In this 3rd and final bonus episodes recorded during my summer RiseU class series, I discuss some of the key cultural values that distinguished people in the Greco-Roman world from how so many of us think today, shedding light on how those different values shaped how they heard and understood the message of Jesus and His followers.

Specifically, we focus on the nature of a Group-Based culture (verse our current Individualistic one), an Honor & Shame driven community, and a highly stratified society that separated and distinguished between social classes and made life difficult for the poor (who were the majority of people Jesus spoke to and live among.)

In this 2nd of 3 special bonus episodes recorded during my summer RiseU class series, I discuss the religion of the Jewish people, what their core beliefs were and how that related to their interaction with their pagan neighbors, as well as how they would have perceived (and often disagreed) with Jesus and His teachings.

We also discuss some of the different religious sects among the Jewish people, like the Sadducees, Pharisees, and Zealots, and how the common, average Jewish person fit into all the simmering tensions in 1st Century Palestine.

In this 1st of 3 special bonus episodes recorded during my summer RiseU class series, I walk through the history of the Jewish people all the way throughout the Old Testament as well as what is known as the Inter-Testamental period - the 450 years between Malachi and the arrival of Jesus.

The goal of this first class is to set the stage for understanding what the first hearers of the Gospel message would have been awaiting and expecting in a coming Messiah (if some were at all).