The arrival of Jesus signaled the beginning of a new era. God entered history in a personal way, and made it unmistakably clear that he is on our side, doing everything possible to save us. It was all presented and worked out in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. It was, and is, hard […]
Simple, clean, and uncluttered, these Message-inspired images will encourage and strengthen you throughout your day. In God’s Word, you find the strength and courage needed to live the Christian life. Each of us faces our own personal struggles and needs daily encouragement. We’ve chosen a few Bible verses for you to hold in the palm […]
We know that when Jesus was raised from the dead it was a signal of the end of death-as-the-end. Never again will death have the last word. —Romans 6:6-11, The Message “I’ve always liked Billy Sunday’s formula for the ideal Christian life,” Eugene Peterson wrote in the opening lines of his book Living the Resurrection. […]
Exile is traumatic and terrifying. Our sense of who we are is very much determined by the place we’re in and the people we’re with. When those things change violently and abruptly, we wonder who we are. The accustomed ways we have of finding our worth and sensing our significance vanish. When the first wave […]
The Christian gospel is expansive by nature—it spreads out. It’s what you would expect: The God who created a vast universe acts in such a way that his redemptive help will reach into every nook and cranny of creation. A God who can create with such endless variety and intricacy is going to redeem in […]
Certainly one verse in The Message that has proven especially resonant comes at the outset of the Gospel of John: “The Word became flesh and blood, and moved into the neighborhood” (John 1:14). John’s declaration here is resonant because it is so unflinchingly incarnational. What is the main storyline of the Bible? Incarnation—Jesus. The biggest […]
In order to read the Scriptures adequately and accurately, it’s necessary at the same time to live them. Not to live them as a prerequisite to reading them, and not live them as a consequence of reading them, but to live them as we read them. Reading the Scriptures isn’t an activity discrete from living […]
For Isaiah, words are watercolors and melodies and chisels to make truth and beauty and goodness. Or, as the case may be, hammers and swords and scalpels to unmake sin and guilt and rebellion. Isaiah does not merely convey information. He creates visions, delivers revelations, arouses belief. He is a poet in the most fundamental […]
Prophets use words to remake the world. The world—heaven and earth, men and women, animals and birds—was made in the first place by God’s Words. Prophets, arriving on the scene and finding that world in ruins, finding a world of moral rubble and spiritual disorder, take up the work of words again to rebuild what […]
Once Again The U.S. is once again grieving, angry, defensive, and divided over gun violence that left 14 students and 3 staff dead at a school north of Miami, Florida, on Wednesday, February 14. The 19-year-old former student entered Stoneman Douglas High School Wednesday afternoon, pulled a fire alarm, and when students began evacuating, started […]