He doesn’t consume us, even though that is what we deserve. Instead, Jesus comes down to us and consumes all our sin by taking it on himself.
This article is the first part of a two-part series. The second part will take a look at when pastors abuse their congregations.
The following entries are excerpts from Chad Bird’s new book, Untamed Prayers: 365 Daily Devotions on Christ in the Book of the Psalms (1517 Publishing, 2025), pgs. 311 and 335

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Good people like fist-pounding on the pulpit about the bad things that bad people do in this bad world of ours. It makes them feel better about themselves.
I once saw a man holding a sign that read: Divorce is an abomination. Repent! That’s it. Nothing else.
In Christ, we become part of the group of eight on the ark. The eight does not increase to nine or ten but swells to contain us all. God recreates us in this saving flood of baptism. We enter the new creation in Christ.
If you read my posts here or on my own site, you’ll find that most of my writings lean toward the issue of dark times or brokenness in our lives.
Jonah wanted nothing more than to be a safe preacher. His Lord could get carried away with love at times. He let it get the best of him.
Some days, I stare at the computer screen, haphazardly pecking at my keyboard, wondering where the words will come from or even if the words will ever come again.
For most of us, waiting on God is not funny at all. It makes us wonder if he cares. If he has forgotten us. In our darkest hours, many even wonder if the atheists are right, if our prayers are nothing more than sick words vomited into an empty heaven.
Grace is uncivilized, vulgar, rebellious. We make rules for it and it breaks them. Grace is a constant embarrassment to the prim and proper religiosity of the squeaky clean.
This golden age, recorded in this genealogy, is anything but straw. It is a treasure trove of grace, faith, hope, and love.
Jesus was not killed in Bethlehem as a baby, or in Galilee or Samaria as an adult. He couldn’t be, for it was necessary for him to die in Jerusalem, where Moriah is.
In front of us, in the past, is the hill upon which God has already defeated every foe we might face. On that bloody beam the heel of Christ crushed the head of the lying serpent.
The more law-centered a church becomes, the more it and the world become kissing cousins.