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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The implications were clear: Jesus’ death destroyed the things that distinguished people as educated or uneducated, rich or poor, free or enslaved, black or white, pious or godless.
There is true help in the midst of our pain. Someone who suffered as we suffer, who embraced all our pain in his suffering and death on a cross.
His resurrection reveals that Jonah, and all of us, even the evilest people, are salvageable, even from suicide, in Jesus' death and resurrection.
The following is an excerpt from "Finding Christ in the Straw," written by Robert M. Hiller (1517 Publishing, 2020).
God hides from us on purpose so he can be God for us without limits or measures in the way of faithful, loving-kindness.
Your faith is not dependent on whether or not you suffer well. Your faith is dependent on the fact that Christ did.
We can rejoice in our own need and the gift we receive through baptism given by the same one by whom John desired to be baptized.
It’s a delivery of historical facts that tells us who Jesus is and what he has done for us through his dying on the cross and his rising from the grave.
The following is an excerpt from "Finding Christ in the Straw" written by Robert M. Hiller (1517 Publishing, 2020).
The real power of his hymn comes from the fact that Bonhoeffer does not offer a rosy picture of life or any of the tropes so typical of cheap piety that tell us that everything is always right, that things happen for a reason, and that we should try to stay positive.
The promise of Advent is the promise of the lamb slain, who is born and given for us so that we don’t have to fear sin, death, and hell.
On the other side of Christmas, we find (1) senseless suffering and (2) unstoppable salvation. A sermon on these verses should be honest about both.