By John Bombaro

07/01/25

18mins

The Worldview Inversion of the Cross

As soon as people understand what crucifixion means, the cross becomes offensive.

Seth Moorman

06/30/25

What Makes A Saint: A Saint Suffers

This is the third installment in the 1517 articles series, “What Makes a Saint?”

Donavon Riley

06/27/25

Tongues of Fire & Breath of God

The Church speaks not with the cleverness of men, but with the breath of God.

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Chad Bird

03/05/14

The Wife Who Gave Up: Mrs. Job’s Beautifully Untrue Words

Of all the words this woman ever spoke, these alone are chiseled forever into the stone of holy writ, and into the church’s memory. Mrs. Job becomes the patron saint of quick-tongued women.

Chad Bird

02/24/14

Smut and Smug: Secret Religious Delight in Society’s Moral Degradation

I think the chief reason that a faction within me welcomes the disintegration of the American ethos is this: it makes me feel so much better about myself. The smut makes me quite smug.

Jeff Mallinson

02/19/14

Ethos Matters

Ever experience a congregation with the word "Grace" in its name that was nonetheless ironically ungracious and legalistic? I have.

Daniel Deen

02/13/14

Faith, Science and Reason

Philip Melanchthon once said, “Those who disparage philosophy not only wage war against human nature, but they also severely injure the glory of the Gospel.”

Chad Bird

02/06/14

Punching the Vicar in the Face: One of the Best Years of His Ministry

Mr. Jones didn’t see fit to return the greeting. Or the smile. He stopped a few paces away and crossed his arms in front of his chest. “What do y’all want?”

Chad Bird

01/27/14

A Tale of Two Sodoms: The Difficulty of Escaping from Our Past

It shows the extent to which an environment of iniquity can seep into the souls of believers, transforming them from the inside out, so that even when they “flee to the mountains,” like Lot and his girls, they take Sodom with them.

Chad Bird

01/21/14

Clothing for the Naked Eye: Seeing Things as They Really Are

A cemetery is a hard place to confess because the cemetery itself seems to confess, “You, O mortal, have lost.”

Chad Bird

01/09/14

Chewing on the Bible

But unlike fish, there was actual pleasure in the prolonged chewing of this food. For the longer it remained in my mouth, the better it tasted, the more pronounced became its flavor, the more nourishment I received from each bite. This food is the bread on which Jesus survived during his forty days of temptation in the wilderness.

Chad Bird

01/03/14

Your Own Personal Jesus

Hell is just as happy with those who believe in a fake Jesus, as with those who believe in no Jesus at all. For there is no difference.

Chad Bird

01/02/14

I've Spent the Better Part of My Life Trying to Kill a Man

If I had hated him even while a child, in his late teens I grew to loathe him as the very antithesis of the man I wanted to be.

Chad Bird

12/31/13

Unlearning Evil: Why I Don’t Make New Year’s Resolutions

“Let’s face it,” my mom once told me, while delivering a lecture on making the right moral decisions in high school, “sinning is fun.”

Chad Bird

12/09/13

The Uncivilized Baptist: Why John Beckons Us to the Wilderness

Why does John make you uncomfortable? You know. It’s not just the clothing; it’s not only the hair; it’s not even really the diet. John the Baptist is uncivilized—that’s the problem.

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