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 […]
