Word for Word

Are Images of Jesus Idolatrous?

Wed, 06 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

A careful biblical answer to the question: Are Images of Jesus Idolatrous? Accessible teaching grounded in Scripture.

Is the Virgin Birth Miracle or Myth?

Wed, 29 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

A careful biblical answer to the question: Is the Virgin Birth Miracle or Myth? Accessible teaching grounded in Scripture.

Was Christianity Influenced by Ancient Pagan Mystery Religions?

Wed, 22 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

A careful biblical answer to the question: Was Christianity Influenced by Ancient Pagan Mystery Religions? Accessible teaching grounded in Scripture.

What Does It Mean to Say That Jesus Ascended into Heaven?

Wed, 15 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

A careful biblical answer to the question: What Does It Mean to Say That Jesus Ascended into Heaven? Accessible teaching grounded in Scripture.

How Can We Be Sure About the Resurrection of Christ?

Wed, 08 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

A careful biblical answer to the question: How Can We Be Sure About the Resurrection of Christ? Accessible teaching grounded in Scripture.

What Credentials Back Up Jesus' Claim to Deity?

Wed, 01 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

A careful biblical answer to the question: What Credentials Back Up Jesus' Claim to Deity? Accessible teaching grounded in Scripture.

Did Jesus Claim to Be God?

Wed, 25 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

A careful biblical answer to the question: Did Jesus Claim to Be God? Accessible teaching grounded in Scripture.

Does the Bible Claim Jesus is God?

Wed, 18 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

A careful biblical answer to the question: Does the Bible Claim Jesus is God? Accessible teaching grounded in Scripture.

Is the New Testament Anti-Semitic?

Wed, 11 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Austin Duncan takes up the charge that the New Testament is antisemitic and answers it by pressing the Jewishness of the documents themselves. Jesus, Matthew, John, Peter, and Paul were Jews; the letters lean on Exodus, the priesthood, and the twelve tribes; early worship came straight from the synagogue. Read that way, the harsh words function as family argument in the tradition of Isaiah and Jeremiah, not outsider attack. Romans 9 to 11 anchors the case, where Paul denies God has rejected Israel and grieves for his own people. The teaching then handles specific texts: John's "the Jews" as often shorthand for the Jerusalem authorities, Matthew 27:25 as a moment of local responsibility rather than a hereditary curse, and Matthew 23 as internal prophetic rebuke. It also notes Nostra Aetate and wider church statements repudiating collective guilt.

Is the New Testament Canon Authoritative or Authoritarian?

Thu, 05 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

The question of who picked the New Testament books is answered by walking through the actual historical record. Rather than a council choosing favorites, the evidence shows a community recognizing writings that already carried their own weight. Paul directed that his letters be circulated and read publicly, and Peter placed them alongside "the other Scriptures." Ignatius, Polycarp, and Justin Martyr show the Gospels and Pauline letters functioning as Scripture by the early second century, and the Muratorian Fragment gives a list close to ours by A.D. 170. Marcion's attempt to impose a canon by personal authority was rejected. Origen and Eusebius narrow the disputed edges, and Athanasius, Hippo, and Carthage confirm what churches already held. Authority, not authoritarianism.

Was Jesus Really in the Grave for Three Days and Three Nights?

Thu, 26 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Counting from Friday evening to Sunday morning yields two nights, not three, and Jesus staked His credibility on that prediction. Austin Duncan works the problem by asking how first century Jews actually counted time. Any part of a day counted as a whole day, days ran sunset to sunset, and "three days and three nights" functioned as a Hebrew idiom rather than a stopwatch measurement. Esther, Genesis 42, 1 Samuel 30, 1 Kings 12, and Hosea 6 all equate "three days" with "on the third day." The Gospels use five different phrases for the same event, and the burial timeline fits Friday, Saturday, Sunday as three calendar days. The wider lesson: read Scripture on its own cultural terms.

Do the Genealogies of Jesus in Matthew and Luke Contradict One Another?

Thu, 19 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Matthew traces Jesus through Solomon in forty-one names arranged in three sets of fourteen; Luke runs backward through Nathan across seventy-six names to Adam and to God. Duncan first makes the reader feel the problem, including the sharpest detail: Joseph's father is Jacob in Matthew and Heli in Luke. He then argues the trouble lies in modern assumptions rather than the texts, walking through the conventions that governed ancient genealogies. They were legal and theological instruments, not exhaustive biological records; adoption and levirate marriage placed men in more than one line; skipped generations were normal, as Matthew's omission of three kings shows; numbers carried symbolic weight, with fourteen encoding David's name. The transcript breaks off partway through the principle that "son of" need not mean biological son.

Do the Gospel Accounts Contradict One Another?

Thu, 12 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Austin Duncan takes up the objection that Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John contradict each other, beginning by admitting the differences openly: two blind men or one, entering Jericho or leaving. Rather than explaining them away, he argues the expectations are misplaced. The Gospels are ancient biographies, and drawing on Burridge, Keener, and R. T. France he shows that ancient writers grouped material thematically, compressed events, selected details for their audiences, and paraphrased speech without any charge of dishonesty. Matthew's fulfillment themes, Mark's urgency, Luke's ordered inquiry, and John's confessed selectivity each shape what gets included. Variation in Jesus' reported words reflects normal ancient convention and translation from Aramaic. The differences read as marks of honest, independent testimony.

Did Jesus Make a Crucial Historical Blunder in the Gospel of Mark?

Thu, 05 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Critics rank Mark 2:26 near the top of alleged Bible errors: Jesus says David ate the consecrated bread "in the days of Abiathar the high priest," but 1 Samuel 21 names Ahimelech. Austin Duncan walks through the underlying story, David's flight to Nob, Saul's slaughter of the priests, and Abiathar's escape to David, before turning to the Greek phrase itself. The preposition with the genitive can mark a broad era or even a section of Scripture, paralleled by Luke 3:2 and Romans 11:2. Add the likely Aramaic behind the saying, Abiathar's far greater name recognition, his place in the same priestly household, and the wider David narrative Jesus is invoking, and the supposed blunder dissolves into ordinary ancient speech.

Were Mark and the Messiah Mistaken About Mustard Seeds?

Thu, 29 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Skeptics claim Jesus erred when he called the mustard seed the smallest of all seeds, since orchid seeds are far tinier. Austin Duncan walks through the actual texts, showing that the strongest wording appears only in Mark, that Matthew softens it and Luke drops the ranking entirely, and that scholars read Mark's phrase "on earth" as an editorial amplification rather than a verbatim quotation. He then sets the saying in its setting: black mustard was the smallest seed a Galilean farmer ever sowed, and "like a grain of mustard" was already a rabbinic idiom for something minuscule. Everyday comparisons help make the point about emphatic speech. The parable is about the kingdom's improbable growth, not seed taxonomy.

Must Women Be Silent in the Church?

Thu, 22 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Two Pauline commands seem to shut women up completely, yet the same apostle coaches women on how to prophesy publicly, calls Phoebe a diakonos, praises Priscilla for correcting Apollos, and names Junia among the apostles. Austin Duncan lays that tension out honestly before turning to setting. Corinth was a chaotic port city and a chaotic church, and by chapter 14 Paul is putting out a fire: tongues without interpreters, prophets talking over each other, worship an embarrassment to outsiders. The instruction to women sits under verse 33, God is not a God of confusion. Drawing on Kenneth Bailey and the wife/woman ambiguity in the Greek, the case is that Paul corrects disruptive questioning, not female speech as such. The Ephesus discussion begins but the transcript breaks off.

Can a Woman Be Saved Through Childbearing?

Thu, 15 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMT

1 Timothy 2:15. It’s the verse that seems to fly in the face of everything else Paul taught. Salvation through childbearing? What happened to faith alone? Grace alone? Christ alone?

Can an Unbeliever Be Saved by Marrying a Believer?

Thu, 08 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Austin Duncan works through one of the most misused verses in Christian dating culture. Setting Paul's words in the context of Corinth, where the gospel arrived into households and marriages already formed, he shows that the passage answers converts asking whether their pagan spouse defiles them, not singles asking whether they may marry an unbeliever. Three features of the text carry the argument: Paul's admission that he speaks where Jesus left no recorded teaching, the condition that the unbeliever be willing to stay, and the closing question "how do you know whether you will save your husband?" which leaves the outcome uncertain. Drawing on Robertson, Barnes and Ellicott, he argues that sanctified here means the marriage is set apart, not that the unbelieving spouse is saved.

Does James teach salvation by works?

Thu, 01 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Paul says faith apart from works; James says faith without works is dead. Rather than choosing sides, this teaching sets the two in their own settings. Paul writes into the controversy over whether Gentiles must add circumcision and Torah observance to faith, and answers from Abraham, who was credited righteous before the law existed. James writes to scattered, pressured Jewish believers who use faith as a badge while leaving a cold and hungry neighbour with a blessing and nothing else. Two ditches are named: salvation by achievement, and faith as a verbal claim. The heart of it is a taxonomy of faith, claimed, doctrinally correct, dead, and living faith working through love, with Ephesians 2 holding works as fruit rather than root.

Is baptism necessary for salvation?

Thu, 25 Dec 2025 00:00:00 GMT

A careful biblical answer to the question: Is baptism necessary for salvation? Accessible teaching grounded in Scripture.

Does Isaiah 53:5 guarantee our healing today?

Thu, 18 Dec 2025 00:00:00 GMT

A careful biblical answer to the question: Does Isaiah 53:5 guarantee our healing today? Accessible teaching grounded in Scripture.

How could Pharaoh be morally responsible if God hardened his heart?

Thu, 11 Dec 2025 00:00:00 GMT

The charge that God manipulated Pharaoh and then punished him for it gets tested against the actual shape of the Exodus narrative. Austin Duncan tracks the hardening language across the plagues, noting that early references describe Pharaoh hardening himself while divine hardening grows more prominent after repeated refusals. Prediction, he argues, is not coercion; God knows Pharaoh's character and prepares Moses for a long showdown. Three Hebrew verbs are examined: a heart that becomes set, heavy, and rigid. Pharaoh is shown to be no blank slate but an oppressor who dismisses Yahweh outright in Exodus 5:2, so hardening functions as judgment confirming a chosen path. Romans 9 frames the discussion, holding sovereignty and responsibility together without resolving the tension away.

How can Christians legitimize a God who orders the genocide of nations?

Thu, 04 Dec 2025 00:00:00 GMT

Austin Duncan takes up the passages critics like Dawkins use hardest, refusing to soften them but insisting that being disturbed is not the same as disproving. Three lenses are laid out. First, ancient Near Eastern battle writing used sweeping total-victory language, which the Bible itself qualifies when Joshua reports both a conquered land and much land remaining. Second, archaeology suggests these were small fortified administrative and military centers rather than sprawling civilian populations, though the point is not that no civilians died. Third, Scripture frames the action as delayed judgment on entrenched corruption, not ethnicity, since Israel faces the same judgment and Rahab and the Gibeonites are received. The closing turn draws on Aquinas, Craig and Keller to argue God's authority over life and that this was a limited, unrepeatable moment, not a template.

How could a good God sanction the stoning of a disobedient child?

Thu, 27 Nov 2025 00:00:00 GMT

Austin Duncan takes up a text often quoted as proof the Bible is barbaric and begins where the law began: a world in which fathers held unchecked power over their children's lives. Roman patria potestas, the Twelve Tables, Greek exposure ceremonies and the Spartan chasm, Egyptian sale documents, Hammurabi's debt provisions and Canaanite child sacrifice are laid out in detail. Against that backdrop the Deuteronomy text is read slowly for what it withholds from the father: no private execution, but elders, a public charge at the gate, and the whole community. The Hebrew terms for stubborn and rebellious are traced to Israel's own rebellion against God, and rabbinic discussion in Sanhedrin is noted as narrowing the law almost to impossibility.

How could the Bible command a rape victim to marry her rapist?

Thu, 20 Nov 2025 00:00:00 GMT

Deuteronomy 22:28-29 is the verse atheists screenshot: a rapist pays fifty shekels, marries the woman, and may never divorce her. Austin Duncan sets it beside the ancient alternatives, where Hammurabi's code and Middle Assyrian law treated rape as damage to a father's property, city victims who were not heard screaming could be tried as adulteresses, and Egyptian law ignored the assault of an unmarried woman entirely. He works through the Hebrew taphas (to seize by force), notes that the command falls on the perpetrator rather than the victim, and reads the law alongside Exodus 22:16-17, where the father may refuse the marriage and still collect the bride-price. Citing Matthew 19:8, Hank Hanegraaff and the Christian Research Institute, he argues for progressive revelation: divine concession within a hard-hearted patriarchal system, and God's persistent defense of the vulnerable.

Was Jonah swallowed by a whale?

Thu, 13 Nov 2025 00:00:00 GMT

Austin Duncan takes up the question skeptics love: did a man really survive three days inside a great fish? He offers three reasons for reading Jonah as history: Jonah's verifiable career in 2 Kings 14:25 under Jeroboam II, the book's plain narrative style with named places like Joppa, Tarshish and Nineveh, and Jesus' parallel in Matthew 12 between Jonah and the Son of Man. He notes the Hebrew "dag gadol" says fish, not whale, surveys sperm whales, the disputed 1891 James Bartley account cited in the Princeton Theological Review, and Michael Packard's 2021 Cape Cod encounter. Then he turns to Assyrian cruelty, the 763 B.C. Bur-Sagale eclipse, Nineveh's repentance, and Jonah's rage at grace.

Does the Bible promote slavery?

Thu, 06 Nov 2025 00:00:00 GMT

Austin Duncan takes on the charge that Scripture endorses slavery, part of a Word for Word series on hard Old Testament questions. He first distinguishes ancient debt servitude, war captivity, and household service from race-based chattel slavery, then walks through seven features of Israelite law: six-year release (Exodus 21:2), the Jubilee reset, the death penalty for kidnapping (Exodus 21:16) alongside Paul's condemnation of slave traders (1 Timothy 1:10), freedom for an injured servant (Exodus 21:26-27) contrasted with Hammurabi's fine paid to the owner, sanctuary for runaways (Deuteronomy 23:15-16), and Sabbath and festival inclusion. He faces Leviticus 25:44-46 directly, then explains progressive revelation using Jesus on divorce in Matthew 19:8 and quoting Paul Copan.

Does the Bible promote polygamy?

Wed, 29 Oct 2025 00:00:00 GMT

A common skeptic's challenge gets a careful answer: if marriage is one man and one woman, why do Abraham, Jacob, David and Solomon have multiple wives? Austin begins with Genesis 2 as prescriptive design given before the Fall, then places polygamy in its ancient Near Eastern setting where it functioned partly as survival for vulnerable women, noting it appears in only about one percent of named marriages and almost always among the wealthy elite. The central principle is that recording is not endorsing, supported by Deuteronomy 17's warning that many wives lead a king's heart astray and by law codes that limit damage rather than describe the ideal. The narratives then preach for themselves: Hagar's flight, Sarah's bitterness, Jacob's favoritism and the rivalry between Leah and Rachel.

Who was Cain's wife?

Wed, 22 Oct 2025 00:00:00 GMT

Austin Duncan opens an Old Testament issues series with the question that embarrassed William Jennings Bryan at the Scopes Trial. The answer rests on Genesis 5:4, which records that Adam had other sons and daughters, meaning Cain married a sister or niece within Adam's line. Getting there requires reading Genesis on its own terms: chapters 1 through 5 compress long stretches of time, and biblical genealogies name only the sons who carry the narrative forward. Since Seth was born when Adam was 130 and after Abel's death, decades had already passed, which also explains Cain's fear of avengers and his founding of a city. Population estimates from Josephus, Henry Morris and others are offered as speculative but plausible. The wider stake is the unity of the human race and the gospel logic of sin through one man.

If Christianity is true, why are so many atrocities committed in the name of Christ?

Wed, 15 Oct 2025 00:00:00 GMT

Austin Duncan takes the accusation seriously: crusaders massacred Jerusalem, inquisitors tortured and burned, slaveholders quoted Scripture on Sunday and kept chains through the week. His argument is that abuse of a faith does not disprove it, and that Jesus Himself predicted people would work lawlessness in His name. Each dark chapter is examined for its actual causes, including medieval warrior culture, fear after centuries of conquest, papal and noble ambition, forced religious unity in Spain, and plantation profits, alongside honest figures on Inquisition executions. He notes the Christians who protested, from Rhineland bishops to Increase Mather, Wilberforce, and Douglass. The piece closes as it turns to compare these episodes with Christ's actual teaching.

Is religion the root of evil?

Wed, 08 Oct 2025 00:00:00 GMT

A response to the popular charge that faith is history's chief killer. Austin Duncan grants the honest part of the accusation, then argues the roots run deeper: the fallen human heart, the corruption of power, ideological extremism, and false religion that Jesus Himself condemned in Matthew 7. None of the four requires belief in God. He then turns to the numbers, noting that the Encyclopedia of Wars classifies fewer than 7% of 1,763 wars as primarily religious, while the twentieth century's atheistic regimes under Stalin, Mao, and Pol Pot killed on a scale no religious war approaches. The Crusades, Inquisition, and modern terrorism are named plainly rather than excused. The verdict: religion is often the excuse for evil, not its cause, since the line between good and evil runs through every heart.

Why does God allow bad things to happen to good people?

Wed, 01 Oct 2025 00:00:00 GMT

The question of why God permits suffering deserves wrestling rather than a tidy formula, and Austin Duncan begins by granting its weight, quoting William Lane Craig's own admission of difficulty. Romans 8 becomes the anchor: not that all things are good, but that God works in all things for good. From there the teaching traces evil to three sources, the misuse of creaturely freedom, a creation fractured by the Fall, and a real spiritual conflict in which Satan operates under limits. Then come four responses: God entered our suffering in Christ and bears wounds, God brings good out of evil without calling evil good, God promises coming justice and restoration, and God stays present with the brokenhearted now.

What is truth?

Wed, 24 Sep 2025 00:00:00 GMT

Austin Duncan opens with the gap between courtroom oaths and classroom relativism, noting that nobody actually lives as though truth were optional. He recovers the classical definition from Aristotle and Aquinas, truth as correspondence between mind and reality, then surveys Barna and Arizona Christian University findings showing how few Americans, including professing Christians, hold to absolute truth. The heart of the argument is that relativism refutes itself, illustrated through conversations with a college student and a high schooler pressed on whether torturing babies is always wrong. Jesus' claim in John 14:6 is set against other religious founders, with word studies on aletheia and emet. Everyday examples from GPS, medicine, science, law, and language show truth is already assumed. The text breaks off partway into the tolerance objection.

If we can't see God, how can we know He exists?

Wed, 17 Sep 2025 00:00:00 GMT

Austin Duncan begins where doubt actually lives: the everyday trust we place in things we never see, from jurors to pharmacists to electrons. Faith, he argues from Hebrews 11, is not a leap into darkness but reason working beyond the reach of physical sight. From there he walks four lines of evidence. Creation, with fine-tuning figures from Penrose, Davies, and Bradley, plus the information encoded in DNA. Conscience, using Lewis on the man who insists morality is relative and then complains something is unfair. Transformed lives, where consciousness and consistent testimonies of new creation resist materialist explanation. Finally history, comparing New Testament manuscript evidence to other ancient texts, citing hostile sources, and closing with Stoner's odds on fulfilled messianic prophecy.

Who made God?

Wed, 10 Sep 2025 00:00:00 GMT

Austin Duncan treats the skeptic's favourite question as an invitation rather than a threat. Using dominoes, a borrowed book and a chandelier with no ceiling, he lays out the problem of infinite regress: if everything depends on something else, nothing exists at all. Something must exist by its own nature. That, he argues, is precisely what Scripture names when God tells Moses "I AM WHO I AM," and what Jesus claims in John 8 when the stones come out. "Who made God?" is therefore a category error, not special pleading. Augustine's insight that time belongs to creation handles the "before creation" version. The piece closes with pastoral application, four common objections answered, and a conversational script for the Thanksgiving table.

How many explanations are there for the existence of our universe?

Wed, 03 Sep 2025 00:00:00 GMT

Using the picture of a chocolate cake found on a kitchen counter, Austin Duncan argues that only four explanations for the universe are possible: someone made it, it came from nothing, it always existed, or infinite universes exist. He then dismantles three. An eternal universe fails on thermodynamics and heat death, on Hubble's expansion and the cosmic microwave background, and on the absurdity of a completed infinite past. Creation from nothing confuses the quantum vacuum with philosophical nothing and cannot account for pre-existing physical laws. The multiverse lacks any evidence or means of falsification. The transcript ends mid-critique of the multiverse, having framed Hebrews 11:3 as the remaining answer.

Can chance account for the universe?

Wed, 27 Aug 2025 00:00:00 GMT

Austin Duncan opens with a casino illustration and argues that the mathematics of probability, applied to the cosmos, makes chance a worse bet than design. He lays out three lines of evidence for a beginning: cosmic expansion traced back 13.8 billion years, the cosmic microwave background, and the measured abundance of light elements. If space and time began, he argues, their cause must be spaceless, timeless, immaterial, powerful, and personal. He then surveys the fine-tuning of the gravitational constant, the strong nuclear force, the cosmological constant discrepancy of 10^120, and the carbon resonance that unsettled Fred Hoyle. The final section turns to Earth's habitable zone, the sun's stability, and the moon's role, and the transcript breaks off mid-discussion of Earth's axial tilt.

Is there evidence for life after death?

Wed, 20 Aug 2025 00:00:00 GMT

Austin Duncan opens with the pastoral weight of the question, having sat at gravesides and hospital bedsides, then turns to evidence. Survey data shows most of humanity still believes something survives death, which raises the question of where that intuition comes from. The philosophical section presses four points: the universality of afterlife belief, the hard problem of consciousness and why materialism struggles to explain subjective experience, the puzzle of personal identity persisting through constant physical change, and the moral argument that justice requires a reckoning beyond this life. The historical section lays out four widely accepted facts about Jesus' death, empty tomb, appearances, and the church's explosive growth, then tests the wrong tomb, swoon, hallucination, and conspiracy theories against them. The text breaks off mid-discussion of James.

How do we know that the Bible is divine rather than human in origin?

Wed, 13 Aug 2025 00:00:00 GMT

Austin Duncan takes up the question underneath everything else Christians believe: is Scripture God-breathed or merely human? He argues no single proof settles it, but multiple independent lines converge like evidence in a criminal case. First, manuscripts: roughly 5,700 Greek copies of the New Testament against a handful for Plato, Caesar, and Thucydides, with early fragments and variant rates around half a percent. The Dead Sea Scrolls show the Old Testament text preserved almost word for word across a thousand years. Then prophecy: Messianic predictions Jesus could not have staged, Stoner's probability calculation, the fall of Tyre, Daniel's empires, and modern Israel. The episode moves into archaeology, citing the Tel Dan Stele, the Pilate Stone, and excavated cities, and breaks off there.

What are the most significant apologetic issues?

Wed, 06 Aug 2025 00:00:00 GMT

Faith crises rarely turn on obscure doctrine. Austin Duncan argues that almost every one traces back to four questions: does God exist, why is there evil, can we trust the Bible, and did Jesus rise. Grounding the task in 1 Peter 3:15 and Paul at Athens, he frames apologetics as clearing rocks off the path rather than winning arguments. Most of the space goes to the first issue, laying out the cosmological, design, and moral arguments and their cumulative force, with help from Cooper, Collins, Craig, and Lewis. He then turns to suffering, separating the logical from the emotional problem, citing Plantinga, and beginning the free will defense and soul-making theodicy. The remaining two issues are deferred to later episodes.

Can a person be argued into the kingdom of God?

Wed, 30 Jul 2025 00:00:00 GMT

Two people hear the same case for Christianity and only one believes. Working from John 6:44, 1 Corinthians 2 and 3, and Romans 10, Duncan argues that conversion is both God's work and a real human response, and that it often unfolds as a process rather than a single dramatic moment. He describes the web of influences behind most conversions, then walks through four kinds of resistance: intellectual objections that often mask deeper wounds, moral unwillingness to surrender control, emotional injury from pain and church hurt, and the spiritual enmity only the Spirit can break. Apologetics is compared to a snowplow: it clears obstacles but does not save. Illustrated throughout with pastoral conversations and C. S. Lewis.

Is apologetics really necessary?

Wed, 23 Jul 2025 00:00:00 GMT

Christians often meet hard questions with "you just have to believe," a phrase that closes conversations rather than opening them. Working from 1 Peter 3:15, the teaching shows that Peter's apologia is a courtroom word for a reasoned defense, commanded of everyone, always, and carried out with gentleness and respect. Jesus offered Thomas evidence and gave many convincing proofs after the resurrection. Paul reasoned in synagogues and built a bridge from Greek poets to the gospel in Athens. Justin Martyr and Origen continued the pattern. Along the way come Pew figures on religious switching, Barna research showing that non-Christians mainly want listening and honesty about doubt, and a case that science by definition cannot disprove God.

What is apologetics?

Wed, 16 Jul 2025 00:00:00 GMT

Opening with Francis Schaeffer's deathbed conversation with an atheist friend, Austin Duncan reframes apologetics as showing that God is real rather than proving you are right. The Greek apologia means a reasoned reply, not an apology, and 1 Peter 3:15 supplies the blueprint: honor Christ first, then answer, with gentleness and respect. Peter addressed ordinary believers under social pressure, not specialists, so anyone who has been asked why they believe is already doing this work. Duncan surveys the pressures of secular skepticism, New Atheism, moral tension, and information overload, and argues that unanswered questions are not unanswerable ones. The practical posture is ambassador rather than gladiator, built on knowledge, wisdom, and character, with humility, honest admissions of ignorance, and long listening. The text breaks off as it begins to map the different schools of apologetics.

Can God create a rock so heavy that He cannot move it?

Wed, 09 Jul 2025 00:00:00 GMT

The old challenge, can God make a rock too heavy for Him to lift, sounds airtight and often leaves believers stammering. Duncan admits his own blank-minded first encounter with it, then slows the conversation down. He first gathers what Scripture says about God's power, from El Shaddai and Pantokrator to Matthew 19:26, Job 42:2, Jeremiah 32:17, Luke 1:37 and Genesis 18:14. Then he turns to the passages saying God cannot lie, cannot be tempted, cannot deny Himself, arguing these are perfections rather than weaknesses. With help from Erickson, Geisler, Lewis and Craig, he defines omnipotence as power to do all that is intrinsically possible and consistent with God's nature, then shows the rock question smuggles in a contradiction and so describes nothing at all.

Does God have a gender?

Wed, 02 Jul 2025 00:00:00 GMT

Austin Duncan opens with three audiences: those who think Scripture settles the question instantly, those who see masculine God-language as a tool of patriarchy, and the larger group who simply feel unsettled. He grants each side something. The foundation is laid from John 4:24 and Luke 24:39: God is spirit, without body, chromosomes, or biological sex, which is why Deuteronomy 4 forbids images of male or female alike. Yet the biblical pattern is relentlessly masculine, in pronouns, verb forms, and titles like Father, King, Lord, Shepherd, Husband, with no feminine titles at all. The cultural-accommodation explanation is tested against Israel's goddess-saturated neighbours and Jeremiah 44, and found wanting. The teaching breaks off as it turns to the centrality of Father.

If jealousy is sin, how can God be jealous?

Wed, 25 Jun 2025 00:00:00 GMT

Many believers wince at the claim that God's name is Jealous, especially those who have watched jealousy wreck a marriage. Austin Duncan takes that discomfort seriously, then works through the biblical evidence: Exodus 34:14, Deuteronomy 4 and 5, Joshua 24, Nahum, Zechariah, and Paul's "divine jealousy" in 2 Corinthians 11. A study of the Hebrew qanna shows a word meaning intense passion for something precious, righteous or sinful depending on whether the claim is rightful. Five distinctions follow: rightful ownership rather than illegitimate desire, selfless love rather than selfish ambition, perfect security rather than insecurity, just anger rather than rage, and protective rather than possessive love. The teaching then turns to marriage as Scripture's central picture of covenant exclusivity.

Does God Repent?

Wed, 18 Jun 2025 00:00:00 GMT

Scripture says God regretted making humanity and regretted making Saul king, yet also says He is not a man who changes His mind. Austin Duncan walks through each passage without softening it, tracing the Hebrew word nacham through Genesis 6, Exodus 32, 1 Samuel 15 and Jonah 3. Along the way he notes that 1 Samuel 15 uses the same root both to affirm and deny God's regret, and argues verse 11 speaks of God's emotional response to sin while verse 29 speaks of His essential nature. Moses' intercession appeals to God's own character rather than supplying new information. The talk then grounds itself in Numbers 23:19 and its Balaam setting, showing why an unchanging God is worth trusting.

Does God know the future?

Wed, 11 Jun 2025 00:00:00 GMT

Austin Duncan begins a teaching session on God's knowledge of the future by naming what hangs on the answer: how we pray, how we read suffering, how we make decisions. Rather than settling the free will debate, he lets the tension stand and works through Scripture. Isaiah 46 shows God declaring the end from the beginning and tying that knowledge to His own purpose. Genesis 50 and Acts 2 hold divine plan and genuine human guilt together, most sharply at the cross. Romans 8 makes foreknowledge personal and relational, closer to fore-love than mere foresight. The session then turns to fulfilled prophecy in Micah, Isaiah, Psalms and Zechariah as public evidence, and breaks off mid-sentence there.

What does it mean to say that God is omnipresent?

Wed, 04 Jun 2025 00:00:00 GMT

Omnipresence means more than the slogan that God is everywhere. Austin Duncan defines it in three parts: God is wholly present at every point rather than divided or stretched, personally present as one who knows your name, and distinct from what He fills. Scripture carries the weight here: God's challenge to the false prophets in Jeremiah, David's thought experiment about where he might flee, Solomon admitting the highest heaven cannot contain God, Paul on Mars Hill telling the Athenians they already live and move in Him, and Christ's promise to be with His people all the days. The second half clears away errors, distinguishing biblical presence from pantheism, from deism's absent clockmaker, and from picturing God as a substance thinly spread. Pastoral throughout, aimed at the believer whose prayers seem to bounce off the ceiling.

If God is one, why does the Bible refer to Him in the plural?

Wed, 28 May 2025 00:00:00 GMT

Genesis 1:26 breaks a rhythm. After twenty-five verses of singular commands, God suddenly says "let us make man in our image." Austin Duncan takes that puzzle seriously and sets it beside three other plural moments: God's words after the fall, the scattering at Babel, and Isaiah's commissioning, where singular and plural sit in one sentence. A pattern surfaces. Plural speech shows up at major turning points in the biblical story, and every time it is followed by action attributed to one Lord alone. Scripture's monotheism never wavers. The tension is deliberate rather than sloppy, pressing readers toward a fuller account of God's nature. The teaching then begins surveying four historic interpretations, opening with the plural of majesty and its Jewish advocates.

Is the Trinity biblical?

Wed, 21 May 2025 00:00:00 GMT

Beginning with a self-deprecating story about teaching the Holy Spirit to middle schoolers, Austin Duncan sets expectations honestly: the Trinity strains human language, and mystery is appropriate when speaking of an infinite God. He defines the classical formula, explaining what "person" does and does not mean, then answers the common objection that the word "Trinity" never appears in Scripture by noting that neither do "Bible" or "incarnation." A survey of early evidence follows: the Didache's baptismal formula, Pliny's report of Christians singing to Christ as to a god, Tertullian's language of one substance and three persons. Arius, Athanasius, homoousios, Nicaea and Constantinople are treated as defense rather than invention. The biblical case then opens with the first strand, the Shema and Isaiah's insistence that God is one.

Why do Christians worship on Sunday rather than on the Sabbath day?

Wed, 14 May 2025 00:00:00 GMT

Austin Duncan works through why most Christians gather on Sunday, beginning with what the Sabbath actually meant in Israel: a creation ordinance, a sign of covenant and redemption from Egypt, and a delight rather than a burden. He then turns to Jesus, who kept the Sabbath faithfully yet reoriented it, insisting it was made for man, healing on it, and claiming to be its Lord and the true source of rest. The resurrection on the first day, the Spirit's outpouring at Pentecost, John's reference to the Lord's Day, the breaking of bread at Troas, and Paul's instruction about Sunday offerings are gathered as evidence that first-day worship began very early. The text breaks off within this New Testament survey, before the promised material on the later church and application.}

How should Christians respond to Halloween?

Wed, 07 May 2025 00:00:00 GMT

Austin Duncan opens with three emails from the same congregation: one calling Halloween the devil's day, one calling it innocent fun, one asking whether a fall festival is a biblical compromise. He grounds the discussion in 1 Corinthians 10:23-24 and the Corinthian meat-sacrificed-to-idols problem, drawing on 1 Corinthians 8-10 and Romans 14 to argue Halloween is a disputable matter where freedom must be governed by whether a practice is beneficial, edifying, and loving toward neighbors. He then traces the history: Celtic Samhain, Pope Gregory IV establishing All Saints' Day in 839, medieval souling and guising, Protestant suppression of prayers for the dead, Irish immigration turning turnips into pumpkins, and modern commercialization reaching $12.2 billion in 2024, alongside contemporary Wiccan observance.

Should Christians celebrate Christmas?

Wed, 30 Apr 2025 00:00:00 GMT

Austin Duncan opens the Word for Word section on holidays by asking whether Christians should celebrate Christmas. He works from Romans 14:5-6 and Colossians 2:16-17 to place the holiday in the category of disputable matters, then traces the history: no nativity feast for the first two centuries, Clement of Alexandria's proposed April and May dates, the A.D. 336 Roman almanac naming December 25, and the two competing theories of origin (Sol Invictus and Saturnalia versus calculation from a March 25 crucifixion). He follows the growth of trees, stockings, carols and Santa Claus from Nicholas of Myra to Clement Clarke Moore and Thomas Nast, plus the Puritan bans of 1647 and Massachusetts Bay. Closes with conscience, love, and Paul in Athens (Acts 17).

Is speaking in tongues the evidence of the baptism of the Holy Spirit?

Wed, 23 Apr 2025 00:00:00 GMT

Austin Duncan takes up a question that has left many believers feeling like second-class Christians, and argues from Scripture that tongues is not the required proof of Spirit baptism. He begins with Romans 8:9 and 1 Corinthians 12:13 to show that every believer receives the Spirit at conversion, then presses Paul's rhetorical question "do all speak in tongues?" to its plain answer. The four tongues episodes in Acts are read as milestones marking the gospel's advance to Jews, Samaritans, Gentiles, and John's disciples, descriptive rather than prescriptive, noting how many conversions in Acts include no tongues at all. Chrysostom, Augustine, and Stott are cited along the way. The positive case rests on the fruit of the Spirit, confession of Jesus as Lord, and repentance.

Is there a difference between indwelling and infilling?

Wed, 16 Apr 2025 00:00:00 GMT

Every believer receives the Holy Spirit at conversion, yet Scripture still commands Christians to be filled. Austin Duncan works through that tension by first establishing the indwelling: permanent, universal, given at salvation, sealing believers, confirming sonship, uniting them to Christ's body, and never withdrawn even when sin grieves the Spirit. Old Testament patterns of the Spirit coming and going, including David's prayer in Psalm 51, are set against Jesus' promise of a Helper who remains. Turning to Ephesians 5:18, the teaching presses the Greek present passive imperative to show a continual yielding rather than a second blessing, and compares the influence of the Spirit to the control alcohol exerts. Filling is repeatable and variable, seen in Acts, and results in boldness, fruit, victory over sin, guidance, and thankful worship. The text breaks off mid-example while turning to the disciples.

What does it mean to say that the Holy Spirit is in you?

Wed, 09 Apr 2025 00:00:00 GMT

Austin Duncan opens with survey data suggesting most self-identified Christians treat the Holy Spirit as a symbol rather than a person, then works to correct that. The teaching sets the Old Testament pattern of the Spirit coming upon selected people for particular tasks, Samson, Saul, David's fear in Psalm 51, against the new covenant promises of Ezekiel and Joel and Jesus' shift in John 14 from the Spirit being with the disciples to being in them. Pentecost fulfils it. Paul's temple language then grounds the personal claim: the believer's body houses God's presence, sealed and permanent, not earned. The episode closes out its survey of the Spirit's work with conviction of sin, guidance into truth, empowerment for witness and service, and the slow growth of the fruit of the Spirit.

Must I forgive those who refuse forgiveness?

Wed, 02 Apr 2025 00:00:00 GMT

Opening with the Amish community's response to the Nickel Mines schoolhouse shooting, Austin Duncan takes up a question pastors hear constantly: what do you do when the person who hurt you shows no remorse? The bulk of the teaching clears away confusions. Forgiveness is not pretending you were not hurt, not excusing the offense, not instant trust, not forgetting, and not the same thing as reconciliation. Positively, it is a decision to release a debt, a surrender of the right to revenge, usually a process rather than a moment. God is shown as always willing to forgive while full restored relationship awaits repentance. Practical steps follow: name the hurt honestly, hand vengeance to God, set protective boundaries, grieve, and seek support. The text breaks off mid-sentence in the healing section.

Why do people end their prayers with .Amen.?

Wed, 26 Mar 2025 00:00:00 GMT

Austin Duncan closes a short series on prayer by asking what we are actually saying when we say "Amen." The word comes from a Hebrew root tied to firmness and faithfulness, and in Scripture it functions less as a polite sign-off than as an oath. The nation answers "Amen" to the covenant curses in Deuteronomy 27, the accused woman says "Amen, Amen" in Numbers 5, and the people bow with "Amen, Amen" in Nehemiah 8. From there the study follows the word into the Septuagint, into 2 Corinthians 1:20 where Christ is God's yes, into Justin Martyr, Tertullian, and Augustine's "signature of the faithful," and on into Islamic practice and modern popular culture. It also sets aside the supposed link to the Egyptian god Amun.

Why is it so crucial to pray .Your will be done.?

Wed, 19 Mar 2025 00:00:00 GMT

Beginning with Jesus in Gethsemane, this teaching argues that praying "Your will be done" is active trust rather than passive resignation. It first builds a fourfold picture of God's will, drawing on Psalm 18:30, 1 John 4:8, Isaiah 46:10 and Isaiah 55:8-9, to show that God's will flows from perfect nature, love, sovereignty and purposes beyond our grasp. It then names four reasons we resist surrender: a desire for control, fear of the unknown, misunderstanding surrender as defeat, and past wounds. A seven-stage path from resistance through struggle, negotiation and crisis to yielding, peace and growth invites readers to locate themselves honestly. It closes on five benefits of alignment and turns toward daily practices of surrender.

What are some secrets to effective prayer?

Wed, 12 Mar 2025 00:00:00 GMT

Prayer that "works" has nothing to do with formulas and everything to do with relationship. Starting from Jesus' warning against heaping up empty phrases and James's claim that the prayer of a righteous person accomplishes much, Duncan argues that the character and posture of the one praying matters more than the wording. A tour through the biblical vocabulary follows: proseuchomai as worshipful exchange of our wishes for God's, deesis as earnest specific petition, enteuxis and paga as bold intercession for others, palal and tefillah as self-examination. All four surface in the Lord's Prayer. The teaching then applies them as heart postures of humility, faith, persistence, and submission, with Gethsemane as the model of surrender. The transcript breaks off mid-sentence in this final section.

Why pray if God already knows what we need?

Thu, 06 Mar 2025 00:00:00 GMT

The worry that prayer is redundant before an omniscient God rests on a mistaken picture of what prayer is. Working from Psalm 139, Matthew 6 and 7, the teaching clears away two false ideas: that prayer informs God, and that it wears down a reluctant God. Drawing on the Hebrew tephillah and the Greek proseuche, prayer is presented as orientation toward God, beginning with the Lord's Prayer's relational opening. The tension between divine sovereignty and human asking is held rather than dissolved, illustrated by a father who had already planned the trip to the park but delights to be asked. Further sections treat prayer as worship, confession, alignment of will, and declared dependence, then turn to how prayer forms intimacy, discernment and faith in us.

How do I find a good church?

Thu, 27 Feb 2025 00:00:00 GMT

A follow-up to teaching on why Christians should gather, this piece answers the next question: how do you tell a healthy church from an unhealthy one? Acts 2:42 supplies the frame, with the early church devoted to apostolic teaching, fellowship, breaking of bread, and prayer. From there the discussion works through six marks to look for: sound doctrine anchored in essential Christian truths and Christ-centered preaching, leaders who meet biblical qualifications and shepherd rather than dominate, genuine community tested by how conflict is handled, worship judged by substance rather than style, outward mission, and real pathways for discipleship. The closing section names red flags: false teaching, toxic leadership, manipulation tactics, and isolation from outside relationships.

Must Christians attend church?

Thu, 20 Feb 2025 00:00:00 GMT

Streaming sermons and worship playlists have made church attendance feel optional, so the question gets answered from creation forward. God's first declaration of "not good" was human solitude, before any sin entered the world, revealing that we are made for community because God Himself exists in community. Acts 2:42-47 shows early believers devoted, with soldierly steadfastness, to teaching, fellowship, breaking bread and prayer, meeting in temple courts and homes alike. Paul's body metaphor in 1 Corinthians 12 presses further: every member is necessary, interdependent, and unity is not uniformity. The teaching then defines ekklesia as people rather than place, distinguishes universal, local and gathered church, and dismantles four misconceptions, including the claim that mature Christians outgrow the need to gather.

Can Christians Lose Their Salvation?

Thu, 13 Feb 2025 00:00:00 GMT

Assurance rests on God's character and Christ's finished work rather than on our performance. Starting from Jesus' absolute language in John 10, the teaching traces salvation through each person of the Trinity: the Father choosing believers before creation, holding election and faith together without collapsing either; the Son declaring tetelestai, a word from ancient receipts and completed tasks, and accomplishing the double imputation Paul describes in 2 Corinthians 5:21; and the Spirit sealing believers, with careful word study on sphragis, arrabon and bebaiosis drawn from ancient legal and commercial practice. The conclusion is pastoral rather than polemical: believers need not wake wondering whether they are still saved. The piece ends mid-sentence on that note of confidence.

How can I be certain I haven't committed the unforgivable sin?

Wed, 05 Feb 2025 00:00:00 GMT

Fear of having committed the unforgivable sin keeps some believers from praying, from church, and from rest. Working through Matthew 12, this teaching rebuilds the scene: Jesus healing publicly across Galilee, the Pharisees moving from skepticism to organized opposition, and the healing of a blind and mute man that pushed the crowds toward calling Jesus the Son of David. Cornered, the religious leaders chose to credit Satan for work they knew was divine. The Greek term for blasphemy is examined as deliberate, defiant irreverence rather than accident or weakness. Thomas is offered as proof that doubt is not this sin, and David as proof that no single moral failure is beyond forgiveness. The anxiety itself points the other direction.

What is sin?

Thu, 30 Jan 2025 00:00:00 GMT

Sin gets examined from five angles rather than treated as a single idea. It is transgression, the deliberate crossing of a line God has drawn, seen in Eden and in David's confession. It is rebellion, a rejection of God's right to rule, illustrated by Israel in the wilderness and Saul's disobedience. It is inherited, a fallen nature received from Adam that explains why children need no lessons in selfishness. It is imputed, a legal guilt credited to our account, answered by the double imputation of our sin to Christ and His righteousness to us. And it is personal, the daily choices believers still face. Each angle presses the same conclusion: behavior modification cannot reach the problem, so Christ's work must.

What is the Biblical Definition of Faith?

Thu, 23 Jan 2025 00:00:00 GMT

Faith is something we exercise daily when we trust doctors, pilots, and installers, so why treat Christian faith as a leap in the dark? Working from Hebrews 11:1, the study unpacks two Greek terms: hypostasis, used for building foundations and property deeds, and elegchos, the courtroom proof that survives cross examination. Together they picture faith as both a foundation and evidence, not wishful thinking. The story of Thomas is then reread closely, with attention to Jesus' command to stop becoming characterized by unbelief, arguing that Jesus supplies evidence rather than demanding blindness. The piece then begins listing faith's components, opening with knowledge, and shows through John 9 that understanding can grow alongside trust.

What is Essential Christian Doctrine?

Thu, 16 Jan 2025 00:00:00 GMT

Starting with the single Greek letter that divided the Council of Nicaea, this teaching asks what makes a doctrine essential rather than merely valuable, taking Paul's "of first importance" in 1 Corinthians 15 as the test. It then works through the doctrine of God: five things Scripture affirms about the Trinity, why God's eternal relational life shapes prayer and salvation, and a close reading of the Hebrew behind God's self-revelation in Exodus 34, where compassion, grace, patience, steadfast love and faithfulness are shown to be what God is rather than merely what He does. Turning to Christ, it defends His full deity and humanity and explains four things the virgin birth secures. The text breaks off mid-sentence in that section.

What are the Secrets to Spiritual Growth?

Thu, 09 Jan 2025 00:00:00 GMT

Aimed at the new believer asking "what next?", this teaching insists spiritual growth is a slow, intentional process rather than a single moment of encounter. Working from 2 Peter 3:18, 1 Corinthians 3 and Hebrews 5, it draws the contrast between milk and solid food and warns against staying stuck in spiritual infancy. Four disciplines are then laid out with concrete counsel: Bible study supported by reading plans and study tools, prayer shaped by the ACTS pattern and intercession, fellowship as regular gathering and the "one anothers", and service as faith put into action. It closes by naming three common obstacles, lack of time, inconsistency, and difficulty with Scripture, urging small steps, accountability, and grace rather than guilt.

What Must I Do to be Saved?

Thu, 02 Jan 2025 00:00:00 GMT

The opening entry in the Word for Word series answers the jailer's question in Acts 16:30-31 by arguing that salvation is grace received through faith, not earned by moral effort. Working from Ephesians 2:8-9, Isaiah 64:6, Romans 3:23 and 6:23, the piece explains sin as an inherited condition rather than a list of misdeeds, and pictures humanity unable to bridge a chasm to God's holiness. It traces Levitical sacrifice forward to Jesus as the Lamb of God, then treats faith and repentance as reaching for Christ's hand while letting go of everything else. James 2:17 is handled carefully: works prove faith, not purchase it. Closes with a debt-forgiveness illustration, Paul's testimony in 1 Timothy 1:15, a prayer that does not itself save, and John 10:28 on assurance.