Fightin Words: Spiritual exercise for rank & file believers

Readings: Acts 7:55-60; Psalm 31:1-5, 15-16; 1 Peter 2:2-10; John 14:1-14. For full, free access visit https://pewpewhq.com/tfw/a-h06. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Readings: Acts 2:42-47; Psalm 23; 1 Peter 2:19-25; John 10:1-10. For full, free access visit htps://pewpewhq.com/tfw/a-h04. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Readings: Acts 2:14a, 36-41; Psalm 116:1-4, 12-19; 1 Peter 1:17-23; Lu ke 24:13-35. For full, free access visit https://pewpewhq.com/tfw/a-h03. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Readings: 🎶Psalm 118:1-2, 19-29; 📜Matthew 21:1-11. For full, free access visit pewpewhq.com/tfwa-l06. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Readings: 📜Ezekiel 37:1-14; 🎶Psalm 130; 📜Romans 8:6-11; 🦅John 11:1-45. For full, free access visit pewpewhq.com/tfw/a-l05. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Readings: 1 Samuel 16:1-13; Psalm 23; Ephesians 5:8-14; John 9. For full, free access visit pewpewhq.com/tfw/a-04 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Readings: Exodus 17:1-7; Psalm 95; Romans 5:1-11; John 4:5-42. For full, free access, visit pewpewhq.com/tfw/a-l03. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Readings: Genesis 12:1-4a; Psalm 121; Romans 4:1-5, 13-17; John 3:1-17. For full, free access visit pewpewhq.com/tfw/a-l02 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Readings: Genesis 2:15-17; 3:1-7; Psalm 32; Romans 5:12-19; Matthew 4:1-11. For full access, visit pewpewhq.com/tfw/a-l01. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Readings: Exodus 24:12-18; Psalm 2; 2 Peter 1:16-21; Matthew 17:1-9. For full, free access, go to pewpewhq.com/tfw/e-06. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Readings: Isaiah 58:1-9a; Psalm 112:1-9; 1 Corinthians 2:1-12; Matthew 5:13-20. For full, free access go to https://pewpewhq.com/tfw/a-e05 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Readings: Micah 6:1-8; Psalm 15; 1 Corinthians 1:18-31; Matthew 5:1-12. For full, free access go to pewpewhq.com/tfw/a-e04. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Readings: Isaiah 9:1-4; Psalm 27:1, 4-9; 1 Corinthians 1:10-18; Matthew 4:12-23. For full, free access go to PewPewHQ.com/tfw/a-e03. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Readings: 📜Isaiah 49:1-7; 🎶Psalm 40:1-11; ✉️1 Corinthians 1:1-9; 🦅John 1:29-42. For full, free access, go to PewPewHQ.com/tfw/a-e02. Also, check out uswithoutThem, a podcast exploring the discography of mewithoutYou! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Readings: 📜Isaiah 42 :1-9; 🎶Psalm 29; 📜Acts 10 :34-43; 😇Matthew 3 :13-17 From the TRNG Room: How to Read Scripture Like You’re Still in the Field Bapti-piphany Sunday What is Epiphany Central Thesis/Theme: In this first episode of the Epiphany season, I explore what "epiphany" really means in the Greek imagination—a divine appearance when all seems lost—and why the lectionary's focus on Jesus's baptism matters for understanding how we begin our Christian life. I'm particularly interested in how baptism functions as a threshold moment, a vigil where we die to ourselves and are raised in community. This episode is also about my ongoing project to democratize biblical interpretation, taking it away from institutional gatekeepers and making it accessible to rank-and-file believers like us. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Readings: 📜Jeremiah 31:7-14 ; 🎶Psalm 147:12-20; 📜Ephesians 1:3-14; 📜John 1:1-18. For full access, go to pewpewhq.com/tfw/a-x02. In this episode, I wrestle with the growing tension I feel between Pauline Christianity and the Jesus I encounter in the Gospels. The Christmas readings this week force me to confront my discomfort with Paul's privileged position and philosophical approach versus Christ's radical accessibility to the poor and marginalized. I'm arguing that if we must choose between Paul's epistles and the Hebrew scriptures, I'd choose the latter—not to reject Paul entirely, but to prioritize the Christ of the Gospels and the story he fulfills over the institutional church-building project I see in Paul's letters. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Readings: 📜Isaiah 63 :7-9; 🎶Psalm 148; ✉️Hebrews 2 :10-18 😇Matthew 2 :13-23. Full, free access at PewPewHQ.com/tfw/a-x01 I'm launching a three-year project called Fighting Words, which transitions from my previous First Formation podcast into a broader exegetical work I call "the fighting word"—a military-centered paraphrase of the Bible for rank and file believers. This isn't just rebranding; it's federating biblical interpretation away from institutional gatekeepers and placing it in the hands of ordinary people who've lived real experiences. After six or seven years of daily lectionary work, I've identified simpler, more direct ways of reading Scripture that honor both the text's depth and the reader's intelligence, rejecting both Victorian-era conservative inerrancy and watered-down modern paraphrases that dull the Bible's sharp edges. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

⁠📜Isaiah 7⁠:10-16; ⁠🎶Psalm 80:1-7, 17-19; ⁠✉️Romans 1⁠:1-7; ⁠😇Matthew 1⁠:18-25.  A distinctive six-part Hebraic formula—"You shall conceive and bear a son, and you shall call his name X"—appears only twice in Scripture when spoken by a divine messenger: to Hagar about Ishmael and to Mary about Jesus. This pattern reveals how Matthew and Luke connect Jesus not just to Isaiah's prophecy but to the very first child born according to God's promise. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Readings: Isaiah 35, Psalm 146, James 5, Matthew 11:2-11. *Full, free access at ⁠PewPewHQ.com/tfw/a-a3⁠. John the Baptist's doubt from prison reveals a fundamental debate about confronting systemic oppression. John sees Rome as the primary enemy requiring direct anti-imperial resistance, while Jesus targets something deeper—the ideology of entitlement that creates in-group/out-group categories. Jesus refuses to alienate those trapped in corrupt systems (like military families) even while condemning the systems themselves, modeling a "sharper razor" that separates the bathwater of oppression from the baby of human dignity. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Readings: Isaiah 11;Psalm 72; Romans 15; Matthew 3. *Full, free access at PewPewHQ.com/tfw/a-a02. The Divine Warrior motif reveals God's power as fundamentally creative rather than combative. Where Babylonian cosmology imagines creation emerging from divine conflict, the Hebrew imagination presents a God who speaks reality into existence—conquering not through violence but through divine intent and breath. This contrast between conflict-based and creativity-based cosmologies defines the difference between worldly power systems and the kingdom that emerges through ordinary humanity. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Readings: Isaiah 2:1-5; Psalm 122; Romans 13:11-14; Matthew 24:36-44. Full, free access at PewPewHQ.com/tfw/a-a01. The Advent season inaugurates a new way of seeing humanity itself—the "son of man" as both ordinary human and harbinger of radical transformation. This first Sunday reintroduces the lectionary cycle not as institutional prescription but as framework for discovering what Scripture says when freed from calcified interpretation and enforcement of meaning. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Readings: Isaiah 12; Psalm 98; 2 Thessalonians 3:6-13; Luke 21:5-19. Central Theme: Jesus's prophecy against Herod's ornate temple reflects a consistent biblical pattern of God rejecting centralized religious power and wealth accumulation in favor of decentralized, agrarian faithfulness. Key Insights: Luke writes post-70 CE with knowledge of the temple's destruction, but this doesn't negate Jesus's prophetic vision The name "Jesus" (Yeshua = "salvation") connects Christ to Joshua the builder of the plain-Jane Second Temple Septuagint (LXX) Exodus 15:3 reads "The Lord brings wars to nothing" vs. Masoretic "The Lord is a warrior" - a crucial difference for understanding God's relationship to violence Hebrew root LHM carries both "laham" (fighter) and "elohim" (gods), pointing toward a God who undoes physical violence through spiritual battle. Theological Argument: Salvation is cooperative work between humans and God, not passive reception of predetermined grace. The biblical witness consistently undermines those who claim entitlement without labor (Pharaoh, Herod, Solomon) and instead elevates agrarian mutuality and decentralized interpretation. Contemporary Challenge: We must "federate our faith" and resist religious institutions that enforce monopolies on meaning. The oldest manuscripts we possess are Hellenized texts that already represent a tension between imperial power and prophetic decentralization - we should embrace this pluralism rather than seek singular authority. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Readings: Haggai 1:15b-2:9; Psalm 98; 2 Thessalonians 2:1-5, 13-17; Luke 20:27-38. Learn More: - "What Was Jesus' Real Name?" Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Readings: Jeremiah 14:7-10, 19-22;Psalm 84:1-7; 2 Timothy 4:6-8, 16-18; Luke 18:9-14. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Readings: Genesis 32:22-31; Psalm 121; 2 Timothy 3:14-4:5; Luke 18:1-8. Learn More: Isaac v. Manning et. al Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Readings: 2 Kings 5:1-3, 7-15; Psalm 111; 2 Timothy 2:8-15; Luke 17:11-19. Learn More: A Tale of Two Soldiers Naaman the Syrian Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Readings: Lamentations 1:1-6, Psalm 137; 2 Timothy 1:1-14; Luke 17:5-10. Learn More “Jeremiah, Why Do You Weep?” Part One Part Two Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What does it mean to carry the weight of other people’s devotion? Martin of Tours’ Vita shows how even saints can be trapped between humility and veneration, celebrated to the point of distortion. Aaron Weiss, lyricist and frontman of mewithoutYou, now teaching anthropology, joins us to explore ego, authenticity, and what happens when art, faith, and power intersect. Learn more at https://pewpewhq.com/blog/gruntgod-ch9 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Readings: Amos 6:1, 4-7; Psalm 146; 1 Timothy 6:6-19; Luke 16:19-31. To Do: Get your #GruntGod Season Pass Attend GruntCon on October 25th in Albany, Oregon Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What made soldiers standouts as monks, and how did their experience shape Christian asceticism? This episode explores the birth of communal monasticism, tracing how Pachomius transformed abandoned sites into thriving religious villages that contrasted with solitary desert hermits. Ancient historian Christian Barthel brings his expertise in late antiquity and Roman military institutions to show how these roots shaped the language, discipline, and traditions of early monastic communities. Learn more at https://pewpewhq.com/blog/gruntgod-ch8 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Readings: Amos 8:4-7; Psalm 113; 1 Timothy 2:1-7; Luke 16:1-13. To Do: Get your #GruntGod Season Pass Attend GruntCon on October 25th in Albany, Oregon Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What is worth dying for—and how do we live honorably when death isn’t the point? St. George’s earliest lives depict a soldier who refuses imperial demands, framing martyrdom as faithful witness—an honorable life that may cost everything—rather than a quest for heroic death. Rebekah Eklund is a New Testament and ethics scholar whose Beatitudes research—on meekness, peacemaking, and the persecuted—maps 2,000 years of interpretation in The Beatitudes through the Ages. Learn more at https://pewpewhq.com/blog/gruntgod-ch7 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What happens when military service collides with the earliest Christian witness? In this episode of GruntGod Season Pass, we explore the tension between loyalty to Caesar and allegiance to Christ, and how ancient questions about soldiers, oaths, and discipleship still press on us today. Dr. George Kalantzis, professor of Theology at Wheaton College and author of Caesar and the Lamb, brings his expertise in early Christianity and his own military background in Greece to illuminate these hard but vital conversations. Learn more at https://pewpewhq.com/blog/gruntgod-ch5 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What does it mean to follow a God who fights? In this chapter of God Is a Grunt, we confront the paradox of the Divine Warrior—Yahweh as defender and destroyer, Jesus as both God and grunt—wrestling with Scripture’s most unsettling vision of holy violence. With Old Testament scholar Tremper Longman III, co-author of God Is a Warrior, we trace the motif from Exodus to Revelation and explore how Christians today can face the Bible’s hardest edges without flinching. Learn more at https://pewpewhq.com/blog/gruntgod-ch4 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What do Christians owe veterans and other military neighbors? A sharp, honest conversation on Joshua, policing, and responsibility. From “serve and protect” to the limits of “civility” and the promise of nonviolent action, this episode reframes justice in the post–George Floyd era. In this episode, we confront the Hebrew Bible’s hardest texts with help from Russell Johnson. Join Grunt Works in this candid, thoughtful guide to power, privilege, and Scripture in public life. Learn more at https://pewpewhq.com/blog/gruntgod-ch3 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What if the story of Cain wasn’t just about punishment—but pain? In this powerful first chapter of God Is a Grunt, we reexamine the world’s first murder through the lens of moral injury—the deep, spiritual pain that comes not just from violence, but from betrayal, shame, and exile. With pastoral insight from David Peters, former Marine and Army chaplain, this episode unpacks how ancient scripture speaks directly to the struggles faced by modern warriors—and those who love them. Learn more at https://pewpewhq.com/blog/gruntgod-ch1 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What does it really cost to lead? In this chapter of God Is a Grunt, we journey alongside Moses, the reluctant leader whose entire life became an act of sacrifice—leaving behind home, status, and even his own dreams to serve a people in the wilderness. With insight from Girardian scholar Cris Haw, we explore how sacrifice often demands more than ritual offerings—it calls for the surrender of control, comfort, and sometimes even reputation. This is a story not just for the faithful, but for anyone who has carried the weight of responsibility in service to others. Learn more at https://pewpewhq.com/blog/gruntgod-ch2 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Readings: Exodus 32:7-14 and Psalm 51:1-10 1 Timothy 1:12-17 Luke 15:1-10. To Do: Get your #GruntGod Season Pass Attend GruntCon on October 25th in Albany, Oregon Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This week I failed. In the flurry of activity around openning The Chapter House, I wasn’t able to schedule and record an interview with a Pauline scholar, but that doesn’t mean I won’t! When I do, that episode will be available to watch from the Grunt Works website as well as on First Formation so you can listen to it wherever you get your podcasts. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Readings: Deuteronomy 30:15-20; Psalm 1; Philemon 1:1-21; Luke 14:25-33. To Do: Get your #GruntGod Season Pass Attend GruntCon on October 25th in Albany, Oregon Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Readings: Jeremiah 2:4-13; Psalm 81:1, 10-16; Hebrews 13:1-8, 15-16; Luke 14:1, 7-14. To Do: Get your #GruntGod Season Pass Attend GruntCon on October 25th in Albany, Oregon Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Readings: Isaiah 58:9b-14; Psalm 103:1-8; Hebrews 12:18-29; Luke 13:10-17. To Do: Get your #GruntGod Season Pass Attend GruntCon on October 25th in Albany, Oregon Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Readings: Jeremiah 23:23-29; Psalm 82; Hebrews 11:29-12:2; Luke 12:49-56. To Do: Get your #GruntGod Season Pass Attend GruntCon on October 25th in Albany, Oregon Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Readings: Genesis 15:1-6; Psalm 33:12-22; Hebrews 11:1-3, 8-16; Luke 12:32-40. To Do: Get your #GruntGod Season Pass Attend GruntCon on October 25th in Albany, Oregon Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Readings: Ecclesiastes 1:2, 12-14 2:18-23; Psalm 49:1-12; Colossians 3:1-11; Luke 12:13-21. TL;DR: Get your #GruntGod Season Pass for just $13! Attend GruntCon on October 25th in Albany, Oregon Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Secure your Season Pass today and join a community exploring what it truly means when we discover that God is a grunt; https://pewpewhq.com/merch/p/grunt-god Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Readings: Genesis 18:20-32; Psalm 138; Colossians 2:6-19; Luke 11:1-13. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Readings: Genesis 18:1-10a; Psalm 15; Colossians 1:15-28; Luke 10:38-42. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Readings: Deuteronomy 30:9-14; Psalm 25:1-10; Colossians 1:1-14; Luke 10:25-37. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Send us a text Readings: Isaiah 66:10-14; Psalm 66:1-9; Galatians 6:(1-6), 7-16; Luke 10:1-11, 16-20.  Support the show Thank you for falling in to First Formation. If you like what you’ve heard, you can participate in one of the three following ways; Support the podcast or subscribe to First Forward. Become a co-host by recording a lectionary reading. Record and send prayer requests of a minute or less. Semper Familia! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices