1010 Thrive

1010 Thrive -- Home of the 1010 Podcast
  • 5.0 (11)
  • Religion & Spirituality
  • Updated Daily

A daily podcast each weekday sharing Biblical truth designed to help listeners find hope, meaning and fulfillment in life. Each weekday we air a new episode that features a devotional grounded in our 10-10 principles. Many episodes include original music and dramatizations.

  1. 22h ago

    Episode 1500: Acts of the Apostles (Part 7, Ch 10-Paul)

    Episode 10 returned the trial to the city of Lystra through the testimony of Dion, a citizen who had witnessed one of the most dramatic episodes of Paul’s first missionary journey. Dion described a man crippled from birth who had never walked. After listening to Paul preach, the man was commanded to stand and suddenly rose to his feet. The astonished crowd concluded that the gods had come among them in human form, identifying Barnabas as Zeus and Paul as Hermes because Paul was the principal speaker. Even the priest of Zeus arrived with oxen and garlands to offer sacrifice. Instead of accepting the adulation, Paul and Barnabas tore their clothes and rushed into the crowd to stop it. Dion remembered Paul insisting that they were merely human and directing the people toward the living God who made heaven, earth and sea and gave humanity rain, harvests, food and joy. Dion was struck by how determined Paul seemed to be ordinary. Yet the crowd soon moved in the opposite direction. Influenced by opponents who arrived from Antioch and Iconium, the people turned against Paul, stoned him, and dragged him outside the city believing he was dead. Dion followed but did not throw a stone. He later saw Paul rise and return to the very city that had tried to kill him. Varro argued that Lystra was another example of disorder following Paul wherever he went. Paul countered that he had neither encouraged the attempted worship nor commanded the violence that followed. Dion ultimately conceded that neither crowd had been right: Paul was not a god, but neither had he deserved to die. The week therefore ended with Varro’s case becoming more sophisticated. Paul had raised no army, but his message was crossing cultural boundaries, challenging established loyalties and creating followers willing to endure extraordinary costs for their beliefs.

  2. 1d ago

    Episode 1499: Acts of the Apostles (Part 7, Ch 9-Paul)

    Episode 9 brought a very different witness before the tribunal: Sergius Paulus, the former Roman proconsul of Cyprus. Sergius described himself as a man dissatisfied with the religious world around him. He could perform the prescribed sacrifices and observe the rituals of Roman religion, yet still leave with the same unanswered questions. When reports reached him about Paul and Barnabas, he summoned them because he genuinely wanted to hear what they were teaching and determine whether their claims deserved to be believed. Sergius described how Elymas, a Jewish magician and false prophet associated with his court, tried to turn him away from Paul’s message. Paul confronted Elymas, accusing him of deceit and of opposing the ways of the Lord, and declared that he would be blind for a time. Sergius then watched as mist and darkness came over Elymas and the man searched for someone to lead him by the hand. Yet Sergius insisted that the miracle itself was not what ultimately produced his faith. The sign commanded his attention, but the message won his conviction. He became convinced that the God Paul proclaimed was real and that Jesus Christ was Lord. Varro seized on the political significance of the testimony. Paul had entered a Roman province, proclaimed an authority higher than Caesar, and persuaded the province’s Roman governor to believe him. Sergius acknowledged the personal danger of admitting that faith publicly under Nero, but refused to protect himself by pretending that he had heard Paul and rejected him. His testimony strengthened both sides of the case: Paul had never asked Sergius to rebel against Rome, yet his message had reached into Roman authority itself and persuaded a Roman official that Caesar was not the highest Lord.

  3. 2d ago

    Episode 1498: Acts of the Apostles (Part 7, Ch 8-Paul)

    Episode 8 introduced Barnabas, the man who took a chance on Paul when the believers in Jerusalem were still afraid of their former persecutor. Barnabas described how the disciples initially distrusted Saul’s claim of conversion and feared that approaching them might be another means of identifying Christians for arrest. After listening to Saul and learning what had happened in Damascus, Barnabas brought him to the apostles and vouched for him. Years later, when a growing community of Jewish and Gentile believers needed help in Antioch, Barnabas deliberately went to Tarsus to find Saul and bring him into the work. Varro used Barnabas’s testimony to challenge the idea that Paul’s acceptance into the church had been immediate or inevitable. He also recognized the strategic value Paul eventually brought to the expanding movement: a man trained in the Jewish Scriptures who could also move through the Greek and Roman worlds. Barnabas rejected the suggestion that anyone had engineered Paul’s rise, pointing out that Jerusalem had initially feared him and that the mission from Antioch began only years later. He also acknowledged that his relationship with Paul was not without conflict, including their eventual separation over whether John Mark should accompany them again. Barnabas’s testimony moved Paul’s story beyond conversion and acceptance into mission. In Antioch, Barnabas and Saul worshiped and fasted with other believers before being set apart and sent out together, becoming apostles in the broader sense of men commissioned to carry the message. By the end of the episode, Paul was no longer simply the converted persecutor seeking the church’s trust. He and Barnabas were leaving Antioch to take the gospel deeper into the Roman world, beginning with Cyprus.

  4. 3d ago

    Episode 1497: Acts of the Apostles (Part 7, Ch 7-Paul)

    Episode 7 brought Ananias of Damascus before the tribunal, giving the court its first witness to the immediate aftermath of Paul’s encounter on the Damascus road. Ananias acknowledged that he had not seen what happened on the road itself. What he could testify to was what he found afterward: Saul, the feared persecutor of Christians, had arrived in Damascus blind and fasting. Despite knowing why Saul had come to the city, Ananias went to him after receiving a vision instructing him to do so, addressed him as “Brother Saul,” laid hands on him, and witnessed the restoration of his sight. Varro carefully separated what Ananias had actually witnessed from what he believed. He challenged the vision that had led Ananias to Saul and raised the possibility that Saul’s recovery from blindness had been natural rather than miraculous. Ananias did not claim to be able to prove otherwise. Instead, he stood by the facts he knew: Saul had arrived blind, Ananias had gone to him despite having reason to fear him, Saul regained his sight, and the man who had come to Damascus to arrest followers of Jesus was baptized into their community. By the end of the testimony, the court still had no independent witness to Paul’s encounter with Jesus on the road. But Ananias had given the tribunal something more tangible to consider. Whatever had happened outside Damascus, its immediate consequences were difficult to dismiss. The persecutor had entered the city helpless and blind, and within days had joined the very people he had intended to destroy.

  5. 4d ago

    Episode 1496: Acts of the Apostles (Part 7, Ch 6-Paul)

    Paul himself takes the stand to give the account toward which the entire first week has been moving. He explains that he was traveling to Damascus with authority to arrest followers of Jesus and return them to Jerusalem. He was not searching for a new faith and was not questioning his mission. Near Damascus, however, a brilliant light overwhelmed him, he fell to the ground, and he heard a voice ask, “Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?” When Saul asked who was speaking, the answer came: “I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting.” Saul rose unable to see and was led into Damascus, where he remained blind and without food or drink for three days. Varro subjects the account to the most demanding cross-examination of the trial so far. Paul’s companions experienced the extraordinary event but did not hear the words Paul claims Jesus spoke to him. Varro also exposes differences among Paul’s accounts of Damascus and carefully distinguishes what Paul says happened from Paul’s later interpretation of it. Most importantly, he reminds Paul of his own earlier concession: sincerity does not establish truth. Saul had once been absolutely certain that persecuting Christians served God. His certainty that Jesus now appeared to him therefore proves nothing by itself. Paul repeatedly concedes the limits of his evidence rather than attempting to evade them. His suffering does not prove Christianity true, his certainty does not prove the vision genuine, and his transformation alone does not prove that Jesus rose from the dead. He insists instead that Damascus must be examined as a sequence of events rather than as an isolated private experience. Something happened on the road, something happened during the three days that followed, and other people became involved. Varro ends the day having shown that the identification of the voice as Jesus still rests principally upon Paul’s testimony. Paul responds by pointing the court toward the next witness: Ananias, the man who came looking for Saul in Damascus without having been summoned.

  6. Sep 11

    Episode 1495: Acts of the Apostles (Part 7, Ch 5-Paul)

    Miriam of Jerusalem gives the tribunal its most personal account yet of Saul’s persecution. She was among the believers arrested when Saul participated in a raid on a Christian gathering. Her testimony shows that his persecution was neither impulsive nor haphazard. Saul was organized, systematic, and thorough, pursuing women as well as men and helping create the fear that scattered believers beyond Jerusalem. Paul draws attention to the irony that the persecution intended to destroy the movement instead contributed to its spread. Varro immediately refuses to let Paul claim providential credit for the consequences of his own violence, arguing that a man who burns a house does not become its architect because the survivors build somewhere else. Miriam nevertheless identifies an important continuity between Saul and Paul: the qualities themselves did not disappear. Saul did not become less relentless; he changed direction. As the first week of testimony closes, the tribunal can finally see the man who approached Damascus. Tarsus had given Saul the ability to move among different worlds. Gamaliel had sharpened his intellect. His devotion had become certainty, his certainty had become persecution, and his persecution had reached from Stephen’s execution into the homes of ordinary believers. Varro has therefore established a formidable problem for the defense: Paul is asking Rome to trust a man who has already demonstrated how catastrophically wrong he can be. Paul’s answer is that something happened between the persecutor and the missionary. The tribunal is finally ready to hear what.

  7. Sep 10

    Episode 1494: Acts of the Apostles (Part 7, Ch 4-Paul)

    Claudia Marcella, a Roman freedwoman, takes the stand to describe something she witnessed decades earlier in Jerusalem: the stoning of Stephen. She remembers Stephen being driven outside the city and killed while a young Saul stood nearby with the garments of those carrying out the execution. Paul does not hide behind the fact that he did not personally throw the stones. He acknowledges openly that he was there and approved Stephen’s death. Claudia recalls something else that remained with her: Stephen’s extraordinary conduct as he died. He called upon Jesus to receive his spirit and prayed that the sin of those killing him would not be held against them. Yet Claudia refuses to interpret Stephen’s courage as proof that his beliefs were true. People can sincerely suffer and die for false beliefs, she insists. Paul agrees, giving Varro an important weapon: sincerity and conviction cannot establish truth. Varro then turns Paul’s admission against him. Saul had once been absolutely certain that Stephen and the followers of Jesus were wrong, and a man died while he approved. Why, then, should Rome be reassured by Paul’s certainty now? Paul answers that it should not. His certainty is not the evidence. The court must determine whether what he now claims is actually true. The episode therefore deepens the central problem of the trial: Saul was not merely mistaken before Damascus; he was sincerely, intelligently, and dangerously mistaken.

  8. Sep 9

    Episode 1493: Acts of the Apostles (Part 7, Ch 3-Paul)

    The tribunal next hears from Yosef bar Shimon, a Pharisee who studied alongside Saul under the renowned teacher Gamaliel. Yosef remembers Saul as an exceptional student: intensely devout, intellectually rigorous, and unwilling to treat theological questions as merely academic. Once Saul believed that a conclusion was true, he acted upon it. Varro begins to establish a pattern that will become increasingly important to the prosecution: Saul’s intelligence and sincerity could make his convictions more dangerous, not less. Yosef also reveals how much Paul still shares with the Pharisaic tradition from which he came. Both men believe in Israel’s God, the authority of Scripture, the future resurrection of the dead, and God’s promise of a Messiah. Their fundamental disagreement is that Yosef still awaits the Messiah, while Paul believes the Messiah has already come in Jesus of Nazareth. Paul therefore argues that he has not abandoned the faith Gamaliel taught him but has come to believe that its promises have been fulfilled. Yosef refuses to become a witness for Paul. He insists that sharing Paul’s premises does not make Paul’s conclusion correct, and he remains convinced that his former classmate has profoundly misinterpreted the Scriptures. Their exchange leaves the court with a crucial question: what evidence could possibly have persuaded someone as fiercely committed to opposing the followers of Jesus as Saul was that the crucified Jesus was actually the risen Messiah? Before answering that question, however, the tribunal must confront what Saul’s certainty produced.

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Ratings & Reviews

5
out of 5
11 Ratings

About

A daily podcast each weekday sharing Biblical truth designed to help listeners find hope, meaning and fulfillment in life. Each weekday we air a new episode that features a devotional grounded in our 10-10 principles. Many episodes include original music and dramatizations.

Information

  • Creator
    1010 Thrive -- Home of the 1010 Podcast
  • Years Active
    2020 - 2026
  • Episodes
    500
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © 2020 1010 Thrive -- Home of the 1010 Podcast
  • Show Website
    1010 Thrive

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