Ask Away

One of the most harrowing accounts in the Old Testament, this story from Genesis 22 raises all kinds of troubling questions for us: Does God condone child sacrifice? Does this story teach that it’s permissible for us to commit evil in the name of God? What about the impact on Isaac? And perhaps most relevant for us today: with texts such as this in the Bible, how can we trust that God is good and that he will be good to us? 

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While we are always encountering new questions from college students, it is still the case that the topics of singleness, dating, and marriage come up in conversation more frequently than any other. So in honor of Valentine’s Day, this week Jo and Vince are re-posting a previous episode on how to engage in relationships in a way that reflects Jesus’ own approach to choosing us! 

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Some of us are hurting so much that living each day is a struggle. Others wake up every morning to the anguish of having lost a loved one to suicide. In either case, the question of what happens after death to those who have taken their lives is a deeply personal and painful question. This week on Ask Away, Jo and Vince discuss the hope of the Christian faith for those who are carrying these heavy burdens. They also encourage those...

These days, any measure of peace feels hard to come by. Whether we’re at war with one another or at war with ourselves, we are always conflicted over one thing or another. Under such conditions, the angelic announcement of “peace on earth” seems hopelessly naive. But what if peace were more than an empty promise or a futile proposition? This Christmas, the Ask Away podcast considers the implications of this question: What if peace ...

Does the Bible endorse chattel slavery? How could a loving and just God command the killing of civilian populations? Does the Bible teach that women's bodies are inferior? Did God tempt Job? Why is it that according to Old Testament law, only women (and not men) had to endure a trial for perceived unfaithfulness? In this week's episode of Ask Away, Jo Vitale responds to live Q&A questions based on some of the most difficult pas...

Imagine jumping into a game without knowing when it started, when it will finish, what the rules are, or even the objective—without that information, your participation would be totally meaningless! And yet, how many of us are walking through life without answers to those same fundamental questions? In this episode of Ask Away, Vince suggests that every person needs answers to these questions, and only one person can provide them. 

For many of us, it feels incredibly stressful to unexpectedly find ourselves in a religious or political conversation with anybody, friend or stranger, who holds radically different views from our own. When that happens, how do you handle the situation? And what does the other person walk away thinking and feeling, after they have encountered you? This week on Ask Away, Jo Vitale considers how Jesus Christ handled being in a simila...

We all have desires, but what are we supposed to do with them? Which makes for a better life—pursuing or suppressing desires? Indulging them or fearing them? In this episode of Ask Away, Jo and Vince talk about the role of desire in the Christian faith, and if the real problem might not be that we want too much, but that we’re settling for far too little. 

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Perhaps the two greatest callings for a Christian are to live with God and to live with God’s people. Tragically, many who go by the name Christian are doing neither, having been deceived into settling for the counterfeits of believing intellectually in God and going to church. What if we need to completely reframe how we conceive of the Christian life? If you’ve been trying to live as a Christian for a long time but always find yo...

It's a confusing time to be alive. We celebrate a diversity of people and experiences, but we fear a diversity of thought and beliefs. It's ok to live your truth, so long as you don't infringe on mine. Undergirding this cultural consensus is the assumption that making truth claims inevitably leads to disagreement, and disagreement is the start of a slippery slope into division and dehumanization. But is truth really an act of war a...

In a world of online connection, we are all a “follower” of somebody—or a multitude of somebodies! So where does that leave Jesus? Is he just one among a multitude of influencers we engage with from afar, or is he looking for something more from us? In this episode of Ask Away, Jo Vitale discusses what Jesus really meant when he invited his first hearers to “come, follow me!” 

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Many of us will spend more than half of our waking lives working. We frequently joke about “the grind” of work and living for the weekend, but that doesn’t seem like much of a way to live. If the goal of work is retirement, then what does that say about the work in the first place? Is work a punishment for the fall? Will there be work in heaven? In this episode of Ask Away, Jo and Vince consider whether work is merely a necessary e...

Christianity has long claimed to be for every person, irrespective of who you are or where you're from. Does Jesus undermine that claim and show himself not to be divine, or even not worth following, by making a racial slur against a foreign woman? In this episode of Ask Away, Vince and Jo talk about what we should make of this confusing interaction between Jesus and the "Canaanite" woman in Matthew 15 and Mark 7.

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Isn't there something feudalistic and demeaning about "worshipping" God? What modern, rational, free and autonomous person would want to do that? And what is "worship," anyway? Is it just Christian karaoke, or something more? In this episode of Ask Away, recorded at Menlo Church in California, Jo considers both why we worship and what it looks like to worship God authentically. 

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At the heart of the Nicene Creed (325 AD) we find the words: “For our sake [Jesus] was crucified under Pontius Pilate, he suffered, died, and was buried.” But how is it possible that someone who died 2,000 years ago could have died for our sake?! And if Jesus is God, how could He have died? And why would He have died—was this something He chose, or something He was coerced to do? In this episode of Ask Away, Jo Vitale engages with ...

"1+1+1 = 1 is not going to get you a pass in mathematics." This comment, made by a Muslim apologist and spoken word artist, is an intriguing critique! When Christians claim that there is one God in three persons, are they making a contradictory statement? When it comes to the nature of God, how much can we really know about him, anyway? And what difference—if any—does it make to us if God is in fact Trinitarian? In this week's epis...

Could it be, paradoxically, that the very things that lead to success in youth can set us up for struggles and hurt later in life? If so, what can we do about this in our own lives and the lives of our children? And how are the notions of success, winning, and competition reconceived and redeemed within the Christian faith? 

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