BibleProject - 10 Years and 500 Episodes: The Story of BibleProject Podcast

Episode Date: December 31, 2025

As we wrap up 2025, we’re celebrating two big milestones: 10 years and 500 episodes of exploring the Bible together! To mark the occasion, we’re strolling down memory lane to see how it all began. How does a side project recorded in a closet turn into a decade-long global conversation? In this episode, producer Lindsey Ponder interviews Jon, Tim, and other team members about how the show came to be, its growth over time, and how it continues to shape us, even as it helps hundreds of thousands of listeners experience the Bible as a unified story that leads to Jesus. FULL SHOW NOTESFor detailed, chapter-by-chapter summaries and referenced resources, check out the full show notes for this episode.CHAPTERSIntro (0:00-2:22)Before the Mic (2:22-11:17)The Closet Under the Stairs (11:17-19:35)A Growing Audience and Team (19:35-22:29)The Podcast in Other Languages (22:29-30:03)Hearing From Listeners, Plus Jon and Tim on What Motivates Them (30:03-44:15)OFFICIAL EPISODE TRANSCRIPTView this episode’s official transcript.REFERENCED RESOURCESHeaven & Earth videoGenesis 1-11 videoGenesis 12-50 videoThe Messiah videoThe Law podcast seriesGod and Money podcast episodeRevelation Premiere live eventProyecto Biblia Pódcast (Spanish localized podcast)Japanese localized podcast (Apple | Spotify)SHOW MUSIC“The Way Forward” by Richie Kohan“Selah ft. Bobcat” by Lofi Sunday“Blue Sky ft. TBabz” by Lofi Sunday“She’ll Be Coming Round the Mountain” by Kashido“date night” by Lofi Sunday, Cassidy Godwin“Bird In Hand” by Foreknown ft. JGivens“Eden Dreaming ft. sxxnt.” by Lofi Sunday"Defender (Remix)" by TENTSBibleProject theme song by TENTSSHOW CREDITSProduction of today’s episode is by Jon Collins, producer, and Cooper Peltz, managing producer. Tyler Bailey is our supervising engineer, who also edited today’s episode and provided the sound design and mix. JB Witty writes the show notes. The host and creative producer of this episode is Lindsey Ponder. Special thanks to all those interviewed: Jon Collins, Tim Mackie, Robert Perez, Dan Gummel, Tyler Bailey, Anna Wyche, Angela Keuter, and audience members Matthew, David, Emily, and Ausha.Powered and distributed by Simplecast.  Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Okay, so I don't need to be looking at anything. Oh. Is there a coaster? There is. It's fun to be like, what are we going to talk about? We're rolling. Okay. Hey, Tim.

Hey, John. Hello. There was no plan to start a podcast, but we started having these conversations as a part of making the videos. We're starting a new theme. Yeah, these are good days. I'm really excited about this new series. Me too.

These are really fun conversations. When the fox sneaks up the bay And when sirens call your name I was enjoying these conversations so much I thought it would be great to record them So other people could enjoy them too We are starting a new conversation What are we talking about?

You know, I have all this stuff in my head right now Yeah, there was no other strategy than that And I didn't have a plan for it becoming anything more. As we wrap up 2025, the Bible Project podcast is celebrating two big milestones, 10 years and 500 episodes of exploring

the Bible together. To mark the occasion, we're taking a little stroll-down memory lane to see how it all began. How does a side project recorded in a closet turn into a decade-long global conversation? This was a new paradigm for me. The series will be

exploring Genesis chapters one through three. It has become the favorite chapters for me to read in the Bible. Over the past 10 years, this podcast has reached hundreds of thousands of listeners who've joined us in discovering the Bible as one unified story that leads to Jesus. On today's episode, we're sharing how this project continues to shape us and this community of Bible readers that's grown over the past decade. I'm Lindsay Ponder, the producer for the podcast, and your host for today. Thanks for joining us. Here we go. Trying to pretend

Pleasing all your mantas are never quite convinced Now you are with shoulder Free to test Now it's time to rest Before there was a podcast Before there was even an organization called Bible Project, there were two friends just having a conversation. It all started there.

Tim and John met in Bible College, and for years, would process what they were learning about the Bible together. In 2012, they decided to combine Tim's biblical expertise and John's experience making explainer videos to create videos about the Bible. By the time they decided to start a podcast, they had already been having the conversations that became the podcast for three years. We would sit in this room with no windows With plywood walls Yep And this is one of my first memories

I was sitting in there We sat in there for like three hours talking And writing and making notes And maybe there was a whiteboard I was really stimulating, it was super fun I think we were both like Well, this is cool We just burned three hours

And then we sat on this couch That was like this metal box frame With cushions made of military uniforms It's a Stephen Ken couch Okay, there you go which is very special. And when I walked into the office that day,

there was this jar full of chocolate lollipops, like a ball of chocolate on the end of a little stick. And I was like, oh, that's cool. Which Starbucks has now made famous. Oh, really? You could go to a Starbucks and get a cake pop. A cake pop. Yeah.

Okay, yeah. But this was pre-Starbucks cake pops. Okay, apparently. This was 2013. So somewhere on the course of us talking, I had that lollipop, and I must have put it down because I wanted to start typing

some ideas on my computer. I thought I'd maybe put it on the wrapper next to me, but I looked down 45 minutes later and it was like this half-melted chocolate pop on this really nice designer couch in your office. And I felt so bad. And I was like, oh, I'm sorry, man, I'm so sorry. And that couch has moved with us now.

It's still here. Still here. And just for the record, that couch really is still around. It's made the rounds over the years and now lives in our classroom soundstage. And if you ever visit the office, you can have a seat on it, if you dare,

chocolate stain and all. And the stain. The stain's there. It is? Yes. That's awesome. So somehow that memory is locked into my mind about the beginning of how we started to talk about videos and make scripts. We had a half day. I think it was

Wednesday mornings. Wednesday mornings. Because your job at the local church, basically we negotiated a half day of your time. Yeah. Or they just kind of generously gave it. Yeah, I forget maybe I asked for, but the elder team at Dorofochurch said, go for it. So you would ride your bike downtown to my office, and then we would have basically three hours and then lunch.

So most of that time was just talking through the ideas that we wanted to turn into scripts. And my experience up to that point writing explainer videos, a large part of that was interviewing an expert to understand what it is we're going to write. And so I just really enjoy that part of the process. Yeah. And we just would talk. Yeah, it was so fun.

Despite the fun Tim and John were having, these weren't just casual chats. They were working sessions, deep dives into themes, stories, and work. The goal was to get on the same page before they could ever write a video script. The process was imperfect. It was slow, and it was also transformative. I remember specifically feeling free to ask certain questions that I wouldn't dare ask. You wouldn't have asked maybe growing up in your church community.

Yeah, and I would kind of start to broach a question, and I just remember you giving me permission through the way you'd answer the question because you'd push it further. Yeah. For example, you know, I had a big question about heaven in relation to Jesus saying there's not going to be any marriage in heaven. And so for me, that feels really uncomfortable to talk about. And I kind of was tiptoeing around it. And I think you just plunged in in a way that for me was really startling at first.

But then I was like, oh, cool, we get to just do this. We get to just have this conversation. And that was really exhilarating to me. I can't remember a lot of those details. I wonder what my 12 year ago self said about that. From the very beginning, this whole project was built on trust, the kind of trust between two friends who could ask hard questions about God and the Bible without fear of judgment. That trust became the foundation for everything that followed.

If I feel censored, and what I'm worried about is, am I going too far? Am I going to make Tim uncomfortable? Am I going to broach a subject that is off limits? Off limits. Yeah. Then I'll start to feel like I have to tiptoe around. And most of my energy now is in tiptoeing around versus just trying to understand. And I think it just, for me, signified like, cool, I think this is going to work.

Within a couple of years, Tim and John's Bible project had gathered enough momentum for them to bring in a few trusted others. So we moved across the river, and we were in the basement. I just remember just the cement floors. Yeah, the East Bank Exchange building. Yeah. We started to bring animators and illustrators to come work with us in that space, and so we started just building out desks,

and we kind of had our first office there. Yeah, we did. Neither the space nor the team was big, but it buzzed with creative energy and a shared vision. Our art director, Robert Perez, remembers it like this. As an artist,

you really want to commit yourself to something that you believe in and to do something fun. And this project, obviously, being the Bible project, I'm hugely passionate about the message and the mission and the ability to start at the ground floor of something was also really exciting. And so there wasn't a ton of rules already set in place.

It was like, You get to help craft something. You get to help build something that could be really awesome, or it could go nowhere. But that potential was enough for me to be like, okay, I really want to at least try. And it's so important to at least try and go after things that you feel are really important in your life. The team was coming together, literally and figuratively, but it didn't happen overnight. You know, we had been prototyping a few videos for like two years. I think to the point where you started to wonder,

are we actually gonna make a video? I did wonder that at some point. Yeah. Because I didn't fully understand what we were making yet. Some of our early scripts were like 10 pages long. And it's kind of all over the place. And I don't fully remember that journey, but at some point, we got to our first two videos.

Heaven and Earth and Genesis 1 through 11. And we released those, and then we immediately started working on the next set of videos, which was Genesis 12 through 50, and the Messiah. The Messiah. So we're working on Messiah. So that script was written. And it was at that point, I thought,

let's record these conversations. And I could edit those down and put them on this slick technology called podcasting, which I was a pretty early adopter of podcasts. When did you start listening to podcasts? Probably around then. Maybe because you were like, hey, we should do one. I was like, what are they really? Okay.

Oh, actually, no, I remember this. It was around the same time because I was looking for podcasts that were about stuff that I thought was interesting and cool about Bible and biblical theology. And I couldn't find anything that I was interested in. And I was like, man, it would be so cool if there was a podcast that worked through ideas from one into the Bible to the other. Oh. That would just be rad if that existed. While I'm telling you that's what I want to do. Well, I just remember there was a feeling, and I was acquainting myself with the podcast app and how it worked and was searching and found all kinds of religion podcasts, but nothing that I...

It was all sermons. That's right. Yeah, we're monologue, so it ended up being that we created the thing that I wished existed. Thus, the Bible Project podcast was born. Things were scrappy in those days, to put it lightly. When John first suggested recording their conversations, there was no studio, no gear clothes. closet, no soundproofing, just a tiny storage space tucked under the stairs of Bible Project's first Portland office.

The first podcast series Tim and John recorded was about the law. My name's John Collins, and this is the first episode of the Bible Project podcast on the law. The law was recorded in that storage space under the stairs. It was quite literally a closet. Think Harry Potter, but with microphones instead of magic. And you go down these stairs and it was more spare. And underneath them was this closet, a tiny room when you'd go into it,

had this slanted wall, and that's where you set up recording equipment. It's the only place that had, like, a room in the whole space. Yeah, an enclosed room. Yeah. But yeah, we just sit side by side, and I would just start recording. Without a true recording studio, John and Tim had the option to record just about anywhere, and sometimes they did. We had some friends and patrons of the project, and they had offered a house that they have kind of in a rural suburb of Portland if we ever wanted to go there and do some concentrated work time. So that's what we did. I think it was just one night, two-fold days. Yeah, that sounds right.

But we wanted to work out the Wisdom series. I think it was just the Job conversations we had there. There was this window overlooking a field, and we got these lav mics and cool evening beverages. and post it up in the window nook. And we recorded the Job conversations that way. Cool. So is Job, does that name have a meaning in Hebrew? Hmm. It was a small little nook. Yeah, exactly.

And what I remember was, that was awesome. And that was so fun. I can't believe that this is what we get to do. I get to talk about the Bible at a cabin with my friend with a mic. And I think why the audio for the Job conversations is so poor. Markedly worse than the others. I should go back and just listen to that, to sample. I haven't listened to those in years.

In those early days, John did it all. Recording, editing, learning the software as he went. He was a one-man audio department. I had to learn Pro Tools. I had to learn how to do audio editing. Yeah, I'm not an audio guy, so I didn't even recognize how bad the audio was to even think about, I got to do something.

thing to make it better. To me, it was, it's the content there, is the idea there, and does it flow? And am I getting bored or am I getting frustrated? I would just edit for that. And as long as it was loud enough, that was fun. I remember at one point, pretty early in, I got an email that was like, hey, I listen to the podcast, and I love it. The audio's horrible. And that was the first time I was like, oh, audio's horrible? That's something to pay attention to. Yeah, right. Yeah. I remember you edited those first conversations, and you sent them to me, and I listened to them,

and I was so surprised at how on point and smart we sounded. Yeah. Taking out all the pauses and coughs and ums. And then also, I was like, hey, remember that one thing that we talked about? And you're like, oh, yeah, I just took that out. Oh, okay. It truly is a distillation and a representation. And it's a real dialogue.

It's not scripted. You know, we're not reading anything. Yeah. Because it sounds so refined. Like we know where we're going. And it's not because it's scripted. It's because it's edited. Yeah.

It's good editing. Yeah. It's like, wow, this makes us sound like we have the next cool, interesting thing to say, like right on the tip of our tongue all the time. Right. Right around the time John realized he might need some help with audio production, help arrived. From a listener who happened to be a professional audio producer, talk about perfect timing.

Enter Dan Gummell, who eventually became the podcast's first dedicated audio editor. I sat down with both Dan and John separately to hear their various sides of what they remember about their first time working together. Here's that story. It was pretty early on Dan emailed me and said, I really like what you're doing with the podcast. I was working out of an NPR station in Ohio,

and I just emailed, hey, I'm a public radio producer. Here's a couple of resources that we use. And I linked them to some workshops and some different types of materials that they could find. And this is like 2015, so not a lot of podcasting was being done outside of radio. Dan told me that he'd love to help. And I think I just said thanks,

and I filed that away. And then I thought it would be cool to interview Greg Bomber and John Cortinez about their story that turned into a book called God and Money, I then decided I was going to go to Nashville where they were and interview them. And a few days later, I looked down on my phone and it was

from a Portland area code. I didn't know anybody in Portland. I thought it was spam. I almost didn't answer it, and I picked it up. And it was like, hey, this is John of Bible Project. And I said, oh, it's great to hear from you, dude. So he started asking me questions about the podcast, and he was like, hey, I want to try and make these kind of cool stories

on the podcast and they could use some help. This is like early in the year in February. He's like, I'll be in Nashville in the fall. Would you like to come to Nashville with me? And I was like, sharing about that on my calendar. I just pulled up the email. He says September 25th and 26. Like, it's in this email.

And months go by, and it's getting closer and closer to the date. Dan might be remember better than me. I think it's like a few days before. And then I get a couple of like quick emails and texts in succession. like, hey Dan, just checking in. Like, I'm going to be there. Haven't heard from you. I're still planning to come to Nashville.

It turns out I'd give him Dan the wrong dates. And I was like, oh, shoot. And I really wanted to work with John. And so I'll just figure it out. So I changed my schedule. Dan dropped everything, got in his car, and just started driving. I drove down to Nashville. That's the first time I met Dan, and he helped me do the field recordings.

And I had a great time. After the Nashville trip and the production of the now classic God and Money episode, still one of our most listened to episodes of all time, Dan quickly became essential to the Bible Project podcast. I started having him edit episodes of the podcast, and then at some point it was enough work, and he was interested in moving out here that I was like, cool, we could hire you to do this.

So I was Dan. With the addition of Dan, there was now an official team supporting the podcast. Still, podcasting can feel like talking into the void. There's no faces to observe, no follow-up conversations, no instant feedback. There was no simple way for John and Tim to know how the podcast was landing for listeners. But one day, John had an experience that made him realize their conversations were having a greater impact than he had imagined. We had just finished the overview videos, and we were celebrating in 2016.

Jason Nightingale came and recited the Revelation. Yeah. And then we played the video, and then he performed in the second half, and we played the final video. It was kind of our first event we ever did. And a friend of ours from college who hadn't seen in years came up, and she said, with kind of this look of, like, joy and sadness together, came and with so much sincerity, it was like, thank you for the podcast.

I love it, and I'm listening to it. and it's helping me so much. And that really shook me, because one, it was the first time I, like, ran into someone who was like, I listened to the podcast, but I could tell it was so meaningful to her. It shook me, too,

because she came out of the same educational environment that I came out of. And I think I felt kind of alone a little bit, and, like, I didn't learn the things I was supposed to learn during that time. It just felt like, yeah, that's right. We're all figuring this out. And that moment really left the mark on me thinking, okay, this is significant.

Bible Project podcast was growing on two fronts at once. On the outside, more and more listeners from across the globe were joining the conversation. And on the inside, the show that was produced by John, and then later with Dan's help, expanded to include even more team members. I remember going through COVID, realized. that essentially, like, if I were to have gotten sick or something, nobody knew where anything was. Half of this stuff was still sitting on my external hard drive. So John and Dan decided to hire more help.

Over time, the team came to include a day-to-day producer, that's me, a managing producer, and a full-time audio engineer and editor, Tyler. The process to produce a podcast episode has increased in complexity, too. The first person to touch a podcast episode is typically Tyler, who hits record. Here's Tyler in his own words. I'm right there with everybody

in hearing and listening being impacted. And the only difference is and it's a really privileged position is I get to hear it first and he experience it in real time. We're in a room, I don't know, about the size of a studio bedroom. And then there's another room

on the other side of a double wall with speakers and a computer. And that's where I sit and watch the meters, make sure everything's recording. Sometimes I respond to things. I experience the version of the conversation, which is full of ums, us, coughs, sneezes, stomach growling. And I'm like, man, you sound so hungry. But here's the thing that I do get to experience that's really precious is the journey that John and Tim go through.

And the real hang-ups that you feel John has, I experience myself. Actually, if you're to look at me, sometimes I'm just like, please ask this question and then he asks it. And I'm just like with them. what everyone's probably doing on the receiving end. The only difference is I'm doing in real time. Gone are the days when the podcast was managed by just one or two people. We've made some changes that we believe improved the content and its presentation, which means behind the scenes, there's a lot that happens.

And it goes a little something like this. Once an episode is recorded, John performs a high-level content edit of the audio, where he cuts down and rearranges his conversation with Tim for greater clarity. Then, a script is written and recorded for the episode's opening summary and closing credits. After that, Tyler just a fine-tune edit and mix of the audio. And then the episode moves down the production pipeline. Show notes are written, episode is titled, and additional editorial content is created for the app. Audio gets transcribed, and that transcript gets edited and proofread.

And all of this has to happen before the episode gets scheduled for release. every single week. And that's just the version in English. From day one, Bible Project has cared deeply about making our content accessible in as many languages as possible. We'd been localizing our videos for years, but in 2021, a new idea surfaced.

What if we tried to do that with the podcast, too? Localizing a long, unscripted conversation is no small task, but our global team decided to give it a shot, starting with Spanish. I sat down with Anna and Angela from our global team to interview them about our efforts to localize the Bible Project podcast into other languages. So Anna and Angela, I know who you are, but why don't you introduce yourself so our listeners can know who you are too?

I'm Anna, and I oversee all the content that we localize into Spanish. I am Angela, and I help lead a handful of our localization projects. Right now, that's primarily Portuguese and French, and then helping wind down a few other projects currently. Great. So can one of you explain to me what localization is exactly and why we prefer that term at Bible Project over a word like translation? So translation is simply when you're taking content from one language into another. Why we use localization is because it goes beyond translation. We're not just looking for word-for-word direct translation. We want to consider the cultures, the regions, and all. all the contexts. And so they could be changing colors or visuals because we truly wanted to feel native to each language. So we were already doing this with our videos. Can you give me kind of the

backstory on how the global team decided, okay, we're going to try this with the podcast now? I think something we had discussed as a team was the abundance of resources that we have in English. That is not the case for lots of other languages. There is a great need for. for high quality biblical resources. And I think we were curious to see if the podcast could fit that need. But we weren't even sure if we could localize it. So we decided, hey, let's just do a pilot podcast episode

and let's see how it goes. We chose to do it in Spanish because Spanish is our second biggest audience behind our English audience. So how did that go? So there was a podcast studio down in California. They had worked on localization projects before. We also had another lead.

This guy in Argentina, one of our coworkers knew we would potentially be his first client. We're thinking, okay, the professional studio is probably going to work out, but it's nice that we also have another lead somewhere else. So we worked with the professional studio and we tried to get some samples from them and it just wasn't happening. So we were kind of like, is this even possible? but that little studio in Argentina who had zero clients sent us in a sample and we were like, whoa, they kind of nailed it. And we felt like, this is possible.

Anna, you actually told me a really cool story a while ago about Brian who was the owner of that studio in Argentina and then became one of the hosts of the Spanish podcast. Yeah, I found out later that Brian, a few months before we had reached out to him, had decided to quit all the work that he was doing, and he really felt like the Lord was calling him to create the studio. And there were a few months where he didn't have any work, and he was kind of frustrated.

He was like, God, what am I doing? I feel like you've called me to do this. But he was praying faithfully every single day, that the Lord would just bring work to the studio. that would expand the kingdom. And now it's been four years, and that studio has been the site of over 80 Spanish podcast episodes. That's so awesome.

Why did you decide to get voice actors to kind of reenact him and John's conversations instead of, I don't know, just sharing the information in some other way? I think why a lot of people enjoy listening to the podcast is kind of like the dynamic between Tim and John, and I think we were trying to capture that as much as possible. So I think we liked the idea that there was a little bit of personality

that people could latch on to. Well, it sounds like it's been really impactful to do it that way. Angela, at what point did we decide it's time to localize the podcast beyond just Spanish? Okay, so last year, Global decided this is working really well with Spanish. And we have some really incredible and motivated teams, one of those being our Japanese team. And they came to us in 2023 and said, hey, we see what Spanish is doing with the podcast. And we don't really have Christian podcasts in Japan. There is a huge need.

We see people asking for it. Can we please go ahead and do this? And we said, yeah, we trust you. And so we shared scripts with them, gave them a little bit of an overview of what Spanish was doing, and said, run with it. really interesting it to our lead coordinator there, Heisho. And they have created 8 to 12 episodes over the last year and a half with plans to produce another 8 over the next year, and they're going to continue to keep going.

BOW project podcast was number one on Japanese Spotify upon release, and there's just a hunger for the Word of God in Japan. So the Spanish and Japanese podcasts are currently airing, Brazilian Portuguese is underway, but it sounds like it's a really challenging process. Yeah, I think one of the biggest challenges with the podcast in terms of localization is so many of the stories that Tim and John tell are unique to Portland, Oregon, Pacific Northwest, which doesn't always translate well to other cultures. And so a lot of times we have to get creative with how should we localize that so that it resonates? for a Latin American audience or a Japanese audience.

It even goes beyond the stories they tell to different American idioms or taglines, for example, in Heaven and Earth episode, there was like a United Airlines tagline they used. Through the skies. Where do I feel like the skies appears in plural. Is that in the

friendly skies? The friendly skies. That's what I'm thinking of. Who's that? Who's the friendly skies? I don't know. And our Brazilian Portuguese translators were like United isn't a big airline here. That's not what were using, and they had to adapt it to a different airline so that it was relevant. There also was an interesting one where they spend a really long time talking about the commandment, do not murder, and how the actual translation should be, do not kill.

And in Spanish, they primarily have do not kill in their translations. And so it's like, what do we do with that? Keeps you on your toes? You never know what things are going to come out. Totally. How much do you guys get to witness the impact of this amount of effort? on people. Yeah, it has given us a lot. And I feel like learning more about the Bible through translation of these scripts has been so impactful on my walk with the Lord. And I think that there's a

really cool impact it's having on the people who are creating the work. Yeah, it's kind of fun to say part of my job is to listen to Bible Project podcast episodes. Yeah, which is cool. Hearing Anna and Angela talk about the podcast being localized into other languages is a powerful reminder that this community of people reading the Bible together stretches far beyond this room where we record. We've talked a lot about what goes into making the podcast, but honestly the best part has always been hearing what it means to you. When I listen to the podcast, I'm usually walking the dog or in the car on long journeys. I listen to it when I'm walking, sometimes when cooking. I listen to the podcast mowing my lawn and I go to sleep by it. I drop my daughter off

at high school, and the minute she gets out of the car and we turn off her music, I turn on the podcast, and I drive home, and then once I get home, I hop on the treadmill, and I walk and listen to the podcast. From kitchen tables to morning commutes to background banter while you go about your routine, you've allowed us to be a small part of your days, and we couldn't be more honored. Your stories remind us of the very thing we've been talking about all along, how the Bible keeps shaping real lives. My wife and I, we have eight kids and 16 grandkids. Getting to the Bible, it was always to be a better person, that kind of thing. What really happened to the Bible project is that it was more defined of what being the image of God would be and how we can get

deeper into the Bible and find out that wisdom underneath. I've been a Christian my whole life and went to Bible school and I love it, but I realized that I don't know how to go tell someone on a street why they should follow Jesus. And so it just led me into this really cool two years of being like, what is the gospel? And that led me to understanding Genesis 1 through 11. I didn't grow up Christian, so a lot of it was new to me, and I can now listen to the sermons that are dense.

It's like an door that opens another door into more abundance of resources. Stories like these are humbling. They remind us we're not just dealing with ideas here. As a community, we get to participate in how the story of the Bible keeps transforming people right in the middle of their own stories. So, 10 years and 500 episodes later, here we are. The closet under the stairs has been replaced by a fully outfitted studio.

John's one-man show has grown into a full production team, and every Wednesday morning, just like in the early days. The mics turn on, and the conversation continues. Some things never change. So, John and Tim, what is it like for you to think about how the podcast has grown in the last 10 years and how many people are listening now? I think that as a matter of principle, it's not something I focus on. I think one, because I would get nervous and start to feel overwhelmed and pressure or something. It's just better not to.

And then I can shift into a posture of just pure delight and surprise. Where it's just like, what a gift of God that this thing that we would do, even if a microphone wasn't on. We would want to be doing this to make the stuff we want to make in the world. And it ends up being really helpful for other people, which is astounding to me. How cool is that? That's how I feel. Yeah. In some sense, the thing that I noticed change is just how our equipment's gotten better

and we have more help. Like, that's the thing I've noticed. Yeah, yeah. But from the beginning till now, it's just sitting down and talking to each other. And that hasn't changed. And we don't see how many people are going to listen. So it's the only time that we feel that as if we ever have gone somewhere and decided let's do a live podcast what do we've done that like three times two live podcasts that i remember yeah one down in our office oh for the hundredth episode oh yeah we did a gathering and a live conversation okay yeah and then after that we did it in dallas and that was fun that was super fun yeah that's it huh but at that moment you see people out there and they're responding to in real time you're like oh this is a thing people are listening

to be clear you're not saying that you don't care that people are listening you're saying you'd be having these conversations the same way whether anyone was listening or not yes

if the mic wasn't on we would have to have these conversations and we do have more conversations without the mic on we often go out to lunch after a morning of podcasting and we just keep talking when I try and

process the amount of people I'm astounded. I still am astounded by it. Do you know the numbers right now? Nope. What would you guess? I have no idea. I always forget. When people ask me, I'm, oh, gosh, I forget. And then I feel weird because I'll take a stab and I'll be like, okay, that could be off

by 10x. I don't know. I can't remember. But, yeah, that's my experience, too. Yeah. So on one level, the experience of making the podcast from what we contribute is the same, except a cool room and great mics.

You know, I really love that it's never been about the numbers for you guys. It makes me think of something that our CEO, Steve, says a lot, which is every number is a person, and every person has a story. And it's those stories that keep us coming back to these conversations over and over again. Yeah. Well, one thing we've talked more and more about is the goal of all of this media is to help people feel comfortable enough to just read the Bible and community with others. And so I get excited about staying in a passage

and working maybe even through a scroll, passage by passage, and give an example of what it looks like to read the Bible and community. But then that can be then a launching point for people to go, cool, I'm going to take these ideas, this dialogue, and I'm going to continue it with whoever,

my family, my group of friends. And for it to become more normal for people to open up a passage, have a dialogue, meditate on it, find hyperlinks, experience God's wisdom in it, and to feel afterwards, like, charged, like, whoa, we just encountered something really cool. Yeah. I still remember vividly the first time after skateboarding with a group of friends one night, we went to this late night coffee shop. We were all in Bible college together, and so somebody had an assignment or something about Galatians. So we were just like, oh, sweet, let's get it out and just all read it together. So we did. And then we had this fantastic conversation.

And that was my first experience of like a communal reading that had all this cool conversation afterwards. And I was like, that would not have happened if I just sat down to read it by myself. So I definitely feel like that's what we are. We're a small Bible reading community. And if we can model that and then invite people along, that's for the win. I also feel like if that is something that can help people learn how to read the Bible on its own terms, it produces humans who are encountering God's wisdom through Scripture, in community, and that it actually makes people into more faithful images of God,

and I hope it produces good in the world through people loving their neighbor. But the way that I get there is talking about the Bible with John Collins for 500 hours. Which is how cool is that? That gets to be the way that we make that kind of contribution. So what's next for the podcast? Yeah, mostly what we've done is explored big ideas through the storyline of the Bible themes. We did the How to Read the Bible series, but we broke up into like mini series scattered throughout the years. We did almost a year's worth of walking through the Torah, the first five books of the Hebrew Bible.

We also did a year of Sermon on the Mount. Other than that, we've just traced themes throughout the Bible. So I love tracing themes through the Bible, but the way that I actually do my work in studying the Bible is to just pick a certain scroll or a book and just read and reread and reread and get it all uploaded in my mind and see how all the parts fixed together. And we haven't really walked through a book of the Bible

like that in long form detail. I'd like to experiment with that in the future of the podcast with you. So I'd share that with you, and you were excited about that. I think it would be really fun. We won't finish the whole Bible before we die or retire, but we could get through a lot of it. Yeah, so why not try? Guys, as we wrap up, I have just one more question for you, and it's this. What continues to inspire you about these conversations?

There's one podcast in particular, I remember finding about five years ago. And it was a guy who was Evangelical Christian who became an atheist and then kind of found his way back to Jesus. And there was something about his podcast. When I started listening to it, I was like, you made this for me. And to some degree, that's why I'm doing this is because I'm trying to create the thing I want. And when I think of someone, one out there that I don't know spinning this up for the first time and then having that feeling

like, oh, they're having that conversation that I wanted. They made this for me. That just gives me so much joy to think that there's people having that experience that I've had. Yeah, man, I think for me, what I experience in making the podcast is somehow these conversations are unique for me and I regularly am forced to reach a level of clarity of things that I think, but I rarely have a chance to say it out loud and wordsmith it. So a couple times I've gone back

and listened to a series from like four or five years ago that I've forgotten most of it like I'm learning from our past selves as if it's not ourselves. It's really strange. I've had that too. So I have that experience a lot now. And I'm just so grateful

and I don't have another venue in my life where I'm being forced to be in the moment talking, working it out real time without a script. Somehow us doing that is beneficial to other people and I can't believe that. I'm still astounded. But I'm grateful for it and cheers. Cheers to that. God's very generous to have given us the chance to do this. The conversation John and Tim starts started in a closet under the stairs, never ended. It just grew.

Hey, we're starting a new theme study. What adventure awaits us? Yeah, we've been learning rigorously about these texts for two decades now. And we are still able to have this robust conversation. Yeah. Ten years, 500 episodes, and in every expanding community of voices and languages that have drawn us deeper into the story of scripture. Hi, my name is Victoria. I'm from Israel.

Hi, my name is Sean, and I'm from Austin, Texas. Hi, my name is Vermont, and I am from Ukraine. Hi, my name is Alma, and I'm from Romania. Thank you for listening, for learning, and for being part of this journey. This conversation has grown because of you. I first heard about the Bible project when I just came to Christ. I used Bible project for podcasts, videos, and classroom. My favorite thing about the Bible project is it clearly explains Bible stories.

to my grandchildren. And as we look ahead, our hope is the same as it's always been, that together we'd keep discovering the Bible as one unified story that leads to Jesus. We believe the Bible is a unified story that leads to Jesus. That leads to Jesus. That leads to Jesus. Here's to the next 10 years, and the story still unfolding. Thank you for being a part of this with us.

Pleasing all your mentors are never quite convinced. Now you are the shoulder free to skip the test. Now it's time to rest. Production of today's episode is by producer John Collins. Tyler Bailey is our supervising engineer who edited today's episode and provided the sound design and mix. managing producer is Cooper Peltz. J.B. Whitty does our show notes, and I served as the creative producer and host. The Bible Project theme song is by Tense. Special thanks to all those interviewed John Collins, Timaki, Robert Perez, Dan Gummell, Tyler Bailey, Anna Weich, Angela

Kiter, and our audience members Matthew, David, Emily, and Asha. Bible Project is a crowd-funded project, and we exist to help people experience the Bible as a unified story that leads to Jesus. You can find all 500-plus Bible Project podcast episodes on all streaming platforms, as well as on our website, alongside tons of other resources that are all free for you to use because they've been paid for by generous people just like you. Thanks for joining us today. See you next time. Thank you.