Play Cousins: Romans 4

The Lord is our (good) shepherd, right? So how do we make sense of a God who both scatters and gathers God's people? In this episode, Jackie and Isaiah think through the meaning of "revenge" in Jeremiah 23:1-6 and scour their seminary notes for clues on how to read Jeremiah in good faith. 

Paul asked three times for God to take the thorn in his side away. God said no. And Paul still somehow managed to brag about it. Why? 

Who do we think God is when bad things happen? Jackie and Isaiah read I Samuel 8 through the lens of intergenerational trauma and talk through what faith looks like when we're not sure about God. 

How do we pray when we don't know what to hope? Jackie and Isaiah talk through the good news of a God who groans with us as we reach for liberation. (We roamed all over Romans 8 on this one.) 

In this episode, Jackie and Isaiah talk through Biblical queerness, the life and death of DMX, and the radical inclusion of the Lord of All. 

In the wake of the police murders of Daunte Wright, Adam Toledo, and Ma'Khia Bryant and in the shadow of the Chauvin trial, what do we do with the Twenty-Third Psalm? Jackie and Isaiah talk through the connections between psalms 22 and 23, the footsteps of the ancestors, and the hymns of Chance the Rapper.

The Gospels of Mark and John have very different testimonies about the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Both are true. In this episode, Jackie and Isaiah discuss what it means to be a witness--whether you know what you've seen or not.

Want an unedited hot take on how the Letter to the Ephesians is an assimilationist text? Of course you do. 

This was a tough one, y'all. Jackie and Isaiah talk through why the writer of Ephesians is so into othering and remind each other that God didn't make junk. 

The Roman Christians are play cousins. They just don't know it yet. Jackie breaks down Paul's use of the call of Abraham to bring together the Jewish and Gentile Christians in the church in Rome.