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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Writer’s Block, however, entertains no such fantasies. It goes straight for my ego’s jugular and pounds home the fact that I’m not good enough.
The Gospel is simple to confess. That is, we are justified by faith alone, through Christ alone, without the works of the Law.
All other wonderful teachings of Holy Scripture from creation to Christ’s coming again are absolutely worthless without being understood in light of Jesus, death, and resurrection for sinners.
It may seem like a strange place to begin: the end of the beginning.
The force of our love is violent. It is love acted out as, “I will love you in a way that’s best for me, and you’ll like it, and celebrate it, and reward me for it.
No matter which side, it’s easy for all of us to build Bible verses into grenades aimed at obliterating the political other.
Jesus comes to pop our bubbles of pride, implode our towers of vanity, expose our arrogant adulting ways, and brings us down, down, down. Down to his level, which is the level of crucifixion.
Where once we confessed reliance only in ourselves and our own power, now we confess reliance on Christ alone. So, for our relationship before God, our confession of faith matters.
You may have seen the uproar from a recent blog post suggesting that virgins who forego college, learn to cook big meals and abstain from tattoos make more desirable wives.
Our meditation listens to the King of Kings when He says; it is finished.
Why confess sin? Is it so we can get rewarded by God? A little extra grace or material good for our troubles, maybe.
It can be argued that this scene sets a pattern for Christian activity on the first day of the week from that time until the present.