In this thrilling two-part episode of The Apologetics Podcast, Garrick and Timothy go back to the future.

Or, perhaps more precisely, they go back to the second century for the sake of the future.

In the book The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self, theologian Carl Trueman points out that the church's challenges of the second century A.D. provide one possible precedent for the struggles that Christians are facing in the present era. With that in mind, Garrick and Timothy travel back in time to see what contemporary Christians might learn from a second-century apologist named Aristides of Athens. It's basically like Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure, except without the whole debacle in the shopping mall. In this first episode of Garrick and Timothy's excellent adventure, your intrepid cohosts learn how ancient Christians did radical civic good without bowing to the civic gods.

The Raiders of Church History segment is the softest and weakest battle so far in this season. Basically, it consists of a silk flag being flopped against a piece of rope that was once the property of a monk. Along the way, Garrick mentions "elf spots." No one knows exactly what an elf spot is, but everyone agrees that "Elf Spot" would be a great name for an acoustic emo band that wears medieval outfits and plays music at Renaissance fairs.

Timothy Paul Jones, Ph.D., is C. Edwin Gheens Professor of Christian Ministry at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. He teaches in the areas of family ministry and applied apologetics. He has authored or edited more than a dozen books, including Why Should I Trust the Bible?, The God Who Goes Before You, Perspectives on Family Ministry, In Church as It Is in Heaven, and Christian History Made Easy.

Garrick Bailey is a Ph.D. student in systematic theology at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, studying Herman Bavinck and Roman Catholicism under the supervision of Gregg Allison.

Born This Way (Lady Gaga, 2017)

Back to The Future (1985)

Patreon Support

theapologeticspodcast.com

Urban Ministry Podcast

Music for the podcast has been licensed through Artlist.io and performed by Cunningham Manor. Brief excerpts of music played in each program are included solely for the purposes of comment and critique as allowed under the fair-use provision of U.S. copyright law. “The fair use of a copyrighted work … for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, … scholarship, or research, is not an infringement of copyright” (U.S. Code § 107, Limitations on exclusive rights: Fair use).