Citizen of Heaven
Episodes
519 episodes
TEA: Civilization. "Blood Orange Brewery." The Tea. Ceylon.
We’re talking beverages this month on the podcast. Last week was coffee; this week we’re going a bit highbrow – or maybe not; we’ll have to see. We’ll discuss whether civilization is all it’s cracked up to be; whether tea is merely a beverage o...
COFFEE, part 3: with Mark Roberts and BJ Sipe
I hope everyone else has enjoyed this week at the coffee shop as much as I have; let’s have one last cup before we leave. To conclude the discussion, Mark Roberts and BJ Sipe discuss the willpower you have to find sometimes to walk away from so...
COFFEE, part 2: with Mark Roberts and BJ Sipe
We’re back for a second cup with Mark Roberts of the West Side church of Christ in Irving, Texas, and BJ Sipe of the church in Danville, Kentucky. Links are included in the show notes. We’re talking here about mornings – how a cup of coffee can...
COFFEE, with Mark Roberts and BJ Sipe
Mark Roberts’s Coffee and the Bible series was a big prompt for this episode. I was excited to sit down with him and BJ Sipe, another avid coffee drinker, to discuss a variety of coffee-adjacent topics. We start with the idea of combining coffe...
HALFTIME REPORT: My Best Books of 2026 (So Far)
These are the best books I've read in 2026 so far. See also my list of "most surprising" books." Lord willing, the lists for the entire year will be posted in December.(Honorable mention): Doubts About Darwin, by Thomas Woodward10...
HALFTIME REPORT: Most Surprising Books of 2026 (So Far)
These are the most surprising books I've read in the first half of 2026. 10. Where God Was Born, by Bruce Feiler9. The Death of Evolution: Restoring Faith and Wonder in a World of Doubt, by Jim Nelson Black8. The Grave...
BUSINESS: "Bad, bad." "A Shopkeeper's Millennium." Not personal. Furnace.
Jesus wanted to be about His Father’s business as soon as possible. Here’s hoping His attitude will rub off on us. This week we’ll cover the difference between a successful businessperson and a crooked one; the help the business world has offer...
CLICKBAIT: A pig in a poke. "Murder-bears, Moonshine, and Mayhem." Headlines. Intellectual properties.
It’s my eternal struggle: balancing keeping things proper and keeping things interesting. This week we’ll cover whether efforts to sneak the gospel in the back door are ethical or even effective; the most interesting and perhaps least profitabl...
CREDIBILITY: Apostolic testimony. "The Turn of the Screw." Corrections. Reviewers.
This topic is near and dear to my heart; it’s worth acquiring and protecting, especially if you wear the name of Jesus. We’ll discuss apostles and how they were able to do their job so well and continue to do so; a storyteller who may or may no...
ROADS: Holy Way. Robert Frost. "Highway to Hell." Isle of Skye.
I’m actually on the road this week; apologies in advance for any sound issues I may have being away from my normal microphone. We’ll be talking about one road God has prepared for us and the challenges we find walking in it; two roads that conv...
BLESSINGS, part 3: with the Bible Geeks
“All the blessings in the heavenly places” sounds like the greatest gift of all – and it is. But what exactly are the “heavenly places” to which Paul refers in Ephesians 1:3? And why does the devil seem to be there too? Thankfully we have the B...
BLESSINGS, part 2: with the Bible Geeks
My conversation with Ryan Joy and Bryan Schiele, the Bible Geeks, turns to Psalm 127 and the blessing of children. As each of us is a father, we each have a perspective on the subject. Hopefully we didn’t brag on our own children very much. How...
BLESSINGS, with the Bible Geeks
This month we welcome in, for the first time as a pair on the podcast, Ryan Joy and Bryan Schiele, the Bible Geeks, a couple of the best podcasters I know. Links to the show and to Ryan’s work with the North church in Fort Wayne, Indiana, are i...
CHINA: Thomas. "1421"/"Who Discovered America?" Porcelain. The Great Wall.
We finish our world tour in a land considered a fertile field for the gospel until godless Communists took over. We’ll discuss the apostle who may have first brought Jesus to China and why; a radical new theory about world exploration (embrace ...
GERMANY: Martin Luther. "The Nazi and the Psychiatrist." Essen. Porta Nigra.
This is one of the last two stops in our trip around the world; I hope you’re enjoying it as much as I am. This week we’ll talk about one of the best men Germany ever gave the world; one of the worst, and how his biggest opponent was more like ...
EGYPT: Back to slavery. "Who Killed King Tut?" Steve Martin. Pyramids.
Egypt is the nation mentioned most in the Bible other than Israel and Judah. So naturally our trip around the world had to make a stop here. We’ll discuss the irresistible urge in God’s people to embrace the life God’s trying to get us out of; ...
ISRAEL, part 3: with Jacob Hudgins and Mark Russell
The greatest wrestling match in history is described in Genesis 32. It speaks to the struggles Jacob faced throughout his life in his walk with God, but also to the struggles of the nation that descended from him. Even more so, though, it prefi...
ISRAEL, part 2: with Jacob Hudgins and Mark Russell
Jacob Hudgins and Mark Russell are back to continue our discussion about Israel. But what do we really mean when we use the term “Israel” today? Is the nation on modern maps equivalent to the chosen people of God? Do we have an obligation as Ch...
ISRAEL: with Jacob Hudgins and Mark Russell
I had so much fun going around the world with you last month that we’re going to do another lap this month, starting with a long-overdue look at the land of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Here to help are Jacob Hudgins from the Twin City church of C...
MONGOLIA: Nestorianism. "In Search of Genghis Khan." Outer Mongolia. Yak.
If you say you knew we’d be traveling to Mongolia in our trip around the world this month, I will straight-out call you a liar. And yet here we are. We’ll cover the so-called heretics who brought Jesus to this distant corner of the world and wh...
FRANCE: Mary Magdalene. "Saint Joan of Arc." The Maginot Line. 1987: Channel Tunnel.
Our trip around the world brings us to a nation not mentioned in the Bible yet fraught with Biblical history – or at least Bible-adjacent history. We’ll cover the French’s obsession with Mary Magdalene (and ours); the most obsessive and rebelli...
RUSSIA: Orthodox. "Passage to Byzantium." Vodka. Twilight Struggle.
The first month in Season 8 will take you around the globe, looking at the lessons we can learn from our neighbors. This week we’ll discuss whose way of doing things is the right way, and what that “right way” is; the reason Vladamir Putin is i...
CITIZENS, part 3: with Colton McDaniel and Paul Casebolt
OK, we’ve saved it for last, but we finally get to what you came to hear. Colton McDaniel and Paul Casebolt, links provided in the show notes, finish off our citizenship discussion by weighing in on the issues of borders, immigration, and polic...
CITIZENS, part 2: with Colton McDaniel and Paul Casebolt
We pick up where we left off with Colton McDaniel and Paul Casebolt discussing our role as citizens. In this part of the conversation we discuss the nature of our simultaneous roles as kingdom citizens and residents of planet earth. Can we bala...
CITIZENS: with Colton McDaniel and Paul Casebolt
What better way to start Season 8 than a long-overdue discussion of what it means to be a resident of the kingdom of Jesus Christ. A couple of newcomers join me for the discussion. Colton McDaniel preaches for the Stone Canyon church of Christ ...
