Small Steps with God

Who actually wrote the book of Jude — and why does it matter? Before diving into the text verse by verse, this episode lays out the full case for authorship: who tradition says wrote it, what the earliest church fathers believed, and why an obscure letter from “the brother of James” is more likely to be genuine than a forgery. This episode covers why Jude isn’t actually his name (it’s Judas, renam...

I’ll be honest — when I was a kid, a movie based on The Late Great Planet Earth (which is loosely about the book of Revelation) kept me up for a month. So when I decided to start a Revelation series in The Bible in Small Steps, my first thought was “this might be the scariest thing I’ve ever recorded.” This episode is the why-and-how before we dive in — not the first real chapter, but the posture...

Have you ever trusted someone completely, only to have them start picking apart the very foundation of what you believed? That’s the situation the original readers of 1 John were living in — and it’s why this letter was written. Before we get into the text itself, I wanted to slow down and answer the questions that shape everything else: who wrote this, who was it written to, and what was actually...

I’ve been obsessed with the story of Amadeus for about forty years. And I’ve been sitting with a question it raises for just as long. What do you do when the most gifted person in the room is also the messiest, most broken person in the room? And what does it mean when God seems to work through them anyway? This episode starts with the story of Salieri — a fictional treatment, not a history lesson...

I’ve been spending a lot of time in 1 Peter lately, and before we dive into the chapters, I wanted to take a step back and ask a question that kept nagging at me: can you actually hear Peter’s voice in these letters? Not just a theological voice, but the Peter — the impulsive, passionate, foot-in-mouth fisherman who denied Jesus three times and then preached at Pentecost. That’s what this episode...

What do you do when someone else gets what you expected to be yours? Not a stranger — someone you know, maybe someone you love. That's the question Jonathan's life puts in front of us, and it's one of the most searching questions in all of Scripture. Jonathan was Israel's crown prince — a proven warrior, a man of genuine faith and ability — and he watched God choose someone else for the throne he...

What if the most spiritual thing you could do today isn't a ritual, a reading plan, or a theological position — but something as ordinary as how you treat the person standing in front of you? That's the provocation that opens the letter of James, and it's what we're starting today. Who Was James? The letter opens simply: "James, a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ." No title, no credenti...

If you’ve ever read through the Bible from beginning to end, you’ve probably noticed it: the arrangements keep changing. A garden. A flood. A promise to a wandering man. A law given at a mountain. A shepherd made king. And then a prophet speaking about something entirely new, written not on stone but on the heart. It can look, from the outside, like God is improvising — or worse, like one plan fai...

Have you ever said the right thing and watched it go nowhere? Warned someone, told the truth, gave the best counsel you had — and the person nodded and did exactly what they were going to do anyway? That feeling has a name in Scripture, and it belongs to one of the most faithfully obedient people in the entire Old Testament. This episode is about Samuel. The Moment He Lived In Samuel’s life spanne...

How to Use Bible Commentaries Without Losing Your Own Voice Every time I open Hebrews, there's a moment where the questions start stacking up. What did that mean to someone in Jerusalem in 60 AD? What is the "order of Melchizedek" anyway? Is that something I'm supposed to already know? Commentaries exist to help with exactly that — but there's a right way and a wrong way to use them. In this episo...

Before we dive into Hebrews chapter by chapter, there's a mystery to solve — and it's been unsolved for nearly two thousand years. We don't know who wrote this book. What we do know is why it was written, who it was written to, and why it still cuts so close to the bone. A Word of Exhortation Hebrews isn't a letter in the usual sense — it reads more like a carefully crafted sermon, written for a s...

It's only 25 verses. You can read it in four minutes. But Philemon may be the most concentrated picture of the gospel in the entire New Testament — and one of the most overlooked books in the Bible. In this episode, we take a flyover of the whole story: a runaway slave, a wealthy believer, an imprisoned apostle, and a letter that reshapes how grace works between people. 🔑 The Setup: Paul, Philemo...

Some letters in the New Testament feel written for a specific ancient crisis. Titus doesn't feel that way — it feels written for right now. A young, unstructured church, false teachers already at work, a surrounding culture known for instability and self-indulgence, and one trusted person left to sort it all out. That's not just first-century Crete. That's familiar territory. Who Was Titus? Titus...

If you look at the famous names of the Bible and ask what they did for a living when God called them, the answer is almost never: official religious work. Fishermen, tentmakers, tax collectors, seamstresses, shepherds, government administrators, an innkeeper, a foreign field laborer, a nameless slave girl. This episode asks what that overwhelming pattern means for ordinary people today. The List o...

When are you going to start living like Psalm 23 is actually true? That question stopped me cold. I had been talking through a difficult personal pattern with an AI tool—how I've always felt like the only adult in the room, responsible for everything—and the response that came back changed something in me. In this episode, I want to walk through Psalm 23 slowly, phrase by phrase, and ask what it w...

Have you ever received a letter from someone who believed in you more than you believed in yourself? That's exactly what Paul's two letters to Timothy are — urgent, personal, and deeply encouraging correspondence from a seasoned mentor to a young man in way over his head. Today I'm introducing both 1 and 2 Timothy together, because you can't fully understand one without the other. Who Was Paul — a...

Can deep Bible knowledge actually protect you from being misled, manipulated, or spiritually shaken? I think it can — and in this episode I'm making the case that the Bible isn't just here to inform us. It's here to form us into something harder to deceive. We Live in a World Full of Loud Voices Influencers, new revelations, cultural pressure, fear-based messaging — the world has always had ways o...

What does it really mean to be a man after God’s own heart? The life of David shatters our assumptions about faith, failure, and repentance. His story is not about perfection—but about a heart that keeps turning back to God. This episode explores the life of David as part of the Mirror series, asking what it truly means to be a person after God’s own heart. Rather than presenting a flawless hero,...

Why did one struggling young church earn two letters from Paul — letters that may be the oldest surviving Christian documents we have? The answer takes us to one of the most important cities in the ancient Roman world, into a clash between a brand-new faith and the most powerful empire on earth, and into some of the most urgent pastoral writing in the entire New Testament. **Thessalonica: A City W...

Something subtle can be more dangerous than something obvious. The church at Colossae wasn't in open rebellion. Nobody was walking away from Christ. They were faithful, hardworking, genuinely devoted believers — and they were quietly being told that Jesus wasn't quite enough. That there were upgrades available. Extra rules, special knowledge, angelic beings, mystical practices that promised someth...

What if joy isn’t the absence of suffering—but the defiance of it? What if a prison cell became the birthplace of one of the most hopeful messages ever written? And what if ordinary people in a divided city discovered a citizenship that changed everything? This episode explores the real people behind the letter to the Philippians and why Paul wrote to them during one of the hardest seasons of his...

Circumcision of the heart sounds strange, even unsettling—but it carries one of the deepest spiritual truths in Scripture. This ancient phrase cuts straight through ritual, tradition, and appearances to expose what God has always wanted. If faith has ever felt mechanical, empty, or performative, this conversation explains why. This episode explores the biblical phrase “circumcision of the heart” a...

A powerful ancient city. A fearful spiritual world. One letter that redefined identity, belonging, and courage for generations. This episode explores why Paul the Apostle wrote the Epistle to the Ephesians , and why this letter mattered so deeply to believers living in the city of Ephesus . Ephesians was not written in abstraction—it addressed real people living in a powerful, wealthy, and spiritu...

In this episode of the Mirror Series , we take a deep look at the life of Saul, Israel’s first king. At first glance, Saul seems like the perfect leader—tall, strong, chosen by God, and celebrated by the people. But beneath the surface, his story reveals a struggle many of us know too well: the tension between being called and feeling unqualified, between obedience and control, and between God’s a...

Understanding the Galatians: History, Culture, and Paul’s Urgent Message In this episode, we explore the background of the Book of Galatians and why Paul wrote such a passionate and pointed letter to this particular group. Before jumping into the text itself, we take a closer look at who the Galatians were, their unique cultural identity, and the spiritual crisis that prompted Paul’s response. The...