Rebellion, Finding Your Way Back to God & the Dark Ages

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Wolves & Wisemen Reignited — Episode 16

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About This Episode

There's nothing wrong with having a rebellious streak.

Question things.

Push back.

Think for yourself.

Don't blindly follow the crowd.

But what happens when that rebellion turns toward God?

Using Proverbs 17:11 and Psalm 68:6, the guys look at rebellion from a different perspective.

Most of us hear the word “rebellion” and think about teenagers ignoring their parents, Marines ignoring good advice, questioning authority or refusing to do what somebody tells us to do.

But biblical rebellion goes deeper.

What happens when life doesn't go the way you expected?

When something terrible happens?

When a prayer doesn't get answered the way you wanted?

Do you blame God?

Walk away?

Or trust that there's something happening that you can't see yet?

The conversation becomes a discussion about God's timing, recognizing signs, surrendering control and the peace that can come from knowing you aren't navigating life completely alone.

The guys also talk about their own Sunday Bible study and Church on the Mountain—and how spending that time together in faith affected the way they handled a difficult week afterward.

Then Jelly Roll unexpectedly becomes one of the biggest examples of the entire conversation.

His public testimony about going from prison and brokenness to faith, music and a changed life becomes a perfect example of one of Episode 16's central ideas:

Your past doesn't have to determine where you end up.

And then Fringe Files asks another question:

What really happened during the Dark Ages?

Were they simply centuries of political instability, lost knowledge and slower development—or is there something more behind the theories claiming parts of our historical timeline were manipulated?

What We Talk About

The Check In — Rebellion

Proverbs 17:11

Psalm 68:6

What rebellion means in the Bible

Rebellion against God versus everyday rebellion

Anger toward God

Blaming God when life goes wrong

Why people sometimes walk away from their faith

Finding your way back

Salvation and belief

God's timing

Surrendering control

Recognizing signs

God as a safety net

Finding peace during difficult weeks

Church on the Mountain

Sunday Bible study

Brotherhood and faith

Why being together in person matters

Letting God guide the direction of your life

Sharing your relationship with Christ without forcing religion on people

Elsewhere in Episode 16

Rebel Report

The Grammys and celebrity culture

Jelly Roll's public testimony about Jesus

Sacked

Folks on Fire

The United States Marine Corps

Brotherhood between the Wolves

Today in History

Boners

The Dark Ages

The Phantom Time theory

Lost and manipulated history

Literacy and control of information

The fall of Rome

The Catholic Church and medieval Europe

Who gets to write history

Modern digital information

Faith versus institutional control

Sharing Scripture through everyday conversations

Scripture From This Episode

Proverbs 17:11

“An evil man seeks only rebellion, and a cruel messenger will be sent against him.”

The guys make an important distinction with this verse.

Rebellion isn't automatically the same thing as questioning authority or having a naturally rebellious personality.

The conversation is about rebellion against God.

There are plenty of things worth questioning in life.

The Wolves themselves aren't exactly known for blindly doing what they're told.

But there's a difference between questioning people and turning your back on God because life became painful, confusing or unfair.

Sometimes people experience tragedy and their first reaction is:

Why did God let this happen to me?

That anger can become blame.

Blame can become distance.

And eventually distance can become rebellion.

The guys talk about trusting God even when you don't understand what's happening—and recognizing that what you want isn't always what God knows you need.

Psalm 68:6

“God settles the solitary in a home; he leads out the prisoners to prosperity, but the rebellious dwell in a parched land.”

This verse leads the conversation somewhere especially interesting.

Prisoners can still be led toward prosperity.

Someone can screw up.

Someone can hit rock bottom.

Someone can literally end up behind bars.

That doesn't mean their story is finished.

The guys connect that idea to people who have found God during the lowest moments of their lives.

Your past matters.

Your decisions have consequences.

But neither one automatically prevents God from working in what comes next.

The other side of the verse—the “parched land”—creates an image of what life without that direction can feel like.

Lost.

Dry.

Without a safety net.

Without somewhere to turn when everything falls apart.

Key Takeaways

Being rebellious isn't the same as rebelling against God. Questioning people, institutions and authority is different from intentionally turning away from your faith.

Pain can become misplaced anger. When something terrible happens, it's easy to blame God because we don't understand why it happened.

God's timing isn't always your timing. What you think you need immediately may not be what God has planned.

Faith means surrendering some control. Accepting God also means accepting that you aren't steering every part of the ship.

You still make choices. Trusting God doesn't eliminate personal responsibility. Your decisions can make the journey considerably rougher than it needs to be.

Pay attention to the signs. Sometimes guidance isn't a giant billboard. Sometimes it's a conversation, opportunity or friend pointing out something you missed.

Your past doesn't disqualify you. Someone can have a terrible past and still completely change the direction of their life.

Faith can bring calm before circumstances change. The guys describe difficult weeks that still felt different because their mindset and faith were different.

Brotherhood strengthens faith. Church on the Mountain and the Sunday Bible study are becoming more than podcast material—they're creating accountability and support between the guys.

Share the relationship instead of forcing the religion. Sometimes one honest conversation about what God has done in your life reaches farther than preaching at somebody.

The Check In — Rebellion Against God

The Wolves aren't exactly strangers to rebellion.

Three Marines sitting around microphones probably aren't going to build a show around blindly following authority.

But that's exactly why this conversation matters.

The rebellion described in Proverbs isn't simply:

“I don't like being told what to do.”

It's deliberately turning away from God.

The guys discuss people who experience something painful and lash out at Him.

A loved one dies.

A relationship falls apart.

Life doesn't work out.

A prayer seemingly goes unanswered.

And suddenly:

“God did this to me.”

But anger doesn't have to be the end of the relationship.

People wander.

People get angry.

People make mistakes.

And people can come back.

Sometimes you've been traveling in the wrong direction long enough that the only thing left to do is:

Put it in reverse and find the road again.

The Check In — The Safety Net

Psalm 68 leads into one of the strongest parts of the episode.

What would life feel like without somewhere to turn?

The guys describe faith almost like having a safety net.

When things are going great, you can talk to God.

When everything is falling apart, you can talk to God.

And when you have absolutely no idea what you're supposed to do next...

You can still talk to God.

That doesn't mean a giant neon sign appears telling you exactly what decision to make.

Sometimes the signs are subtle.

Sometimes they're obvious and you still miss them.

And sometimes one of your brothers has to look at you and say:

“Dumbass. That was the sign.”

Church on the Mountain

Episode 16 continues something that's becoming increasingly important outside the show.

The three Wolves and Bond have been doing a Sunday Bible study together.

Most weeks they connect remotely.

But once a month, they try to get together at the property for what they've started calling Church on the Mountain.

The difference surprised them.

The week afterward wasn't necessarily easier.

There were still problems.

There was still stress.

There was still plenty that could have gone wrong.

But the guys describe themselves as handling it differently.

More calmly.

More peacefully.

Instead of feeling like everything had to be solved alone, there was a sense that God—and their brothers—were there with them.

Sometimes circumstances don't have to change first.

Sometimes you do.

Jelly Roll, Jesus & a Changed Life

One of the biggest moments in Episode 16 comes from Jelly Roll's acceptance speech.

The guys react to him openly talking about Jesus, his wife, his time in jail, the darkness in his past and the role faith played in changing the direction of his life.

What catches their attention isn't celebrity.

It's transformation.

Someone can be broken.

Someone can make terrible decisions.

Someone can end up in prison.

And that still doesn't mean God is finished with them.

The guys connect the speech directly back to Psalm 68 and the episode's larger conversation.

Faith isn't reserved for people who already have everything together.

Jesus is available to the person trying to put the pieces back together, too.

Sacked

After spending enough time discussing rebellion, salvation and God's direction...

It's naturally time for people to get hit in the nuts.

Episode 16's Sacked includes:

A drunken fence-jump that goes catastrophically wrong

A toddler with a golf club and an unsuspecting dad

A baseball umpire discovering that three foul balls in four innings is approximately three too many

The spiritual lesson?

When the universe sends you the same message three times...

Maybe buy a cup.

Folks on Fire

Jelly Roll

The guys return to Jelly Roll's speech and highlight his willingness to openly credit Jesus with helping change his life.

The moment fits the episode almost perfectly.

Episode 16 is about rebellion, returning to God and recognizing that somebody's worst chapter doesn't have to be their final chapter.

The United States Marine Corps

The Marine Corps gets some love for two things:

Being one of the country's military fighting forces...

and somehow combining that with an extraordinary amount of unsupervised jackassery.

A Navy-versus-Marine physical-training clip gives the Marine veterans another excuse to talk about the strange combination of discipline, suffering and stupidity that builds lifelong bonds between Marines.

The Wolves

Then Folks on Fire gets personal.

Robert highlights the other Wolves for consistently being there—even during the moments when he'd rather disappear for a while and deal with things alone.

The jokes stop for a minute.

The friendship doesn't.

He credits the people around him with helping keep him grounded and helping him continue moving down the path he's on with God.

It's another example of something that has become increasingly obvious throughout Reignited:

The podcast may have started with three guys behind microphones, but the brotherhood behind it is becoming part of the message.

Today in History

The guys take another highly professional and historically disciplined journey through the past.

Topics include:

“The Day the Music Died”

The 15th Amendment

Early American history

Mark Twain

George Washington

Sports history

As always, the educational content eventually becomes indistinguishable from the jokes.

Boners

Episode 16's Boners starts with the Grammys.

The guys criticize celebrities using entertainment platforms for political messaging and spend much of the segment discussing the disconnect they perceive between wealthy entertainers and ordinary Americans.

Those comments reflect the hosts' opinions and reactions during the episode rather than a neutral political analysis.

Then Boners gets back to something everyone can understand:

Drunk people making terrible decisions.

A man outside a strip club attempts to throw a chair.

The chair has other plans.

His buddy discovers those plans firsthand.

And finally, the guys discuss the timeless internet phenomenon of seeing an attractive mugshot and immediately thinking:

“I can fix her.”

Their advice?

You probably can't.

Fringe Files — What Really Happened During the Dark Ages?

What if part of the timeline is wrong?

That's the rabbit hole Episode 16 follows into Fringe Files.

The guys explore theories surrounding the Dark Ages, including the idea sometimes called the Phantom Time hypothesis—the claim that portions of the early medieval timeline may have been added, altered or misrepresented.

From there, the conversation becomes much larger.

Who writes history?

Who preserves it?

Who decides what survives?

And what happens when most people can't independently read the information they're being given?

Did Someone Add Years to History?

One theory discussed in the episode proposes that historical authorities manipulated the calendar and effectively inserted centuries into the historical timeline.

The guys explore proposed motives involving political power, religious authority and attempts to reshape people's understanding of history.

This is where Fringe Files needs the usual distinction:

The Phantom Time hypothesis is a fringe historical theory, not an accepted conclusion among mainstream historians.

But that doesn't stop the Wolves from asking the question.

Because even if the most extreme version isn't true, it opens another interesting conversation:

How much of history depends on trusting the people who recorded it?

Who Controls the Information?

The rabbit hole eventually becomes less about missing years and more about access to knowledge.

For long stretches of history, literacy wasn't universal.

Books were difficult and expensive to reproduce.

Information traveled slowly.

Religious and political institutions often had far more access to written records than ordinary people.

So the guys ask:

If only a relatively small number of people can preserve, interpret and distribute information...

How much power does that give them over the story?

And what happens when competing ideas disappear?

Faith vs. Control

This becomes one of the more interesting connections between Fringe Files and The Check In.

The guys aren't questioning Jesus.

They're questioning what happens when human institutions become gatekeepers between people and their faith.

There's a difference between:

Having a relationship with God

and

Being told by another person exactly what you're allowed to believe.

That distinction matters to the entire Wolves & Wisemen approach.

Read Scripture.

Ask questions.

Talk about it.

Disagree sometimes.

Learn.

Pray.

And keep growing.

Faith doesn't require turning your brain off.

Could We Create Another Dark Age?

Eventually the conversation turns toward the present.

Most of human knowledge today isn't carved into stone.

It isn't even printed.

It's digital.

Photos.

Books.

News.

Research.

Personal communication.

History itself.

So the guys ask another Fringe Files question:

What happens if the digital record disappears?

If future generations lost access to our servers, websites, cloud storage and digital archives, how complete would their understanding of us actually be?

That takes a conspiracy about the past and turns it into a question about the future.

Maybe the important lesson isn't whether somebody erased hundreds of years.

Maybe it's recognizing how fragile knowledge can be.

From the Dark Ages Back to the Gospel

Then the conversation unexpectedly circles back to faith.

The guys talk about how Christianity originally spread.

It wasn't social media.

It wasn't giant production studios.

It wasn't celebrity influencers.

It was people talking to people.

One household.

One community.

One conversation at a time.

And maybe that still works.

You don't have to stand on a street corner screaming at strangers.

Sometimes somebody notices a Bible verse on your shirt.

They ask what it means.

And you've got thirty seconds to tell them why it matters to you.

That's enough to start something.

As one comment during the show summed it up:

Share the relationship. Don't push the religion.

The Bigger Conversation

Episode 16 starts with rebellion.

And in classic Wolves & Wisemen fashion, it ends up somewhere much bigger.

Who do you trust?

Who guides your life?

What happens when you're angry with God?

What happens when people use religion for control?

How do you separate imperfect human institutions from Christ Himself?

And how do you share your faith without becoming the person trying to force it onto everybody around you?

The guys aren't interested in pretending they've solved every one of those questions.

That's never been the point.

They're reading.

Talking.

Questioning.

Learning.

And trying to strengthen their own relationships with God along the way.

Maybe rebellion isn't always bad.

Rebel against the things pulling you away from who you're supposed to become.

Question what deserves to be questioned.

Think for yourself.

But don't confuse the failures of people with the failure of God.

And if you've spent some time walking in the wrong direction?

Turn around.

The road is still there.

Watch & Listen

Watch the full episode and join the conversation.

Follow Wolves & Wisemen Reignited

Wolves & Wisemen Reignited is three imperfect guys strengthening their faith while talking honestly about life, brotherhood, Scripture, current events, history, the unexplained and whatever rabbit hole they fall into next.

We don't pretend to have every answer.

We read.

We question.

We talk about it.

And we're learning as we go.

New episodes every Tuesday night.

Like. Follow. Subscribe. Join the chat.

And remember:

You can question the world without turning your back on God.