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The Married Prophet
I doubt anyone can read Ezekiel 24:15-27 without raising an eyebrow. God gave the prophets a lot of hard analogies to live out: walk around naked for three years (Isaiah 20:3); cook and eat bread prepared by cow poop (Ezekiel 4:12-15); marry a prostitute to show how God is faithful to those who aren’t faithful to…
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Black Friday Deal: A Taste of Jesus Book
The Kindle edition of my new book is 70% off today for Black Friday! Many of the posts here on my blog have been excerpts from the book, so if you’ve enjoyed them, this should be up your alley. You can also catch an excerpt of it on Relevant Magazine. Grab it for $2.99 this…
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Why Did God Make More than We Can See?
I recall in my younger days preaching something along the lines of, “Everything in the universe was made just for you. There’s stars billions of miles away just so you’ll have light at night and something beautiful to look up at.” But my spiritual logic there is undone by the expansiveness of the universe. You…
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Walking Boldly to the Cross
We often talk about God wanting to bless us, which causes us to rarely talk about how Jesus called us into persecution with him. But then again, maybe blessing and persecution are the same thing, seeing as how Jesus said, “Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of…
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Joyfully Persecuted
If you want to find joy’s miracle growth then you must take on persecution. Yes, it sounds strange and even backwards, but often that’s the way that the Kingdom of Heaven works. I’ve seen this odd contradiction at play here in Jackson. I don’t know how, but some of the nicest Christians I’ve met here…
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John Wesley Raises the Dead for Christmas
Five days before Christmas in 1742, John Wesley received word that a man by the name of Mr. Meyrick was expected to die before the next morning. Seeing as how the doctor had done all he could do, Wesley stepped in to see him that evening after having wrapped up some preaching—but it was too…
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Theologians: We Want to Understand You
I was left pretty confused as I wrapped up a theological book this morning. It’s almost entirely my fault since I sped way too fast through it without listening very well or giving much space to pause and think. But even when I did stop, I found that I had a very hard time understanding…
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Does God Care About Humor?
One day during my teenage years I visited the theological section of my favorite message board where someone had started a thread entitled, Does God Care About Humor? Having wondered the question myself, I was excited to read people’s thoughts. I opened the thread to find the first reply of something along the lines of:…
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From Riches to Rags
I preached a message no one wanted to hear this past Sunday. Jesus’ words on selling everything we own and giving the proceeds to the poor are hard to take in. But it’s supposed to be hard to hear—that’s the point. And therefore, I suggested that rather than try to water down Jesus’ words, we should…
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Imagers of God
People give all kinds of explanations as to what it means to be made “in the image of God”—often saying the Image is our intelligence. But that’s not what the original language of the Bible is trying to say to us. Being made in the image of God is not just an adjective, in fact,…
Jamin Bradley 