Understanding Iran therefore requires more than studying military capabilities or diplomatic strategy. It requires taking theology seriously. Christians understand this because the gospel shapes lives, cultures, and civilizations. Our calling is not merely to analyze those competing stories but, more importantly, to proclaim the true King whose kingdom comes not through revolution or coercion, but through His death and resurrection.
For those Christians who feel the tug to read great literature, know that it is not a waste of your time. These books will only deepen your appreciation for the Scriptures and will open your eyes to a fuller, more profound vision of reality and the God who loves you.
We are invited to entrust everything to the one who accomplished what we could not: living and bleeding and dying and rising again, so that “whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16). To put it another way, when it comes to the kingdom of God, there’s no room for DIY’ers. Best leave it to the professionals.

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The ascension is not about Jesus going away. It's about Jesus taking his rightful place so that he might fill the world with his presence and power.
God chooses to clothe himself in promises and hides himself in his word.
In grace, God chooses to love his people.
This is an excerpt from Ditching the Checklist: Assurance of Salvation for Evangelicals (and Other Sinners) by Mark Mattes (1517 Publishing, 2025), pgs. 5-7.
This article is part of Stephen Paulson’s series on the Psalms.
You have real freedom through the gospel of Jesus Christ, a freedom that doesn’t rest on founders, votes, or power plays.
More certain than death or taxes and more certain than “anything else in all creation” is the fact that God loves you.
Below is the Thinking Fellows Essential Reading List with contributions from each of the Thinking Fellows hosts.
God does not give us an undebatable answer to suffering. Instead, God suffers, too.
Lutherans have a unique heritage that makes teaching predestination doubly difficult.
Five promises were seemingly all those apostles, staring into the sky, had to go on. Five promises that were more than enough.
You are the baptized, for in Christ we are all wet. The demographic dividers are washed away.