This is an excerpt from the first chapter of Being Family by Scott Keith (1517 Publishing, 2026), pgs 1-6.
God has told us everything necessary for faith. However he has not told us everything there is to know.
Jesus didn’t enter the water because he was sinful; he entered the water because John was sinful, as are we all.

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In Christ, the new and better David, we are redeemed from our lame condition of sin
If I’m going to join your church, there’s some things I’ll need to know first. I need to know whether you practice a Christianity that’s primarily a to-do list.
On account of God’s graciousness in Jesus, we are the ones who don’t do anything
The lack of Gospel or abundance of Gospel and Christ’s gifts, more than anything else, determines whether we’ll be overrun by sin, death, and hell
Had you been the only sinner in the world, He would have died for you alone
To be textual in our preaching, we ought to do as Paul does, and drag our people through the Old Testament narratives. We ought to let the Holy Spirit do the illustrations. Of course, Paul’s illustrating too, but he’s doing it in the Spirit and using the Holy Spirit’s own vocabulary.
We’re tempted to try and connect the dots. Something bad happens to someone and we can’t help but wonder about the cause. Even if we don’t say it out loud, we are tempted to think they must have done something to deserve it. They must be guilty of something. God must be punishing them for something we don’t know about. But Jesus stops this thinking in its tracks.
I am the Resurrection,’ says Jesus, not an abstract miracle or idea
With these words, Jesus at the same time acknowledges that earthly government is both divinely sanctioned and, at the same time, not to be conflated with the kingdom of God.
Our enoughness before God cannot be earned by our piety or bestowed by our neighbor. Our righteousness and our justification come from Christ and His work for us
This quest to justify my existence can end because I have been justified by God who gave up heaven to be with me!
The great steadfast love of God is shown by His work on the cross