Jesus did not arrive safely, comfortably, or legally secure. He fled by night, crossed borders, and lived in fear of returning home—because a politician wanted him dead. The Gospel doesn’t leave us room to sanitize this reality. If how we treat refugees is how we treat Jesus, then the question isn’t whether Christ was a…
The story of Satan’s fall is told in several ways, but the general narrative remains the same. In Ezekiel 28, he’s described as a wise and beautiful cherub who lived in Eden. But once his pride went to his head, he sinned and was cast to the ground. Isaiah 14 explains this pride further, telling…
You may have been told that women have one less rib than men, but this is not true, as both men and women have 24 ribs. You may have also been told that God made Eve from Adam’s rib, but this is not correct either, as God made Eve out of Adam’s ṣēlāʿ, a Hebrew…
Many Christians are insistent that God created the world exactly as described in Genesis 1 and that if you question this, you’re not saved. But this argument is inconsistent, for no one actually holds to the creation story as it’s written—everyone adds some level of science to its account. Ancient people had a mythological understanding…
Glory is a difficult word to explain, even for theologians. In a literal sense, it can be something like weight or heaviness. Perhaps this is why priests couldn’t stand up in Solomon’s Temple when God’s glory entered it or why a common manifestation of the Holy Spirit is for people to suddenly drop to the…
The great melting pot is not America, but the coming New Creation where Heaven and Earth merge with one another. America may celebrate its cultural diversity, but it does so with the unspoken expectation that if you’re going to live here, you must blend in. Don’t do anything unfamiliar to the white majority or we…
In starting his career, God told Joshua that he needed to meditate on the Book of the Law day and night and do everything written in it without straying to the left or right. This will be an important task for this new political leader of Israel if he is to create a just and…
Since Heaven is “up there” and Earth is “down here,” the Bible writers viewed mountains as places where Heaven and Earth intersected. Because of this, it made logical sense to ancient people that you might encounter a heavenly being on a mountain and have a “mountaintop experience.” Such things happen all throughout the Bible: Eden…
In Biblical mythology, some of the angels of heaven crossed the boundaries between heaven and earth and procreated with human women. These women gave birth to children who would grow into the giants found throughout the Old Testament in the clans of the Nephilim, the Anakim, the Emim, the Rephaim, and the Zamzummim. Their quasi-divine…
Following God is a slow and steady work, for he is a person with a will who offers his words, signs, and impressions as he sees fit. As we get used to the way he sounds, we build habits and traditions in an attempt to keep hearing him. Abraham, for example, was used to encountering…
I’m at that age where new music doesn’t impress me like it used to, but still check every Friday to see what’s come out and give it a listen. That being said, here’s a few albums that stood out to me this year. pure – Abbie Gamboa Abbie Gamboa’s album, pure, is easily one of…
Jamin Bradley 