Speculation is mounting that comedian and podcaster Theo Von is on the path to becoming a true Christian. Recent clips of him getting emotional about Jesus, attending Bible study with country music star Morgan Wallen, and asking God for a “new story” have gone viral, sparking Christian commentary and reactions about his faith journey. Von has even described himself as searching for the Lord and spiritual healing.

But is he really on the path to salvation in Christ?

BlazeTV host Rick Burgess asked this question and evaluated the evidence on a recent episode of “The Rick Burgess Show.”

“We know a pretty good friend of Theo Von … I reached out to that brother yesterday,” says Rick, noting that this person is “a man of God.”

He inquired about Von’s faith journey, and the message he received back was surprising: “I think sometimes people like Theo Von … has more trust in what Jesus can do than many people who already profess their faith in Him.”

Rick is encouraged by this message.

“Theo Von seems to know that Jesus Christ is going to transform his life,” he says.

The costliness of this transformation, Rick notes, is one of the more painful parts of the Christian walk.

“When Jesus says count the cost, usually what we think of are the martyrs. Nothing wrong with that. Or we think of I might lose my job, I might lose friends … I might have family members who abandon me. That’s all true,” he says, “but what Jesus is talking about that I think sometimes the most difficult for us is it’s going to cost us our sin. He is going to call us to a new life.”

To Rick, it seems like Von is “being honest” about this reality of the Christian faith.

“Theo Von seems to be fully aware of what is at stake here, and he’s being honest. He’s not sure that he wants it,” he speculates.

Rick then plays a recent clip of Von that he says captures this authentic wrestle he believes Von is currently caught up in.

In the video, an emotional Von recaps the story of Jesus healing a chronically ill man in Bethesda.

“Jesus asks him, ‘Do you want to be healed?’ … and that’s a crazy question because, you know, if I get healed then I’m different. You know, if somebody gets healed, they have a new story,” he said.

“So that’s just been something that I’ve been having to ask myself. It’s like, yeah, do I want to be healed? Do I really want something different? And sometimes, a lot of the answer is no, I don’t,” he continued, fighting tears.

“I don’t know if I’m scared of it. I don’t know what I am. I don’t know if I don’t want to do what it takes to get, I can’t even tell what it is. And it’s hard for me. Some of this stuff’s a little bit hard for me to say. I think I don’t even know why, but I think I want a new story.”

Rick is blown away by Von’s willingness to be so authentically vulnerable about his wrestle.

“That’s honest right there, folks,” he says, emphasizing that Von’s use of the word “hard” reflects a genuine understanding of Jesus’ warning in Matthew 7 about the two paths — an easy one that leads to death and an incredibly difficult one that leads to life.

It is clear to Rick that Von is aware choosing the path of life will prove costly to him.

He hopes, however, that someone who knows the Lord is teaching Von that if he chooses life, he won’t be walking the costly path alone.

“Theo knows something’s going to change, but I hope he understands that Jesus will do the changing,” he says, citing John 15:4: “Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me.”

While he doesn’t know what decision Von will ultimately make, one thing is clear to Rick: “The Holy Spirit is working on Theo.”

To hear more and see the clip of Von vulnerably admitting his wrestle with the gospel, watch the episode above.

Want more from Rick Burgess?

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​Blaze media, Blazetv, Christ, Christian, Comedian, Faith journey, Matthew 7, New life, Podcaster, Rick burgess, The rick burgess show, Theo von 

Spend enough time around atheists, and you’ll hear a familiar refrain: the Bible as a bundle of fairy tales about a “sky god,” stitched together long after the fact and taken seriously only out of habit.

That tone has filtered down into the culture more broadly, where it is not always argued so much as assumed. The biblical world is treated as distant and half-imagined — useful for moral lessons, perhaps, but not something you would expect to intersect with recoverable history.

In 2004, work in Jerusalem uncovered a stepped pool that matched the description of the Pool of Siloam — where Jesus sends a blind man to wash.

Archaeology doesn’t answer the larger questions of faith. It doesn’t attempt to. But it does something more modest and, in its own way, more disruptive: It keeps turning up evidence that biblical events actually happened.

RELATED: 5 reasons this ‘Noah’s ark’ discovery is harder to dismiss than skeptics admit

Heritage Images/Getty Images

1. The Tel Dan Stele

It was once common to hear that King David belonged more to tradition than to history — a useful founding figure whose existence could not be confirmed.

That position became harder to hold after fragments of a ninth-century B.C. inscription were found at Tel Dan. Written by a neighboring kingdom, it refers to the “House of David,” using the standard language of dynasties.

It doesn’t tell us everything about David. It does show that, within a couple of generations, surrounding nations recognized a ruling line traced back to him. That’s not how ancient peoples spoke about fictional ancestors.

2. The Pontius Pilate Inscription

The Gospels place Jesus within a very specific Roman context, under a prefect named Pontius Pilate. Historians had references to Pilate in written sources, but for years nothing material.

A stone inscription found in Caesarea in 1961 supplied that missing piece, naming Pilate and identifying his office.

It is the sort of detail that rarely makes headlines. But it reinforces something the Gospels assume throughout: They are describing events within a functioning Roman administration, not an abstract or symbolic setting.

3. The Dead Sea Scrolls

Before the mid-20th century, the gap between the oldest surviving Hebrew manuscripts and the time of their composition left room for speculation. Some assumed the text had shifted substantially over the centuries.

The 1947 discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls changed the terms of that discussion. Dating back more than a thousand years earlier than previously known manuscripts, they preserve large portions of the Old Testament.

What stands out is not perfect uniformity, but consistency. Variants exist, as they do in any manuscript tradition. Yet the overall stability of the text across such a long span is difficult to ignore.

For anyone concerned about how Scripture was transmitted, this matters more than any abstract argument.

4. The Pool of Siloam

The Gospel of John has often been treated as more theological in tone, with less confidence placed in its geographical detail.

Then, in 2004, work in Jerusalem uncovered a stepped pool that matched the description of the Pool of Siloam — where Jesus sends a blind man to wash.

What began as a partial discovery has gradually expanded. Last year, ongoing excavations revealed more of the pool’s full extent — confirming that it was not a small ritual basin, but a prominent landmark used by pilgrims making their way up to the Temple.

The discovery wasn’t driven by an attempt to confirm the Gospel. It emerged from routine excavation and has been clarified piece by piece since. Its alignment with John’s account has led even cautious scholars to acknowledge the text’s familiarity with pre-A.D. 70 Jerusalem.

5. Hezekiah’s Tunnel

Biblical accounts of kings often face skepticism, especially when they describe large-scale projects under pressure.

In 2 Kings and 2 Chronicles, King Hezekiah prepares Jerusalem for an Assyrian invasion by securing the city’s water supply — redirecting the Gihon Spring so that it can’t be used by enemy forces outside the walls. It’s described briefly in Scripture, almost in passing, but the implication is significant: a major engineering effort carried out under the pressure of an approaching army.

In Jerusalem, the tunnel itself has long been known and even traversed — an ancient water channel cutting through bedrock. What wasn’t clear for centuries was whether this was the tunnel described in Scripture or simply one of several.

Significant doubt was removed in 1880, when two boys exploring the passage discovered an inscription a few meters from the southern exit. Carved into the wall, it describes workers digging from opposite ends and hearing each other’s voices as they broke through. Jerusalem was part of Ottoman-ruled Palestine at the time, and the inscription was taken to Turkey, where it remains today.

The tone is practical, even understated. It reads like the kind of record people leave when they have completed something difficult — not the kind they invent later.

6. The Cyrus Cylinder

The Book of Ezra depicts Persia’s Cyrus the Great permitting the exiled Jews of Judah — the southern kingdom centered on Jerusalem — to return and rebuild their temple.

Some skeptics have regarded this account as suspiciously convenient — exaggerated to fit a theological narrative presenting Cyrus as a kind of divinely appointed liberator for Judah.

A clay cylinder discovered in Babylon in 1879 complicates this view. It describes Cyrus restoring displaced peoples and supporting their religious practices across the empire — not as a one-off gesture, but as a governing approach.

It doesn’t mention Judah directly, but it does place the return from exile within a broader, historically plausible imperial pattern.

7. The Ketef Hinnom Scrolls

Debates over when parts of the Old Testament were composed often turn on how early we can place recognizable text.

Two small silver scrolls found in a burial site near Jerusalem in 1979 contain a version of the priestly blessing from Numbers: “The Lord bless you and keep you …”

They date to the seventh century B.C., before the Babylonian exile.

Delicate and tightly rolled, they show that passages still read in churches today were already in use centuries earlier than some theories allowed.

None of this proves the claims that matter most to Christians. It doesn’t attempt to weigh miracles or settle theology.

It does, however, narrow the distance between the biblical text and the world it describes. Enough, at least, to make the old habit of dismissing it as a collection of late-arriving myths seem a little less secure than it once did.

​Apologetics, Christianity, Cyrus cylinder, Hezekiahs tunnel, Ketef hinnom scrolls, Pontius pilate inscription, Pool of siloam, Tel dan stele, Faith 

Two Florida 18-year-old males were arrested after taking part in what Ocala Police called a “social media stunt” last weekend.

And what did our heroes do, exactly?

‘You know what they say: They don’t arrest the smart ones. Somebody needs to take a lawnmower and a leaf blower to those haircuts though, good Lord.’

Well, police said Janek Szkaradek drove a lawnmower through a Target store on SW College Road on Saturday while Luke Charske recorded the hijinks on video.

Szkaradek’s questionable driving skills resulted in a damaged door at the store.

If that weren’t enough, Szkaradek the previous night used a leaf blower inside a Culver’s restaurant on SW College Road, police said.

Law enforcement officials weren’t amused.

“These actions endangered people and caused property damage,” police said. “They are crimes, not harmless videos. Think before you record — it’s not worth an arrest and a criminal charge.”

Police said Szkaradek was charged with criminal mischief and disorderly conduct for the incident at Culver’s and disorderly conduct for the incident at Target. Police said Charske was charged as a principal to disorderly conduct for the incident at Target.

RELATED: Video: Florida motorist decides to drive in reverse for a while — and then comes face-to-face with deputies

Many commenters under the Ocala Police Department’s Facebook entry about the lads’ bad behavior were at once merciless and hilarious:

“You know what they say: They don’t arrest the smart ones,” one commenter wrote. “Somebody needs to take a lawnmower and a leaf blower to those haircuts though, good Lord.””Beavis & Butthead 2026 Edition,” another user reacted.”I’m surprised natural selection didn’t take them with the mower,” another user observed. “They ought to make them take the mower and blower and do everyone’s yard work!” another commenter declared.”Congrats boys — now you have something to put on your resume,” another user quipped.”I want to know the brand name of the leaf blower. Left out that important detail,” another commenter noted. “Mine hardly moves the leaves off my patio … inquiring minds want to know.”

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​Dumb teens, Ocala, Florida, Lawn mower, Target, Arrests, Charges, Stunt, Crime 

On a recent episode of “Relatable,” Allie Beth Stuckey sat down with Latter-day Saints podcaster Jacob Hansen to dive into all things Mormonism vs. Christianity. Allie asked all the toughest questions that illuminated both the crossovers and the differentiations between her evangelical Christian faith and the faith of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

In one of the spiciest segments of this 90-minute debate, Allie and Hansen tackled the crucial theological question: Are God, humans, angels, and even Satan all the same “type” of being?

In Allie’s perspective, this question isn’t about semantics. Our answer determines how we view God, Jesus, our great enemy, and what it means to be made in God’s image — all things that have eternal implications.

“There seems to be a little bit of a different origin story, though, that both Jesus and Satan were created in eternity past … that Satan and Jesus were brothers, [and] that we also — all of humankind — are brothers and sisters of Satan and Jesus. Is that correct?” Allie asks.

“I would say that Jesus and Satan are brother and sister in the same way that you and Nancy Pelosi are sisters,” Hansen jests.

“In Job 1, it says that the sons of God approached God and Satan was among them, right? So, okay, Satan is one of the sons of God, and Jesus is called the Son of God. So isn’t there some sense in which there’s some relationship there?” he continues.

But Allie interprets Scripture differently.

“How do you square that with the origin story that we read in Scripture that Satan was a fallen angel? … Jesus even says that he saw Satan fall like lightning from the sky, that he led his own army of rebellious angels who were demons in hell. And we don’t read that he was this being that was a brother to Jesus,” she counters.

“[Christians] would view angels as a totally different species from human beings, as some totally different creature. We don’t hold to that sort of view. We believe that angels are also the same species as human beings,” Hansen says.

“Scripture says that angels long to see what we see, that they long to know what we know. And so there does seem to be a distinction there,” Allie disputes.

Hansen concedes that there is certainly a difference between humans and angels, but that doesn’t necessarily mean they are different beings entirely. “Perhaps they’re pre-embodied beings or they’re post-embodied beings that are no longer embodied,” he says, “but we don’t make this distinction that there’s all these different sort of species of creatures that are out there. … We are all children of God.”

And that includes Jesus in the Mormon faith. Hansen points to Christ’s words in John 20, when he tells his disciples, “I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God,” as evidence that Jesus is a created being just like humans.

Similarly, there’s nothing in Scripture, he argues, to suggest that angels “are of a different genus” than humans, making Satan (a fallen angel) a brother, in essence, to both human beings and Jesus.

“You’re kind of almost equating humans to God or that we can ascend to god-like status, and is that a belief that the LDS church has?” Allie follows up.

To hear Hansen’s answer, watch the episode above.

Want more from Allie Beth Stuckey?

To enjoy more of Allie’s upbeat and in-depth coverage of culture, news, and theology from a Christian, conservative perspective, subscribe to BlazeTV — the largest multi-platform network of voices who love America, defend the Constitution, and live the American dream.

​Ascend to godlike status, Christianity vs. mormonism, Church of jesus christ, Evangelical christian faith, Fallen angel, God humans angels, Jacob hansen, Latter-day saints, Lds church, Origin story, Relatable, Relatable with allie beth stuckey, Sons of god, Mormon theology, Blazetv, Blaze media 

The Android operating system is all about customization and user choice, but if you own a Samsung Galaxy phone, you’re getting ready to have one less option for texting your friends and family. Samsung recently announced that the official Samsung Messages app is shutting down this summer, and you will need to migrate to an alternative by the deadline.

Phasing out Samsung Messages

Although Google offers its core apps (colloquially known as GApps) on most Android devices for free, Samsung also has its own versions that come preloaded on its Galaxy phone lineup. One of those apps is Samsung Messages.

Samsung didn’t explicitly reveal why it is closing down its messaging app.

Billed as a simple text messaging app, Samsung Messages has long been the place where Galaxy owners send SMS and MMS to friends, family, co-workers, and anyone else with a phone number. That all changed in 2021 with the launch of the Galaxy S21 series. Those were the first phones in Samsung’s lineup to trade Samsung Messages for Google Messages, leading to all subsequent models launching with Google as the default texting option.

This year, Samsung is finally closing the loop, as it plans to shut down Samsung Messages entirely in favor of Google Messages, with a vague end-of-service deadline set for July 2026.

The end of Samsung Messages is a net benefit for users

Although it might be a pain for some users who have still hung on to the aging messages app, the shutdown and migration to Google Messages are actually a good thing. As we covered earlier this year, Google Messages is one of the only text messaging apps on Android that supports Rich Communication Services, the new texting gold standard that replaced SMS and MMS.

In case you need a quick refresher: RCS is better than antiquated texting tech because it offers end-to-end encryption for increased security between Android users (with iPhone encryption coming soon), cross-platform read receipts, improved group messaging features, and support for higher-res media files.

RELATED: RED FLAG: FBI says these apps let China suck up your personal data

Dragos Condrea/Getty Images

All in all, RCS is simply better, and since Samsung Messages doesn’t support it, Google’s version seems like a no-brainer.

How to set Google Messages as your default messaging app

Whether you still use Samsung Messages as your daily texting app or you’re not sure which app is set as your default, here’s how to check your settings to ensure that Google Messages is set up correctly:

Make sure Google Messages is downloaded and installed on your device. You can grab the app from the Google Play Store if you need it.Open the Settings app on your Samsung Galaxy device.Scroll down and tap “Apps” near the bottom of the page.Select “Choose default apps” at the top.Tap “SMS app.”Make sure the Google Messages app — the one with a blue messages icon and a white background — is selected.

Screenshots by Zach Laidlaw/Galaxy Z Fold7 on Android 16

Some caveats to consider

Before you do anything else, there are a few caveats to the shutdown that you should know:

Users on older Galaxy devices running Android 11 or lower will not be impacted by the switch. You can continue to use the same text messaging app unabated.Users on Android 12 or 13 may need to manually change the Messages app on their dock from Samsung Messages to Google Messages once the switch is complete. Everyone else will see Google Messages in their dock automatically once the switch is made.Samsung Messages will still be accessible and functional for emergency use for all users, even after the shutdown window has closed.

The reason Samsung Messages is shutting down

Samsung didn’t explicitly reveal why it is closing down its first-party text messaging app after all these years. However, there are a couple of possible reasons for the switch.

First is RCS support. Google doesn’t necessarily own the technology behind this new messaging standard, but it has championed the solution since bringing it to Android in 2019. More importantly, Google’s acquisition of Jibe Mobile in 2015 — an RCS company — gave it the foundation to sidestep carriers that drag their feet on enabling RCS support, in the same way that Apple subverted carriers with its own iMessage service on iOS. Through Google Messages, Google can control RCS features and adoption throughout the entire Android ecosystem and ensure a consistent experience across devices.

Second, Samsung and Google have grown closer in their partnership over the years, working together on huge projects like the Wear OS reboot in 2021, as well as the Samsung Galaxy XR headset that launched late last year. The switch to Google Messages is just another example of the companies collaborating to centralize and strengthen the Android ecosystem amid the growing threat that is Apple.

​Tech