I spent time nearly every day last week walking the shoreline. There’s something mesmerizing about it all. The vastness summons you to attention. The waves are fierce and rhythmic, drawing you away from distraction and into wonder and contemplation. What’s beyond our own horizon? What lies behind the veil of our finitude? Without knowing it,…
I recently launched a new podcast called The Bible (Unmuted). You can find it on Apple, Google, Spotify, and pretty much wherever you listen to podcasts. The past few episodes have been on Revelation, specifically about the mistakes we make while reading Revelation. The first two episodes are followed by a fun conversation I had…
I recently did an interview with Preston Sprinkle about UFOs, aliens, and paranormal experiences that people sometimes report. Preston is a great guy, and I had a lot of fun chatting with him about this topic.
Here’s something you might not have considered before: You will never be able to read the Bible objectively. There will always be some level of bias in play. To read the Bible is to interpret the Bible, after all. That’s why it’s wise to be mindful of the assumptions you bring to the text. The…
In this article, Bono recounts a conversation he once had with Franklin Graham. It’s kind of funny and reminds me of a couple things: (1) some sectors of evangelicalism don’t quite understand the evangel (the gospel) or how to share it; (2) thank God for the renegade poets who do. Graham: “You … you really…
You’re not truly reading Scripture until you allow Scripture to read you. Do you allow the Bible to question your beliefs or do you read it in such a way that it always agrees with you? Do you simply treat the Bible as your personal answer book—a cache of weaponry you can deploy to support…
I recently published an article at Logos about interpreting the plague passages in Revelation. There are a lot of misunderstandings about these texts, and I thought it would be helpful to write up something that would shed some light on how to interpret them. Some people point to modern health crises (such as Covid, monkeypox,…
I’m excited to announce that my book, Paul and the Meaning of Scripture, has just been released. Here’s the link to the Amazon page. This has been a labor of love, and I’m happy to see it published. It’s a project that, in many ways, began over ten years ago during my my master’s research.…
I’m once again opening up David DeSilva‘s excellent introduction to the Apocrypha as I gear up for my Jewish and Greco-Roman Backgrounds of the New Testament class at Eternity Bible College. Here’s a link to deSilva’s book, Introducing the Apocrypha. My hope is that we modern Christians (especially us Protestants) would become more like the…
Here’s what you don’t say when counseling someone who’s come face to face with evil and trauma: “God is in control” or “This was God’s will” or “God did this so you will learn something” or “We shouldn’t ask why ‘bad things happen to good people’ because there are no ‘good people’; we are all sinful,…