Welcome To The Bold And Unashamed Blog

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Welcome to the Bold and Unashamed Blog and Podcast!

I'd like to introduce myself. My name is Alex Tiesen and I'm a 30-year-old living in Dell Rapids, SD. I've decided to start this blog for several reasons.

• First, I believe the church is seriously lacking the boldness to stand as a light in the darkness and call the nations to repentance. And I don't just mean TV pastors, "mega-church" leaders, televangelists, and etc. I mean ordinary pastors, elders, and leaders in local churches all across the country and the ordinary people in their congregations. If one by one our pastors would start preaching in favor of the Kingdom of God and speak against the depravity in the world today, hearts would be changed, minds would shift, souls would be won, and revival would spread. All we have to do as individuals is take it upon ourselves to be bold and unashamed of the gospel of Jesus Christ in our own small world. We don't need to change the entire world by ourselves we just need to change OUR world. We can do that by being bold in our interactions with the people we encounter in life. By being unashamed of our love for the Lord in every awkward situation we find ourselves in. We can change the world by showing God's mercy and grace to people who maybe don't deserve it. Lead someone to Christ, keep a young believer from straying off the path, disciple a less experienced Christian brother or sister, and pray, always pray. We can do these things and so much more, as individuals and in doing so collectively turn the world upside down just like the 1st-century church did in Acts.

• Now to my second reason for starting this blog. I am not a pastor of any church, I am not a biblical scholar or professional theologian, nor did I go to seminary, and I don't hold any advanced degrees. According to these worldly metrics, I'm wholly unqualified to write a blog exploring these topics. But that is exactly one of the reasons I have decided to do just that. There are many mainstream pastors, theologians, scholars, and political pundits, writing content out there. The problem is that much of it is over the average person's head. I know I've read some of the things these guys write wanting to learn something new about a particular passage in Scripture or how I should approach a certain situation biblically, and instead, I walked away more confused than before. The Bible can be confusing enough as it is and sometimes it seems like some of these experts are speaking a foreign language. So I want this to be an ordinary Christian guy exploring His Bible and the context behind it, learning how to apply that to the culture we live in today. And I want to take ordinary readers along with me on the journey. Maybe I can teach you some stuff, and maybe we can learn some things together too!

• My third reason for writing this blog is because someone who had a big influence on me and really changed the way I read my Bible, went to be with the Lord in the Spring of 2023. Dr. Michael Heiser was his name. One of his parting prayers was that his legacy wouldn't be one of name recognition but that a movement would spread through his readers and listeners. And that people across the world who are called would build platforms and show others the importance of the unseen realm that runs deep throughout the biblical story. That these people would examine and introduce the ancient context of the world in which the biblical authors lived, to an audience of which these ideas may be foreign. Finally, they would target the ordinary layperson in their teaching. You see Dr. Heiser prided himself on bringing scholarly-level material down to the layperson's level so that average people could understand it. So that is, of course, another goal of mine. To help the everyday person, like myself, who is eager to learn the ancient world of the Bible.

With all that being said, I'd also like to tell you a little about our ministry. Our online and social media presence goes by Bold and Unashamed. We chose this name because we strive to live our lives boldly for the Truth of the Gospel and unashamed of Jesus Christ our Lord. Our overarching ministry is named Church on the Rock of Jesus International after our church. I also operate a nonprofit underneath that umbrella which builds various woodworking projects and proceeds are donated to various outreach and missionary organizations our ministry supports. My aunt also operates an animal shelter on her farm. She takes in unwanted strays and pets of all sorts, taking God's mandate to care for and have dominion over our animal friends seriously.

Our ministry motto is, "We are a funnel, not a safe." We basically keep enough funds to cover operating expenses and everything else is sent out into the mission field to do God's work in the Kingdom. We have aproximately 20 ministries we support yearly.

So there you have it, I want this blog not necessarily to be a place where people come to get answers to all their questions or problems, although to be clear, where there are certain answers I will do my best to provide them with clarity. But I want this to be a resource for "regular" people to learn how to approach the bible on its own terms, how to ask good questions, and be okay with not getting the answer right away or even with the answer just leading to more questions. I want to help people get to a place of familiarity with their Bibles, the way Dr. Heiser and so many others have helped me. Thank you for your support and please subscribe to the blog and join in on the fun!

~ Alex