Who are Abraham's children? Did Jesus make mistakes? Is apostolic succession essential to the Church's faithfulness?

Ask NT Wright Anything

Premier Unbelievable

History, Religion & Spirituality, Christianity

4.8 • 2.3K Ratings

🗓️ 20 April 2026

⏱️ 35 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Recorded in the Anglican calendar's Holy Week this episode of Ask NT Wright Anything, Michael Bird and Tom Wright begin with Easter traditions, from Bach’s St Matthew Passion to smashing chocolate Humpty Dumpty eggs. Then they tackle three rich questions. First: did Paul “convert” from Judaism to Christianity, or did his encounter with Jesus radically reframe his identity as a child of Abraham and member of God’s covenant people? Next: did Jesus make mistakes? Tom reflects on Hebrews, Gethsemane, and the Syrophoenician woman to explore what it means that Jesus “learned obedience” without implying sin or error. And finally, they discuss apostolic succession, asking whether continuity with the apostles rests mainly in bishops, priests, and deacons, or more deeply in Scripture, sacrament, prayer, and the church’s visible unity across time and space. Support & Subscribe👉 Support thought-provoking conversations and help keep the show going at www.premierunbelievable.com/geolink/donate💡❓Got a question for Tom? Go to ⁠⁠⁠⁠askntwright.com⁠⁠⁠👉 Refer a friend to become a subscriber → They can get 10% off by clicking hereFollow usInstagram: https://instagram.com/premierunbelievableFacebook: https://facebook.com/premierunbelievableTik Tok: https://tiktok.com/@premier.unbelievableX: https://x.com/UnbelievableFE Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Ready to launch your business? Get started with the commerce platform made for entrepreneurs.
0:04.6	Shopify is specially designed to help you start, run and grow your business with easy, customizable themes that let you build your brand,
0:11.9	marketing tools that get your products out there. Integrated shipping solutions that actually save you time.
0:16.7	From startups to scaleups, online, in person, and on the go.
0:23.0	Shopify is made for entrepreneurs like you.
0:27.4	Sign up for your $1 a month trial at Shopify.com slash setup.
0:35.1	Hello and welcome to another episode of Ask NTWrite Anything, the program where we try to answer your questions about Jesus, the Bible and the life of faith.
0:39.7	I'm Mike Bird from Ridley College in Melbourne, joined by Tom Wright from Whitiff Hall in Oxford.
0:46.2	And Tom, as we record this, it's the beginning of Holy Week. So do you have any particular
0:52.3	Holy Week traditions or things you like to do?
0:55.7	Well, they've come and gone because I've done various jobs which have required me to be in particular places and to do particular things for Holy Week.
1:03.7	So we've never developed one single sort of family system for it.
1:08.5	And just at the moment, because we've had a very busy term and there's another
1:12.0	very busy term coming up maggie and i are very quietly away in scotland um just just lying low so
1:19.8	what we'll probably do among other things is we'll probably listen to um uh barck st matthew passion
1:26.2	we were as a performance of the St. John Passion a couple of
1:29.2	weeks ago in New College in Oxford. And so that's fresh in my mind. But we've often done this,
1:35.6	just put some CDs on of the Matthew Passion and read through it. And it's just such an
1:41.1	extraordinary piece of music. So that may be one part of it, but then we will be part of the local church here where we are.
1:49.4	Well, in my case, we go to services on Easter Sunday, and then we come home.
1:55.6	We had these Humpty Dumpty Easter eggs.
1:57.6	It's an improper Easter egg with a bunch of smarties inside. And they've got like a
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Premier Unbelievable, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Premier Unbelievable and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.