We can bring our troubles, griefs, sorrows, and sins to Jesus, who meets us smack dab in the middle of our messy mob.
Confession isn’t a detour in the liturgy. It’s the doorway.
American religion did not become optional because the gospel failed. It became optional because religion slowly redefined itself around usefulness.

All Articles

Paul wants us to see this “present evil age” is dominated by a theology of glory and “the age to come” is dominated by a theology of the cross. They are two ways of understanding and interpreting all of reality, but especially the ways and nature of God.
Ultimately, there is only one Lord of the Universe, and he does not share power. If Jesus is Lord, Caesar is not.
Though envy whispers to us that peace can only be found by “keeping up,” Jesus whispers to us a better word: “Come to me all you who are weary and burdened and I will give you rest.”
If Jesus is better than Moses, then everything changes. If Jesus is better than Moses, then the ultimate becomes the penultimate.
Repentance means being cut down by the law’s declaration of judgment. It’s not an activity we do to prepare for grace, but a point of despair worked by God himself.
Our ears are opened by the Spirit through the word. Then, faith in Christ is present in us.
It’s not the disciples’ faith that invented the resurrection but the resurrection that gave birth to the disciples’ faith.
The preacher of this text should follow the logic of the text, the divinely inspired genius of Saint Paul, and get out of the way.
This is an excerpt from In Defense of Christian Ritual written by David Andersen (1517 Publishing, 2021). Available for purchase this Tuesday!
God preserves language so he might continue to communicate his love and grace to us, and that we might communicate his love and grace to others.
Nostalgia is a looter who impoverishes us of the truth that God is in our midst right now.
Trusting in Christ’s promise of new life and deliverance pours generosity and hospitality into the way we think and the way we experience life.