Category: Blog Post

Revisiting my writing on ἀληθευοντες δε ἐν αγαπη The average Christian I encounter using the phrase “truth in love” tends to refer to the idea that is more or less summarized as the following: “a verbal expression of empirical/metaphysical facts with the purpose of expressing some sort of ultimate kindness or conceptual care.” This interpretation…

How the Call to Improve Theology from the Pulpits May Sweep Over the Larger Problems If you’ve read anything I have released on Substack as of late, you know that holistic spiritual formation is passion of mine. The more I consider how churches are organized and structured and how discipleship programs are designed, I continue…

Growing up, I commonly heard the sentiment that Christians shouldn’t give money to the person on the street corner or at the intersection. Why? They’d probably spend it all on drugs or alcohol or waste it. And what good would that do for them? No, what was ultimately better was to ignore the immediate, tangible…

Last week I sat in staff meeting at my church and heard a story of someone in our community who made a striking comment: “I don’t think Christians love their neighbor very well.” This comment was made in the context of observing what’s going on in our national and local politics, and with Christian rhetoric…

There are so many days where “information runs like excess rain.” Between seminary, student ministry, personal reflections, and a new season of marriage, one idea doesn’t always quickly emerge among the dozens of topics I come across. But what I reflect on below has been forming for a while. There’s a lot of reasons why…

(This blog is structured a little more like a devotional of Galatians/Romans so I encourage you to reflect on the Scripture passages while reading this). What should I do?  In some way or another, this the question we’re all asking as we go about our lives. Whether you are faced with a difficult choice or…

red ink change I remember how proud I was of some of the rough draft papers I submitted in college. A week later, the paper given back to me looked like a crime scene: covered in red. Over time, I began to dread the red ink markups, even when professors would write encouraging things. To…

On the Run In the story of Jonah, one of God’s very own representatives turns from God’s calling and stubbornly tries to escape. Instead of going to the violent, unjust Assyrian city of Nineveh, Jonah goes as far as he can the opposite direction. Anyone who reads the story can quickly identify the foolishness of…

A People of Story One of my favorite movies as a teenager was Inception. The premise of the film was that there were dreams within dreams, worlds within worlds; ultimately, one couldn’t trust that the reality around them was real and true. Throughout the story, Leonardo DiCaprio’s character pursues one mission above all else: returning…

As I look around at my surroundings, I find that the landscape of the pluralistic, diverse society of modern America often mirrors aspects of a marketplace. In the marketplace of ideas, one worldview or rivaled by several other alternate ways of viewing the world just as food or goods of one vendor stand in a…