Seven Things I Wish Christians Knew is a podcast based on the book of the same name by Dr. Michael Bird, a super-series designed to help you get past seven of the most common mistakes Christians make when it comes to the Bible.

This episode, chapter 4: The Bible is for our time not about our time. When we read the Bible, we are entering into a historically and culturally distant world and we must “mind the gap” as they say on the London Tube.

We begin with a reading from Dr. Bird's book about the importance of understanding the specific situation of its authors. Then Mike Bird interviews Dr. Lyn Kidson on how to respect our historical distance from the text so we don't distort its meaning.

Dr. Kidson is a lecturer in New Testament at Alpha Crucis College who specialises in the Pastoral Epistles. She is also an honorary postdoctoral associate at Macquarie University and a regular presenter at academic conferences, as well as being a committee member for the Society for the Study of Early Christianity. So all up, she's a great person to help us understand why the Bible is for our time but not about our time.

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