Hey, everybody. I'm Tim Mackie, and this is my podcast, exploring my strange Bible. I am a card-carrying

Bible history and language nerd who thinks that Jesus of Nazareth is utterly amazing and worth following with everything

that you have. On this podcast, I'm putting together the last 20 years worth of lectures and

sermons where I've been exploring the strange and wonderful story of the Bible and how it invites

us into the mission of Jesus and the journey of faith.

And I hope this can all be helpful for you too.

I also help start this thing called the Bible Project.

We make animated videos and podcasts and classes about all kinds of topics in Bible and theology.

You can find all those resources at Bibleproject.com.

With all that said, let's dive into the episode for this week.

We thought we would start this first episode of exploring my strange Bible with a self-introduction.

So you can know a little bit more about me, Tim Mackey, and why I'm

doing a podcast like this, and a bit of my story that explains my obsessions. So, real time right

now in April 2017, as we're getting things ready for this podcast, I have too many jobs.

I'm a professor of biblical

studies at Western Seminary in Portland, Oregon. Over the last seven years, I served as a pastor in

two different local churches. First, at a church in Madison, Wisconsin, called Blackhawk Church,

and then for five years at a church here in Portland

called Door of Hope. And then the other thing was a few years ago, I started with a good friend of

mine, John Collins, this thing called the Bible Project. And it's a non-profit animation studio

that makes short animated films about the books of the Bible and the themes and ideas that unite the whole Bible.

So those are my jobs.

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