Shows / Bierkergaard: The Writings of Soren Kierkegaard
Bierkergaard: The Writings of Soren Kierkegaard
"The Father of Existentialism" Danish writer, poet, philosopher, and Christian thinker Soren Kierkegaard, has much to teach us about our lives. Join me weekly as we take on his writings and think about how his brilliant and profound insights illuminate our way in a complicated and confusing world. I contribute a considerable amount of my own processing of Soren’s ideas and add my own personal experiences. As Soren would wish his readers to do. This is spiritual insight and truth for the real…
Episodes
- Bierkergaard: The Writings of Soren Kierkegaard
Men at Podcast (with Soren)
OK, I couldn’t resist spoofing the Aussie Band popular in the U.S. back in the day “Men At Work.” Today’s episode is with my Australian friend Ryan Ross who I…
- Bierkergaard: The Writings of Soren Kierkegaard
He Must Increase, I Must Decrease
Soren writes, “As soon as a human being is born, he begins to die.” That awareness grants us the understanding of how our time is limited in duration in this…
- Bierkergaard: The Writings of Soren Kierkegaard
It Is All Grace
Soren writes to remind us that salvation is all grace lest any person boast. It is His work and His way. We receive.
- Bierkergaard: The Writings of Soren Kierkegaard
For We Are All Unworthy Servants
“Every person has heaven’s salvation only by the grace and mercy of God.” That’s the Gospel.
- Bierkergaard: The Writings of Soren Kierkegaard
A Hallowed Place In The Soul
Soren writes, “Heaven’s salvation is and still remains the settlement that settles everything.”
- Bierkergaard: The Writings of Soren Kierkegaard
The Prey of Temporality
Having an expectancy of an eternal salvation protects us from the prey of temporality.
- Bierkergaard: The Writings of Soren Kierkegaard
An Eternal Overweight
Heaven’s salvation has an eternal overweight. Experience, of course, understands weights and measures. Only heaven’s salvation knows how to comfort beyond all…
- Bierkergaard: The Writings of Soren Kierkegaard
Update: Spotify & Riverside
Spotify announced it is ending its podcast creation and editing platform tonight at midnight. It will still host podcasts. Spotify now has a collaboration with…
- Bierkergaard: The Writings of Soren Kierkegaard
Our Affliction Is Brief and Light
The Apostle Paul, calls his earthly affliction, “brief and light” compared to the eternal weight of glory. The expectancy of salvation.
- Bierkergaard: The Writings of Soren Kierkegaard
The Happy Calmness
Today is the day of salvation. Not tomorrow or eternity. Soren admonishes us readers to hear his words and to act now rather than delay and presume that God is…
- Bierkergaard: The Writings of Soren Kierkegaard
But Wishing Can Have A Beautiful Side
Not all wishing is frivolous and selfish. Soren reminds us that to truly wish for salvation is sound. For ourselves, for others, and is fundamental. And we…
- Bierkergaard: The Writings of Soren Kierkegaard
M.G. Piety On Kierkegaard & The Young
Today we have Kierkegaard scholar Dr. Marilyn Piety who is a distinguished college professor share her insights on how Kierkegaard speaks to the 21st Century…
- Bierkergaard: The Writings of Soren Kierkegaard
Thinking About Your Creator Is God’s Rescuing Angel
“O God, preserve a recollection of youth that preserves a youth’s thoughts of his Creator….those thoughts are the child’s most beautiful ornament, and the…
- Bierkergaard: The Writings of Soren Kierkegaard
But Youth Is The Time For Growth
Thinking about your Creator when young grounds and grows your life on and in the foundation of Truth. In reviewing the audience of the podcast, 80% of the…
- Bierkergaard: The Writings of Soren Kierkegaard
Do Not Make The Young Prematurely Old
Soren, in citing the Preacher’s admonition of “Remembering One’s Creator” when young, does not go too far in the other direction by telling the young to become…
- Bierkergaard: The Writings of Soren Kierkegaard
Kierkegaard: The Myths & Their Origins
The episode title is the name of a book by Henning Fenger. It seeks to establish that Soren’s life has a good amount of fiction in it, in terms of Soren’s own…
- Bierkergaard: The Writings of Soren Kierkegaard
Youth’s Best Thought
“The thought of the Creator is youth’s most beautiful splendor.” Soren contrasts this with the vanity of the world and the pernicious toil of meaninglessness…
- Bierkergaard: The Writings of Soren Kierkegaard
Anna, The Expectant One
We finish up (phew) Patience in Expectancy, through the story of the noble one, Anna. Enjoy the sawing of trees noises in the background at the end of the…
- Bierkergaard: The Writings of Soren Kierkegaard
The Expectancy of the Fullness of Time
Jesus came into a world torn by division, conflict, hatred, apathy, worldliness, false gods, and misplaced hopes. Not much different than our own. Despite our…
- Bierkergaard: The Writings of Soren Kierkegaard
The New Oil in Readiness
When we have an eternal perspective, the “New Oil in Readiness” we eschew the temporality of the “Goblet of Intoxication.” Then, the patience in expectancy…
- Bierkergaard: The Writings of Soren Kierkegaard
Heavenly Expectancy
Soren writes, “Once again, cast your sorrow upon the Lord…for this heavenly expectancy begins precisely when the earthly expectancy sinks down powerless in…
- Bierkergaard: The Writings of Soren Kierkegaard
But, Anna
Soren writes much about Anna, that she is, despite her age, the eternal’s young fiancée; this tranquility in her eyes that nevertheless is expectant. Of God’s…
- Bierkergaard: The Writings of Soren Kierkegaard
The Restfulness of the Deliberation
Soren writes, “If a person’s soul comes to a standstill in the monotony of self-concern and self-preoccupation, then he/she is bordering on soul rot unless the…
- Bierkergaard: The Writings of Soren Kierkegaard
Life Is Again One Nightwatch Of Expectancy
Expectancy is a hope. For the night of troubles to end and for the day of hope to begin. Jesus, we are reminded on this day of Valentine’s and Lent, took our…
- Bierkergaard: The Writings of Soren Kierkegaard
Patience Abandons No One
Patience does not abandon anyone in any distress. It waits even if we push it away. For patience is ultimately based in the character of God in eternity. Let…
- Bierkergaard: The Writings of Soren Kierkegaard
Monday with Soren
Our guest today is Soren himself! Rather than blather on about it, give it a listen!
- Bierkergaard: The Writings of Soren Kierkegaard
The Cold Fire of Impatience
How is it that Impatience is both cold and a fire? Those two things are never paired together. Soren employs this dichotomy to tell us that Impatience will…
- Bierkergaard: The Writings of Soren Kierkegaard
The Assembly of the Discontented
When we lose patience, fail to find and preserve it, our souls get bruised and eventually broken. We find ourselves discontent and with others who are…
- Bierkergaard: The Writings of Soren Kierkegaard
Patience Wants To Preserve Only The Soul
“The soul that has the courage to give up everything else…and when the soul does not believingly aspire to the eternal, does not hopefully hurry toward the…
- Bierkergaard: The Writings of Soren Kierkegaard
Hopefully Tranquil About The Future
When we have the soul patience and trust that God is working in us and through us for our and others’ good and His glory, then we can lay aside impatience and…
- Bierkergaard: The Writings of Soren Kierkegaard
Who Danced The Dance Of Pleasure
By pleasure, Soren means the pursuit of things of this world without eternity in mind and lacking the patience in our souls. Make space for the eternal…
- Bierkergaard: The Writings of Soren Kierkegaard
The Danger Has To Do With Ourself
In losing our soul, it is us that does it. No one else has that power and authority. We trade our souls to gain the world. And in death, have lost both our…
- Bierkergaard: The Writings of Soren Kierkegaard
To Preserve One’s Soul In Patience
We gain our soul by surrender. We preserve our soul likewise by surrender. To God. Refusing to allow the world to cross the walls of our soul and fill it…
- Bierkergaard: The Writings of Soren Kierkegaard
Gaining Patience By Patience
The world says if you want something, go after it. Be strong and take it. In matters of the soul, we gain by losing. A letting go versus a taking up. Surrender…
- Bierkergaard: The Writings of Soren Kierkegaard
To Gain One’s Soul In Patience (Continued)
Soren considers trading the soul for the world; eternality for temporality. Some reflection at the beginning on parenting and then a brief discussion on…
- Bierkergaard: The Writings of Soren Kierkegaard
By Only Possessing Me
“The world can be possessed by only possessing me…may it not be the world’s stratagem to lead a person to think that if he possesses the world that he is not…
- Bierkergaard: The Writings of Soren Kierkegaard
Patience Is A Soul Strength
Soren calls Patience a “Poor Bird.” As compared to a bird that comes “parading and posturing.” Instead, “It comes like a soft breeze and the incorruptible…
- Bierkergaard: The Writings of Soren Kierkegaard
By Your Patience
To gain one’s soul in patience. Soren writes, “Patience is a poor bird.” “It does not come parading and posturing but comes like a soft breeze and the…
- Bierkergaard: The Writings of Soren Kierkegaard
The Equality of Love
Soren concludes this Upbuilding Discourse: “The equality of love which lasts and is the only thing that lasts.”
- Bierkergaard: The Writings of Soren Kierkegaard
It Is More Blessed To Give Than To Receive
We are most like Jesus when we give with an open hand, a pure heart, and a clear conscience, where we have no demands of reciprocation. Doing so greatly…
- Bierkergaard: The Writings of Soren Kierkegaard
Make Yourself More Insignificant Than Your Gift
Soren writes that we are to offer good gifts without lording it over the recipient. We are to be humble. We are just stewards. The gift then is from God. Not…
- Bierkergaard: The Writings of Soren Kierkegaard
Be A Joyful Giver
Soren challenges us to use our talents not for worldly acclaim or deflecting criticism, but to genuinely do good in the world. Give without expectations of…
- Bierkergaard: The Writings of Soren Kierkegaard
Beyond Immanence: The Theological Vision of Kierkegaard and Barth
Alan Torrance and Andrew Torrance joined us today to talk about their book (the podcast title) and the profound implications of Kierkegaard and Barth for the…
- Bierkergaard: The Writings of Soren Kierkegaard
The Divine Equality That Burns Like A Fire
Soren writes in this Upbuilding Discourse #8 “the divine equality that like a fire burns ever more intensely in the difference without, however humanly…
- Bierkergaard: The Writings of Soren Kierkegaard
Meekness Discovers Hidden Things
Soren writes that we need to be meek and humble before God, to receive the Word implanted, which saves our souls. We thus conclude Upbuilding Discourse #7…
- Bierkergaard: The Writings of Soren Kierkegaard
To Overcome Himself By Himself
Soren, citing Jesus, reminds us in our giving of good gifts that we are yet and still evil (Matthew 7:11 & Luke 11:13). This often tarnishes even our best…
- Bierkergaard: The Writings of Soren Kierkegaard
The Beginning of Days
Soren writes, “What happened at the beginning of days is repeated in every generation: the consequences of the fruit of the knowledge could not be halted,” Sin…
- Bierkergaard: The Writings of Soren Kierkegaard
Trouble Will Find You
Soren writes, “And yet there is no hiding place in the whole world where trouble will not find you…so then, be earnest with yourself; fix your eyes upon Job.”
- Bierkergaard: The Writings of Soren Kierkegaard
A Farewell To Everything
Job faced the loss of everything clearly. He didn’t romanticize the past but neither did he deny that God had been good to him. Soren develops these ideas in…
- Bierkergaard: The Writings of Soren Kierkegaard
The Lord Gave
Soren emphasizes that Job is thankful that the Lord gave. Job, in this way, reminds us that God gives us everything we have. And that ultimately, everything in…
- Bierkergaard: The Writings of Soren Kierkegaard
Job: Properly Called a Teacher of Humankind
Job teaches us not only by what he said but also by what he did. He worshiped God in his trials and tribulations. Giving us his life as an example. “The Lord…
- Bierkergaard: The Writings of Soren Kierkegaard
The Lord Gave and the Lord Took Away: Blessed Be the Name of the Lord
We finish up Upbuilding Discourse 5 “Strengthening the Inner Being” and start 6, “The Lord Gave and the Lord Took Away. Blessed Be the Name of the Lord.”…
- Bierkergaard: The Writings of Soren Kierkegaard
Look Not At The Gifts But The Giver
The inner being, Soren writes, “Looks not at the gifts but the Giver.” God gives us Himself. So whether we have adversity or prosperity, or some combination…
- Bierkergaard: The Writings of Soren Kierkegaard
Soren Kierkegaard, Jeremiah Miller, and Eric Bierker
A conversation with Jeremiah Miller (actor and writer of the play LEAP, the life and writings of Soren Kierkegaard). We also delve into Upbuilding Discourses 5…
- Bierkergaard: The Writings of Soren Kierkegaard
Facing Adversity & Prosperity
This is a re-post due to a tech glitch. Both adversity and prosperity can strengthen the inner person through God’s Spirit.
- Bierkergaard: The Writings of Soren Kierkegaard
Transforming Hardships
Soren writes, of the Apostle Paul’s ministry, the power of this miracle: “To transform hardships into a witness for the truth of a teaching…is this not like…
- Bierkergaard: The Writings of Soren Kierkegaard
Opening Prayer for Upbuilding Discourse #5.
Spotify is doing some work on the podcaster side of its platform on Wednesday, when I typically do the podcast. So, I will do it on Thursday instead. You can…
- Bierkergaard: The Writings of Soren Kierkegaard
Weeping Into The Peacefulness of Love
We finish this Upbuilding Discourse of “Love Hiding a Multitude of Sins” with a revisiting of Jesus loving a woman who the religious men hated. And she learned…
- Bierkergaard: The Writings of Soren Kierkegaard
Love Is No Dream
Soren brilliantly explains that love is not a blind and fanciful but fleeting feeling. It is sober-minded and sees sin clearly. Yet, love also forgives and…