In previous podcasts we’ve talked about the Bible teaching about God and the Holy Spirit. Now the Bible Bard turns our attention to Jesus. The first teaching about Jesus in this literature is that in his humanity, Jesus is subordinate to the Father. This means that while living on earth, Jesus lived under the authority and willing control of God. This is important because the texts describe Jesus as fully human. The human Jesus has no more spiritual power than other humans even though Jesus is related to the Father God in a unity that is above that of metaphor. Yet, as completely subordinate, he lives as no other human ever has, he is completely obedient to God the Father! So, texts that we read say that Jesus was dependent upon God in a way that a human child is dependent upon their parents to meet their needs. These sample texts indicate that Jesus was just like us in our own human limitations.

In our episode today, we ask what the Bible teaches about how to live our lives? We look at a few things Jesus said about living the good life.

The literature of the Bible can be divided by style or topic into six groups: Law (beginning of world to Moses), History (of Jews), Poetry, Prophets, Gospel, and Church. Therefore, when you read the Bible, you need to know where you are in these categories, who is speaking, who is the audience, and the topic or subject of any passage. If you know a little bit of grammar, a little bit about similes and metaphors, you can understand everything you read. Knowing a bit of world history, the story of empires and rulers, can enrich your understanding; because the stories told occurred during the times of Egyptian, Hittite, Assyrian, Babylonian, Persian, Greek, and Roman kingdoms/civilizations.

Jesus said things that apply to all peoples at any time. He also said things primarily to a Jewish audience. Some of the things he said greatly impact the later message of the church.

Today’s podcast we look at the use of the term Holy Spirit in the Bible. Other monotheists, like those in Judaism and Islam, think of the term Holy Spirit as a synonym for God. Their God is indivisibly one. The monotheism of most Christians is more complicated. Their God is three distinct persons who are indivisibly one being! This is a very bizarre idea and couldn’t possibly be true unless it was a revealed concept. Because of this complication in the definition of God in his essence, we must be careful to stick to what the text says, without re-interpreting it according to some ideology. That is what we do in this episode.

In today's podcast we look at how humanity should express their love to God. What does the Bible say we should do? As Lesson BB-02 taught, God is not human. He is a spirit. You cannot give a spirit a hug. The verses listed here make it clear, you love God by obeying him and keeping his commands; and his commands have two benefits: they are for our good and they are not burdensome. We have a choice to believe or not believe the story or description of this God and his requirements for humanity. The Bible Bard only recites the biblical texts that explain what God requires and explains why. Since this is literature that everyone can understand, knowing it is not the problem - doing it conflicts with everything we feel as human beings. When you obey God, the Bible teaches that God feels your love - He knows that you truly mean it when you say you love God.

In our last podcast we looked at humanity’s first disaster. It’s a remarkable story with a plot far more sophisticated than often credited. From this first disaster, what appears to be a minor disobedience of humanity to a single command of God, events of enormous significance flow. In this literature, the Bible simply tells the story and leaves it to the reader to realize what these events mean - the effect these events have on today's humanity.

In a previous podcast (BB-16) we began the discussion of humanity, its origins, current state, and its future according to the Bible. In our last podcast (BB-17) we looked at Spirituality in the Bible. In today’s lesson we try and understand more deeply the origins of humanity’s current condition. We do this using the techniques of literary criticism and considering what the Bible says in its story about the woman and the serpant.

In our last podcast (BB-16) we began the discussion about humanity in the Bible. We examined what the Bible says about human origins. In today’s reading we hear what the Bible says about spirituality. We examine how the Bible describes the spiritual, beginning with the most spiritual Being - God. People often have trouble with the idea of spirit. They think that spirit means intellect, emotions, fears, passions, and creativity, all ideas originally expressed by Plato. But human spirituality in the Bible is based upon God, who is a spirit being. What the Bible says about God provides our understanding of the concept of spirit. Other religions and philosophies describe the source for the human condition differently than the Bible does. Therefore, their remedies for this condition are different. Everything flows from the Bible's concept of God. Understanding it allows you to understand reactions against it - all of human religion and philosophy become intelligible.

The Bible is clear about who God is and what are his attributes, his emotions, and personality. In the first lessons we looked at what the Bible says about God. But the identity and attributes of humanity, which begin in the creation story, are a bit more complicated. This podcast turns to a new topic looking at what the Bible teaches about humanity. The goal of these podcasts is to present the actual text of the Bible so that listeners might know what the Bible itself teaches. The Bible Bard is not interested in the debate between creationists and evolutionists about the origin of humanity. While we acknowledge that there is a controversy, we're looking a literature - so this controversy is external to the story. The creation description is literature from which we gain an impression of what happened during the six days of [re]creation on the surface of the earth. That's correct, if we read what the Bible actually says, we find out that the details of creation of life on earth are limited to the habitable surface of the earth and that the earth itself was already there - so these creation details are about plant, animal, birds, fish, and human life. That is the limited focus of the biblical story.