On this week’s episode, Mat Hotho and Steve Crawford interview Dr. Jennifer Grace Bird for our episode on 1st & 2nd Peter and Jude. Dr. Bird spent much of her time on the East Coast but is now working in the Portland, OR area. She has a Master’s in Divinity from Princeton Theological Seminary and a Ph.D. in New Testament and Early Christianity from Vanderbilt University. Much of her research is on marriage, gender, and sexuality. She has written Abuse Power and Fearful Obedience and Permission Granted: Take the Bible into Your Own Hands, which like this project, is about experiencing the Bible in a new way. So that we can learn to understand and apply the Bible for what it really is. You can find those books and a video series about what the bible says and doesn't say about marriage on her website, jennifergracebird.com.

Today, they cover 1 & 2, Peter and Jude, covering the idea of household codes. As people started to recognize themselves and each other as following Jesus, they needed to sort out what that meant for behavior and how to live within their culture and their relationships as Christians. These three books try to work some of that out. Dr. Bird also talks about how these books have been used to hurt people and different ways to understand those texts.

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