“Humility permeates the teachings of Jesus as a conviction of the certainty of God’s coming Day. The table will most certainly be reorganized one day.”

“Such stories matter because they remind us who we are: people of faith, people of the Book, and a people who know that friendship with the world is enmity with God. We lose our way when we fail to distinguish ourselves from the world—that is, from the broader culture. That is how you lose your identity, your faith, and ultimately how we lose our children to secularism and godlessness.”

“The more we long for the return of the Lord, the more we will find ourselves drawn into His purposes among the nations—especially in the Middle East, the central stage of the redemptive drama.”

Passover & the Return of Messiah: The holy plot twist, and what it means for the next time He'll part creation to make a passageway.

“Asking someone to teach the Bible without mentioning Israel is a bit like asking a professor to teach the Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe without mentioning Narnia.”

“Jesus tells us that ‘The eye is the lamp of the body.’ He says this right after warning us ‘not to lay up treasures on earth but in heaven,’ and right before saying we ‘cannot serve God and money.’ Is there a direct connection between what we set our eyes on and what becomes our desire, attracts us, and eventually becomes our drive in life?”

If you have raced with runners and they have worn you out, how can you compete with horses? If you stumble in a peaceful land, what will you do in the thickets of the Jordan?

“Throughout history, the descendants of Ishmael have indeed become a vast multitude—but they have not yet become a great nation in the purposes of God. That promise still awaits fulfillment before the end of this age.”

If we want to have clarity today and endurance through our remaining tomorrows, we would do well to become literate in the prophets ourselves, remembering a critical principle: The Scriptures are no ordinary texts vulnerable to the scrutiny of our own wavering criticisms; we must submit to the Scriptures. The Scriptures are under no burden to submit to us.

There is hardly a better apology for the state of weakness on the pages of the Bible. In a world and culture that extolled power and success (always a pagan obsession), the apostle Paul embraced everything that made his life miserable.

“The warning is clear and so relevant for our days: it is possible to be so engaged in normal, daily activities; to be so distracted by news and events; so busy pursuing hobbies and inoffensive passions, that we become numb to the prophecies, careless about the times we are living… and That Day of Judgement catches us surprise.”

“The primary goal of our lives in this age is to bear witness to the King and the Kingdom that’s coming. Sometimes God will use miracles to accomplish this witness; often He uses our faithfulness through suffering instead.”

Domestication is the process of taking something that is naturally wild and taming it to make it suitable to fit within a domestic world… the domestication of the Gospel causes it to lose the sharp edge of confrontation that disciples so desperately need.

“The prophets foresaw both Israel’s stumbling and the salvation of the Gentiles, culminating in Israel’s restoration. Paul grasped this divine mystery: Jesus will not return until a remnant from every nation is gathered in, and this ingathering of the nations will lead to the salvation of all Israel.”

It’s safe to say both Gaius and John were “hardcore.” They went all-in on obeying Jesus. But they were also healthy… Both matter. But how are both of these concepts and commands brought under the banner of obedience? 

“The prophets and the apostles had access to that pain, they embraced it as their own, they felt it, and contrary to any intuition it obviously sustained them. It is counterintuitive and paradoxical indeed that pain could sustain, and build-up character. Unless that pain is the expression of undying love…”

“…the seed is the Word of God and the sower spreads the seeds wherever he goes. Not all of them bear fruit and even the ones that fall into good soil bear different amounts of fruit, but this does not discourage the sower. He knows what he has is precious and worthy of being distributed.”

“A cheaply won, ‘personal-escape-route-to-Cloud-Heaven’ Gospel will never be attractive to Gen Z. They want solutions that work on a global and communal scale. My generation is crying out for justice and a half-baked Gospel just won’t cut it.”

The way that the nations behave has never been an acceptable path for the Jewish people. It is a heavy calling and there is no opt-out option for the Jew.

“What made ‘their number’ distinct enough from the rest of the people that they might be recognized as a social unit that could be joined? It wasn’t the venue. They assembled in the Temple. It wasn’t their unique spirit-filled worship services; the worship services were liturgical functions led by the Levitical class. The thing that set the earliest church apart from the rest of the Jewish people was their table.”