Essays on Scripture & the life of faith
May 30, 2026
When John sets out to tell us who Jesus is, he doesn't reach for big words. He reaches for water and blood — the two most common things there are. By the end of a few verses he quietly undoes how most of us think, saying truth isn't mainly something you have. It's someone you meet.
Read the reflection→May 25, 2026
"By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down and wept." One of the most beautiful opening lines in the Hebrew Scriptures — and by the end of the same psalm, a prayer most of us have no idea what to do with. A meditation on staying with a book that will not behave, and the God who preserved its hardest words.
Read the reflection→December 2, 2018
The Day of Atonement pictures not only the forgiveness of sin but the removal of its primary cause. Until God removes the original instigator, mankind continues to fall back into disobedience and suffering — a look at how Scripture portrays the adversary who deceives the whole world.
Read the reflection→November 18, 2018
Worship seems to be universal — no explorer ever found a culture that doesn't worship. If we all worship something, the question is what is worthy of our devotion. A reflection on worship as both a natural instinct and a command from God.
Read the reflection→November 4, 2018
Why was God involved in judging Sodom and Gomorrah, the Canaanites, Israel? Consider the opposite: what the world would look like without divine intervention to uphold justice among the nations. An examination of why a God of love cannot remain indifferent to evil.
Read the reflection→