For many Christians, the law is one of the most challenging topics for their life. It’s as if they feel they’re walking a tightrope between legalism on the one side and licence on the other—as if they either need to perform, or else they’re simply embracing a loose way of living.
But careful examination of the teaching of Jesus helps us gain a richer picture of the law and its place in our lives. When we encounter the law in Christ, we see something beautiful. Today on the podcast, and in preparation for our four live events this year, we’re looking carefully at how Jesus reframes our experience of God’s law with David VanDrunen, the Robert B Strimple Professor of Systematic Theology and Christian Ethics at Westminster Seminary in California.
Links referred to:
- Our previous episode with David VanDrunen: Politics, elections and responsible Christian living (episode 049)
- Our 2022 live event program
- Our March event: Commanding the heart: Anger (9 March)
- Support the work of the Centre
Runtime: 30:45 min.
Transcript
Please note: This is an edited transcript.
Chase Kuhn: For many Christians, the law is one of the most challenging topics for their life. It’s as if they feel they’re walking a tightrope between legalism on the one side and licence on the other—as if they either need to perform, or else they’re simply embracing a loose way of living.
But careful examination of the teaching of Jesus helps us gain a richer picture of the law and its place in our lives. When we encounter the law in Christ, we see something beautiful. Today on the podcast, and in preparation for our four live events this year, we’re looking carefully at how Jesus reframes our experience of God’s law.
[Music]
CK: Hello and welcome to the Centre for Christian Living podcast. My name is Chase Kuhn. I’m coming to you from Moore Theological College in Sydney. Today, my guest on the podcast is Professor David VanDrunen, who teaches at Westminster Seminary in California. Dave teaches ethics and theology, and I’m glad to have him back on the podcast. He’s been on a couple of years ago. Glad to have you back, Dave. Welcome!
David VanDrunen: Thanks, Chase! Great to be here.
CK: Tell us a bit of what’s happening in your context right now in Southern California in the ministry that you’re serving in at Westminster.
DVD: Yeah, well we’re very grateful for many blessings. The seminary where I teach, we have about a 125 students or so. So we’re a relatively small institution—about a dozen faculty members, and about two-thirds of our students are studying for pastoral ministry or missionary work in an ordained context. We’re just very privileged to have people from all over the world, and we get to teach them the Scriptures and theology, and prepare them for the ministry for a few years of their lives.
As we were talking before we started to record, we’re both coming out of the COVID context, and we get to see students face-to-face, and we don’t really take that for granted after the last couple of years. So we’ve a lot to be grateful for.
CK: Yeah, that’s wonderful. Dave, you’ve written a number of books that I’ve benefitted from and have included in my classes in ethics. One of the things you’ve been working on lately is thinking about the law of Christ. That’s the reason why I’ve invited you on today. There’s a work that’s not out yet, but you have published in other areas on the law of Christ, and today our focus is really trying to think about how Christians should think about the law in their lives. There’s something quite confusing about—and I mentioned recently in an advertisement of what we’re trying to do at the Centre this year, thinking about the law in our lives. Christians often feel like they’re on a tightrope: one side, they’re going to fall off into moralism; the other side, they’re going to fall off into licence and licentiousness. So “How do we actually think about the law?” is the question we’re talking about today. What do we mean by “the law”, though, just as we’re starting out in our conversation? How do you describe the law to Christians?
DVD: Yeah, well, obviously “law” can come in different contexts. You can think of it, obviously, in a civil context. But I think as we’re talking about it, we’re thinking about God’s moral law as it comes to us as human beings and then as Christians. I would say that God’s law—it’s the revelation of his will for us as human beings. It’s the way that God sets forth the way of life to which we are called to live.
It’s certainly a very, very important topic in Scripture. I mean, think about all those books in the Old Testament that set forth the law of Moses and then how much of the rest of the Old Testament is, in some ways, an interpretation and interaction with Israel regarding that law. And then you think about how many New Testament books spend a lot of time talking about the law. I mean, all the Gospels do and Romans and Galatians and Hebrews—those are not exactly unimportant books of Scripture.
CK: Of course!
DVD: So it’s a really important topic.
CK: Yeah, absolutely. I’m looking forward to getting into this conversation and digging in deep, and I thought our anchor point for our conversation today would be Matthew 5:17-20. I’m just going to read those out, because I think it would be really good to frame up our discussion with these verses. The rest of the year at the Centre for Christian Living, our live events are going to focus on some of what flows out of this passage, but I thought this might be a great anchor for us. Jesus says,
“Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. For truly, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the Law until all is accomplished. Therefore whoever relaxes one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever does them and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of heaven. For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.” (Matt 5:17–20 ESV)
It’s quite a daunting passage, in one sense—that here, Jesus is effectively raising the bar. He’s looking at standards of righteousness in his time and saying, “Whatever you’ve seen over there, you’ve got to go even beyond that.”
So where do we begin in a passage like this as we begin thinking about the law and Jesus saying, “None of it is going away. It’s going to be fulfilled.” How do you tell Christians about that?
DVD: Yeah. There’s no doubt, I think, that Matthew 5:17 is a really crucial passage. It’s interesting that even among writers who are talking about the Sermon on the Mount—and of course this is early in the Sermon on the Mount—even writers who disagree about how to interpret the Sermon on the Mount, agree that this verse is really crucial. So it does seem that there’s a lot at stake.
There are really two parts here: Jesus says, “I’ve not come to abolish the Law or the Prophets.” I think that’s the easier part of the verse. I mean, it makes sense that if the Law and the Prophets—which is basically a way of describing the Old Testament as a whole—if that was God’s word—if that was a revelation of God’s plan and God’s promises—it makes sense that aren’t going to be abolished when the saviour of the world arrives.
So Jesus is not coming to somehow destroy the Old Testament or to encourage us to throw the Old Testament into the garbage. But I think the more difficult part of this verse is when he says, “I’ve come to fulfilthem.” What does that mean?
One thing that I think is really interesting to note is that in the Gospel of Matthew, this idea of fulfilling appears a dozen times. Basically, every time it’s in the context of Jesus, in some way or another, fulfilling something in the Old Testament. There is some prophecy made about the coming Messiah, and he comes, and that’s who he is: he fulfils that. There are some different nuances there. But basically Matthew is just full of this idea—that the Old Testament was pointing ahead to Christ. That’s the big point of the Old Testament: God is going to send a saviour for his people, and Jesus, here, is announcing that he’s come to fulfil it. He’s come, you might say, to bring the purposes of the Old Testament to their climax—to their conclusion. So I think this is just a fundamental announcement of the purpose of Jesus’ ministry.
It involves the law, and I think that’s really important, and I think we want to focus on that part of it. But I think even as we talk about it, it’s good to recognise that it’s not just the four books of the Mosaic Law that Jesus fulfilled, it’s the whole Old Testament—the prophets as well.
CK: It’s a really exciting part—a rich picture of who Jesus is and what he’s coming to do. It’s very good. So when he says he’s not trying to put it away, he actually wants all of it to be accomplished. I guess this is where we start feeling a bit more of the nitty gritty: “If everything is done, what is left that bears upon us?” is what Christians are constantly worrying about. If I read the Old Testament, how do I read that now in the light of Christ, and what comes to bear on me and my moral responsibility? So how do you begin that conversation with people, even as you go through this verse or these verses?
DVD: If these verses just hung all by themselves, I think we really would be stuck, not knowing quite what to do with it. But the good news is that the text continues, and I think what you see—I don’t think we’re going to get into the details of the rest of Matthew 5 here, but I think what you can see is that Jesus goes right on to explain what the law looks like for his people now that he’s come to fulfil it.
So he doesn’t leave us to guess at what relationship we might have to the law. But he’s going to go on and explain: “Look, here are some of the ways that you need to live. Here is how my law comes to you now, as those who are citizens of my kingdom, now that I’ve come to fulfil this work.”
I like to use this terminology of “refraction”: you don’t mind if I explain that briefly? Is that all right?
CK: I love that image. I’ve heard this from you before and I love it. So please explain.
DVD: Okay. Well, here’s how it goes, and there are probably a few physicists who are listening who could do a lot better at explaining this than I can. But the basic idea is that if you have a prism and light goes through that prism, and it looks beautiful: you get this rainbow on the other side. It’s the same light on both sides of the prism. But it looks a lot more beautiful on the other side. So I like to think of God’s law being something like that: if you think of God’s law as the light and think of Christ’s coming—his incarnation, his crucifixion, his resurrection and ascension—as the prism, and you have God’s law revealed under the Old Testament, and then Jesus comes, now the law is refracted through that work. That’s how the law comes to us as Christians. It’s more beautiful on the other side, is the way I like to put it.
It’s the same law of God. It’s not as if there are two different laws of God or something. But the obedience to which we are called is even more beautiful now under the new covenant than under the old covenant. We’re still called to obedience, but it’s not an obedience that is going to win us the kingdom—that’s going to earn our way into the kingdom. It’s a way of life that’s given to us as those who already belong to Christ, who has died and risen and ascended into heaven for us.
CK: That’s great. That takes so much pressure off of us, then, where the law becomes such a threat. I think that’s where you see, later on in the New Testament, the law can appear as a threat to some people who are seeking belonging through the law. But actually, when we find our belonging in Christ, the law is something rich and beautiful, as you said, refracted through Christ in our lives as we find our life in him. It’s a rich picture for us, isn’t it.
DVD: Yeah, it is. I mean, there’s a sense in which the law should be frightening to those who aren’t seeing it through the lens of Christ—who are trying to win their way to God through it. If it the law doesn’t sound frightening to you—if that’s your position—then you haven’t understood it. The law can’t look beautiful to us unless we see it through Christ.
CK: That’s great. So what do you do, then, when you see a passage like verse 20, which tells us, “unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven”? How does that relate to what Jesus is saying with the law?
DVD: Yeah. It’s a fascinating text, and of course this brings the scribes and Pharisees in. The scribes and Pharisees don’t have the best reputation among Christians, and Jesus has a lot of encounters with them later.
But I think one of the things that’s interesting to note here is that Jesus pays the scribes and Pharisees a subtle compliment here. Why does he choose them of all people? I think it’s because they were the religiously serious people of Jesus’ time. These are the people who took the Old Testament seriously. They were religious people. There’s a sense in which you think, “If anyone had a righteousness that you could admire—a righteousness that might do something for you—it would definitely be the scribes and the Pharisees.” So there is a sense in which Jesus is paying them almost a certain kind of compliment. But at the same time, he is saying, “Look, for you who are my disciples—even you humble people—your righteousness must exceed that of the scribes and Pharisees.”
Jesus is not making a statement about justification here: “How are you to be justified? Well, you’re justified by having a better righteousness than the scribes and Pharisees.” That wouldn’t really be good news. But I think what’s important here is when he says, “You will never enter the kingdom of heaven”, he’s signalling, “Look: this is what Jesus has come to bring.” It’s almost the very first thing Jesus says in the Gospel of Matthew: he’s proclaiming the kingdom. The kingdom has drawn near. So how do you have a part of that kingdom that Jesus has brought? It’s not by living according to the old way that the scribes and the Pharisees are striving to achieve. You only have a part of the kingdom of heaven if you are seeing the law of God and pursuing righteousness through that prism—through that lens of Christ’s work.
If I could say one more thing here, if you look at how the scribes and Pharisees are described in the Gospels, they obviously don’t come off looking very good and we can see that they’re condemned in various places for being hypocrites, for lacking compassion, for focusing on minor things. But I would make the argument that the Pharisees’ biggest problem in the Gospel of Matthew—and I think it’s true in the other Gospels as well—their biggest problem is that they’re not recognising that the Messiah has arrived. In a sense, all the other problems are in some way coming from that bigger problem: they’re trying to live as if the Messiah has not yet come. They’re trying to read the Old Testament in a Jesus-less way. They get some details right: there are some things they understand about the Old Testament because they don’t recognise the coming of the Messiah. Even the technical details that they get right, they become big mistakes. So it seems to me that that’s important for this: Jesus is saying, “Look: don’t make the mistake of the scribes and Pharisees. Don’t read the Old Testament in a Jesus-less way, because it’s never going to work. The law is never going to be your friend if you try to obey it that way.”
So I think what he’s getting at here is to say, “Look: to be a part of the kingdom of heaven, you need to recognise that the King of this kingdom is here.” And it’s only in following him and putting your faith in him that this law is going to make good sense and it’s going to produce a righteousness that is actually better than the scribes and Pharisees who were trying so, so very hard in their own way to try to achieve it.
CK: That’s excellent. That’s such a good word! And it makes sense of why he started where he did: “I haven’t come to put away the law—I haven’t come to abolish it or the prophets. I’ve actually come to fulfil them.” So if you recognise Jesus as the fulfilment of these things there, then you’re starting with the recognition of Christ and the Old Testament and all that he brings to our experience of the law. And now, as you said, we approach the law through the prism of him, which is excellent.
This really helps, I think, the kind of trepidation that people approach morality with. I’ve gathered, at least—maybe just from my own experience—that people are quite afraid of morality. One of the things I tell my ethics classes is that to follow Jesus involves morals and involves taking morality seriously. But there’s a fear about moralism that tends to seek justification through morality that’s very different. So how do you tell people—I mean, not just moving away from this text, but in the light of what we’ve been talking about now, approaching the law in a really beautiful way through the prism of Jesus—how do you begin to tell people about the place of morality in their lives as a disciple of Christ?
DVD: Well, I think if you do have a strong view of justification by faith alone in Christ alone, in a sense, you have your answer right there. On the one hand, why did Jesus come? Well, Jesus came because we’re sinners—because our sin is hateful in the sight of God. So when you think about that, Jesus’ atonement is to purify us—to take away the guilt of our sin—what sense does it make that we would not be interested or that God would not be interested in the moral life that we live? Is it that Jesus died for us so that we might continue on in the kind of life that required his coming in the first place? We see in the cross of Christ that God loves righteousness: he loves what is good. We who are redeemed by his Son, we are called to love goodness.
If you think of this old idea—an idea that you find already in the early church theologians—it’s a theme that you find in the Middle Ages and you find it continuing in the Reformation—that is, the idea that our highest calling as human beings is communion with the living God. How are we to have communion with the living God? How are we to enjoy communion with the living God—everlasting communion with the living God—if we’re not the kind of people who love what is good, who love what is righteous, who love what is holy? So I think just looking at it in that way—I mean, there are a lot of other things we can talk about, but one basic way, it seems to me, is to say, “Look, to put your faith in Christ and to be a follower of him and to desire that everlasting communion with the living God, how could you possibly be disinterested in living a moral life—living a holy, righteous life?”
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CK: As we take a break from our program, I want to invite you to join us this year for our live events, either in person in Sydney or online. Building on the conversation from today’s podcast, we’ll be looking at Matthew 5 and considering how Jesus’ teaching about the law reorients our lives.
At our first event on 9 March, I’ll be speaking in partnership with my friend Kara Hartley on the topic of “anger.” Violence is not only a physical activity, but something that lurks in our hearts. The Lord Jesus cautions us that refraining from physical violence is only half of the equation. We are also liable for our thoughts towards one another. Kingdom righteousness demands that Christians pursue reconciliation with one another, rather than harbour a grudge. I hope that you will join us on March 9th for this first event. You can register online at our website: ccl.moore.edu.au. Again, I hope to see you there.
Just before we get back to our program, I’d like to encourage you to subscribe to the podcast. We have some wonderful episodes planned for the coming months that you won’t want to miss. And if you’ve been enjoying the program, please consider leaving a review or sharing the podcast with a friend.
Now let’s get back to our show.
CK: So then, as you look back at the Old Testament, and we’re wanting to cherish that which is good and upright, we don’t see the Old Testament, then, as giving us false trails. There’s actually really good cues about what is good and right and holy and excellent and wonderful. So there’s much to be gleaned there for us. How do you instruct people to go down that path, in one sense, as they think about the law in the prism of Christ? Are there basic ways that you help people think that direction?
DVD: Yeah. Even that imagery of a path, I think, is good, because a path is not there to be sat upon; it’s there to be walked upon. So I think it’s important that we see the Old Testament law—the Old Testament paths—as good, but they’re there to direct us somewhere. They’re not there for their own sake; they’re there to get us to Christ and the new covenant, and ultimately, to the new creation. So I think that’s one big picture way to think about it.
One traditional way of thinking about the law of Moses is this distinction between the moral law and the ceremonial law and the civil or judicial law. Which is basically a way of saying that the law of Moses, it’s kind of complicated. It’s kind of complex. The moral law is a way of saying, “Look, there are a lot of aspects of the Mosaic law that just simply reflect basic human morality—things that are binding on all people at all times.” When we think about the commands to honour parents, not to kill, not to commit adultery and not to steal, these things don’t change. This is a basic reflection of God’s own holiness.
At the same time, we recognise there’s this ceremonial law—I should probably say that these aren’t necessarily precise categories or something that you can just put every part of the Mosaic law into one basket really neatly. But we also recognise that there’s a lot in the Mosaic law that regulated aspects of Israel’s worship: their sacrifices, their priesthood, their temple, laws about purity and about dietary regulations. We recognise that these are provisions that were pointing ahead to Christ and his redemptive work. So when we read the laws about the priests or about the sacrifices at the temple, we see Christ as the great high priest—the great final sacrifice—the one who was the true temple, the true dwelling of God among men.
So we recognise that those ceremonial aspects are not binding on us in any kind of literal way. I mean, we learn from them—we see Christ in them—but we’re not supposed to be following them.
Third, this idea of the civil law or judicial law recognises that there was a lot in the Mosaic law that basically regulated the life of Israel as a nation. And just as all geo-political cities or nations need laws about property—laws that keep people from violence against each other—we find those sorts of laws as well.
For the most part, the Christian church has thought, “We’re not immediately bound by these laws. They were geared for the situation of Old Testament Israel. But we can learn a lot about justice as we read those laws, and there may be a lot of things that we can seek to incorporate into our own laws today as we try to understand the justice that lay behind them.
One thing I might mention—an example that I was just using with my students last week is in Romans 13-14. Romans 12-15 is, I think, Paul’s longest discussion of the moral life, and it’s interesting how in Romans 13, he just quotes a number of Old Testament laws—don’t kill, don’t commit adultery, don’t steal, love your neighbour as yourself—and basically says, “This ought to characterise you as Christians.” And then the very next chapter, he’s talking about other Old Testament laws—about what you can eat and about observing the Old Testament holy days. And he basically says, “It really doesn’t matter. Don’t judge each other on these things. Whether you do it or don’t do it, it’s not a big deal.” So I think you can see right there that even Paul makes this distinction: there are some parts of the Mosaic law that we recognise remain binding and other parts that we recognise they’ve been fulfilled in Christ and his work.
It was sort of a long answer, but it was really a short answer to what the question was, because it is a difficult question.
CK: No, very helpful! I think it’s so helpful. I really appreciate that you brought in the Reformed position that tried to seek distinction between the kinds of laws that do feature in the Old Testament and the abiding nature of morality—especially the moral law. But you’re right: it’s difficult to categorise each of these things into just neat little tidy boxes. So you and I have cut our sideburns, for example, but the fact that we don’t want to go out murdering people is a very different order than trimming sideburns a certain way. That’s important for us to recognise. And yet, even some of this, as you said—the civil or the ceremonial aspects of that—really are beneficial for us still and not to be dispensed with. They’re actually meant to be helpful indicators for us to be anticipating the Christ’s coming and then recognising the beauty of what he’s fulfilled as he did come. So I really thought you answered very well, David—a very helpful way of doing that. Thank you.
How do you get people to reckon what is moral in the Old Testament? If we can’t neatly categorise it, how do we do that? Is it how we see it featuring in the New Testament, or do you have other ways?
DVD: Well, I think that’s a very important way. One way we can know for sure that something in the Old Testament was part of the moral law is to see those same commands given—the sorts of things that we think of as the core of the moral law—which is, “Have no other gods before me”, “Honour the Lord’s name and honour parents” and you can think of basically the Ten Commandments—we actually find those things repeated in the New Testament. So it’s not an overly complicated way, but I think a very helpful way to see it.
But I think there are other ways too. I mean, if you think about a book like Proverbs: here’s a book that’s setting forth the way of wisdom. If you read Proverbs, it’s obviously was written for the Israelites of old, but it’s not written in a way that emphasises the distinctiveness of Israel. For the most part, it’s drawing wisdom from a kind of general knowledge of this world—of the way the world works. In calling forth that wisdom that’s marked by humility and patience and industriousness and honesty—the kind of things that are emphasised throughout Proverbs—I think we get another window into those aspects of the law of God that we would say are part of that moral law. There’s not a whole lot of Proverbs that you’re going to say, “Oh well, that was just for that time.” I mean, it gets right at the fitting, appropriate way of life for us today. There’s this remarkable timelessness in a book like Proverbs. So I think that’s another way where we get a clue into what are the moral aspects of the Mosaic law.
CK: That’s very helpful. And I think even as illustrative as the Proverbs can be, and even the kinds of scenarios that we can see there—there’s a lion in the streets or something like that—while we can’t necessarily account for that in our present context where we live in this part of the world, for example, or your part of the world—I come from where you are right now—we can still see the abiding nature of those things, can’t we. Which is why people have loved the Proverbs, because they do speak to our context and our situation.
DVD: They really speak to the human heart and to basic human relations. It’s basically timeless, even though there are, of course, those—I haven’t seen a lion in the street here in Southern California for a while.
CK: That’s right! Well, as we think about the kinds of meditations in, say, the Psalms and the love for the law, how would you, just as a final charge, maybe, to people listening today, articulate that? Psalm 119 and thinking about the beauty of the law and the goodness of the law and the way the law directs our paths. How would you actually help people walk away with just a concluding thought today on the law as they appreciate it as Christians?
DVD: Yeah, sure. Thanks. You probably don’t know this, but I’ve been preaching through Psalm 119 over the last couple of years.
CK: That’s fantastic! I did not know that. That’s great!
DVD: I’m about two-thirds or three-quarters of the way through. So I’ve just been working through it. It’s a long psalm, so it takes a while. But I’ve learned a lot and it really is great.
I think one thing to recognise even there in Psalm 119 is that those references to the law or God’s commands or God’s precepts, and of course there are a number of different words that are used there—it’s not just talking about the law of God; it really is talking about the whole word of God. I think that’s one way to think about the law of God: it’s one aspect of God’s broader word to us. So insofar as we find all of God himself beautiful and we find all of God’s word to be beautiful, truly we find God’s law beautiful. God’s law is setting forth a way of righteousness and holiness that really—
I guess the thing I’m trying to get at here is that it shows us, in a way, how to be truly human. I think sometimes people have this sense of God’s law is that which constrains us from doing the things we’d really like to do—keeps us from really having the kind of fun we’d like to have as human beings. But in a real sense that God’s law sets before us truly the way to happiness—the way to being an image-bearer of God that is going to bring the true satisfaction to us as human beings. When God tells us to honour each other’s lives—to honour marriage—when he tells us to tell the truth—these are ways that we are actually being the kind of creatures that we are meant to be, and this is the way we are going to enjoy God forever.
So I don’t know. There’s so much more to say.
CK: That’s so helpful. I love it. I was telling my students just in the hour before I got on this with you, this is the call of faith. Lord, do we take you at your word? Do we actually believe that what you’re saying about our lives as your people in this world is really the good way for us? There’s a lot of conflicting messaging coming, both from our depravity or from the kind of messaging from outside, or whatever else, about what is the good life. But actually the Scriptures call us to the life of faith: they say, “Lord, will we take you at your word that this is what is good?” And the Lord doesn’t lie to us: he actually wants us to experience these good things. I think you’re right: do we trust him in that? And if nothing else, we see the beauty of Christ as we reflect on these things and how wonderful it is that he came to bring fulfilment to this rich tradition of expectation.
Dave, I’m so grateful for your time today. Thank you for joining us, even across time zones and across the Pacific. I’m really grateful for your work and grateful to have you on the podcast again.
DVD: It’s my pleasure. Thanks for the invitation.
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CK: To benefit from more resources from the Centre for Christian Living, please visit ccl.moore.edu.au, where you’ll find a host of resources, including past podcast episodes, videos from our live events and articles published through the Centre. We’d love for you to subscribe to our podcast and for you to leave us a review so more people can discover our resources.
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We always benefit from receiving questions and feedback from our listeners, so if you’d like to get in touch, you can email us at ccl@moore.edu.au.
As always, I would like to thank Moore College for its support of the Centre for Christian Living, and to thank to my assistant, Karen Beilharz, for her work in editing and transcribing the episodes. The music for our podcast was generously provided by James West.
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Scripture quotations are from The ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
