political questions under the rule of the Roman Empire? We'll talk about Aristotle, Augustine, Revelation chapter 1, the troubles in Northern Ireland, and what the politics of Jesus says about our calling as royal priests. And we're just getting started. Welcome to Revelation and the Politics of Jesus. And make sure to check out our digital companion study, available at www.burningwordpodcast.com/store
In this episode, we want to get real practical and "on the ground" of what it takes to restart your bible study. Borrowing some insights from behavioral psychology, we'll break down the four obstacles to restarting a habit, and how in turn, the four simple steps you can take to return to the Word and encounter God again.
A follow up to our first episode, we take a brief break after our study of Job to explore the "why" of bible study and ask what vision invites us to return to the word and encounter God again.
In this special episode, Jenna Perrine (MA, LPC) comes on as a guest to talk with John about suffering, the book of Job, and our search for God from a therapist's perspective, including discussions around God's sovereignty and trauma, why suffering is so hard to talk about in the church, and how we might start on the healing path that embraces our suffering as a means of drawing closer to God. This is an episode you won't want to miss.
In the eighth and final episode of our study of Job, we’ll explore the bewildering epilogue to Job’s story, where friends are condemned, and the fairy tale restoration of Job seems to invalidate the urgency of our questions. Yet now finally is the time to ask, what does Jesus have to do with Job? Is there any answer in Christ that God offers to the questions of Job? Is there any hope to offer to those who walk with Job?
In the seventh episode of our study of Job, we culminate Job’s journey with his confession. All of us live by some confession, a vision, a motto, a creed. The question really becomes, in the midst of our suffering after encountering God, what confession will we offer? For any who have asked, “Where is God in my suffering?” Job’s confession might just surprise you.
In the sixth episode of our study of Job, we finally hear God speak. This is the deepest desire of every sufferer, and yet it shouldn’t be lost on us that God does not come gently, but comes in the forceful power of a whirlwind. So what are we looking for when we hope to meet God? And what does God offer Job in his barrage of questions as together they tour creation? This episode is all about a God who after all our searching, will summon us to the terrifying, yet transforming power of what happens when God finally does speak.
In the fifth episode of our study of Job, we take at look at Elihu, the infamous intruder to Job’s story, who rebukes his questions and pours forth instead his own answers and praise. Yet this episode I’m curious to explore why Elihu has been given to us in our journey of suffering, what lessons he might have to offer even if his words are hard to hold, and why in a "cancel" culture, our best hope for an encounter with God might just first be to stop, and listen.
In the fourth episode of our study of Job, we’ll be taking a look at Job’s final appeal, to friends who have refused to let him speak. Our culture is finally waking up to abuses of power and silencing of victims. So this episode wants to know, if we’re to journey with Job, what happens when victims of suffering finally get the chance to speak before their silencers and before God?
In the third episode of our study of Job, we’ll explore one of the central heartbeats of Job: friendship. Yet this isn't feel good friends. It's instead a heated contest that roars into a debate, about where God is in our suffering. So this episode, we’ll explore the effect of Facebook on community, why its so hard to listen, and what hope there is if we’re to find friends again. This is an episode about when friends become enemies, and why we need them all the same.
In the second episode of our study of Job, we’ll look at the anguished cry of lament that opens Job’s speech, and explore why lament is so in vogue today, what true lament actually requires, why journeying with Job will require us to listen and speak our own pain.
In the first episode to our study of Job, we'll look at theodicies, Voltaire, why we can't help but ask "Where is God in my suffering?" and the surprising response of the book of Job, that demands we sit silently and listen to the ash heap.
Host John Perrine introduces The Burning Word Podcast and offers his analysis of why studying the Bible is so hard alongside three key approaches that will help bring the Bible back to life.