In this episode of Reclaiming Truth, Larry Montgomery and Mike Wilson take up Jesus' call in Luke 14 to count the cost before following him. The lesson unfolds in three questions: do you believe you have a soul, have you counted the cost of being a Christian, and do you have the conviction to be faithful to the end? Beginning with Genesis 2, Ecclesiastes 12, and Matthew 16, the hosts establish that every person has an eternal soul worth more than the whole world, then turn to the builder who could not finish his tower and the king who went to war unprepared. Walking line by line through the 1923 hymn Have You Counted the Cost?, the discussion considers Esau, who traded his birthright for a single meal, and the honest truth that sin is pleasurable for a season while heaven lasts forever. Drawing from Hebrews 12, 1 John 2, Matthew 25, and Mark 16, the episode challenges listeners to obey the gospel for the right reasons, not for a spouse or a family, and to carry the conviction that finishes the course.

In this episode of Reclaiming Truth, Mike Wilson opens a journal he wrote twenty years ago, just after finishing Bible college and beginning his walk on the narrow path while carrying the weight of forty years lived in the world. With honesty, Mike reads the questions he once wrestled with alone: why prayer seemed to go unanswered, why a loving God allowed Job's suffering, how grace and obedience fit together, and whether a lonely Christian could ever know real love again. Larry Montgomery then answers from Isaiah 55, reminding listeners that God's ways are higher than ours, that Paul's thorn was met with sufficient grace rather than removal, and that the better question in a trial is not why this is happening but what God wants us to learn from it.

In this episode of Reclaiming Truth, Larry Montgomery and Mike Wilson study the life and death of Stephen, the first Christian martyr. Beginning in Acts 6, the discussion looks at how a dispute over the daily care of Grecian widows led the apostles to appoint seven men of honest report, full of the Spirit and wisdom, and how Stephen's faithfulness in that service made him a target for those who could not answer his wisdom. The hosts follow Stephen through the false charges, the face that shone like an angel, and the sermon of Acts 7 that walked his accusers through their own history straight to Christ, ending with a vision of Jesus standing at the right hand of God and a prayer for the very men who stoned him. Drawing also from Acts 8, Galatians 4, 1 Peter 3, and Revelation 2, the episode asks whether Christians today have grown weak because they face little persecution, or face little persecution because they have grown complacent, and calls listeners to stand for the truth, serve gladly, and forgive as Stephen did.