Kidnapped, enslaved, and forgotten—until God spoke in a dream. The story of Patrick isn’t just history; it’s an invitation. What happens when we say yes to God, even when it leads us back to the places we’d rather avoid?
When speakers from out of town visit our churches, they occasionally do some “spiritual mapping research” ahead of time so they can tell us a little bit about ourselves. I’ve seen this done twice at churches in Jackson and both times our state prison was referenced. Now on one hand I kind of want to…
Resurrection began on Easter as Jesus became the firstborn of the dead. But the Bible’s wider portrait of resurrection shows us not only that we’re the secondborn, but that resurrection has already begun in us now.
The people of Jesus’ time thought he’d be back real soon—and to be fair, Jesus also expected as much. He said he’d be back within a generation, so it’s not that surprising that when the church of his generation started to die, they began to ask, “Where is he?” Peter responded to this confusion by…
I struggled to understand the significance of resurrection for most of my life since the churches I grew up in seemed to say that everything of significance was found in the cross. Sure, resurrection was cool too, but it seemed like a divine CPR of sorts. It was just a thing that happened after the…
A few years back I released a piece of fiction called, The Rise of the Water Kingdom. Some scholars have pointed out that the Bible pictures Jesus being a second Enoch. That is to say, that just as Enoch (in the popular Jewish writing, the Book of Enoch) proclaimed judgment over the angels that created…
Holy Saturday used to be one of the saddest days of Holy Week for me. After all, from an earthly perspective there wasn’t a lot going on. Jesus was dead and his mutilated corpse was taken off the electric chair and put in the graveyard. Peter denied Jesus and returned to being a fisherman, but…
“The worst thing about the massacre was killing my neighbor; we used to drink together.” said a Hutu mother as she reflected on killing the Tutsi children next door in the Rwandan genocide. “His cattle would graze on my land. He was like a relative.” But one day someone from the government told her that…
The Last Supper is what Christians today call “communion,” and what the Jews referred to as “Passover”—and it’s this meal that we reflect on this Maundy Thursday. Like all holidays, Passover, had many traditions built into it as this holiday celebrated the Hebrews being liberated from Egyptian tyranny. Around Jesus’ time, the Passover supper had…
When many people think about Revelation and the apocalypse, they think of the rapture. But strangely enough, there’s nothing (at least explicit) about a rapture in the book of Revelation. Since we’re currently doing a series on Revelation and we will not naturally get into this conversation based on what we read in Revelation, we’ve…
In this episode of Jamin AI, we explore one of the Bible’s most haunting stories—Judas’ betrayal of Jesus. From embezzlement to blood money, we dive deep into how Judas’ unrepentant sin led to his demonization and ultimate betrayal. What can we learn from Jesus’ response, where betrayal and grace meet in an unforgettable kiss? In…
Jamin Bradley 