On this episode, Ansen and Chaplain Justin take a fresh look at the story in Mark 9:14-29, which contains one of the more famous verses in the Bible: a distraught dad crying out, "I believe; help my unbelief!" But... what does that mean, exactly? And what else can we learn from the context surrounding this story to make sense of everything that happens?

Words like meditation, mindfulness, or contemplation are sometimes viewed with skepticism within certain Christian communities. And yet, Scripture is filled with examples of people encouraging and engaging in these practices ("meditate on God's law day and night!"). So Ansen and Justin take a fresh look... what is Christian meditation or contemplative spirituality, and how might it benefit our relationship with God?

After discussing Doubting Thomas in the previous episode, Ansen and Chaplain Justin are ready to take on the subject of Thomas' doubt directly... the resurrection of Jesus. This central tenet of Christian belief is also one of the most miraculous and therefore hardest to believe, so what evidence is there to prove that the resurrection of Jesus was an actual, historical event?

Ansen and Chaplain Justin discuss the "Patron Saint" of the Faith Refresh podcast... "Doubting Thomas." How would you feel if you were given a nickname based on a single instance of questioning? Ansen and Justin make the case that Thomas, and even the concept of doubt itself, have gotten a bad rap. After all, Jesus himself responds to Thomas with compassion rather than condemnation.

When was the last time you had a serious conversation about a controversial topic that didn't end in a fight? Our cultural discourse has backslidden into toxicity, particularly online. Ansen and Justin discuss what the Bible can teach us about how to speak to one another with the right combination of conviction, gentleness, and respect.

Ansen and Chaplain Justin follow up on their previous discussion about Genesis 1 with a deeper dive into the often adversarial relationship between religion and science. Our hosts wade through church history, Biblical interpretation, the scientific method, philosophy, personal experience, and more on a quest to discover what it might look like for religion and science to be allies in our search for truth.

The creation account in Genesis 1 is perhaps the most well-known story in the Bible, and yet even Christians can't agree on what it means. Ansen and Chaplain Justin discuss how applying a literary framework can help us see that the narrative isn't really focused on the mechanics of creation, but rather on exploring the nature of the Creator.

If Christians are "saved by faith," it's probably pretty important for us to understand what exactly faith is! Ansen and Chaplain Justin dissect the broadly used but often vaguely defined term through the framework of Biblical Theology. What is faith and where does it come from? And perhaps even more critically, what do we do when our faith seems defective or inadequate?