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CPTB is a conversational, funny, and thoughtful take on this week's Bible readings — for preachers, church leaders, deconstructors, and curious listeners who still love scripture, even when they're not sure what to do with it. We explore the text with humor and theological depth, without certainty, outrage, or easy answers.

It's Pentecost. Jesus shows up through locked doors, breathes on his terrified disciples, and says: receive the Holy Spirit. As the Father sent me, so I send you.

Which is either the best news you've ever heard — or a sentence that should make you very nervous, given what just happened to the one who was sent.

Trevor Austin (@trevoraustincomedy) returns and brings along pod first-timer Ronnie Fleming (@ron_flem) to join Pastors Bob and Eric in wrestling with the birthday of the church, the weirdness of the breathing, and what it actually means to be sent somewhere you didn't ask to go.

Expect:

• A former altar boy and a recovering evangelical walk into a podcast
• Why you don't want to be taken in the rapture — you want to be left
• The Holy Spirit as airborne contagion, patient zero, and pneumatic event
• Jesus showing up like Kurt Russell in Tombstone: wounded, unbothered, armed with peace
• Why Martin Luther wanted to light the book of James on fire
• The word "inspiration" and what it actually means

Also featuring: a filing cabinet full of end-times literature, a proverbs fortune cookie business venture that may or may not be insider trading, Bob talking out of his ass, and the Bible in 90 days vs. the Bible on the toilet.

"You underestimate my commitment to a bit, Bob." — Pastor Eric Damon, on martyrdom

John 20:19–23 (NRSVue)

When it was evening on that day, the first day of the week, and the doors were locked where the disciples were, for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said, "Peace be with you." After he said this, he showed them his hands and his side. Then the disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord. Jesus said to them again, "Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you." When he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, "Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained."

Hosted by Pastor Eric Damon and Pastor Bob Schaefer.

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Scripture quotations are taken from the New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition. Copyright © 2021 National Council of Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.