Send us Fan Mail

Charles Dickens - The Old Curiosity Shop.

(Please note this episode was the first of My Charles Dickens episodes originally recorded in 2025 as a free 'subscribes only' bonus episode for people following the Bible Project Daily Podcast on Patreon).

Episode Notes:

Hello and welcome to today’s episode, where I drop into the world of Martin Chuzzlewit—the Dickens novel that even some Dickens fans sometimes only pretend they’ve read. If Oliver Twist would become a popular kids' movie, and A Christmas Carol everybody’s favourite sentimental movie. Martin Chuzzlewit is more like that eccentric foreign film that shows up on late-night TV and insists on the character discussing opaque philosophy in its subtitles.

But don’t be fooled by its reputation. This novel is a spiritual goldmine wrapped in satire, stuffed with schemers, and sprinkled with just enough organ music and malaria to keep things interesting. We’ve got hypocrites, murderers, and one man who believes true happiness only counts if you earn it in a swamp. So, let’s step into the Chuzzleverse, where selfishness reigns, grace surprises, and even the most stubborn hearts can be softened….

Support the show

Follow all my Creative endeavours on Patreon.

Jeremy McCandless | Creating Podcasts and Bible Study Resources | Patreon

Check out my other Podcasts.

The Bible Project: https://thebibleproject.buzzsprout.com

History of the Christian Church: https://thehistoryofthechristianchurch.buzzsprout.com

The L.I.F.E. Podcast: (Philosophy and current trends in the Arts and Entertainment Podcast).

https://the-living-in-faith-everyday-podcast.buzzsprout.com

The Renewed Mind Podcast. My Psychology and Mental Health Podcast:

https://www.buzzsprout.com/2568891

Send us Fan Mail

When Charles Dickens published Dombey and Son in 1846, he stepped into a deeper, darker, and more mature phase of his writing. If A Christmas Carol is the gospel wrapped in snow and candlelight, Dombey and Son is the truth spoken through grief, pride, and the slow unravelling of a man who believes he is untouchable.

Spiritually, Dombey and Son is a story of idolatry and it undoing. It echoes the wisdom literature of the Bible, books like Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and even Job. Dombey is the man who gains the world yet loses his soul. He is the rich man who cannot see Lazarus at his gate. He is the father who longs for a son to carry his name yet cannot see the daughter who already carries his heart.

And yet—this is also a story of grace. Not the sudden, jubilant grace of Scrooge’s Christmas morning, but the slow, painful grace that comes through suffering. Through loss. Through the breaking of illusions. In this book, Dickens shows us that sometimes God heals not by adding, but by taking away. Not by lifting us up, but by bringing us low enough to see clearly.

So, as we open Dombey and Son, we step into a story where the gospel is not shouted but spoken quietly. A story where pride is dismantled, and ahuman heart is slowly, painfully, beautifully remade….

Support the show

Follow all my Creative endeavours on Patreon.

Jeremy McCandless | Creating Podcasts and Bible Study Resources | Patreon

Check out my other Podcasts.

The Bible Project: https://thebibleproject.buzzsprout.com

History of the Christian Church: https://thehistoryofthechristianchurch.buzzsprout.com

The L.I.F.E. Podcast: (Philosophy and current trends in the Arts and Entertainment Podcast).

https://the-living-in-faith-everyday-podcast.buzzsprout.com

The Renewed Mind Podcast. My Psychology and Mental Health Podcast:

https://www.buzzsprout.com/2568891

Send a text

Charles Dickens - Barnaby Rudge.

(Please note this episode was originally recorded in December 2025 as a free 'subscribes only' bonus episode for people following the Bible Project Daily Podcast on Patreon).

To obtain the Copyright free recording of this book that I used in this recording by Actress Mil Nicholson visit: Barnaby Rudge (version 2) |

Episode Notes:

Barnaby Rudge, Dickens’s first historical novel, begins in the quiet village of Chigwell—but it doesn’t stay there, or for that matter quiet, for long. The year is 1775, and England is simmering. Beneath the surface of tavern talk and family feuds lies a deeper unrest—religious tension, political manipulation, and the slow build-up of mob violence.

By the time the novel reaches its midpoint, the Gordon Riots of 1780 have erupted. These were real events—an anti-Catholic uprising that turned London into a temporary war zone. Churches were burned. Prisons were stormed. The streets ran with fear. And Dickens, writing in 1841, uses this historical moment to ask an important and some would say timeless question: What happens when religion is weaponized?

From a theological perspective, Barnaby Rudge is a meditation on fanaticism. It shows how religious language can be twisted into slogans. How spiritual conviction can be hijacked by political rage. And how the mob—once stirred—becomes a beast with no conscience that is impossible to control.

In many ways, Barnaby Rudge is Dickens’s warning to the church. That when faith loses love, it becomes dangerous and that when theology loses humility, it becomes violent. And that when religion loses Christ, it moves from being a movement to becoming a riot.

This novel also reflects the spiritual climate of Dickens’s own time. In 1841, England was wrestling with reform, class tension, and religious division. The Chartist movement was rising. The poor were restless. And Dickens, ever the prophet, saw the parallels.

So, he wrote a story not just of history, but of humanity. Of how fear breeds fury. Of how prejudice breeds persecution. And of how the gospel must stand against the mob—not with swords, but with sacrifice.

Support the show

Follow all my Creative endeavours on Patreon.

Jeremy McCandless | Creating Podcasts and Bible Study Resources | Patreon

Check out my other Podcasts.

The Bible Project: https://thebibleproject.buzzsprout.com

History of the Christian Church: https://thehistoryofthechristianchurch.buzzsprout.com

The L.I.F.E. Podcast: (Philosophy and current trends in the Arts and Entertainment Podcast).

https://the-living-in-faith-everyday-podcast.buzzsprout.com

The Renewed Mind Podcast. My Psychology and Mental Health Podcast:

https://www.buzzsprout.com/2568891