The Berean Files

Zack Killey & Jason Kempf
  • 5.0 (7)
  • Christianity

The Berean Files is a Christian podcast testing conspiracies, cryptids, UFOs, the Nephilim, end times and the supernatural against Scripture. Hosted by Zack Killey and Jason Kempf, two friends with their Bibles open, plus guest interviews and long-form conversations. Like the Bereans of Acts 17:11, we listen eagerly, search the Scriptures and then decide. Jesus is the center of every conversation. Topics include the Nephilim and giants, aliens and UFOs, Bigfoot and cryptids, Satan's Little Season and end times, demons and spiritual warfare, the occult and New Age in the church, the Book of Enoch and the canon, and all things Bible and theology. New episodes twice a week, plus occasional livestreams. Ad-free listening on Patreon, $5/month with a 7-day free trial: https://www.patreon.com/TheBereanFiles Watch on YouTube: https://youtube.com/@thebereanfiles Instagram: @bereanfiles Questions, prayer requests or stories: thebereanfiles@gmail.com Until next time, stay Berean.

  1. 1d ago

    Is the New Age Behind Christian Conspiracies? | The Biblical Hitmen

    Is the New Age behind Christian conspiracy content? Stephen DeMatties of The Biblical Hitmen thinks a lot of it follows the New Age "Plan." In this episode of The Berean Files, Zack Killey and Jason Kempf sit down with Stephen for a long, honest conversation about Theosophy, the New Age and "conspiracy land."  Stephen traces "the Plan" from Helena Blavatsky to Alice Bailey's The Externalization of the Hierarchy, and he argues it's walking Christians toward a one-world, all-paths religion. We test his case against Scripture. We agree on a lot: Jesus first, Scripture interprets Scripture, the Book of Enoch isn't canon, and chasing hidden knowledge is the same temptation as the fruit in the Garden. We also push back. We defend Michael Heiser's divine council work (while granting he leans on Enoch too much), we share how the Nephilim story became a gospel bridge with a Nordic deist at a bar, and we don't think Satan is running one master plan. He isn't all-knowing. He has one game plan, and he just keeps rebranding the same lie from the Garden. Then Stephen walks through Barbara Marx Hubbard's New Age reading of the four horsemen of Revelation 6, where the people who won't "shift" are labeled "defective seeds." To us, that sounds a lot like the parable of the four soils turned upside down. Topics include: • Terence McKenna, Blavatsky, Theosophy and "the Shift" • Alice Bailey, the Lucis Trust and the New Age "Plan" • Who is the Harlot of Revelation 17? (Stephen's view) • The NAR, the Seven Mountain Mandate and a Jehu/Jezebel theory (Stephen's speculation, not a conclusion) • Star Wars, false light and the good-vs-evil trap • Perennial philosophy, the Nephilim and the Michael Heiser debate • The Essenes, Pythagoras and the Dead Sea Scrolls • Gnosticism and framing God as the villain • False prophets, Deuteronomy 13 and Chris Bledsoe's Oct. 7 prediction • "Defective seeds" and the upside-down four soils • Stephen's problems with the Book of Enoch • The gospel: the wages of sin is death, and Jesus paid it (Romans 6:23) "For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord." Romans 6:23 (ESV) What should you do after the craziest conspiracy video you've ever heard? Go open your Bible, love your neighbor, and tell somebody about Jesus. Stephen DeMatties, The Biblical Hitmen: https://www.youtube.com/@TheBiblicalHitmen Guest views are their own; Scripture is our final authority. Don't take our word for it: "test everything; hold fast what is good" (1 Thessalonians 5:21, ESV). Open your Bible, follow Jesus, and email thebereanfiles@gmail.com with your questions, prayer requests, or stories. Ad-free listening (on Patreon and Spotify), $5/month with a 7-day free trial: https://www.patreon.com/TheBereanFiles Watch on YouTube: https://youtube.com/@thebereanfiles Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/bereanfiles Until next time, stay Berean.

    Is the New Age Behind Christian Conspiracies? | The Biblical Hitmen

  2. 4d ago

    Exploring Lutheranism: Baptism, Communion & the Christian Tradition | w/ Jared Madden

    Jared Madden returns to The Berean Files—but this time, we’re putting Lutheranism itself under the microscope. After moving away from evangelicalism and toward Lutheran theology, Jared lays out what drew him to the tradition and why he believes it offers a more historical and biblical expression of Christianity. But that opens up some big questions. Does baptism actually save? Can salvation be lost? What does it mean to receive grace through a sacrament? Is Christ literally present in Communion? What did the earliest Christians believe about the Lord’s Supper? And perhaps most importantly: when does defending doctrine become dividing the Body of Christ? Zack and Jared work through Scripture, church history, sacramental theology, denominationalism, salvation, baptism, Communion, and the tension between recovering historic Christianity and simply creating another Christian camp. There are real disagreements in this conversation—but also a surprising amount of common ground. The goal isn’t to prove that one of us has everything figured out. It’s to do what Bereans are supposed to do: Test everything against Scripture. Jared's Rumble-https://rumble.com/user/jsmadd Books- https://www.amazon.com/Exposing-Zionism/dp/B0D29YRD65/ref=books_amazonstores_mobile_mfs_kss_ap_sba_0?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_w=ibfBs&content-id=amzn1.sym.76005b69-edc7-4c93-876b-645ff1e238d8&pf_rd_p=76005b69-edc7-4c93-876b-645ff1e238d8&pf_rd_r=138-5583620-7525139&pd_rd_wg=kn5R9&pd_rd_r=3dfcd511-ee8f-4e7b-80ba-462779f8751c Don't take our word for it: "test everything; hold fast what is good" (1 Thessalonians 5:21, ESV). Open your Bible, follow Jesus, and email thebereanfiles@gmail.com with your questions, prayer requests, or stories. Ad-free listening (on Patreon and Spotify), $5/month with a 7-day free trial: https://www.patreon.com/TheBereanFiles Watch on YouTube: https://youtube.com/@thebereanfiles Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/bereanfiles Until next time, stay Berean.

    Exploring Lutheranism: Baptism, Communion & the Christian Tradition | w/ Jared Madden

  3. Sep 29

    Who’s Discipling Your Family? Faith, Culture & Critical Thinking | Matt Terrell

    What happens when you realize the world has been discipling your family whether you intended it to or not? In this episode of The Berean Files, Zack sits down with his cousin Matt for the kind of conversation they normally have off-mic: a wide-ranging discussion about following Jesus, raising kids, questioning assumptions, and learning how to think biblically in a culture overflowing with competing voices. Matt shares how coming to Christ changed the way he looks at fatherhood—and how he began noticing the messages embedded in movies, music, social media, entertainment, and the algorithms influencing the next generation. From there, the rabbit holes open. We get into objective morality and moral relativism, the way modern stories blur the line between good and evil, Protestantism and Catholicism, grace and works, nihilism and the loss of meaning, young-earth vs. old-earth creationism, skepticism, critical thinking, angels, Nephilim, biblical supernaturalism, church culture, discipleship, and plenty more along the way. But underneath all of it is a bigger question: How do we teach ourselves—and our children—to examine what we believe instead of simply absorbing whatever the culture puts in front of us? The answer isn’t having every rabbit hole figured out. It’s knowing what matters most, testing what we hear, being willing to challenge our own assumptions, and remaining grounded in Jesus Christ. Sometimes discipleship starts with being willing to ask better questions. Don't take our word for it: "test everything; hold fast what is good" (1 Thessalonians 5:21, ESV). Open your Bible, follow Jesus, and email thebereanfiles@gmail.com with your questions, prayer requests, or stories. Ad-free listening (on Patreon and Spotify), $5/month with a 7-day free trial: https://www.patreon.com/TheBereanFiles Watch on YouTube: https://youtube.com/@thebereanfiles Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/bereanfiles Until next time, stay Berean.

    Who’s Discipling Your Family? Faith, Culture & Critical Thinking | Matt Terrell

  4. Sep 23

    What’s Really at the Root of Your Faith? | Matt Hepner of Straight Bible

    What happens when your faith looks solid on the outside, but you’ve stopped tending to its roots? Matt Hepner of Straight Bible joins Zack and Jason to talk about the heart behind our words, what our money and time reveal about our priorities, and the Holy Spirit’s work in changing us. Matt connects Jesus’ teaching about trees and fruit to the house built on a deep foundation: lasting fruit begins below the surface. They also discuss the pressure to chase views as Christian podcasters, reaching people outside church walls, disagreeing with other believers while keeping Christ central, and reading the Bible for yourself instead of relying entirely on voices online. Find Matt’s work by searching Straight Bible on YouTube, podcast platforms, Instagram, TikTok, and Substack, or visit https://toplobsta.com/. What helps you stay rooted in Christ when life gets loud? Let us know in the comments. #TheBereanFiles #StraightBible #ChristianPodcast Don't take our word for it: "test everything; hold fast what is good" (1 Thessalonians 5:21, ESV). Open your Bible, follow Jesus, and email thebereanfiles@gmail.com with your questions, prayer requests, or stories. Ad-free listening (on Patreon and Spotify), $5/month with a 7-day free trial: https://www.patreon.com/TheBereanFiles Watch on YouTube: https://youtube.com/@thebereanfiles Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/bereanfiles Until next time, stay Berean.

    What’s Really at the Root of Your Faith? | Matt Hepner of Straight Bible

  5. Sep 22

    What Is Your Attention Feeding? | Tulpas, Egregores & Manifestation

    Can our thoughts actually create things? Ideas like tulpas, egregores, manifestation, and the “law of attraction” suggest that focused human thought, intention, or collective belief can somehow bring things into existence. But what if we're giving ourselves too much credit? In this episode of The Berean Files, we explore a different possibility: perhaps human beings aren't manifesting spiritual entities at all. Perhaps something already there is paying attention to what we're paying attention to. If spiritual beings are intelligent and capable of deception, our obsessions, fears, expectations, and cultural stories could provide opportunities for that deception to take forms we are already prepared to believe. That raises some strange questions. Why do paranormal encounters seem to change across cultures and generations? Could hauntings, cryptids, UFO experiences, artificial intelligence, manifestation practices, and other unexplained phenomena sometimes intersect through the common currency of human attention? And most importantly: what deserves our attention in the first place? Scripture repeatedly calls Christians away from deception and fixation and toward truth—ultimately fixing our eyes on Jesus Christ. Maybe the greatest danger isn't accidentally thinking a monster into existence. Maybe it's spending so much time staring into the darkness that we stop looking toward the One in whom there is no darkness at all. Don't take our word for it: "test everything; hold fast what is good" (1 Thessalonians 5:21, ESV). Open your Bible, follow Jesus, and email thebereanfiles@gmail.com with your questions, prayer requests, or stories. Ad-free listening (on Patreon and Spotify), $5/month with a 7-day free trial: https://www.patreon.com/TheBereanFiles Watch on YouTube: https://youtube.com/@thebereanfiles Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/bereanfiles Until next time, stay Berean.

    What Is Your Attention Feeding? | Tulpas, Egregores & Manifestation

  6. Sep 18

    Who Is Jesus, Really? w/ Paranoid American

    What happens when you follow the questions about Christianity as far as they can possibly go? In this episode of The Berean Files, we sit down with Thomas from Paranoid American for a wide-ranging conversation about Jesus, Scripture, history, symbolism, faith, and the nature of truth. Thomas brings a perspective shaped by his Catholic upbringing, years of studying conspiracy theories, symbolism, ancient ideas, Gematria, and alternative ways of understanding reality. That leads us into some big questions: Was Jesus of Nazareth a singular historical person, or could the story of Christ represent something larger and more archetypal? How much can we trust the historical record? Is Scripture primarily historical, symbolic, poetic—or somehow all three? Can truth repeat itself throughout history? And at what point does a different interpretation of Jesus become a different Jesus altogether? We don't agree on everything. Not even close. But instead of avoiding those disagreements, we press into them. The conversation moves through Catholicism and Protestantism, biblical interpretation, the historicity of Jesus, the resurrection, Greek and Hebrew, symbolism, cyclical history, the nature of God, salvation, the cross, and the limits of human knowledge. Ultimately, the conversation keeps returning to one question: Who is Jesus? Because we can debate history, symbolism, theology, and the mysteries of reality—but if Christianity is true, getting Jesus right matters more than winning the argument. Stay curious. Test everything. Don't take our word for it: "test everything; hold fast what is good" (1 Thessalonians 5:21, ESV). Open your Bible, follow Jesus, and email thebereanfiles@gmail.com with your questions, prayer requests, or stories. Ad-free listening (on Patreon and Spotify), $5/month with a 7-day free trial: https://www.patreon.com/TheBereanFiles Watch on YouTube: https://youtube.com/@thebereanfiles Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/bereanfiles Until next time, stay Berean.

    Who Is Jesus, Really? w/ Paranoid American

  7. Sep 17

    Preparing the Church for the Days Ahead w/ Jamie Walden

    What if the biggest threat facing the Church isn’t what’s coming—but our failure to recognize what’s already here? In this episode of The Berean Files, Zack and Jason sit down with Jamie Walden, author of Omega Dynamics: Equipping a Warrior Class of Christians for the Days Ahead, for a wide-ranging conversation about spiritual warfare, deception, UFO disclosure, the end times, preparedness, and the condition of the modern Church. Jamie also gives his firsthand account of the controversial meeting involving pastors, military and government-connected individuals, and the UFO/UAP conversation. Was it really a secret government briefing preparing pastors for alien disclosure? Jamie was actually there—and says the viral version of the story misses what happened. But the conversation goes much deeper. We explore the danger of pride and division within Christian “truth” communities, the difference between knowledge and genuine faith, why Jesus calls us to become like children, artificial intelligence and humanity’s obsession with knowledge, end-times speculation, the coming great deception, and whether Christians are spiritually prepared for what may lie ahead. Jamie also makes the case for biblical preparedness—not fear-driven survivalism, but faithful obedience that allows Christians to remain useful to the Body of Christ and advance the Gospel in difficult times. Ultimately, this conversation comes back to a much simpler question: Are we actually following Jesus—or have fear, pride, knowledge, self-preservation, and the noise of the world distracted us from Him? Topics include: • The truth about the alleged “secret UFO pastor meeting” • UFO/UAP disclosure and the Church • The coming great deception • Spiritual warfare and deception • Pride and division in Christian truth communities • Knowledge vs. childlike faith • AI, transhumanism, and the pursuit of knowledge • End-times prophecy and speculation • Whether the Church is prepared for what’s ahead • Biblical preparedness vs. fear-based prepping • Becoming a “warrior” for Christ • Conviction, repentance, and spiritual readiness Jamie Walden is the author of Omega Dynamics: Equipping a Warrior Class of Christians for the Days Ahead and the founder of Omega Dynamics. Whatever you believe about UFOs, prophecy, AI, or the end times, test everything against Scripture. Don't take our word for it: "test everything; hold fast what is good" (1 Thessalonians 5:21, ESV). Open your Bible, follow Jesus, and email thebereanfiles@gmail.com with your questions, prayer requests, or stories. Ad-free listening (on Patreon and Spotify), $5/month with a 7-day free trial: https://www.patreon.com/TheBereanFiles Watch on YouTube: https://youtube.com/@thebereanfiles Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/bereanfiles Until next time, stay Berean.

    Preparing the Church for the Days Ahead w/ Jamie Walden

  8. Sep 11

    Heaven Isn’t Your Final Destination | What the New Testament Actually Says

    What does the New Testament actually say about where Christians spend eternity? Most Christians grow up hearing some version of the same story: believe in Jesus, die, and go to heaven forever. But is that actually the hope Jesus and the apostles taught? The Berean Files joins Ben and Dennis from Bennis the Menace Pod to continue our conversation about heaven, resurrection, and the New Earth—this time focusing specifically on the New Testament. We dig into the teachings of Jesus, Paul, Peter, and Revelation to examine a distinction that often gets overlooked: going to be with Christ after death is not necessarily the same thing as our final eternal destination. The biblical story doesn't end with humanity abandoning creation for heaven. It ends with resurrection, renewed creation, the New Jerusalem coming down, and God dwelling with His people. So what happens when we die? What is the resurrection actually for? What did Paul mean by receiving a glorified body? Why does Peter talk about a New Earth? And why does Revelation end with heaven coming down rather than humanity permanently going up? Grab your Bible and test everything. Don't take our word for it: "test everything; hold fast what is good" (1 Thessalonians 5:21, ESV). Open your Bible, follow Jesus, and email thebereanfiles@gmail.com with your questions, prayer requests, or stories. Ad-free listening (on Patreon and Spotify), $5/month with a 7-day free trial: https://www.patreon.com/TheBereanFiles Watch on YouTube: https://youtube.com/@thebereanfiles Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/bereanfiles Until next time, stay Berean.

    Heaven Isn’t Your Final Destination | What the New Testament Actually Says
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Ratings & Reviews

5
out of 5
7 Ratings

About

The Berean Files is a Christian podcast testing conspiracies, cryptids, UFOs, the Nephilim, end times and the supernatural against Scripture. Hosted by Zack Killey and Jason Kempf, two friends with their Bibles open, plus guest interviews and long-form conversations. Like the Bereans of Acts 17:11, we listen eagerly, search the Scriptures and then decide. Jesus is the center of every conversation. Topics include the Nephilim and giants, aliens and UFOs, Bigfoot and cryptids, Satan's Little Season and end times, demons and spiritual warfare, the occult and New Age in the church, the Book of Enoch and the canon, and all things Bible and theology. New episodes twice a week, plus occasional livestreams. Ad-free listening on Patreon, $5/month with a 7-day free trial: https://www.patreon.com/TheBereanFiles Watch on YouTube: https://youtube.com/@thebereanfiles Instagram: @bereanfiles Questions, prayer requests or stories: thebereanfiles@gmail.com Until next time, stay Berean.

Information

  • Creator
    Zack Killey & Jason Kempf
  • Years Active
    2026
  • Episodes
    49
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © Copyright Zack Killey
  • Show Website
    The Berean Files

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