It’s the Christmas season; during this time of year we typically hear about the Nativity story more than usual. All Christians know the story of Jesus’ birth, at least in broad strokes. The angel Gabriel comes to the virgin Mary to tell her that she will have a baby. Mary and Joseph travel to Bethlehem…

I love it when I am reading the Bible and a detail jumps off the page at me; this happened to me the other day as I was reading 1 Samuel from my Septuagint (LXX). I was reading from 1 Samuel 13 where Israel was about to go to battle against their perennial enemy the…

Recently, some people on the internet have started to claim that medicine, vaccines, and pharmaceutical drugs are a satanic attack on Christianity. The logic goes something like this: such people direct our attention to verses like Revelation 18:23, "for by thy sorceries were all nations deceived." These people then tell us, correctly, that the word…

As we read the gospel of Matthew, we notice that the atoning work of Jesus is bookended by providential dreams: five at the beginning of his life, and one at the end. The phrase κατ᾽ ὄναρ [in a dream] occurs in Matthew 1:20, 2:12, 2:13, 2:19, 2:22, and 27:19. In the first dream, the miracle…

Recently my friend Shaun asked me a question about the meaning of a couple of Greek words---and his question was such a good one that I decided to answer it with a blog post. Here's what Shaun texted me: μετανοέω [metanoeō] means, repent, or turn around. The same word used in Acts 2:38 is used…

This is a guest article by my good friend Josh Roman.  We attended the same church for many years and he is a student of the word!  Hopefully I can convince him to do more of these in the future.  Thanks Josh! One of the scariest revelations I’ve ever come to understand is this: I can…

Recently my friend Peyton Gurley read my article There Is No Such Thing As A Music Minister. Apparently it didn’t set too well with my friend, because he wrote a review of it on his own blog. Even before I saw Peyton’s response I had been studying this issue in greater depth, and had come…

2019 is behind us now, and we are already half-way through January.  The new year has begun (but sorry y'all, the new decade doesn't start until 2021)!  At the end of an old year, we tend to make resolutions for the new one---we want to learn an instrument, learn a language, read more books, or…

Another guest post by my wife Cheyanne.  As usual, she has some awesome spiritual insights about what most of us wouldn't stop to meditate about! In the process of writing what became last week’s post I got curious about how trees are transplanted and pruned. So I went to faithful Elder Google and asked him a…

This article was a guest-post written by my wife Cheyanne.  She looks at the world through spiritual eyes, finding life-lessons in what most of us overlook as ordinary.  This post was inspired by our marriage, when she left her home and church in Florida and moved to the Midwest to be my wife.  Be sure to…