Jesus’ parables weren’t just random stories dropped into the Gospel narratives—they were responses to real moments, real people, and real conflicts happening around him. And sometimes, understanding the original context completely changes how we read them.

Aionios does not mean eternal... at least not all the time.

We're exploring the depth and breadth of faith beyond just emotional experiences. Is Christianity a relationship or a religion? Can both coexist? We dive into the tension between the felt, emotional side of faith and the structured, ritualistic practices that shape us—even when we don’t “feel” close to God.

Let's dive into the misunderstood concept of the tithe. You’ve likely heard that you’re supposed to give 10% of your income to the church—but where did that number come from, and is it really what the Bible teaches?

We are exploring the often misunderstood relationship between Jesus and the Pharisees. While the Pharisees are frequently seen as the “villains” of the New Testament, there is much more nuance to their interactions with Jesus.

Born again is a term that gets thrown around a lot in Christianity. We even have a category for a particular type of Jesus-follower, a "born again" Christian. But what exactly does this term mean?

All theology is biography. That is a paraphrase of something I once heard Fredrick Beuchner say. I love it. Because the truth is, all of the ways we imagine the Divine are a product of all of the experiences we have had throughout our lives. And that is a feature not a bug.

The narrative in 1 Samuel 13 begins with an intriguing biblical translation quirk in verse 1. The Hebrew text presents an impossibility: Saul was one year old when he became king and reigned for two years. This textual conundrum serves as a powerful reminder that the essence of scripture lies not in perfect alignment of historical details, but in the profound lessons we can extract from the stories.

Robert Alter cites Shmuel Avramsky's work here to suggest that the Amorites were a group of settlers coming down from the northern Aegean Sea, and there are lots of other groups coming down from the southern Aegean Sea.

What really intrigues me about 1 Samuel is God's response to the request for a king. Even though God is willing to work with what the people want and give in to demands that God deems inappropriate and that are not going to lead them anywhere good, I'm struck by God's posture that inherited power is inherently toxic. And for me, this goes all the way back to that conversation about apparent and actual authority in communities.

In the Tanakh, 1 and 2 Kings are part of the Nevi'im, or the prophets. That's why they go together with 1 and 2 Samuel. But 1 and 2 Chronicles, those come at the very end of an entirely different section of the Bible called the Ketuvim, or the writings. In fact, they're the very last books of the Hebrew Bible. And that's because Jewish people understood them as much later books that were looking back and trying to clean things up.

In Ezekiel 37, the prophet writes about a valley of dry bones. What kind of valley is this? I'm going to say I don't think it's a real valley at all. It's a metaphor. However, I do think this valley is meant to invoke one of, or perhaps both of, two very real, very significant valleys in the Hebrew story. Those are the valleys of Hinnom and the valley of Megiddo.

A few years ago, I wasn't having a great time. Granted, very few of us were. But I had spent 20 years being a pastor and building community, and all of a sudden, I was a YouTuber, and it just wasn't a lot of fun. And so I picked up some bad habits that weren't serving me well. But as I finally started to come out of that and feel like myself again, I realized that if I wanted to continue on that trajectory, then I needed to make some changes in my life.

My guess is that we all have some general sense of the increasing lack of trust in society. And this is leading to a whole host of problems including more antisocial behaviors. Thing is, there is a lot of data that shows us a clear correlation between the number of self identified close friends we have and patterns of healthy social behaviours in our lives.

A new Study Bible based on the NRVSue has also been released: The SBL Study Bible. This isn’t meant to replace a full commentary set, but it’s an excellent resource for anyone who wants to study the Bible more seriously.

The truth is we don’t subscribe to the specifics of Paul’s sexual ethic today—at all. Paul has some good stuff to say about marriage. In 1 Corinthians 7 he talks about how we use our bodies and sexuality mutually. Really progressive stuff in the first century.

For many who are most familiar with evangelical expressions of Christianity, Penal Substitutionary Atonement (or PSA) is the only way they have heard the idea of the cross articulated. Like all metaphors, however, this law court image breaks if stretched too far.

In a recent video, I claimed that the foundational nature of God, above all other descriptors, is love. So in this video, let's talk about where that claim comes from by looking at the concept of the Trinity and then a very brief introduction to Process Theology and thought.

The framework for original sin that most of us are familiar with comes from a bad interpretation of a bad translation of one verse in one letter from Pual. Unfortunately, however, it has all kinds of implications for we think about ourselves and God. So let's talk about it.

As people deconstruct and reconstruct their faith in more progressive ways there are a few questions that keep coming up. They tend to be variations on three commons themes.