In Acts 2 we get this neat glimpse into the early Church and how they were thinking about the Jesus story. In fact, when Peter stands up on the day of Pentecost, flanking by the other disciples, to address a skeptical crowd he’s actually giving the first sermon of the church era.

In this clip, we explore why good theology begins with gratitude and humility, and why our attempts to become too familiar with God may actually shrink the divine down to our size. Drawing on the work of Georges Lemaître, the priest and physicist behind the Big Bang theory, along with Tolkien, Pete Holmes, Paul Tillich, and the Apostle Paul, this is a meditation on transcendence, incarnation, and the mystery of existence itself.

We all think we know the story of the Prodigal Son. We love the imagery of the wandering child hitting rock bottom, remembering home, and running back into the arms of a lavishly graceful father. But what if that beautiful reunion is actually just the setup? What if the real trap of Luke 15 is aimed directly at those of us who think we’ve been in the right all along?

What if some of the most important parts of Scripture are the things left unsaid? In this reflection on the binding of Isaac (Genesis 22), we explore the Jewish practice of midrash through the famous commentary of Rashi. Rather than flattening difficult stories into tidy answers, midrash opens the text up — inviting imagination, questions, tension, and self-examination.

What if the miracle in Acts 8 didn’t begin on the road to Gaza? Let’s look at the story of Philip and the Ethiopian official, not as a random supernatural interruption, but as the culmination of a life shaped by wisdom, attention, and care for overlooked people.

Organisms are interdependent. Cells are interconnected. Molecules are strings of atoms. Atoms are collections of particles. Those particles are groups of quarks, which are waves of bosons, which are just relationships of energy that glue the universe together. There’s absolutely no point in existence where anything that exists, exists on its own.

Changing your mind based on new information might be humbling, but it is not a humiliation to admit that you were wrong. It is actually a blessing. Look at an encounter in Luke 13 where Jesus heals a woman on the Sabbath. While the text says his opponents were "humiliated," we take a closer look at Jesus’ actual intent. Is he trying to shame his critics, or is he inviting them into a different way of seeing the world?

The Mustard Seed is one of those images I think we’ve gotten entirely wrong. This parable isn’t about a kingdom that surprises us with its scale. It’s about a kingdom that surprises us with its character. At least that’s what Luke thinks.

I think there are at least two ways we tend to misread the idea of blessing.

One is loud and obnoxious. It tells us that if God is good, then the evidence should show up in visible, measurable success. Health and wealth, (whatever that means) but fundamentally a life that is, in some tangible sense, ahead of everyone else around us. Call it the prosperity gospel if you want, or just call it what it is, a way of confusing God’s blessing with material increase.

Abraham walks away from Egypt with silver and gold—but at what cost? In this reflection on Genesis 12–13, we explore one of the Bible’s more difficult stories. Did Abraham really get off scot-free after selling out his wife? Or is there more going on beneath the surface of the text? We’ll look at the Hebrew wordplay, the cultural biases we bring to Scripture, and how this story might be less about blessing and more about burden.

In English, we often read the word “eternal” in Jesus’ parable. But in Greek, the word is aiōnios, the adjectival form of aiōn, the just same word the disciples use when they ask about the end of the age. Jesus is answering their question.

John does this brilliant thing where he plays with words in his opening. He says, "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." And that word "word" is the Greek word logos. Now, logos means word, but it also has this rich philosophical subtext.

A lot of people who have never properly studied Revelation are once again talking about Armageddon. I get it. War is scary so it can be comforting to pretend that all of this is part of some divine plan. But this is not what Armageddon is about.

Sometimes just the presence of difference around us can read like persecution to us. Difference does not take away our ability to live as we want, but it does take away our ability to feel like we’re normal while we do it.

Sodom is a pretty infamous story. But what exactly was going on there for it to end so spectacularly? And, perhaps more important, what was a story like this told for?

There’s a famous passage in Ephesians where Paul tells his readers to “put on the full armour of God,” and for centuries we’ve speculated about exactly where this image comes from. One possible answer is perhaps also the simplest: Paul is writing from prison, probably in Rome, and he’s got nothing to do but stare at the guard standing in front of him.

What do we mean when we talk about the word of God?

For most of my Christian life, the answer was reasonably simple. The word of God was the Bible. That big book I have a bunch of copies of on my shelf. 

In this teaching, we revisit the story of Abraham and Isaac and ask a harder question: What if Abraham actually fails the test? Rather than celebrating blind obedience, this story may be inviting us to imagine a God who never wanted child sacrifice, a God who hopes we will push back, wrestle, and learn to trust divine goodness.

I want to talk about the difference between two important but distinct Christian doctrines: the doctrine of original sin and the doctrine of ancestral sin. Ancestral sin might a term you haven’t heard before, but it is very likely the doctrine you already believe.

Conviction, disagreement, difference, even debate. None of those things are bad. In fact, they all have an incredibly important place to play in our lives. But a generative faith starts not with where we can eke out a win, and instead from the place of searching out our common ground and building bridges that allow our differences to actually be held in relationship.