Episode 03

Get the Hell Out

The goal was never to get the hell out of earth — it was to get the hell out of earth.

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The goal was never to get the hell out of earth — it was to get the hell out of earth.

Genesis never calls the world perfect. It calls it good — and then, before anything has gone wrong, not good. After a long break, Jacob and Sam pull back up to the table and follow that one small word wherever it leads: why a good world and a perfect one set you on completely different paths, what it means to read Genesis as literary instead of literal, and why the Bible’s second page seems designed to disorient anyone looking for certainty.

Along the way: a yerba mate review nobody asked for, an academic advisor’s thirty-minute ministry, portal chess, the Mona Lisa, N.T. Wright’s missing fifth act, and a working definition of hell as the places where creation has come off the rails — starting with the hells inside us.

Less perfect, more good. Pull up a chair.

Chapters

Scripture

  • Genesis 1:31 “God saw all that he had made, and it was very good. And there was evening, and there was morning — the sixth day.”
  • Genesis 2:7 “Then the Lord God formed a man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being.”
  • Genesis 2:18 “The Lord God said, ‘It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him.’”
  • Isaiah 7:14 “Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign: The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and will call him Immanuel.”
  • Matthew 1:23 “‘The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel’ (which means ‘God with us’).”
  • Galatians 5:6 “For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision has any value. The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love.”

Scripture quotations taken from The Holy Bible, New International Version® (NIV®). Copyright ©1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

Mentioned

  • The New Testament and the People of God by N.T. Wright
  • Portal Chess The game Jacob and Sam have been playing since their college-ministry days
  • Riftbound The trading card game Sam’s been playing with his brothers-in-law
  • Tim Mackie (BibleProject) The goal was never to get the hell out of earth, but to get the hell out of earth
  • Peter Enns Reading the Old Testament christotelically

The Faith Talks quilt

A large quilt hanging on a classroom wall, made of forty-eight cream-colored patches in eight rows, each hand-lettered with a Bible verse or phrase and some illustrated with crosses, a church, a heart-shaped balloon and a teacup. Green and brown floral sashing separates the patches, framed by a dark brown floral border.
Bible verses as patches, hand-lettered and hanging in Jacob’s church classroom.

Stay in the conversation

Got a question, a story, or a thread you want us to pull on? Email us at hello@tabletalk.fm, or find us on Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube at @tabletalkfm.

Here’s to faithful curiosity and patchwork spirituality.

#faithful-curiosity#genesis#creation#hell