Sunday To Society

Riley Reno
  • 4.8 (5)
  • Society & Culture
  • Updated Weekly

"From the Pew to the Public Square" Sunday to Society is a weekly podcast exploring today’s world through the lens of a Christian worldview. Hosted solo with occasional guests, each episode challenges listeners to move beyond passive faith and engage culture with clarity, conviction, and Christ at the center. Whether unpacking current events, cultural trends, or theological questions, this podcast invites you to think biblically and live boldly—every day of the week.

  1. 5d ago

    Jesus Said "When You Fast" Not "If You Fast" — So Why Don't We?

    Open your Bible to Matthew 6. Jesus gives instructions on giving, prayer, and fasting — three disciplines treated as parallel practices, each introduced the same way. He says "when you give." He says "when you pray." He says "when you fast." Not if. When. Most Protestant Christians pray. Most give. Almost none fast. Somewhere between the first century and today, one of the three disciplines Jesus assumed his followers would practice quietly disappeared from mainstream Protestant life — and almost nobody noticed. This episode is not a history of fasting. It is a theological examination of what fasting is, what Scripture says it does, and how and why Protestant Christianity largely walked away from it. The early church fasted twice a week as standard practice — the Didache, one of the earliest Christian documents outside the New Testament, instructs believers to fast on Wednesdays and Fridays. John Wesley fasted every Wednesday and Friday throughout his ministry and expressed concern that Christians who didn't fast were spiritually shallow. The Reformers did not reject fasting — they rejected its misuse as a way of earning grace — but in practice that distinction collapsed, and a discipline practiced by Moses, David, Esther, and Jesus himself gradually became optional, then unusual, then invisible. Early Christian Writings We also sit with the most important Old Testament passage on fasting — Isaiah 58 — where God rejects religious fasting disconnected from genuine repentance and justice, and ask what a fast that God actually chooses looks like. Scripture: Matthew 6:16-17, Isaiah 58:6, Acts 13:2-3 (KJV) Primary sources referenced in this episode: The Didache, Chapter 8 — fasting instructions (Early Christian Writings, full text): http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/text/didache-roberts.htmlThe Didache, Chapter 8 (CCEL full text): https://www.ccel.org/ccel/richardson/fathers.viii.i.iii.htmlJohn Wesley, Sermon 27, "Upon Our Lord's Sermon on the Mount" (CCEL full text): https://www.ccel.org/ccel/wesley/sermons.vi.xxvii.htmlCalvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, Book III (CCEL full text): https://www.ccel.org/ccel/calvin/institutes.v.iv.htmlSunday to Society is a Christian podcast exploring how men and women of faith lived out their convictions in the public square — and what their stories mean for ours. New episodes weekly. Available on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and YouTube.

  2. Sep 21

    He Sat 300 Hungry Children Down With No Food — And Gave Thanks Anyway | George Müller

    One morning in Bristol, England, George Müller sat 300 orphaned children down at an empty breakfast table. There was no food in the house. There was no money to buy any. He bowed his head and gave thanks to God for what they were about to receive. A few minutes later a baker knocked at the door. He told Müller he hadn't been able to sleep the night before and had felt compelled to bake bread for the orphanage. Minutes after that a milkman whose cart had broken down outside asked if the orphanage could use several large cans of fresh milk. This was not a one-time miracle. This was a Tuesday. George Müller was born in 1805 in Prussia. As a child he stole money from his father and indulged in sinful activities. His father wanted him to become a clergyman to have a comfortable life, not to serve God. At 20 he wandered into a small prayer meeting almost by accident and was converted that night. He eventually settled in Bristol, opened his first orphan house with 30 children in 1836, and made a deliberate decision he never broke: he would never make a public financial appeal, never go into debt, and never tell anyone but God when there was a need. Scribd By 1870 he was housing over 2,000 children in five purpose-built orphan houses on Ashley Down — the largest orphanage complex in the world. Every penny came unsolicited. He recorded over 50,000 specific answered prayers in his journals. He died in 1898 at age 92 still working. His estate was valued at £160. In this episode we follow all three threads of Müller's story — the unlikely conversion, the audacious faith experiment, and the prayer theology simple enough for anyone to apply — and ask what it would look like to give thanks before the provision rather than after. Scripture: Matthew 7:7, Philippians 4:19, Hebrews 11:6 (KJV) Primary sources referenced in this episode: Müller, Autobiography (1905 Centenary Edition, Internet Archive): https://archive.org/details/autobiography-of-george-mullerMüller, Autobiography (condensed, georgemuller.org): https://www.georgemuller.org/uploads/4/8/6/5/48652749/the-autobiography-of-george-muller.pdfMüller, Autobiography (Monergism full eBook): https://www.monergism.com/autobiography-george-m%C3%BCller-ebookSunday to Society is a Christian podcast exploring how men and women of faith lived out their convictions in the public square — and what their stories mean for ours. New episodes weekly. Available on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and YouTube.

  3. Sep 14

    The Empire That Tried to Destroy the Church Became Christian Instead

    Nero burned them as torches to light his garden parties. Diocletian demolished their churches and burned their Scriptures. Ten emperors across 250 years tried to destroy the early church. None of them succeeded. From the time of Nero's persecution in 64 AD until Constantine's Edict of Milan in 313 AD, Christians suffered many periods of persecution, sometimes lasting for decades. They were accused of atheism for refusing to worship Roman gods, of cannibalism for misunderstanding of the Eucharist, and of political subversion for declaring Jesus Lord rather than Caesar. Roman governor Pliny the Younger wrote to Emperor Trajan around 110 AD noting his concern about the rapid spread of Christianity across large towns, villages, and rural districts — pagan temples were being deserted. RDRD Bible StudyWikipedia The persecution was making it worse. Tertullian — a North African lawyer turned theologian — observed it plainly: the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church. Polycarp of Smyrna, a direct disciple of the Apostle John, was brought before a Roman proconsul and told to renounce Christ. He replied that 86 years of faithful service had given him no reason to blaspheme his King and Savior. He was burned at the stake. The church kept growing. In 312 AD Constantine reportedly saw a vision before the Battle of Milvian Bridge. The following year the Edict of Milan gave Christianity legal status and a reprieve from persecution across the Roman Empire. The same empire that had burned Christians in Nero's garden was now returning their property and granting them full legal protection. Wikipedia This episode follows all three threads of the early church's survival — the persecutions, the men and women who defended the faith intellectually and physically, and the stunning reversal of 313 AD — and asks what it means that the gates of hell did not prevail. Scripture: Matthew 16:18, Romans 8:28, John 12:24 (KJV) Primary sources referenced in this episode: Pliny the Younger, Letter to Trajan (112 AD, full text): https://earlychurchtexts.com/public/pliny_letter_to_trajan_about_christians.htmPliny's Letter — Christian History Institute overview: https://christianhistoryinstitute.org/study/module/pliny/The Martyrdom of Polycarp (full text): https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/0102.htmEdict of Milan (313 AD, full text via Lactantius): https://earlychurchtexts.com/public/edict_of_milan.htmEusebius, Church History (full text, CCEL): https://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/npnf201.iii.htmlSunday to Society is a Christian podcast exploring how men and women of faith lived out their convictions in the public square — and what their stories mean for ours. New episodes weekly. Available on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and YouTube.

  4. Sep 7

    Why Are There So Many Bible Translations? | The English Bible Part 2

    In 1604 a king commissioned a new Bible translation. He wasn't motivated by theology. He was motivated by footnotes. The Geneva Bible — produced in 1560 by Protestant exiles in Calvin's Geneva — was the most beloved English Bible of its era. It was the most widely read and influential English Bible of the 16th and 17th centuries, printed from 1560 to 1644 in over 200 different editions. Shakespeare quoted it. Milton used it. But its marginal notes troubled King James I, who found them politically threatening to the divine right of kings. James wanted something to replace it. A Puritan's MindChristian History Institute In 1607 James appointed nearly fifty scholars divided into six companies, working across Westminster, Oxford, and Cambridge. What they produced was not entirely new — the work of William Tyndale, the first major English translator, is evident in many passages. The translation committees said they did not seek "to make a new translation, nor yet to make of a bad one a good one, but to make a good one better." Christian History Institute + 2 The King James Bible was published in 1611. It was initially slow to catch on — the Geneva Bible remained more popular for decades. And yet it became the most printed book in the history of the world. In this episode — Part 2 of our English Bible series — we follow the story from the Geneva Bible through the King James Version to the modern translation explosion, and ask why there are so many English Bible translations today, and what that actually means for how you read Scripture. Part 1 covered Wycliffe and Tyndale — the men who fought and died to put the Bible in English in the first place. If you haven't listened to that one yet, start there. Scripture: Psalm 119:89, Romans 10:17, 2 Timothy 2:15 (KJV) Primary sources and references used in this episode: Geneva Bible 1560 facsimile (Internet Archive): https://archive.org/details/genevabiblefacsi0000unseGeneva Bible 1560 full scan (Internet Archive): https://archive.org/details/TheGenevaBible1560KJV Translators' Preface 1611 (Wikisource, full text): https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Bible_(King_James)/PrefaceKJV Translators' Preface (CCEL, full text): https://www.ccel.org/bible/kjv/preface/pref1.htmHampton Court Conference — historical overview: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hampton_Court_ConferenceKing James Bible history and translators: https://thekingsbible.com/Library/BibleHistory Sunday to Society is a Christian podcast exploring how men and women of faith lived out their convictions in the public square — and what their stories mean for ours. New episodes weekly. Available on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and YouTube.

  5. Aug 31

    They Burned This Book — And Killed the Man Who Made It | The English Bible Part 1

    Someone burned copies of this book to keep it out of your hands. The man who made it paid with his life. John Wycliffe was an Oxford theologian who believed that ordinary people had the right to read Scripture in their own language. In the 1380s his followers began producing the first handwritten English translations of the Bible — distributed by hand across England at enormous personal risk. Wycliffe died before he could be tried for heresy. The Council of Constance condemned him anyway, ordered his bones dug up, burned, and thrown into a river. The handwritten copies kept circulating. A century later William Tyndale picked up what Wycliffe had started — but with one critical difference. Tyndale went back to the original Hebrew and Greek rather than translating from Latin, making his the first English Bible with actual access to the source texts. When a church official told him the people were better off without God's laws than the Pope's, Tyndale promised that before long a boy driving a plough would know more Scripture than any of them. His printed New Testament rolled off a press in Worms, Germany in 1526 — smuggled into England in bales of cloth and sacks of flour. The Bishop of London bought up copies to burn them. Tyndale used the proceeds to fund a better edition. In 1536 he was arrested, strangled, and burned at the stake. His last words were a prayer: "Lord, open the King of England's eyes." Within three years Henry VIII authorized an English Bible. And roughly 80% of the King James New Testament still follows Tyndale's wording today. This is Part 1 of a two-part series on how we got the English Bible. Part 2 covers the Geneva Bible, the King James Version, and the modern translation explosion. Scripture: Deuteronomy 6:6-7, Isaiah 54:17, Philippians 1:21 (KJV) Primary sources referenced in this episode: Foxe's Book of Martyrs, Chapter XII (Tyndale account, full text): https://sacred-texts.com/chr/martyrs/fox112.htmFoxe's Book of Martyrs (CCEL full text): https://www.ccel.org/f/foxe/martyrs/fox112.htmTyndale's 1526 New Testament (facsimile, Internet Archive): https://archive.org/details/1526-tyndale-ntDaniell, William Tyndale: A Biography (Internet Archive): https://archive.org/details/david-danielll-william-tyndale-a-biographyWyclif, De Veritate Sacrae Scripturae (Latin works, Internet Archive): https://archive.org/details/latinworks30wyclWycliffe Bible (full text, Bible Study Tools): https://www.biblestudytools.com/wyc/ Sunday to Society is a Christian podcast exploring how men and women of faith lived out their convictions in the public square — and what their stories mean for ours. New episodes weekly. Available on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and YouTube.

  6. Aug 24

    Who Decided What Goes in the Bible? The Real History of the Canon

    Someone decided what goes in your Bible. The question is who — and whether you should trust them. The 66 books of Scripture were not delivered from heaven in a single moment. They were recognized through centuries of careful, contested, Spirit-guided discernment by real people under real pressure. Early Christians were being tortured to hand over their sacred texts. Heretics were circulating their own edited versions of the gospel. Dozens of documents claimed apostolic authority that the church had never heard of. The question of which books were actually Scripture was not academic — it was urgent. In this episode we follow three threads through the history of the canon: the process by which the church recognized Scripture, the key figures who shaped that process — including Athanasius of Alexandria, whose 367 AD letter became the first document in history to list exactly the 27 books of the New Testament as we have them today — and the question of why the books that didn't make it didn't make it. Early Church Texts The canon debate is not a weakness in the Christian faith. Handled honestly, it is one of the most compelling evidences of it. Scripture: 2 Timothy 3:16, Isaiah 40:8, John 16:13 (KJV) Primary sources and references used in this episode: Athanasius, Festal Letter 39, 367 AD (full English text): https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/2806039.htmAthanasius canon overview: https://www.bible-researcher.com/athanasius.htmlCouncil of Carthage, 397 AD (Acts, full English translation): https://archive.org/details/acts-of-the-council-of-carthage-397-and-council-of-hippo-393-v-1-2022Council of Carthage canon overview: https://www.bible-researcher.com/carthage.htmlF.F. Bruce, The Canon of Scripture (1988): https://archive.org/details/canonofscripture0000brucSunday to Society is a Christian podcast exploring how men and women of faith lived out their convictions in the public square — and what their stories mean for ours. New episodes weekly. Available on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and YouTube.

  7. Aug 17

    He Prayed at the Checkpoint — And They Waved Him Through | Brother Andrew

    He was a Dutch factory worker with a beat-up Volkswagen Beetle, a car full of Bibles, and a prayer. Andrew van der Bijl grew up in wartime Netherlands, survived the Nazi occupation as a boy, served in the Dutch army in Indonesia, and came home wounded and reckless. He found a Bible on his hospital bedside table, read it out of boredom, and was converted. Nobody would have picked him for what came next. Slipping past border guards with Bibles hidden in his blue Volkswagen Beetle, Brother Andrew became one of the most audacious missionary couriers of the 20th century. At every checkpoint he prayed the same prayer — Lord, You made blind eyes see. Now make seeing eyes blind. He crossed into Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia, East Germany, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria. At the start it was him, a few friends, a small car, and faith. Christianity TodayActon Institute In 1967 he published his autobiography God's Smuggler, selling 10 million copies in 35 languages. The book transformed Open Doors, the organization he founded to serve the persecuted church, which eventually grew to operate in over 70 countries. Acton Institute In this episode we follow two threads of Andrew's story — the conversion that made him, and the operations that defined him — and sit with a question his life refuses to let go: where are you waiting for a guarantee before you step? Scripture: Psalm 91:11, Hebrews 13:3, Isaiah 6:8 (KJV) Primary sources referenced in this episode: God's Smuggler on Internet Archive: https://archive.org/details/godssmuggler00andr_0Open Doors — Brother Andrew's history: https://www.opendoorsuk.org/about/our-history/gods-smuggler/Christianity Today obituary and biography: https://www.christianitytoday.com/2022/09/died-brother-andrew-open-door-smuggled-bibles-into-communis/Acton Institute profile: https://www.acton.org/religion-liberty/volume-33-number-3/brother-andrew-gods-smugglerSunday to Society is a Christian history podcast exploring how men and women of faith lived out their convictions in the public square — and what their stories mean for ours. New episodes weekly. Available on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and YouTube.

  8. Aug 10

    Fearless Before Queens, Trembling Before God | John Knox

    He spent nineteen months chained to an oar in the belly of a French galley ship. When he was released he went straight back to preaching. John Knox came to the Reformed faith late, bodyguarding a Scottish preacher named George Wishart — who was arrested and burned alive while Knox watched. Within months Knox himself was a prisoner, rowing in chains across the Mediterranean. He later wrote that even then, broken and enslaved, he never doubted he would preach in Scotland again. He was right. Knox eventually sat under Calvin in Geneva, returned to Scotland in 1559, and preached a single sermon in Perth that sparked a wave of reform across an entire nation. He then spent years in a series of face-to-face confrontations with Mary Queen of Scots — meetings that left Mary alternately furious and in tears, and Knox utterly unmoved. Mary reportedly said she feared the prayers of John Knox more than all the assembled armies of Europe. Knox himself said something that cuts the other direction entirely: "I have never once feared the devil, but I tremble every time I enter the pulpit." That contrast is the center of this episode. Fearless before a queen. Trembling before God. In this episode we follow all three threads of Knox's story — the calling forged in chains, the confrontations with royal power, and the reformation of an entire nation — and ask what it actually looks like to fear the right thing. Scripture: Romans 8:28, Acts 5:29, 2 Timothy 4:2 (KJV) Primary sources referenced in this episode: Knox, History of the Reformation in Scotland (full text): https://archive.org/details/HistoryOfTheReformationOfReligionWithinTheRealmOfScotlandJohnKnox The Works of John Knox, ed. David Laing (full text): https://archive.org/details/worksofjohnknox06knox M'Crie, The Life of John Knox (source of the pulpit quote): https://archive.org/details/lifeofknox00mcriuoft Sunday to Society is a Christian podcast exploring how men and women of faith lived out their convictions in the public square — and what their stories mean for ours. New episodes weekly. Available on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and YouTube.

See All (75)

Ratings & Reviews

4.8
out of 5
5 Ratings

About

"From the Pew to the Public Square" Sunday to Society is a weekly podcast exploring today’s world through the lens of a Christian worldview. Hosted solo with occasional guests, each episode challenges listeners to move beyond passive faith and engage culture with clarity, conviction, and Christ at the center. Whether unpacking current events, cultural trends, or theological questions, this podcast invites you to think biblically and live boldly—every day of the week.

Information

  • Creator
    Riley Reno
  • Years Active
    2025 - 2026
  • Episodes
    75
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © 2026 Riley Reno
  • Show Website
    Sunday To Society