Episode 183 Being Real with Philip Plyming

It’s easy to spot a fake.  Young people are particularly good at it. And they have the means, through social media, to point it out!  Philip Plyming has written an important book, entitled Being Real. It encourages Christians to be authentic in the hard stuff of life.  He joined David Capes on the Stone Chapel Podcasts to discuss his book.

Who Is Philip Plyming?

Philip Plyming (pronounced like Plymouth) is Dean of the Cathedral in Durham, northeast England.  It may well be the best cathedral in all of Europe. 

The cathedral is 900 years old, and people have been worshiping there for over one thousand years.

Plyming  studied Russian and German at Cambridge and came to faith in Christ at university when he was eighteen.  He later studied theology at the University of Durham.

Being Real

Plyming focuses his attention in his new book on how God is at work in the tough times of our life. 

He takes the Apostle Paul as his example. Paul has much to say about the times of beatings, shipwrecks, imprisonment, and the like. 

God was not just at work with Jesus on the cross.  Plyming says, “God is at work in cross-shaped places.”

God is not just at work in the good places of life.  So, we, like Paul, can boldly discuss the hard things with one another. And we can expect that God is at work in them as well.

Resources 

Here is a link for Plyming’s book Being Real: The Apostle Paul’s Hardship Narratives and the Stories We Tell Today (SCM Press, 2023)

Would you like to hear more about this topic? Here are links to similar podcasts.

Michael Lloyd’s podcast on the problem of evil and Jesus’ approach- https://www.laniertheologicallibrary.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/TSC_079-Evil-Michael-Lloyd-fin.mp3

Ingrid Faro’s podcast on deconstructing evil.-https://www.laniertheologicallibrary.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/TSC_125-Deconstructing-Evil-final.mp3

Christian Brady’s podcast on beautiful and terrible things.-https://www.laniertheologicallibrary.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/TSC_178-Beautiful-and-Terrible-Things-Final.mp3

You can watch Michael Lloyd and Ingrid Faro’s lectures (given at LTL) on this topic 

Click here for Michael Lloyd’s lecture on Jesus, Satan and the Problem of Suffering

And here for Ingrid Faro’s lecture on Deconstructing Evil. 

Click here for a transcript of this podcast.

More Resources

Want more Stone Chapel Podcasts on some great topics? Just click here.

You can get information on upcoming lectures at Lanier Theological Library by clicking here