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Benedictine College is proud to present The Extraordinary Story, a podcast about the life of Christ written and hosted by Tom Hoopes. Jesus Christ, God Himself, entered the confusing maze that is our world to show us who we are and to give us his cross as a ladder up and out. This is his story and ours. Benedictine College is transforming culture in America through our mission of community, faith, and scholarship. Visit us at benedictine.edu
Episodes
Sunday Mar 23, 2025
Sunday Mar 23, 2025
In this episode of The Extraordinary Story, I want to share with you the story of a scholar who poked holes in the resurrection story — and then I want to let you know how I fill those holes in. If you've been following this podcast from the beginning, you know that there’s a long gap between season two and season three. That's because I went on a journey, an intellectual journey, as the work of one honest Christian scholar made me question a lot of what I had taken for granted about the resurrection. Today I present to you evidence for the resurrection.
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Sunday Mar 16, 2025
Sunday Mar 16, 2025
Remember when you made that crazy promise to God where you said you'd do anything for him? Remember, you laughed it off later as too enthusiastic and figured he laughed it off too. Well, Peter finds out the hard way that no, he didn't laugh it off. We will look at the second to last resurrection appearance in the Gospels today, and see the apostles who are supposed to be fishers of men. Go back to just fishing and wind up catching God himself.
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Sunday Mar 09, 2025
Sunday Mar 09, 2025
Jesus had a busy day after he rose from the dead. We are still right there with him on Easter evening as he visits the Twelve Apostles. Or 10 anyway: Judas was gone and Thomas couldn’t make it. Jesus gives surprising evidence of the Resurrection and helps the Apostles understood exactly why this all happened this way. Then Thomas shows up …
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Sunday Mar 02, 2025
Sunday Mar 02, 2025
It’s Easter afternoon and two disciples are leaving town in a hurry in the wake of Jesus’s death. There are some very strange features to this story. Why don’t they recognize Jesus? Why does he do such a strange miracle? This episode asks these questions and shares one hot take on a longstanding mystery: Who was the unnamed disciple headed out of town with Cleopas? It all adds up to a story tailor made for 21st century skeptics.
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Sunday Feb 16, 2025
Sunday Feb 16, 2025
Today we will be looking at the first people to encounter the risen Jesus, which happened to be women. We will talk about how this was awkward for the first disciples, but kind of great for us today. We'll start to notice also how different the different people's encounters with Jesus after the resurrection were, and ask for the first time, but not the last, why? We will also note the surprising details of Mary Magdalene's encounter with Jesus. And I will give my personal theory on whether or not Jesus met his mother after the resurrection.
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Sunday Feb 09, 2025
Sunday Feb 09, 2025
Jesus died on Good Friday. He was in the ground on Holy Saturday, but now it's Sunday morning. Now we get to the good part, the triumph, the redemption. There are a number of resurrection experiences to talk about, but we'll start early on Easter morning at first light, when Mary Magdalene, then Peter, then John saw the inside of the tomb.
What they saw changed everything.
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Sunday Feb 02, 2025
Sunday Feb 02, 2025
The Lord is dead. Jesus bowed his head and breathed his last in the previous episode of The Extraordinary Story. But now, even before he is sealed in his tomb, astonishing things begin to happen. The Gospel of John shares a surprising detail that echoes back to the Samaritan woman at the well and passed back through salvation history all the way to Eden. Then when Jesus is buried, his power that shook the earth pushes his children up and out of the depths of sin and into the streets of Jerusalem. What will it mean for us?
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Sunday Jan 26, 2025
Sunday Jan 26, 2025
Today on the extraordinary story, we will walk with Jesus up the hill of Calvary carrying a cross, and ask again, "Why did Jesus have to die?" Paul says he did it to save us from the wrath of God. How is that okay? And then we will see what happens when Jesus takes up the cross of our sin and it knocks him down. Why is it that the Son of God Himself has to walk such a terrible road? And why do we have to take up crosses to follow him?
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Sunday Jan 26, 2025
Sunday Jan 26, 2025
We come at last to the big culmination of Jesus's earthly ministry. The goal of his life. The event he has set his face like flint toward. The event he has been marching forward to reach: the crucifixion. No one expected the Messiah to die on the cross. But we will look back and see that the signs were there in the Old Testament, left there like windows through the walls of the maze looking to the cross — the ladder, up and out.
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Sunday Nov 24, 2024
Sunday Nov 24, 2024
Today we will hear the famous words of Pontius Pilate as he presented Jesus Christ for his accusers to see. "Ecce Homo," translated to, "Behold, the man." His words tap into the heart of who Jesus Christ is and who we are. As they reach back to the origins of the human race. But we will also hear him say words that reach forward to the very end of the human race. "Ecce Rex Vester," translated to, "Behold, your king." But frankly, it's hard to see a king for the ages in the small town carpenter, crowned with thorns and bleeding from a severe flogging, standing before people who are demanding that he die. Is it delusional to look at this suffering figure and think you are looking at the king of everything?