Ep 101: Is there life after life?

Host Robert Martin encounters perhaps his favourite guest - a fellow supporter of English Premier League club: Everton.

This is a terrific conversation with a bit of everything. Fascinating reflections, a great testimony involving Everton Football Club (and their epic FA Cup Final win in 1966), great Biblical reflections and a very moving story.

Join us as we ask Dr. Steve Brady some bigger questions.

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Bigger questions asked in the conversation

Now Steve, this could well be my favourite Bigger Questions interview and you’re possibly my most favoured guest because you support Everton Football Club - which is also the English Premier League team that I have passionately supported since I was a boy. So Steve, why Everton? Was it because Australian soccer legend Tim Cahill played for them?

Smaller Questions

How much do you know about near death experiences?

Near death experiences as evidence of afterlife?

So Steve, there is deep attraction to, yet suspicion of, stories of near death experiences like Alex Malarkey. Why do you think this is?

Do you think that near death experiences provide evidence of life after this life?

American actress Alexis Arquette once said, If there is life after life, ‘it’s whatever you expect it to be’. Is this realistic?

Kyle Kulinski host of the atheist radio show Secular Talk, once said

It’s much more likely that we just don’t know what happens when we die because, no-one’s ever really really really died and then come back to life. Because once you die, by definition you can’t come back to life

Now Kulinski’s right at one level, we really can’t know what happens after we die - unless someone who really really really dies and then comes back to life tells us. You’d agree with that?

Personal journey in belief

So Steve, can you tell us what convinced you to become a Christian believer?

The Bible’s Answer - Resurrection of Jesus

The Bible itself helps us answer this question. In the New Testament Book of 1 Corinthians, written in the 50’s of the first Century AD. The Apostle Paul writes in chapter 15,

3 For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, 4 that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures.

One of the top ‘what is’ Google searches for 2017 in Australia was ‘What is Good Friday’. A lot of people don’t know what Good Friday is about. But it’s meaning is actually found in this passage. Can you explain?

But this passage says that Jesus’ body didn’t stay dead? What is it saying?

So how does Jesus’ resurrection help us answer the question of if there is life after life?

Paul concludes and provides a potentially profound thought in verse 20

20 But Christ has indeed been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep.

What does this mean? What are firstfruits?

Implications of the resurrection

What difference has this resurrection account does this make to you. You’ve recently encountered a particularly challenging experience of death. Do you mind sharing what happened and how the hope of the resurrection affects this?

The Big Question

So Steve, is there life after life?