Examining the history of nomadic pastoralism across Asia—from the Caucasus and Central Asian steppes to ancient Mesopotamia—reveals a consistent pattern: settled elites have repeatedly waged war against pastoral peoples. Both the Bible and the Qur’an emerged from nomadic pastoral societies, yet these same texts were later weaponized by sedentary civilizations against the very peoples once nurtured by them. We are witnessing this tragic pattern unfold again in real time—perhaps in its most brutal...
Jul 10, 2025•1 hr 3 min•Ep. 565
Human beings are evil. We are hardwired to curate our self-image, excuse our failures, and cling to the stories that make us feel good about ourselves. The truth is, we are hypocrites—fluctuating between condemning unspeakable horrors, often hidden from public view, and idolizing the very politicians and institutional cowards who cause or permit them. The same psychological games we play to deceive ourselves work flawlessly when we’re told to choose the “lesser of two evils” during election seas...
Jun 26, 2025•41 min•Ep. 564
In Dark Sayings , I explain how Emperor Justinian stands as a striking example of imperial harlotry. Like all rulers, he filtered Scripture through his own agenda—much like what we see in 2025, with elites twisting the biblical text to justify the very actions it condemns. Today’s world leaders are effectively reenacting the sins of the Bible’s villains. If it weren’t a tragedy, it would be a comedy. I’d sit with Jonah beneath the vine—bag of popcorn in hand. What came of Justinian copying the s...
Jun 12, 2025•31 min•Ep. 563
In Isaiah, Cyrus the Great emerges as a unique figure chosen by the God of Israel to fulfill a specific historical task: the rebuilding of the Jerusalem temple and the liberation of the Judahites from exile in Babylon in direct fulfillment of the prophecy spoken by Jeremiah. Cyrus’s rise to power is depicted not as a product of his strength but as the result of God stirring his spirit and granting him authority over all nations. God bestows upon Cyrus exceptional titles: “my shepherd,” a nomadic...
May 29, 2025•49 min•Ep. 562
People choose personal relationships and personal fulfillment over duty. Most often, they place the latter ahead of the former, which is why you see all these ridiculous posts on social media about “toxic relationships.” It’s a big joke. I live among people who do not inhabit the same reality as I do. It used to frustrate me, but now I smile and move on, knowing that most people are not willing to make hard choices. They—and those who enable them—form Caesar’s political base. The blind leading t...
May 15, 2025•43 min•Ep. 561
Situated opposite Galilee, the “earth” of the Gerasenes marks the site of God’s first tactical strike against Greco-Roman assimilation in Luke. The Greco-Roman rulers who possess and enslave the land impose violence and havoc, sowing death where God’s many flocks were meant to roam freely, without interference. Like the abusers in Jerusalem, the occupying forces in Decapolis do not want to live and let live. They seek to assimilate, to convert, to impose, to kill—to force others to become like t...
May 08, 2025•37 min•Ep. 560
In Scripture, “earth” signifies more than just physical land; it functions as a literary sign that opposes human oppression. The biblical narrative presents the land both as a silent witness against human civilization and as one of its victims. In this context, the recurring phrase “heavens and earth” serves as a merism , expressing the totality of creation and affirming God’s sovereign authority and judgment: “Assemble to me all the elders of your tribes and your officers, that I may speak thes...
May 01, 2025•34 min•Ep. 559
In “Dark Sayings,” I explore how internalized racism destroyed my mother’s family. This psychological process, woven out of Hellenistic pluralism and anti-Scriptural platitudes about the so-called “Melting Pot,” reveals how systemic racism operates not only externally but within the immigrant’s self-conception. Internalized racism is more insidious than the inferiority complex from which it stems. Eventually, the immigrant—the stranger in a foreign land—overcomes fear by adopting the personality...
Apr 24, 2025•49 min•Ep. 558
Theologians and philosophers love to talk about the meaning of life. They explore its purpose, justification, and value, questioning whether or not suffering has meaning. They sound like the Preacher in Ecclesiastes, wasting time viewing things from the wrong perspective: man’s point of view, the king’s point of view, Job’s point of view. This mirrors how Christians assess and then attempt to control the Holy Spirit through human words. Their version of the Holy Spirit—always friendly, gentle, a...
Apr 03, 2025•37 min•Ep. 557
In every age, empires create words to describe the people in the societies they seek to dominate and exploit. Eventually, these terms are turned inward and used against themselves. The Greco-Romans—and their eastern heirs, whom modern scholars call the Byzantines—labeled those outside their empire as barbarians. The colonials who settled the Americas, after dismantling the peaceful coexistence of Semitic peoples in Southern Spain, referred to the inhabitants of this supposed “new” land as savage...
Mar 27, 2025•33 min•Ep. 556
Some concepts in the Bible are so crucial that if they aren’t properly understood from the outset, the text itself can be twisted from a guide that protects your steps into a snare that traps you in a cycle of endless folly. One such example is the idea of ownership or proprietorship. When you hear the Bible, even in the original languages, but especially in translation—for example, the colonial King James text—when you hear the Bible in that translation, you are hit over and over again with a n...
Mar 13, 2025•25 min•Ep. 555
What is it like to be unaffected? How sad it must be to go to church, attend a class, interact with your neighbor, and be indifferent to what they say. What is it like to be unaffected? To be so confined to yourself that when you look at your natural reflection in the mirror, you see your flaws—you might even acknowledge them—but the moment you look away, you forget them. You carry on with your life. It’s a curiosity, an interest, a fleeting insight, perhaps. But it’s a compartment, a facet of y...
Mar 06, 2025•37 min•Ep. 554
This week, Fr. Paul reminds us that a word does not carry meaning yet the words of Scripture make God’s instruction accessible. Likewise, it is the words of God to which we submit, not an abstract Torah in Deuteronomy, but the words of God, a point echoed in the letters of St. Paul. (Episode 333) ★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★
Mar 04, 2025•14 min•Ep. 333
When people hear Luke 8:18, they assume it is talking about stuff. But Luke, like the Book of Job, is not about stuff. It is about darkness and light. When people evaluate others—their first mistake is that they evaluate at all—they measure what others have. That is how the Duopoly assesses Job. They love him because he was rich, pity him because he was poor, judge him because he was self-righteous, or cheer him because he did not give up. They experience the full range of human suffering, not t...
Feb 20, 2025•40 min•Ep. 553
Most people, when they hear the story of Josiah and his priest rummaging through the rubble of the temple in Jerusalem and stumbling upon a scroll, fall prey to the hope that Josiah was a reformer. That he picked up the scroll, looked upon those who came before him, and thought: I can do it better. I can get it right this time. But that's the trap. That's the mistake. That's the arrogance--not just of Josiah, but of the one hearing the story. Had he only watched Star Trek. Had he seen what happe...
Feb 06, 2025•25 min•Ep. 552
Evil always dresses in a garment of light. It hides in plain sight. It smiles. It’s friendly. It’s comforting. It’s dishonest. It appears as something it’s not. Take, for example, that seemingly innocuous campfire song all your children have been taught to sing at your silly church camps: “This Little Light of Mine.” Like a mother who possesses children; like a tribe that possesses land; like those who refuse to let go of what God destroys—or worse, those who wickedly imagine they can compensate...
Jan 30, 2025•37 min•Ep. 551
It has taken some time to understand what the Parable of the Sower meant when it introduced the function “soil” in its critique of human beings’ betrayal of God’s covenant with Abraham. Still, by the time the New Testament was written, Matthew, Mark, and Luke all found it necessary to clarify that the position of the one being judged was separate from the station of the one Judge. In the end, the nuance of “seed” as covenant unto instruction vs. seed as offspring and the distinction between “hol...
Jan 23, 2025•38 min•Ep. 550
In Scripture, Abraham’s seed encompasses more than just biological lineage. It also transmits God’s covenant, outlining the potential for righteousness and human corruption in a single function. The Hebrew term zera', "seed" or "offspring," follows the continuity of God’s promise to Abraham from one generation to the next. It also marks the recurring story of human rebellion, which is as predictable in each generation as the agrarian cycle of seasons. Nothing changes under the sun. In this sense...
Jan 16, 2025•22 min•Ep. 549
“He who is not with me is against me; and he who does not gather with me, scatters.” (Luke 11:23) Mothers, not women—mothers specifically—are exploited by the schemes of city builders. This distinction is important because women are often party to the weaponization of mothers. I began this week's monologue with a verse from Luke 11 because it is impossible to hear what Luke wrote about “scattering” until you hear clearly what he taught about point of reference. As Matthew taught us earlier in th...
Jan 02, 2025•37 min•Ep. 548
In this episode, Fr. Paul stresses the importance of going to the biblical text, not “going back, ” highlighting how Paul’s letters and even Luke’s Gospel were written to specific individuals, challenging the tendency to read these texts as universally applicable. We want to make Scripture timeless to elevate our power, but its power lies in its direct address to its original audience. ★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★
Dec 31, 2024•13 min•Ep. 332
We imagine that love is the product of a kind or generous heart. We confuse love with sentiment. Maybe we want others to like us. Perhaps we can’t stomach their suffering, so we medicate them with lies, or we embrace their fantasies because they accommodate our needs. We coddle sentiment as a virtue because it feels safe, womblike, and even noble. Sentiment reinforces our private delusions. There is no better resolution for cognitive dissonance than sentimentality. Sentiment is practically Weste...
Dec 26, 2024•30 min•Ep. 547
When the text says “recline” in Greek, it doesn’t mean “recline.” When the Greek text differentiates “recline” through repetition, it still doesn’t mean “recline,” even in translation. Even when Greek functions correctly, Greek alone is insufficient—it doesn’t work without lexicography. Without proper word study, there is no such thing as Scripture. If you merely hear the original Greek text in Greek without studying its Semitic inter-function, you are nothing more than a Greek. Jesus has not ye...
Dec 12, 2024•35 min•Ep. 546
In their extreme hubris, humans believe that Luke’s admonition, “A tree is known by its fruit,” is nothing more than a proverb about being a “better parent.” But as I explained a few episodes ago, it is a warning that humans can’t parent. It is a judgment, a mashal , a rule, a verse, a biblical sign that there is no such thing as a good human parent because the only tree that bears “good fruit” is the wisdom of God. With this in mind, what did you go out to see in the wilderness of Luke 7? Twice...
Dec 05, 2024•27 min•Ep. 545
A single, passing word is easily overlooked in translation. You could pontificate about it in abstraction, but can you observe its importance, its technicality? Of course, you can’t—not in English. No way. Not in a thousand years. What does the word “luxury” have to do with the book of Genesis? Can you tell me how or where it connects to Genesis? What does “luxury” have to do with a dog’s vomit? Can you figure it out? Perhaps you could look up “dog’s vomit” and try to put it all back together fr...
Nov 28, 2024•37 min•Ep. 544
The Odyssey narrates Odysseus’s ten-year journey as the king of Ithaca, during which he attempts to return home after the fall of Troy. Virgil’s Aeneid chronicles the journey of Aeneas, a Trojan hero and son of the goddess Venus. Aeneas escapes the fallen city of Troy and embarks on a quest to start a settler-colonial project in Italy. Virgil wrote a work of total fiction, and then as if by witchcraft, Augustus traced his (and Rome’s) historical origins back to Aeneas. In Jewish Antiquities, Jos...
Nov 21, 2024•28 min•Ep. 543
This week, Fr. Paul reiterates the importance of hearing Scripture within its historical and sociopolitical context. Beginning with Alexander the Great’s quest for divinity, he illustrates this with references to subsequent events, like the Maccabean Revolt and the resulting Roman domination of Judah. In contrast, he critiques the folly of philosophy in biblical studies, arguing that theology, under the influence of its namesake, Alexander the Great, continues the Macedonian's quest for divinity...
Nov 19, 2024•15 min•Ep. 331
What does it take to liberate people from exceptionalism? To liberate a teaching? Such a pernicious snare, that saying of yours, “family first.” It was your fear of losing the tribe that led you to elect a king and build a city against the will of God. So he sent his Shepherd to rescue his sheep from Cain’s cities, to liberate his people and the Torah from the stone idols fashioned by Cain’s sons. For those who have stayed with me on the podcast all these years, let me say it plainly: The idea t...
Nov 14, 2024•33 min•Ep. 542
Elitist intellectuals are drawn to the concept of a psychological trap because others’ suffering entertains them and because their perception of another's supposed trap reinforces their sense of self-importance and permanence. Poor Sartre, poor DNC, poor duopoly. “The fool says in his heart, There is no Judge.” I agree, Jean-Paul: for your spiritual children, there can be “No Exit.” The local Judean elders, who should be hearing and repeating Jesus’s words, are more concerned with manipulating t...
Nov 07, 2024•29 min•Ep. 541
The folly of human construction is similar to that of large language models. Noam Chomsky talks about this in his famous critique of the current state of artificial intelligence and the absence of scientific analysis. We imagine that these expansive predictive systems are creative. Sure, they are impressive, even helpful—for good and ill—and yes, they will likely replace or change your job, but these tools are not creative. They simply regurgitate what was already found before the LLMs themselve...
Oct 31, 2024•28 min•Ep. 540
This week, Fr. Paul underscores how the Septuagint’s different ordering and classification of texts impact our ability to hear the words of God correctly, shifting Chronicles from the Ketubim to historical books, reframing them as historical events rather than wisdom writings. The same can be seen with Daniel’s placement between Ezekiel and the Twelve, which undermines its resonance as wisdom literature. (Episode 330) ★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★...
Oct 29, 2024•12 min•Ep. 330
