Edgar Andrews' Podcast: Recent Episodes
Edgar Andrews
Chris Boraston shows how to abide in Christ as branches in the vine (John 15:1-11). Understand that Jesus is the true vine so shun imitations; obey His words; rely on Him in all things for the branch cannot bear fruit of itself; humbly submit to God's pruning. Finally, through the power of the Holy Spirit, yield fruit that pleases God .
How can a sovereign God be in control of a dysfunctional world? How can we reconcile God's omnipotence with the rage of nations and the ungodly chaos we see around us? Psalm 2 provides prophetical answers to these questions, explaining what God has done about it by sending His King into the world and establishing His kingdom upon earth.
Did you know that the Apostle Paul said heresies were necessary? In 1 Corinthians 11:17-34 he explains that they help us distinguish real Christianity from false. Discussing the Lord's supper he manages also to explore the nature of heresy and how to negate it.
Visiting preacher Chris Boraston asks "Where did Jesus come from?" and finds the answer in the prologue to John's Gospel. There Jesus is identified as the creator; as the eternal Son and second Person of the Triune God; as the Word of God; as the incarnate Deity; and as the one in whom the Father is revealed to human sight and understanding.
Few NT passages have caused more contention and debate than 1 Cor. 11:2-16 which deals with headship and head coverings and has earned Paul an undeserved reputation as a misogynist. In revisiting this passage we discus what it really means and discover applications for churches and Christians today.
Few NT passages have caused more contention and debate than 1 Corintians 11:2-16 which deals with headship and head coverings and has earned Paul an undeserved reputation as a misogynist. In revisiting this passage we discus what it really means and discover applications for churches and Christians today
"All things are lawful for me" declares Paul in the opening verse of today's passage (1 Corinthians 10:23 - 11:1) and thus proclaims the grand theme of Christian liberty. But he spends his time explaining what it is and how we are to use it. We are to put others first, treat all people with courtesy as we seek to win them for Christ, and ultimately do all things to the glory of God.
Poor sound quality due to recording error; sorry!
1 Cor. 10:13 showed us how to escape temptation individually. The verses that follow (14-23) show us how to do so together in Christian fellowship with emphasis on the Lord's Table ... which defines the church, defies the devil and delights the believer.
All christians experience temptation and all sometimes yield to it and sin. But in 1 Corinthians 10:13 Paul tells us that God provides a way of escape from temptation. What is this way and how can we avail ourselves of it? We find answers and encouragement in today's podcast episode.
According to Paul, the church at Corinth was composed of people God had chosen and called with a view to creating a local church that would glory in the LORD and not in itself or its abilites and gifts (1 Cor. 1:26-31). To that end He had chosen and called the weak rather than the strong, nonentities rather than nobles and so on, to achieve a result that would reflect His soveign power, glory and grace. This is divine social engineering and it has profound implications for those who gather in local churches today.
In Paul's view there are ultimately only two kinds of wisdom, the wisdom of the world (or of man) and the wisdom of God. In 1 Corinthians 1:18-25 the Apostle develops his thesis by showing that only the wisdom of God is able to bring people to a knowledge of the true and living God. While the wisdom of man can help us know things about God it can never provide us with the means of knowing God Himself. What are these means? We consider three primary means, namely, the Spirit of God, the Scriptures from God and the Saviour who is God.
Paul urges the church at Corinth to seek a threefold unity (1 Cor. 1:10-17) without which no church can function effectively. It consists of (1) a doctrinal (didactic) unity, (2) an organic or body-like (somatic) unity, and (3) a unity of mind and judgement (a sophic unity). We consider each in turn and ask how they can be cultivated in a local church.
Beginning his first epistle to the Corinthians (verses 1-9) Paul firmly places the whole letter on the foundation of the grace of God. He shows that in spite of all the problems in this church (problems that occupy most of the epistle) the Corinthian believers had already been "sanctified [set apart] in Christ", called and made holy in the sight of God. These were accomplished facts, not desires or ambitions. In short, they had been saved by grace and made eternally secure. Paul continues by pointing out that the abundance of spiritual gifts at Corinth was also a work of God's grace in which the church had been specially favoured. Why? Because the uniquely diverse character of the inhabitants of Corinth demanded that the church should be uniquely equipped to meet the opportunities and challenges of their city. Finally in verses 8-9 we learn that the grace of God is on-going for believers, becoming the spiritual "climate" in which they were privileged to live for the rest of their lives.
In John 10 the Lord Jesus Christ claims to be the good shepherd of the sheep but on what does he base that claim? The passage and others scriptures provide us with three answers. 1) Christ owns his sheep having been given them by the Father as both a solemn responsibility and a precious love-gift; 2) Christ keeps his sheep, caring not only for the flock but for each individual member of the flock; 3) Christ saves his sheep, laying down his life in a sovereign act of priestly self-sacrifice and taking it again in resurrection to declare the sheep justified in the sight of God. None but Christ could accomplish these things. We learn how he remains for believers today the good shepherd of the sheep.
The psalmist Asaph has plunged into the depths of spiritual despair (Psalm 73) and many Christians today experience similar episodes of spiritual depression and find no way of escape. Asaph found deliverance when he "went into the sanctuary of God" and under the new covenant we have such a sanctuary in the Word of God, the scriptures that bring us close to God through faith in Christ. We see how like Asaph our faith can be restored to full vigour as we seek and find hope and joy in believing.
Christ's resurrection is much more than a postscript to his atoning death on the cross. It is rather God's fourfold proclamation of (1) the deity of Christ, (2) the answerability of all humanity at the final judgement, (3) the purity or righteousness of believers, and (4) their security in eternity. No wonder that Paul preached "Jesus and the resurrection" at Athens.
Preaching the gospel to the athenian philosophers on Mars Hill, Paul is compelled by their ignorance to go back to basics and explain that the true God is the unique Being who "created the world and everything in it" and "gives to all, life and breath and all things". We explore the implications of these basic truths for ourselves, emphasising the Bible's teaching that the Second Person of the Triune God, Christ the Son, was and is the One through Whom the universe was created and is now sustained.
Christ's second coming seldom affects the way Christians behave today as it did in the early church. Yet the parable of the sheep and the goats in Matthew 25:31-46 challenges our thinking on this issue because, as we seek to show in this podcast, it confronts us with the way we respond to Christ's "new commandment" to love our fellow believers as Christ loves us.
Apologies for the misquote from memory of Isaiah 65:25. It's the wolf and the lamb that will feed together, not the sheep and the bear!
Christians today need strength and courage to live effective and explicit christian lives in societies that are indifferent and often hostile to the gospel of Christ. The opening verses of the book of Joshua (1:1-9) point the way by giving us three reasons for being strong and bold ... God keeps his promises, God rewards obedience, and God never leaves or forsakes us.
In Part 1 of this study of Psalm 43 we saw that Christians possess resources that they often fail to use. The psalm defines two such resoures, the truth and light of God. We explained what these are in Part 1 and here show how they can lead us to God as the source of "exceeding joy" following the psalmist's spiritual (thought) pilgrimage to the ancient tabernacle where we discover the joy of forgiven sin, the joy of a cleansed conscience, the joy of serving God and the joy of beholding the glory of Christ.
The psalm begins in despair but ends with delight, the delight of finding God as the source of unfailing joy even in the midst of trouble. The Psalmist shows us how the transition from depression to delight cn be accomplished by a spiritual pilgrimage of the heart and mind and in dependence on the Word of God and the light shed upon it by the Holy Spirit. Part 1 of a two-part message preached at the reopening of the Campus Church in the UK.
The Christian is engaged in a war that rages in his or her own heart, a conflict between the old fallen nature ("the flesh") and the indwelling Spirit of God. In Galatians 5 the apostle Paul explains how we may walk in the Spirit and subdue the works of the flesh so as to glorify God in our practical lives and walk in peace with Him.
There were few in the church at Sardis (Rev. 3:1-6) who remained faithful to the apostolic gospel but the glorified Christ knew each one of them by name and they "walked" (lived out their daily lives) in intimate companionship with their Lord through all their trials, and did so clothed in His imputed righteousness. We find here and in linked OT prophecies something of what it means to be saved by grace through faith.
Many churches today are socially alive but spiritually dead or nearly so. The letter to the church in Sardis in Revelation 3:1-6 is therefore highly relevant to us because it not only diagnoses our present problems but also provides a five-point program authored by Christ Himself for reviving a dead church ... watch, strengthen, remember, hold fast and repent. See how it works in this episode.
Chimpanzees are no more our close relatives than mice. We examine in lay-person-friendly terms the claim that the chimps and humans share 98% of their genes and must therefore have had a common ancestor. We began this examination in a previous episode (go back just two episodes to watch the first part) but now get into the detail of how genes are expressed. It is the expression of genes that makes us so completely different from apes and gene expression is controlled by fantastic molecular mechanisms that neo-Darwinism can't begin to explain.
We are often told that chimp and humans share 98% of their genes but this claim is based on comparing ONLY the 5% of the genomes that (wait for it) are similar! And when whole genomes are compared the similarity between humans and chimps drops to as little as 70%. In this episode we see that what matters is not so much the genes as the way they are expressed, which differs profoudly between humans and chimps. No proof of evolutionary "common descent" is found here.
The person of Christ is central to the gospel and thus to biblical apologetics. Who is Jesus Christ? is a question that must be asked and answered. In this video exposition of John 8:12 we explore what it means that Jesus is "the light of the world". We conclude that he provides light to the believer in the darkness of this fallen world; that his incarnation, life as a man and teaching reveal and expose the sinfulness of all human beings; that by grace he gives "the light of life" to all who follow him; and that he requires his followers to live a "life of light", showing to those around them the glory of God.
In this episode we look for the alleged common ancestor of humans and chimpanzees and find that it has gone missing. No one knows what it looked like, how long it took to 'evolve' into chimps and humans repectivrly, how it overcame Haldane's dilemma of impossibly long 'waiting times' for the fixation of a genetic change, or why over the same period of time it evolved into another ape (the chimp) while at the same time evolving into humans having the ability to analyse the DNA of chimps and design zoos to accommodate them. Curious.
God's gracious dealings with Abraham in Genesis 18 show us how he also deals with all his children, always keeping his promises, always revealing his purposes, and always answering our prayers. He may not always do these things the way we expect or plan for, but we can be sure that in his sovereign grace "all things work together for good for those who love God, for those whoare called according to his purpose".
We do not live in a peaceful world but those who live by faith in Christ not only have peace WITH God but also peace IN God because in Christ they are united across social, racial and political divides. Finally the peace OF God keeps the hearts and minds of those who follow the Apostle's injunction to be of one mind with other believers, who rejoice in the Lord always, who trust rather than worry, and who give thanks to God as they lay their petitions before Him.
Man is the only biological species that worries about death and taxes, a fact that neatly sums up the uniqueness of Homo sapiens and introduces in an entertaining manner a new section of the book "What is Man? Adam, alien or ape?". We provide a biological perspective to Benjamin Franklin's famous claim that "nothing is certain except death and taxes", examining in detail the way that human attitudes to death, and human use of taxes, show that the difference between humans and chimpanzees (our supposed closest biological relatives) is a gulf that cannot be bridged by evolutioary scenarios.
SPECIAL GUEST VIIDEO BY DONALD WILLIAMSWestern Evangelicalism stands in urgent need of a new Reformation. This is the belief of American pastor, writer and apologist Prof. Donald Williams expounded in his new book “95 Theses for a New Reformation”. Adopting a format designed to remind us of Martin Luther’s famous 1517 manifesto, the author presents his case powerfully in 435 pages of closely reasoned yet eminently readable and gracious argumentation. Covering nineteen areas, from biblical doctrine to worship, evangelism, discipleship and revival, Don Williams seeks to diagnose the problems and prescribe the treatment they require. In the opinion of this Podcast, his book is essential reading for all who have at heart the welfare of evangelical churches everywhere.
Can a mutiverse pop up from nowhere like a string of cosmological volcanoes? Or are new universes (or 'worlds') created by each and every quantum event? In a new reading from the book "What is Man? Adam, alien or ape?" we examine two further multiverse theories and their strange and muddled implications. Are they scientifically plausible or science fiction? Judge for yourself.
The letter to thyatira (Rev. 2:18-29) ends with two amazing promises to those who remain faithful to Christ. Firstly, they will judge the world when Christ reigns in glory, and secondly Christ will make them like himself in every way except his deity. Here is motivating power for our present lives!
Does the multiverse hypothesis explain why our universe appears to be fine-tunes to support life without appealing to divine creation or intelligent design? Lt's find out!
We begin our study of the letter to the church at Thyatira (Rev. 2:18-2) seeing how Christ is the judge of His people and of churches, and how he dealt with a church that harbored a cult within its membership.
What exactly is required to fine-tune a universe to support life? We examine six physical quantities that need to lie within narrow ranges for a universe to be able to host life. Based on the book "Just six numbers" by Martin Rees.
Entitled "the mouse and the elephant" we explain and examine the cosmic quantities that need to be fine-tuned to support life.
Most cosmologists and space scientists agree that the cosmos must be "fine-tuned" to permit life to exist, but opinions differ greatly when it comes to explaining how this came about. To some it is just an accident of nature, to others it suggests the existence of a "multiverse" in which only a few among millions of possible universes can offer life-sustaining conditions. Others see the universe in which we live as evidence for desgn by a Creator, while Bible-believing Christians attribute this design to God. In this 30 minute episode we explore these alternatives in a further reading from the book "What is Man? Adam, alien or ape?
PASSPORT TO THE PRESENCE OF GOD
PASSPORT TO THE PRESENCE OF GOD
April 24, 2021
Passports are in the news. For example, should vaccinated people get covid 19 passports allowing them to access certain events and places? In a new episode of Revelation Revisited we study the second part of Christ's letter to the church at Pergamon and discover that Christians possess a passport they often forget ... the white stone (Rev. 2:12-17) bearing Christ's Name that symbolises their access to the throne and presence of almighty God!
Galatians 5:16-26 explains why Christians struggle at times with temptation and sin, but goes on to show how we can overcome the old sinful nature and "walk in the Spirit" bringing forth the fruit of the indwelling Holy Spirit and living a life pleasing to God.
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Many claim that Man is an accident of cosmology (providing a life-supporting planet), of chemistry (causing the origin of life), and of evolution ( causing Man to arise from a common ancestor shared with the great apes). This lecture offers a brief critique of these ideas and finds them wanting. The lecture is based on the book "What is Man? Adam, alien or ape?"
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This lecture explores the biblical statement that Man is made in the image of God, seeking to show that this implies that God shares certain of His communicable attributes uniquely with Man.
Some preliminary considerations of a subject treated at length in the book "What is Man?"
A brief video clip addressing one of the key questions raised in the author's book "What is Man? Adam, alien or ape?"
A brief video clip addressing one of the key questions raised in the author's book "What is Man? Adam, alien or ape?"
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In this video, Edgar Andrews explains in brief why he has written his new book,"What is Man? Adam, alien or ape?" See other recent podcasts for his lectures on the subject. The English edition of the book will be released world-wide in June 2018.
The second of two talks given at the launch of the Dutch edition of my new book "What is Man? Adam, alien or ape?" Here I identify the underlying philosophy that fuels all opposition to the biblical narrative and worldview.
This talk was given at the launch of the Dutch edition of my new book "What is Man? Adam, alien or ape?" on 23 February. The English version will be released in UK in April 2008 and in USA in June 2018.
God told Moses, "no one shall see my face and live" while Paul tells Timothy that God "dwells in unapproachable light, whom no man has seen or can see". Yet God did appear to some in the OT theophanies (e.g. to Abraham, Joshua,Jacob,Isaiah). In resolving this dilemma we discover some important things about worship, about ourselves, and about the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ.
A bible study by guest speaker Chris Durrant on Jonah Chs. 3-4 showing how God's sovereign mercy reaches the most unlikely people.
A message on Rev. 1:15; "His feet were like fine brass, as if refined in a furnace". In the Bible, feet often used as powerful symbols, and that is the case here. We see how the shining feet of Christ in John's vision speak of his mission (to seek and to save those who were lost); his possession (of the land of salvation for his people), and his dominion (over all things). The apologetic content of this message lies in its interpretation of the symbolic use of feet in scripture.
Guest speaker Steven Bowers finds seven marks of a model church in Paul's letters to the Thessalonians. The model church is one that(1)has a message for its generation; (2)seeks to please God rather than itself; (3)stands strong against oposition; (4)works diligently; (5)has a hard-working leadership; (6)makes people matter; and(7)knows the Holy Spirit working in it.
Revelation chapter 1 shows us the glory of Christ as it is revealed to John in the vision of verses 9-20. But how may we experience the glory of Christ for ourselves? Must we deduce it by reasoning from the doctrines of Scripture or is there a better way ... one in which, like John, we may gain a direct perception of His glory? The answer is yes; faith is the spiritual sight by which we may experience directly for ourselves the glory of Christ.
The second of two back-to-back talks given at the "Who made God" conference at the Campus Church, Welwyn garden City, UK on 27 Feb. 2016, the first talk being "The necessity of God" ... an argument derived from current atheistic cosmologies! This second talk complements the first by identifying the specific characteristics of the biblical God. The presentation is based on Paul's address to the Athenian philosophers in Acts 17 and locates three cosmic 'identifiers' and three relational 'identifiers' that distinguish the true God from all imitations. These identifiers lead logically to the gospel of salvation through faith in Jesus Christ.
The first of two lectures given at an'Alpha & Omega'Conference at the Campus Church, Welwyn Garden City on 27 February 2016. We examine the three most popular cosmological arguments advanced by atheists in their attempt to prove the non-existence of God, namely (1) that God is an invention of the human mind; (2) that the idea of God has no explanatory value (the "Who made God?" question); and (3)that the universe created itself. Not only do we see that these arguments are based on fallacious reasoning but that they actually lead logically to the neccessity of God.
We are not truly preaching God's Word unless we put it to work, that is, apply it to people's lives. It must first be applied to the mind because the mind is the gateway to the soul, but this consideration leads us further to examine areas of application; Timothy must apply the Word to convince,rebuke and comfort those who hear.
Every believer has a gift of some kind, given by God to be exercised for the benefit of the body of Christ. But the attitude with which we exercise our gifts is just as important as the gifts themselves. God looks not just to our acts of service but to the way we carry them out.
What does the Bible mean by 'salvation' and how exactly does 'god-breathed' scripture make us wise to it? We trace the implications for a God-gloryfying life.
In this third podcast on we explore the intrinsic power that resides in 'God-breathed Scripture' (2 Tim. 3:16), appealing to the statement in Hebrews 4:12 that the word of God is living and powerful and sharper than any two-edged sword, and illustrating the principle from other scriptures.
We see in these verses that the creation ordinance of marriage was under attack even in New Testament times as it is today. The good news is that in spite of this marriage has survived and the better news is that it remains a powerful picture of the marriage vow that Christ has made to his church. We trace some of the spiritual and practical implications of marriage under three headings; it is honorable, faithful and fruitful.
One subjective implication of scripture being 'god-breathed' is that in reading, hearing and meditating upon scripture we may enter into a direct and personal experience of the proximity of God. We see how this works by considering Jacob's dream at Bethel and Psalm 139.
Paul asserts that "all scripture is breathed out by God" (2 Tim. 3:16 ESV). But what does that mean? What constitutes "all scripture" and how can it be "God-breathed"? In this sermon we explore both the meaning and the practical implications of this remarkable claim.
In the Lord's Prayer God's forgiveness is made conditional on our forgiving others. But how can we reconcile this with the basic idea of grace ... that God "who is rich in mercy" (Ephesians 2:4-6) forgives the sinner unconditionally? Our study leads us into deep issues such as the image of God in man.
In this third meditation on the Lord's Prayer we examine the simple petition "Give us this day our daily bread", only to discover that it is a doorway to the amazing doctrine of the providence of God. We see both the general porvidence of God in His care for all creation and His special providence in His care for those who trust in Him.
In this, the second sermon in a series on the Lord's Prayer we consider the petition, "Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth". Yet the Bible teaches that God is and always has been the sovereign ruler of heaven and earth, so in what sense is his kingdom still awaited? The answer lies in the qualifying statement 'in earth AS it is in heaven'.
A New year meditation based on Joshua 1:1-9 and showing our need to be strong in the Lord as we face the challenges, opportunities and responsibilities that lie ahead.
A message given at the recognition service for a newly appointed church pastor. We consider Caleb as a role-model and object lesson for pastors and Christians today, considering his excitement over the Land (picturing salvation), his disappointment with his fellow Israelites and his fulfilment in eventually possessing his inheritance.
The first in a series of studies on the Lord's Prayer in Matthew 6:8-15 and its practical significance for Christian living today. In this study we consider the nature of the Father in heaven to whom we pray.
In this popular-level lecture Professor Edgar Andrews examines three arguments commonly used by atheists to dismiss the claim that God created the universe. The lecture not only refutes these arguments but also weaves them together to show how taken together they actually imply the necessity of a creator God, driving the atheist into a logical cul-de-sac from which (the lecture argues) escape is impossible.
Following my podcast lecture "Atheism's logical cul-de-sac" we now see how the Apostle Paul explained the true nature of God to the philosophers of Athens.
The first in a series of sermons on Psalm 34 in which we find a variety of tests we can apply to ourselves to assess our spiritual health (how close we are to God).
We continue to find in Psalm 34 various tests by which we can assess how close we are to God. In this sermon we look at the test of prayer ... how the quality of our prayer life reflects our spiritual health.
The idea that we should fear God is prominent in the Bible but almost forgotten by Christians today. In this sermon we explore what it means to 'fear God' and the benefits that follow.