Gospelbound

Work is the meaning of life.Got your attention?Your identity is tied to what you do.I bet I have it now.So argues David Bahnsen in his book Full-Time: Work and the Meaning of Life. Bahnsen is the founder, managing partner, and chief investment officer of The Bahnsen Group, a national private wealth management firm. He’s also the author of several books, including Crisis of Responsibility: Our Cultural Addiction to Blame and How You Can Cure It.In This Episode00:00 – Why Christians shouldn’t pit work against family or church01:10 – Why Full Time Work and the Meaning of Life matters so deeply to Bahnsen02:11 – Losing his father and discovering purpose through work03:56 – The church’s discomfort with ambition and vocation06:00 – Identity, salvation, and what our work says about us09:06 – “Work is the meaning of life?” A biblical case from Genesis12:55 – The crisis of men not working and its social consequences16:12 – How Reformed theology shapes Bahnsen’s view of vocation19:41 – The influence of Tim Keller and Every Good Endeavor23:14 – Rejecting the zero-sum view of family vs. career31:41 – Productivity, early mornings, and modeling joyful work36:10 – Why in-person work still matters after COVID44:39 – Conviction, politics, and resisting tribal thinking54:21 – Overcoming resentment by telling the truthResources MentionedFull-Time: Work and the Meaning of Life by David BahnsenCrisis of Responsibility: Our Cultural Addiction to Blame and How You Can Cure It by David BahnsenEvery Good Endeavor: Connecting Your Work to God’s Work by Tim Keller— — —📫 SIGN UP for my newsletter, Unseen Things:https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/podcasts/gospelbound🎁 Help The Gospel Coalition build up a renewed church for tomorrow. Let's Build Together: Donate Today at https://www.tgc.org/together🎧 Don’t miss an episode of Gospelbound with Collin Hansen▫ Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/gospelbound/id1499898207▫ Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/0kRYr5FTKr5ru1N7MR65Br✅ SUBSCRIBE: ▫ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@thegospelcoalition▫ TGC Updates: https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/newsletters Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Join Collin Hansen and Melissa Kruger for their annual discussion as they look back on the top theology stories of 2025 and look towards the year to come. They also share their favorite interviews and books from 2025, updates on personal projects, and what they’re each looking forward to in life and ministry in 2026.Resources MentionedTheo of Golden by Allen LeviBelieve by Ross DouthatSuperbloom by Nicholas CarrEverything Is Never Enough by Bobby JamiesonBlaise Pascal: The Man Who Made the Modern World by Graham TomlinFuture Tenses of the Blessed Life by F. B. MeyerA Case Against the Sexual Revolution by Louise PerryI Seek a Kind Person: My Father, Seven Children, and the Adverts that Helped Them Escape the Holocaust by Julian BorgerThe Deep Dish PodcastThe Rest Is HistoryTGC Church DirectoryThe Keller Center for Cultural ApologeticsMaking Sense of UsTGCW26 — National Women’s ConferenceRTS Women’s Bible Study— — —📫 SIGN UP for my newsletter, Unseen Things:https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/podcasts/gospelbound🎁 Help The Gospel Coalition build up a renewed church for tomorrow. Let's Build Together: Donate Today at https://www.tgc.org/together🎧 Don’t miss an episode of Gospelbound with Collin Hansen▫ Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/gospelbound/id1499898207▫ Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/0kRYr5FTKr5ru1N7MR65Br✅ SUBSCRIBE: ▫ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@thegospelcoalition▫ TGC Updates: https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/newsletters Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

For many, apologetics is associated with arguments over rational, philosophical proofs. It’s a matter of the head instead of the heart, a debate over facts instead of feelings. But no matter what kind of apologetics you practice, you’re arguing according to a certain set of rules, in a particular language, attuned to what you expect to resonate in your time and place. In other words, it’s always cultural, never purely timeless. And it’s never purely rational.We need to recover apologetics as a matter of the heart and hands as well as the head. We need to recover apologetics as a project for the whole church and not just for those who enjoy arguing. What we call cultural apologetics is not a new academic discipline. It’s a means to reconnect the church to the best biblical and historical resources for presenting and defending the faith “once for all delivered to the saints” (Jude 3). That’s the vision behind a new book, The Gospel After Christendom: An Introduction to Cultural Apologetics, which I edited for Zondervan Reflective and The Keller Center for Cultural Apologetics. I’m joined now by two of the contributors, both fellows for The Keller Center. Josh Chatraw is the Billy Graham chair for evangelism and cultural engagement here at Beeson Divinity School in Birmingham, Alabama. Visiting us here at Beeson this week is Christopher Watkin, associate professor of French and Francophone studies at Monash University in Melbourne, Australia.———In This Episode02:00 — Apologetics as Cultural: Head, Heart, and Hands03:00 — Biblical Models for Cultural Apologetics05:10 — Retrieval: Learning from Church History09:16 — Augustine, Rome, and Biblical Critical Theory13:00 — Diagonal Thinking, Third-Way Debates, and Politics16:00 — Confrontational vs. Winsome Apologetics20:00 — How Jesus Engaged Different People26:00 — Apologetics for the Whole Church and for Pastors34:00 — Retrieval Models: Pascal, Montaigne, and Modern Idols41:00 — Audience Q&A: Out-Narrating, Doubt, Catholicism, Facts vs. Heart Issues51:46 — Closing ReflectionsResources MentionedThe Gospel After Christendom by Collin Hansen, Ivan Mesa, & Skyler FlowersTelling a Better Story by Josh ChatrawBiblical Critical Theory by Christopher WatkinCity of God by AugustineConfronting Christianity Podcast with Rebecca McLaughlinThe Speak Life Podcast with Glen ScrivenerTruth Unites Podcast with Gavin Ortlund———SIGN UP for my newsletter, Unseen ThingsHelp The Gospel Coalition renew and unify the contemporary church in the ancient gospel: Donate TodayDon’t miss an episode of Gospelbound with Collin Hansen:Apple PodcastsSpotifyYouTubeTGC Updates Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

If gender is constructed, it can be deconstructed. Think about it: if we built it, we can tear it down. Now you know why some activists have been so determined to convince us that gender is something we assign, rather than something we receive. If we assign it, then we can reassign it as we wish. We don’t receive our bodies. We can remake our bodies.No doubt you’ve observed the rise of transgender theory in Western culture. It’s the denial that the sexed body reveals and determines the gendered self. That’s the helpful summary we find in the excellent new book The Body God Gives: A Biblical Response to Transgender Theory, written by Robert Smith. Smith is an ordained Anglican minister and lecturer in theology, ethics, and music ministry at Sydney Missionary and Bible College in Australia. He’s written two previous books on gender and identity. This new book by Lexham (now Baker) gives you a little bit of everything. He breaks down the arguments of gender theorists. He guides readers on a who’s who of philosophers who built the intellectual foundations of the secular West: Descartes, Rousseau, Kant, Marx, Wittgenstein, Freud, Sartre, Derrida, Foucault. And he concludes with biblical argumentation to show us nobody is born in the wrong body. He writes, “God’s desire for my gender is revealed by the design of my body.” I appreciate the way he harmonizes the biblical story from Genesis to Revelation: “Our present task is to work with the grain of creation toward the goal of new creation.”Rob joins me on Gospelbound to talk transgender theory, how it spread, why it’s peaked, and where evangelicals need to go next.  In This Episode02:00 – Introducing Rob Smith & The Body God Gives04:30 – The Transgender Tipping Point06:21 – Butler, Foucault, and Gender Theory11:21 – Queer Theory vs. Trans Theory16:50 – Signs of Peak Transgender Influence21:47 – Sex, Gender, and Stereotypes29:00 – Church Culture and Gender Expectations30:24 – Children, Puberty, and Medical Debate33:30 – Technology, Identity, and Disembodiment39:38 – Genesis 1–2 and Embodied Identity46:37 – Marriage, Singleness, and Biblical Continuity51:16 – Pastoring Those with Gender Dysphoria56:00 – Violence, Fear, and Identity Conflicts01:00:00 – Expressive Individualism and the Modern SelfResources MentionedThe Body God Gives: A Biblical Response to Transgender Theory by Rob Smith Why Are Black Women Increasingly Identifying as Bisexual? by Joe Carter––––SIGN UP for my newsletter, Unseen ThingsHelp The Gospel Coalition renew and unify the contemporary church in the ancient gospel: Donate TodayDon’t miss an episode of Gospelbound with Collin Hansen:Apple PodcastsSpotifyYouTubeTGC Updates Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

In this commentary, I reflect on my recent trip to Copenhagen, Denmark, and the broader implications of living in the post-Christendom West. Walking the ancient streets and talking to seasoned church leaders I pondered two major factors that contribute to secularism, and how Protestantism has become a victim of its own success. Yet some European countries and U.S. regions buck the secular trend. Why? Considering the story of secularism—and resilient Christianity—helps us pass down a robust, durable faith to the next generation. ———In This Episode04:00 – Faith and decadence on Copenhagen’s streets08:00 – From opt-out to opt-in belief12:00 – America’s exception and slow convergence18:00 – Faith thrives under tension23:00 – The problem with establishment30:00 – Reform, burnout, and secular substitutes36:00 – Postwar humanism and its cracks45:00 – Reality intrudes on secular optimism49:00 – Three pressures on secularism and gospel hope Resources MentionedGraph of Religious Importance and Corresponding GDPGraph of Religious Attendance in the US and EuropeA Secular Age by Charles TaylorDestroyer of the gods by Larry W. HurtadoDominion by Tom HollandThe Age of Hitler and How We Will Survive It by Alec Ryrie The Abolition of Man by C.S. Lewis———SIGN UP for my newsletter, Unseen ThingsHelp The Gospel Coalition renew and unify the contemporary church in the ancient gospel: Donate TodayDon’t miss an episode of Gospelbound with Collin Hansen:Apple PodcastsSpotifyYouTubeTGC Updates Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.