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Adventist Review Podcasts

Adventist Review

Since 1849, your connection to the Adventist World.

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34 episodes
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#573
Friday · 7 min
Fighting the Star Chamber by Shawn Boonstra
What does a 380-year-old fight over censorship have to do with the Seventh-day Adventist Church? In 1644, the poet John Milton published a furious defense of free speech — and Shawn Boonstra suggests it may have quietly helped set the stage for a movement that wouldn't emerge for another two centuries. From book burnings to Bible societies, this Perspectives column traces a trail of "coincidences" that looks suspiciously like design. Was it chance, or the finger of God nudging history forward without violating human free will? Listen to the full article and decide for yourself.
#582
Thursday · 15 min
Scripture Alone? by John Peckham
Drive in snow and overcorrect one way, and you'll end up in the ditch on the other side. Theologian John Peckham argues the same danger lurks around one of Christianity's most contested ideas: sola scriptura. Push too hard toward reading the Bible in total isolation, and you land in one ditch. Push too hard toward letting community or tradition control what Scripture means, and you land in the other. So where's the road between them — and how did Jesus himself model staying on it? Listen to the full article to find out.
#590
Thursday · 1 min
OUR CONFIDENCE IN GRACE (September 04, 2026)
Between this moment and the final triumph of God’s love, there will be many moments when the outcome may appear in doubt. Hard-edged, hard-hearted people flourish in a world chilled by greed. Deceit—in all its printed, spoken, filmed and digitized dimensions—settles like a toxic fog over what was once a landscape formed by trust. Unforgiveness grasps our culture by the throat, insisting that no war can ever truly end; no feud can ever fully finish. And still the Word of God insists that grace personified in Jesus will sweep the world’s stage “by the power that enables Him even to subject all things to Himself” (Phil 3:21). In the face of graceless, human-caused catastrophes, the Bible is emphatic: “At the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue declare that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father” (Phil 2:10-11). Grace will win because God’s love is so much greater than our hate. Every soul will have the chance to choose that grace for themselves—and thrive in it. Choose now—and stay in grace. -Bill Knott
#589
August 27 · 2 min
THE UNSTOPPABLE RIPPLE (August 28, 2026)
And you thought grace was just for individuals. When God’s mercy and affection are much-welcomed and deep-trusted, lasting impacts start to flow to all within the circle. Grudges soften at the edges; ancient bitterness begins to fade. Forgiveness flourishes in crevices, even between those who never thought they could be anything but enemies. Gentle, subtle acts of kindness replicate themselves like wavelets traveling outwards, touching lives far distant. Other souls are softened, watered, warmed, enriched. “The love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit which has been given to us” (Rom 5:5). The grace “that saved a wretch like me” is so much more than God’s plan to bring me safe and sound to heaven, lovely as that is. Yes, it starts in one responsive heart, but never ends just there. As the old hymn constantly reminds us, “There’s a wideness in God’s mercy like the wideness of the sea.” “The grace of God has appeared that offers salvation to all people” (Titus 2:11). Grace ripples through our families, our friendships, our communities—unlimited; inclusive, and unstoppable. “Let everyone who is thirsty come. Let anyone who wishes take the water of life as a gift” (Rev 22:17). So stay in grace. -Bill Knott
#588
August 26 · 27 min
Why God Shows Up Before the Missionaries Do | unScripted EP 27
3 billion people on Earth have never heard the name of Jesus — and most of them live in cities the Adventist Church has been quietly leaving for decades. Gary Krause, Director of Adventist Mission at the General Conference, sat down with Shawn Boonstra to explain what's actually being done, where it's working, and the 4-word principle that changed how both of them think about mission.
#587
August 26 · 30 min
Adventists Got Tobacco Right. We Missed This One. | unScripted EP 28
A minister who's raised his kids and an editor still in the trenches sit down over one question: what do you do when the most addictive thing your child will ever hold fits in their pocket? No easy answers — just honesty about the fear, the failures, and the grace that carries parents through. Shawn Boonstra and Justin Kim talk screens, dopamine, the anxious generation, the "bubble" trap, and why every parent they know has "gone nuclear" and regretted it — plus the stranger's words that changed Shawn's life at 16.
#586
August 26 · 28 min
Their Outreach Starts With People Who Hate the Church | unScripted EP 29
Three churches. Three continents. One thing they all figured out that most Adventist congregations still haven't. Shawn Boonstra opens the mission reports that reach the General Conference building — the ones most members never get to see. A district in the Scottish Highlands that filled a Gospel Fest with people who'd never set foot in an Adventist church. A youth ministry in wartime Ukraine that sorts every person they meet into five levels — starting with "haters." And a congregation in Seoul's professional district that stopped waiting for growth to happen organically. The pattern connecting all three isn't budget, location, or talent. Listen to the end.
#585
August 26 · 49 min
What I Wish I'd Said Before My Friend Overdosed | unScripted EP 30
She once heard voices telling her she was about to hurt someone. Now she hosts one of Hope Channel's most-watched shows. This episode asks the question most Christian parents are afraid to say out loud: is it ever loving to let someone hit bottom?
#584
August 26 · 1 hr
30 Years in Marketing. Now He Says the Church Measures Wrong | unScripted EP 31
Years ago Shawn Boonstra signed the guest book at a church that wasn't his own, just to see what would happen. They called him back in 32 hours. Meanwhile, interest cards from his own television broadcast were sitting in a filing cabinet for three months. Tim McTernan spent 30 years in marketing before he brought it into the church — supermarket brands, telecommunications, a million pieces of direct mail a week. Now he leads innovation and marketing for the South Pacific Division, and he says the Adventist Church is leaving people on the table who already raised their hand. This one gets uncomfortable: what a baptism costs, whether it's obscene to measure it, why 46% of Gen Z open TikTok looking for spiritual truth, and what $200 can actually do for a local church. And at the very end, the story of a 45-minute car ride in Sydney that no marketing budget could have bought.
#583
August 26 · 39 min
Is Adventism a Cult | unScripted EP 32
Shawn joined the Seventh-day Adventist Church six weeks before Waco burned. Justin comes from a country whose own society files Adventism as an official cult. So they took the actual checklist — the warning signs people use to identify a cult — and ran the church through it, line by line, including the ones it doesn't pass. Filmed at the General Conference world headquarters. No script, no talking points, no PR department in the room.
#566
August 20 · 12 min
When Faith Gets Hard by Yeseul Kim
Imagine sitting in biology class, staring at a diagram presented as settled fact—when a quiet voice whispers, what if they're right? For one pastor's kid, keeping faith in a public school meant missing Homecoming, sitting out the band parade where scouts handed out scholarships, and wondering whether her beliefs were costing more than they gave. This is an honest account of doubt, sacrifice, and the surprising things her parents said that changed everything. What does it really take to stay "fully, unapologetically blue" in a world pulling you toward purple? Listen to her story.
#580
August 20 · 1 min
THE PRODIGAL ELDER BROTHER (August 21, 2026)
Of all the stories Jesus told, this one is our favorite. An arrogant, entitled son demands his inheritance from his father, but wastes it in riotous living. When the money and the morals are lost, he remembers his father’s house, and begins the awkward journey home, offering to be a servant, not a son. But the father runs to meet him, sweeps him up in his arms, and completely reinstates him in the family. Scroll the closing credits on “The Prodigal Son.” But that’s not the end of the story Jesus told, even though we prefer to stop there. An older brother, the “good son” who stayed home and worked the farm, refuses to accept his brother’s re-inclusion. He will not dance; he will not join the party. Unforgiveness runs deep in him—deeper than any furrow he has plowed. Jesus’ story is unfinished. One brother isn’t reconciled. If you are eager for the Father’s welcome but will not welcome other prodigals, you may not find your home within the Father’s house. The Father has one rule for all: “You must be both forgiven and forgiving.” The grace shown you is meant for others too. So stay in grace. -Bill Knott
#568
August 17 · 6 min
Who Vindicates the Character of God by Jean Carlos Zukowski and Iracéli Cristiani Hubner Zukowski
Does God need a perfect generation of humans to prove His critics wrong? In 1947 one Adventist theologian argued exactly that—launching a debate that still divides believers today. If God's character is on trial before the universe, who actually clears His name? Us, through flawless obedience? Or someone else entirely? This piece digs into what Ellen White actually wrote, and the answer is bigger and more surprising than either side of the argument tends to admit. It reaches from the cross to the final destruction of evil. Who really vindicates the character of God? Listen and find out.
#567
August 13 · 7 min
The Giant White Hand by Dick Duerksen
Two red cars came screaming around a mountain curve at over 70 miles per hour—headed straight at Michelle and her friends, with a rock wall on one side and a hundred-foot drop to the river on the other. There was nowhere to go. "This is it," she told her friend. "We're gonna die." Then came a deafening snap, the smell of sulfur, and silence. When Michelle opened her eyes, the car that should have killed her was somehow on the other side of the road. And nine teenagers in two black trucks had seen exactly what happened. Listen.
#579
August 13 · 1 min
CONSISTENT AND PERSISTENT (August 14, 2026)
Yes, we remember all too well. The teacher whose volcanic mood made one day bright and hopeful while the next we hardly dared to draw a breath . . . The parent who turned what should have been our safest space into a house of vigilance, where anger flashed erratically . . . The colleague whom we tiptoed past, just praying we didn’t trouble him . . . From all such stories, we deduced that God was just as changeable—a deity who one day welcomed us to Him and next day chased us far away. The truth—at last—is healing to our bodies and safety for our souls: “‘For My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways My ways,’ says the Lord. ‘For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways and My thoughts than your thoughts’” (Isa 55:8-9). The Father doesn’t ask us in only to suddenly reject us, nor does He act toward us with cold, unfeeling judgment: “God was in Christ, reconciling the world to Himself, no longer counting people’s sins against them” (2 Cor 5:19). Grace is God’s vigilance to bring us safely to Himself where we will thrive and find His deep, persistent joy. So stay in grace. -Bill Knott
#578
August 6 · 1 min
THE GRIP OF GRACE (August, 07, 2026)
If grace was as fragile as many believe it to be, we could never be truly confident that our lives have been fully redeemed and deeply restored. We would always be unsure of what God wants us to be most certain of: “For as the heavens are high above the earth, so great is His steadfast love toward those who fear Him; as far as the east is from the west, so far He removes our transgressions from us” (Psa 103:11-12). Our fears and doubts about the durability of grace don’t begin to change the ways God loves us. Our anxieties that the great Lover of our souls will be as fickle and unsteady as we are merely deprive us more time in His grip, more joy in His presence, and more certainty in His promise: “God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through Him” (John 3:17). Trust the arms that grip us at our worst, and the Love that will not let us go. And stay in grace. -Bill Knott
#569
August 5 · 8 min
Purpose in My Heart by Onyx Daquila
Imagine publishing a book at twelve years old—one that started with nothing more than nature walks and a mother's simple question: "Where do you see God in that tree?" In this piece, a teenager shares how she's read the entire Bible four times, why one word in the story of Daniel changed how she makes decisions, and what she's learned about choosing right when convenient is so much easier. She's honest that she still stumbles. But she's found something steadier than her own intuition. What does it take to "purpose in your heart" before the hard choice ever comes? Listen.
#570
August 4 · 6 min
Why I Believe by Arris Berghan
Why do you believe what you believe? Because your parents told you? Because you grew up in church? The author says that kind of faith can crumble when life gets hard—and he's after something sturdier. He loves true stories: prison escapes, wartime survival, missionaries in danger. What makes them powerful, he says, is that they can be checked. So can faith. He points to a prophecy Isaac Newton called the foundation stone of Christianity, and to a teenage girl who once held an 18-pound Bible overhead for thirty minutes. God didn't just give us religion, he argues—He gave us evidence. Listen.
#577
July 30 · 1 min
IS IT TO GOOD TO BE TRUE? (July 31, 2026)
If you are truly saved through faith, then you are daily praying grace down into the cracks and crevices of life, into the dim and unlit corners where fear and fate and faithlessness more often hold the keys. Understanding—really understanding—grace rarely happens through a flash of intellectual enlightenment: Paul’s own Damascus Road was just the first of many miles spent learning grace. Each week we find how weak and meager is our faith, how little we actually trust the great bold verities announced by Jesus and His gospel, how much we fear that what He promises to give is too good to be true. “Increase our faith” is the most honest prayer we ever murmur—and the one He most delights to answer. So stay in grace. -Bill Knott
#571
July 28 · 17 min
Adventist and Buddhists by By Paul Dybdahl and Scott Griswold
It started with a nervous breakfast: a Seventh-day Adventist pastor across the table from an ordained Buddhist minister, both unsure what to expect. Then she explained what she does before eating—a silent thanks to everyone who made the meal possible, from the farmers to the bacteria in the soil—and the awkwardness melted away. There are 500 million Buddhists in the world. How much do we really know about them? This piece walks through what Buddhists believe, the surprising values they share with Adventists, and how one Buddhist landlady slowly came to faith—not through argument, but experience. What builds a real bridge between two faiths? Listen.

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