Discussion source: Ryan Reeves

This section contains discussion series based on studies from Ryan Reeves.

Ryan Reeves runs a history-focused YouTube channel. He got his PhD in Historical Theology from Cambridge University, and is currently on staff as Professor of Theology and Church History at Kairos Pacific University. He previously (2010-2019) taught at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary.

He offers a few different main types of content, organized into different playlists. Some of his series (such as the Lewis and Tolkien series, the series going over the history of certain holidays, etc.) are not particularly relevant for the kind of Bible studies that I personally run, but I find that the history and Church history videos (mostly organized into two playlists: Early & Medieval History and Renaissance & Modern History) can serve as jumping-off-points for in-depth discussions about ancient history, ancient culture, Church history, etc. The content is neither too technical (such that it becomes a chore to get through—particularly for folks without any background in college-level history courses), nor too dumbed-down (such that it overgeneralizes or oversimplifies in problematic ways).

Dr. Reeves does come at things somewhat from an Evangelical Protestant point of view, but is nonetheless pretty level-handed and neutral in his treatment of Church history. In fact, I find that as a generalization, I am actually quite a bit more out an extreme than he with respect to believing that the Bible alone is where we get truth from (as opposed to giving heed to Church fathers, councils, and creeds, say). This means that Catholics and Orthodox folks may be able to watch his videos without feeling overly put out, but the same probably cannot be said for my videos, which do not hold back nearly so much in terms of criticizing past people, events, etc. (even famous people like Augustine and famous events like the Council of Nicea) if I believe they contradict scripture. I try to be clear when I have switched into offering my own takes (i.e., switched away from directly discussing Dr. Reeves’s content, which tends not to be quite so polemical), but you should nonetheless keep an eye out for this, to make sure that you don’t mix up his words and mine.

In any case, Dr. Reeves’s videos tend to focus on topics in history and Church history that are useful for giving context to biblical interpretation, and also tend to serve as broad high-level introductions. Because these features make them a pretty good match for what I am trying to do with the CrossTalk Bible Study, I find myself using them as discussion sources quite frequently.

Ministry links:

List of discussion series based on studies from Ryan Reeves

Shorter topical studies (src: Ryan Reeves)
This section contains discussion series based on shorter topical studies from Ryan Reeves. As a reminder, Shorter Topical Studies go over things topically (tracing a subject rather than sticking with a specific part of scripture), and tend to trace topics much narrower in overall scope than those covered in the Longer Topical Studies, which is why they end up shorter.