“The fear of the Lord” is our heart’s awakening to and recognition of God’s outrageous goodness.
The women at the tomb were surprised by Easter. Amazed and filled with wonder at Jesus' Easter eucatastrophe. And so are we.
This is an excerpt from Chapter 6 in Sinner Saint: A Surprising Primer to the Christian Life (1517 Publishing, 2025). Sinner Saint is available today from 1517 Publishing.

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In the quiet of your own uptown, where your own sins bear down on you and create a troubled conscience before the world, before others, and before God, your Lord reaches across the chasm of brokenness to take your hand.
Twenty-first century North American believers face challenges unique in the history of God’s people, for we have an abundance of the material gifts of God unparalleled in human history.
We must not submit ourselves to false gods and godless men. Instead, we may hold fast to Christ, because He’s holding fast to us.
We have seen a vision better than an angel. We have seen God on the cross. A God who is willing to suffer for us.
The disciplines of history and archaeology have assisted in demonstrating the integrity and accuracy of the Bible.
Using common everyday events, Carnell sought to clarify that there are three standards of duty that we demand others to respect to protect our dignity.
When the direction of preaching is dictated by the hashtag issues of the day, the pulpit becomes the perpetual servant of CNN and Fox News. The news and social media cycle, with its chameleonic alterations from this all-important issue (this week) to that next-all-important issue (next week), does not create a rhythmic dance for the church but a sort of frenzied whack-a-mole worship. Now smack your homiletical hand down on this…now that…now this…now that. We need something better.
Silence is an important and valuable tool for change and empathy, self-reflection, and learning.
There is a time for justice. And there is a time for love. But love must always have the final word. Jesus must have the final word, because Jesus is God and God is Love.
The Lamb is where we are, opposite God, in our place as sinners. He bears our punishment of sin, the forsakenness of God. Anyone bearing his or her own sin is finally lost, but not Jesus.
The biggest point Luther makes about the descent is not that Jesus triumphed over hell idle and unaffected, but that Jesus defeated hell by suffering hell away.
In his last novel, Islands in the Stream, Hemingway shows us what we get when we look to nature for ultimate truth: death.