PODCAST · religion
Monday To Sunday
by Joe Stein
Ever feel like the Bible is a bit of a mystery? You're not alone. Monday to Sunday is a faith-based podcast written by Joe Stein that reads scripture without denominational labels and asks what it actually means for the week ahead. Every episode sits with a passage — sometimes a story you've heard since childhood, sometimes one you've never noticed — and walks through it slowly. No agenda. No politics. Just the text, read carefully, and the honest question: what does this have to do with Monday morning, or the part of your life nobody at church sees? I'm not a pastor, and I'm not here to represent a denomination. I'm a software developer who picked up the Bible, started reading, and couldn't stop. The goal is to bridge Sunday inspiration with weekday life. To take the Bible seriously without taking ourselves too seriously. And to make space for people who love scripture, people who are unsure about it, and people who walked away from it a lo
Episodes
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Whose Face Is On It — Matthew 22:15-22 · Proper 24, Year A
Pick up any coin from the cup holder in your car and it will tell you three things without being asked: whose face is on it, what it's worth, and who stands behind it. This past Sunday somebody held up a coin like that in front of Jesus and asked him a trick question about taxes. He answered with…
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Two Names In The Letter — Philippians 4:1-9 · Proper 23, Year A
Every town has two people like this. Both have given years to the same good thing, both work hard, and somewhere along the way they stopped being able to stand in the same room. Paul had two of them in Philippi. He named them out loud, in a letter read to the whole church. This is the midweek…
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Swallowed Up — Isaiah 25:1-9 · Proper 23, Year A
Tucked inside most wedding invitations is a small reply card with its own stamped envelope. It asks one question: will you attend? A lot of those cards spend weeks on the refrigerator, and almost nobody who has one is against the wedding. This past Sunday Jesus told a story about a king whose...
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Numbers Aren't Verdicts — Philippians 3:4b-14 · Proper 22, Year A
Paul had the résumé. Tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew born of Hebrews, a Pharisee, blameless under the law, and every line of it checkable. Then he took the whole list and called it a word most English Bibles are too polite to translate. This is the midweek show. You heard three readings on Sunday and…
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Whose Vineyard Is This? — Isaiah 5:1-7 · Proper 22, Year A
A man plants a vineyard and does everything right: good hill, stones cleared, a watchtower, a wine vat. At harvest it gives him grapes, just the wrong kind. Sour ones. All three readings this week turn on the same vineyard, and on a question none of us likes to ask out loud. This is the midweek...
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Ladder In The Noise — Genesis 28:10-17 · St Michael and All Angels
A man falls asleep on a rock in the middle of nowhere, running from his brother with nothing but the clothes on his back. It turns out to be the most important night of his life. He wakes up and says, "Surely the Lord is in this place, and I did not know it." This week had a major feast tucked…
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The Second Son — Matthew 21:23-32 · Proper 21, Year A
A father has two sons and one job for them: go work in the vineyard. The first says no and walks off. The second says yes, sir, on my way, nice and polite about it. Only one of them actually shows up, and it isn't the polite one. This is the midweek show. You heard three readings on Sunday and a...
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The Name He Kept — Matthew 9:9-13 · Feast of Saint Matthew
The only person in the ancient world who insists on calling Matthew a tax collector is Matthew. It is his book. When he reaches the roll call of the twelve, every other name on the list is just a name. His has the job attached, and it is the job nobody wanted to be seen with. Mark tells the same...
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The Same Low Sound — Exodus 16:2-15 · Proper 20, Year A
Nobody in Sunday's gospel got underpaid. The workers hired at dawn agreed to a denarius and received a denarius, in front of witnesses. They complained anyway, and Matthew writes the grievance down word for word: "you have made them equal to us." The Greek verb there is gongyzo. It's…
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The Wrong Way Up — John 12:31-36a · Holy Cross Day
The church has a feast day for a piece of Roman execution equipment. September 14, Holy Cross Day. Try the same move with anything modern, a feast of the electric chair, and listen to how it sounds. There is a cartoon scratched into a wall on the Palatine Hill in Rome from around the year 200. A...
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Not One Remained — Matthew 18:21-35 · Proper 19, Year A
Ten thousand talents is roughly a hundred and fifty thousand years of labor. Jesus picks that number in Sunday's gospel because it is absurd. Then the king cancels it in the space of one sentence, and the man who was just forgiven walks into the courtyard and grabs somebody by the throat over…
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The Audience Of One — Matthew 18:15-20 · Proper 18, Year A
"If another member of the church sins against you, go and point out the fault when the two of you are alone." Alone. Not to your sister first. Not at the dinner table, in the version where they come off badly. Not to your spouse in the car on the way home, forever, until it hardens into a fact...
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The Nearest Door — Exodus 12:1-14 · Proper 18, Year A
God marks the doorway and dwells among us. This week, we explore what it means to recognize His presence where He's closest—not in distance, but in the neighbors who surround us every day. Readings: Exodus 12:1-14 • Romans 13:8-14 • Matthew 18:15-20
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The Life You Cannot Save — Matthew 16:21-28 · Proper 17, Year A
There's a sentence in Sunday's Gospel that's built wrong. Whoever wants to save his life will lose it. Read it as a rule about behavior and it's just a paradox, the kind of thing that goes on a wall. But Jesus wasn't being clever. He picked a word that cannot be saved. The word is psyche, and…
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Turn Aside — Exodus 3:1-15 · Proper 17, Year A
Moses is at work when the bush catches fire. He's not on a retreat and he's not praying — he's watching somebody else's sheep out past the edge of everything. And here's the part I can't get past: God doesn't say a word until Moses walks over. This week we sit with the Sunday readings — Exodus 3,...
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The Second Question — Matthew 16:13-20 · Proper 16, Year A
Jesus asks the disciples two questions back to back. Who do people say I am? They rattle off the answer like they've been keeping notes. Then: but who do you say I am? Out of twelve grown men, one of them speaks. They were fluent on the first question. They had to be dragged through the second…
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Called By Name — Exodus 1:8–2:10 · Proper 16, Year A
We don't know Pharaoh's name. We know the midwives'. A king with an empire behind him orders every Hebrew boy killed at birth, and the plan falls apart because two working women decide not to. Shiphrah. Puah. Scripture kept their names and filed the most powerful man on earth under his job title....
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Come Closer — Matthew 15:21-28 · Proper 15, Year A
A woman asks Jesus for help and he says nothing. Not no. Nothing. Matthew writes it flat: "he did not answer her at all." If you asked someone for something and got total silence, how long would you stand there? I know my number. It's about four seconds. This week I want to look at the second…
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Room At The Table — Genesis 45:1-15 · Proper 15, Year A
Twenty years after his brothers sold him into slavery, Joseph stands in front of them holding every card — and clears the room so he can weep where the guards can't hear. Then he says the last thing they expect: come closer. This week's three readings circle the same question. Who gets to decide...
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Two Places At Once — Matthew 14:22-33 · Proper 14, Year A
Peter walked on water for about four seconds. Matthew is very precise about what happened in there, and we usually skip it. He didn't fall because the wind got worse. The wind had been against them all night. Nothing about the lake changed — he noticed something else. In this episode, Joe Stein...
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The Word Is Near — Romans 10:5-15 · Proper 14, Year A
They threw their brother into a hole in the ground. And then they sat down and ate lunch. In this episode, Joe Stein walks through Sunday's three readings — Joseph sold by his brothers in Genesis 37, Paul's argument in Romans 10, and Jesus walking out across the water in Matthew 14 — and finds…
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What You Look At — Luke 9:28-36 · The Transfiguration
Moses came down off Sinai with his face shining, and he was the last one to find out. Aaron saw it. The whole camp saw it. They were afraid to come near him, and he had no idea why. August 6 is the Feast of the Transfiguration, so this week we set Sunday down and take the feast day readings...
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Blessed and Limping — Genesis 32:22-31 · Proper 13, Year A
A man spends the night wrestling a stranger by a river. His hip comes out of its socket. He hangs on until dawn anyway, because he wants a blessing and he won't let go without one, and he never finds out who he was fighting. This week: Proper 13, Year A. Genesis 32, Romans 9, Matthew 14. Three...
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In His Joy — Matthew 13:44-52 · Proper 12, Year A
Four words in Sunday's Gospel are easy to slide right past. The man finds treasure buried in a field, and "in his joy" he goes and sells everything he owns to buy it. Not gritting his teeth. Not doing the math. Joy is the engine. The Greek word there is chara, and it belongs to a beautiful…
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Worth Everything — Genesis 29:15-28 · Proper 12, Year A
What would you actually give everything for? Not what you'd like. What you'd sell the house for, what you'd work fourteen years for and count it cheap. This past Sunday's readings all circle that same question. Jacob serves seven years for Rachel, and Genesis says they felt to him like a few…
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He Says Your Name — John 20:11-18 · Feast of Saint Mary Magdalene
Here's a strange thing about being alive right now: you can go a whole day surrounded by people and never once hear someone say your name like they mean it. This week is the Feast of Saint Mary Magdalene, and Joe sits with one of the most human scenes in the whole Bible. Mary stands weeping…
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In The Meantime — Genesis 28:10-19a · Proper 11, Year A
Nobody tells you that most of the Christian life happens in the meantime — the long, unfinished middle where the promise has been made but not kept yet, and the good and the bad are still tangled together in the same field. This week Joe sits with three readings that are secretly about the same...
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What Kind Of Soil — Matthew 13:1-9, 18-23 · Proper 10, Year A
You're probably not the hard-packed path, and you're probably not the rocky ground that flames out at the first sign of trouble. For most of us, the danger is the thorns — the slow, quiet choking of a good thing by a thousand cares and a low-grade hunger for more. It doesn't feel like falling…
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Two Nations In The Womb — Genesis 25:19-34 · Proper 10, Year A
Esau was so hungry he traded his whole future for one hot meal. And if we're honest, most of us have made some version of that same trade — swapping the deep, important thing for the loud, urgent thing right in front of us. This week on Monday to Sunday, we sit with the story of Jacob and Esau in...
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The Yoke That Fits — Matthew 11:16-19, 25-30 · Proper 9, Year A
"I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate." That's Paul, in Romans 7 — and if you've ever said something like that at eleven o'clock at night, you know exactly what he means. In this episode, Joe Stein brings two readings into the same room: Paul's most honest confession in Romans…
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The Morning After — John 21:15-19 · Feast of Saints Peter and Paul
Peter went back to fishing. Like none of it had happened. In this episode, Joe Stein walks through John 21:1–19 — the morning Jesus shows up on the beach at dawn, builds a charcoal fire, and cooks breakfast for the man who denied him three times. We slow down on the detail almost everyone misses:...
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Strangers, Still — Deuteronomy 10:17-21 · Feast of Independence Day
Deuteronomy 10:17–21 • Hebrews 11:8–16 • Matthew 5:43–48 — The Feast of Independence Day Independence Day was this past weekend — cookouts, fireworks, flags on the porch. But the readings the church appointed for the Fourth of July don't celebrate the country. They tell us to love the stranger.…
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Here I Am — Genesis 22:1-14 · Proper 8, Year A
"Here I am." Abraham says it three times in Genesis 22 — to God, to Isaac, to the angel on the mountain. Each time, the answer costs him more. This week I sit with the hardest story in the Hebrew Bible: a father, a son, a three-day walk, and a knife. I don't try to soften it. I want to understand...
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The Hidden Years — Luke 1:57-80 · Nativity of John the Baptist
Before John the Baptist stood in the Jordan calling Israel to repentance, he disappeared. Luke tells us "the child grew and became strong in spirit, and he lived in the wilderness until he appeared publicly." Between his miraculous birth and his prophetic ministry are decades the gospel writers...
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Fire In The Bones — Jeremiah 20:7-13 · Proper 7, Year A
There's a thing you said once that you wish you could take back. Not because it was wrong — because it cost you something. A conversation with a family member that hasn't been the same since. A position you took at work that put you on the outside of a circle you used to be in. A moment of…
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When He Saw The Crowd — Matthew 9:35–10:8 · Proper 6, Year A
(Matthew 9:35–10:8) There's a moment in any crowded place where you realize nobody is really looking at you. Not in the polite way. Not in the dismissive way. In the way where somebody actually sees you — sees what kind of day you're having, sees the thing you've been carrying for six months.…
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When You've Stopped Hoping — Genesis 18:1-15 · Proper 6, Year A
There's a laugh you let out when somebody mentions a thing you used to pray for — a thing you stopped hoping for years ago. Half breath, half ache. Sarah laughs that laugh in Genesis 18, behind the tent flap, at ninety years old, when three strangers tell her she's going to have a son. This week…
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The Person Who Vouched — Acts 9:26-27 · Feast of Saint Barnabas
Somebody believed in you before they had a good reason to. A teacher. A boss. A friend. Someone who walked you into a room you wouldn't have gotten into on your own — and you would not be who you are without them. You probably haven't thought about them in a while. Today the church remembers a…
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The Wrong Table — Matthew 9:9-13 · Proper 5, Year A
There's a version of you that you keep apologizing for. The part you're sure disqualifies you from the table where the good people sit — the part that made you think you'd have to earn your way back before you're allowed to belong. In Matthew 9, Jesus walks straight past the people who'd earned…
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What Is Man? — Psalm 8 · Trinity Sunday, Year A
King David looked up at the stars and asked the most honest question in the Bible: "What is man, that you are mindful of him?" It's the question a lot of us carry but rarely say out loud. This week we sit with Psalm 8, the relational nature of the Trinity, and why the God who made a hundred…
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"Let Us" — Genesis 1:1–2:4a · Trinity Sunday, Year A
Most of us imagine God before creation as solitary. But Genesis 1 tells a different story — right before he makes humanity, the language shifts. "Let us make humankind in our image." Us. Our. This week we sit with those two words and what they reveal about the relational nature of the Trinity —…
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Living Water and Unexpected Prophets — Numbers 11:24-30, John 7:37-39 · Pentecost
It's Thursday, May 28th — deep in the week following Pentecost. The Spirit has already arrived. The question now is what it looks like when it actually moves through people. In this episode, Joe explores three stories that answer that question from completely different angles — two men named…
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The Pope, AI, and What It Means to Stay Human
Pope Leo XIV just released his first encyclical — entirely focused on artificial intelligence. In this episode, I'm breaking format to talk about what it actually says, and why it surprised me.
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The Afterglow of the Wind
It's Tuesday, May 26th — the day after Pentecost Sunday. The celebration is over. The emails are back. And that spiritual fire that felt so alive on Sunday? It can start to feel like gray embers by Tuesday morning. But here's what the Pentecost story keeps telling us: the wind didn't stop blowing...
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The God Who Knows Your Name
What if the string that's gone most out of tune isn't faith, family, or ambition — but your understanding of who God actually is? This week Joe Stein weaves Psalm 68 and John 17 together to answer the question: who is this God, really? The thundering God who scatters enemies is the same God who...
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Keep Your Strings in Tune
What does it feel like when something you have been neglecting has drifted too far? This week on Monday to Sunday, Joe Stein explores that question through the lens of Eric Church's Six Strings commencement speech at UNC Chapel Hill, the Seventh Sunday of Easter readings, and the quiet wisdom of...
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Stop Looking Up: Ancient Hope and the Quiet Wins of 2025
What if the most optimistic moment in the entire Christian story is one we almost always get wrong? This week, we sit with Ascension Day — the moment Jesus was lifted into the clouds and the disciples were left standing on a hillside, staring upward. It sounds like an ending. But the angels…
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The Anatomy of Resilience — Finding Power in the Middle of Pain
Where does human strength come from when everything falls apart? In this episode, Joe explores some of the most remarkable stories from 2025 — a terminal cancer patient who turned her diagnosis into a license to live, a college athlete who was clinically dead for 35 minutes and rebuilt his life...
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The Test Pilot and the Chaplain
In April 2026, four humans returned from the farthest journey our species has ever taken, and at the press conference that followed, something unusual happened: the script broke. Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch, and Jeremy Hansen tried to describe what they had seen on the far side of...
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The Pivot Point: How to Find Purpose When Life Puts You in a Waiting Room
In this episode, Joe explores the radical psychology of resilience. By examining ancient case studies of extreme confinement and modern "waiting room" seasons, we deconstruct the mechanics of cognitive reframing. How do you maintain internal sovereignty when your external world is falling apart?…
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ABOUT THIS SHOW
Ever feel like the Bible is a bit of a mystery? You're not alone.
Monday to Sunday is a faith-based podcast written by Joe Stein that reads scripture without denominational labels and asks what it actually means for the week ahead. Every episode sits with a passage — sometimes a story you've heard since childhood, sometimes one you've never noticed — and walks through it slowly. No agenda. No politics. Just the text, read carefully, and the honest question: what does this have to do with Monday morning, or the part of your life nobody at church sees?
I'm not a pastor, and I'm not here to represent a denomination. I'm a software developer who picked up the Bible, started reading, and couldn't stop.
The goal is to bridge Sunday inspiration with weekday life. To take the Bible seriously without taking ourselves too seriously. And to make space for people who love scripture, people who are unsure about it, and people who walked away from it a lo
HOSTED BY
Joe Stein
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Frequently Asked Questions
How many episodes does Monday To Sunday have?
Monday To Sunday currently has 55 episodes available on PodParley. New episodes are automatically indexed when they're published to the podcast feed.
What is Monday To Sunday about?
Ever feel like the Bible is a bit of a mystery? You're not alone. Monday to Sunday is a faith-based podcast written by Joe Stein that reads scripture without denominational labels and asks what it actually means for the week ahead. Every episode sits with a passage — sometimes a story you've heard...
How often does Monday To Sunday release new episodes?
Monday To Sunday has 55 episodes. Check the episode list to see recent publication dates and frequency.
Where can I listen to Monday To Sunday?
You can listen to Monday To Sunday on PodParley by clicking any episode. We provide an embedded audio player for direct listening, and you can also subscribe via your preferred podcast app using the RSS feed.
Who hosts Monday To Sunday?
Monday To Sunday is created and hosted by Joe Stein.
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