Praise and Confused

Stephen and Nick
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Have you ever really wondered what the bible says about topics like depression, anxiety, prayer and social media? Well so do we. You can listen to the regular pastors who preach on "masculinity" or whom have made their personal politics into their own religion, or you can listen to us as we attempt to help answer those questions using what scripture actually says.

  1. Sep 25

    "The things you own end up owning you"

    Tyler Durden Fight Club What happens when the things we work for, buy, and chase start controlling us instead of making us happy? This conversation gets into envy, overwork, loneliness, money, relationships, and the exhausting feeling that peace is always one purchase, one promotion, or one life change away. Stephen talks honestly about burnout, financial pressure, repairs, work, and trying to keep everything together. Nick brings his own perspective on isolation, marriage, divorce, and the painful realization that no relationship, job, or possession can save you. Together they ask some uncomfortable questions: Why do we keep chasing more when more never seems to be enough?Why does success so often come with stress instead of peace?Why does having people around matter so much?And what does Ecclesiastes have to say about enjoying what we have before it starts owning us? This episode is honest, funny in places, and pretty uncomfortable in others. No easy answers. Just Stephen and Nick wrestling with what it means to live in a world that constantly tells us to want more, while Scripture keeps reminding us that more is not the same thing as better.

  2. Sep 18

    Everyone I know, Goes Away in the End

    Stephen and Nick finally get to Ecclesiastes. Eventually. First there's a recording glitch, a handful of music tangents, an argument about Christian bands, a detour into church names, and some well-earned complaining about country music. Scenic route guaranteed. The episode title borrows a line from Nine Inch Nails' "Hurt," and it fits. Ecclesiastes 1-6 is one of the most honest, least comfortable books in the Bible, and Stephen and Nick spend this episode sitting in that discomfort instead of rushing past it. This isn't a book that pretends life is beautiful and simple. It's about repetition, frustration, work, money, pleasure, aging, church culture, disappointment, and every strategy people use to feel secure in a world that keeps taking things back. They get into why wisdom sometimes brings more sorrow instead of less, how nostalgia quietly becomes an idol, and why the good things in life are gifts, not guarantees. The conversation gets personal too: church decline, burnout, midlife uncertainty, money stress, broken houses, plans that didn't work out, and that unsettling feeling that God might be closing a door instead of opening one. Also covered: Why Ecclesiastes feels depressing, and why that's actually freeingWhat "vanity of vanities" really means (hint: closer to vapor or mist than "meaningless")How money, success, pleasure, knowledge, nostalgia, and church tradition all try to become idolsWhy it's okay to admit life is hard instead of forcing a smileWhat "a time for everything" means when your current season feels awfulHow wisdom doesn't necessarily make things easier, but it exposes what's hollowHow to enjoy good things without turning them into godsIt's a serious conversation about a serious book, but Stephen and Nick still find room for Christian metal, online church, introverts, expensive houses, bad country music, and the general absurdity of being alive. Ecclesiastes doesn't hand you easy answers. Neither do they. What you get instead is a more honest way to look at life, one that doesn't require pretending everything's fine. Sometimes faith looks like gratitude. Sometimes it looks like complaining, lamenting, eating something good, and admitting you have no idea what God is doing. Ecclesiastes leaves room for all of it. So does this episode.

  3. Sep 4

    As the Good Book Says . . .

    In Fiddler on the Roof, Reb Tevye is fond of saying, “As the Good Book says.” The trouble is, Tevye is not always sure where the "Good Book" says it, or whether it says it at all. In this episode, Stephen and Nick examine how Christians came to recognize the 66 books of Scripture, why the Apocrypha belongs on a different shelf, and whether the canon was settled by divine design or church-council guesswork. From Moses and the prophets to Jesus, the apostles, and the early church, they trace the Bible’s own case for its boundaries. You’ll discover: Why Deuteronomy warns against adding to or taking away from God’s wordsHow the Tanakh, the Old Testament, and the Apocrypha differWhy Josephus, Jesus, and the apostles matter in the canon conversationHow the New Testament writings came to be recognized as ScriptureWhy Revelation closes the book with a final warning against adding moreAlong the way, Stephen and Nick take on secret knowledge, mystical add-ons, end-times speculation, and every confident claim that begins with “the Bible says” but ends somewhere Scripture never actually went. Tevye may not have known exactly where the "Good Book" said something about a chicken. Stephen and Nick want to know which books belong at all.

  4. Aug 7

    "Why Can't We Be Friends"

    A funk band asked the question in 1975. Most advice about unity is too small. Get along. Keep the peace. Don't make it weird. That is not unity. That is just a truce We go after the real thing: pride, preference, and the gap between those and actual spiritual maturity. We get there by way of dog behavior, worship team dynamics, and a missions trip where people can rub on others nerves. It starts out funny and honest, the ordinary business of feeling ignored, misunderstood, or half a beat behind everybody else, and then it turns. Why Christians struggle to love people who are not like them. Why truth without love is just being right at someone. Why unity and uniformity were never the same word. In this episode: Why unity is not everyone thinking, dressing, or worshiping the same wayHow your preferences, your pride, and your need to win the argument quietly wreck relationshipsWhat 1 Corinthians 12, Ephesians 4, Philippians 2, Galatians 3, and Romans 14 actually say about the body of ChristWhy loving your neighbor includes the person you disagree with mostHow missions work, church life, and your group chat all expose the same problem We also get uncomfortably practical. When to speak up. When to sit down. When to forgive. When to stop treating your own comfort as a doctrinal position.

  5. Jul 25

    "I’m not certain I can survive any more visits from old friends.”

    - Jack Sparrow- Pirates of the Caribbean: At Worlds End Old friends, old wounds, old dynamics, they have a way of showing back up and testing whether we've actually grown. In this episode we get into the hidden dynamics of how people actually connect: tone, pace, and the small cues that shape trust. We talk about dogs' expressions, cultural differences, naming variables (yes, really), and what all of that reveals about ego and communication. We also get into love across cultural lines: honoring traditions around grief, navigating egos at work, dating in a world that treats relationships like transactions. And we go back to the source: what Christ meant when He commanded us to love our neighbor, and what that actually looks like lived out day to day. If you've ever had an old friend show up and test you, or wondered how to love well across differences, this one's for you.

  6. Jul 17

    I believe that God has a plan for all of us;

    I believe that plan involves me getting my own planet. - Book of Mormon Most Christians think missions is about the task list. Build the house. Run the program. Check the box. Then they get on the ground and realize that’s not it at all. This episode is about what happens when the plan falls apart. No electricity. No predictable schedule. Just you, a language barrier, and a village that doesn’t care about your itinerary. That’s where the real work starts, because that’s where you find out if your faith is something you do or something you actually live. We talk about the exhaustion, the temptation to just grind through the work and call it ministry, the moments where you have to choose Christ over comfort with nobody watching. Manual labor next to spiritual check-ins. Dirt and noise and unpredictability, and somehow that’s exactly where Christ shows up loudest. Listen to stories from missioners who’ve been in the chaos and found something real on the other side, that presence matters more than productivity, and love looks like showing up even when it’s hard.

  7. Jul 5

    Born under a bad sign

    Generational curses. It’s one of those phrases that gets thrown around so much in church circles that it starts to feel like spiritual small print: the fine print on your family’s sin debt that you never agreed to but somehow still owe. But what if that’s not actually how it works? In this episode, we dig into what Scripture really says about the patterns, pain, and brokenness we inherit from our families, and why “generational curse” might be the wrong label for a very real problem. Spoiler: Jesus’ blood doesn’t come with exclusions. We explore how cycles of addiction, abuse, and broken relationships are better understood as consequences of sin than mystical curses, and why that distinction actually matters more than you’d think. We also get into the science of epigenetics and trauma inheritance, because it turns out God designed your body and spirit to heal, not just white-knuckle the past into submission. No mystical rituals. No magic formulas. Just grace, truth, and a God who’s actually bigger than your family tree.

  8. Jun 27

    "If it looks like a duck . . .

    and quacks like a duck, we have at least to consider the possibility that we have a small aquatic bird of the family Anatidae on our hands." - Douglas Adams By now you’ve probably seen the controversy out of Ogden, Utah. A pro-Nazi publishing house set up a vendor table at Brian Sauvé’s “War for Normal” conference . Books glorifying Hitler, SS memoirs, white nationalist literature . When the backlash came, Sauvé went on record saying he had no problem with it. That response matters just as much as the incident itself. This episode is about what happens when Christian nationalism stops being a theological conversation and starts becoming a vehicle for ideas that have nothing to do with the gospel. It wraps itself in the right language, shows up in church spaces, and gets a pass because it sounds familiar enough. The bigger problem isn’t just the people pushing these ideas. It’s the church’s willingness to look the other way, explain it away, or treat the whole thing as an overreaction. This episode is a reaction to The Kings Hall podcast.

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About

Have you ever really wondered what the bible says about topics like depression, anxiety, prayer and social media? Well so do we. You can listen to the regular pastors who preach on "masculinity" or whom have made their personal politics into their own religion, or you can listen to us as we attempt to help answer those questions using what scripture actually says.

Information

  • Creator
    Stephen and Nick
  • Years Active
    2025 - 2026
  • Episodes
    48
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © Stephen and Nick
  • Show Website
    Praise and Confused