This article is the first part of a two-part series. The second part will take a look at when pastors abuse their congregations.
The following entries are excerpts from Chad Bird’s new book, Untamed Prayers: 365 Daily Devotions on Christ in the Book of the Psalms (1517 Publishing, 2025), pgs. 311 and 335
Why did the church dedicate a day to St. Michael anyway? Who is he, and what does he do?

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The God who's lifted up above Calvary, abandoned and forsaken, should draw a more discerning crowd of followers.
We’ve been desperate—and it is a gift of God when we are, when we realize our lost condition!
But that’s the way he rolls, isn't it? By misquoting, manipulating, and ripping God’s word out of context, the devil wields it as a weapon to drive us to doubt and pride.
When God sends them to hell, it is indeed punishment, but he’s only giving them what they asked for.
She wasn’t so much giving up on her husband as giving up on herself. She was giving up trying to be the person who changes another person. It was going to take more than her to reform the man she loved.
Whatever level of sin you're rummaging around in, forgiveness and grace is yours.
Yes, how good it is for you to have enemies, for without them, when would you ever have the opportunity to fulfill, joyfully and willingly, the law of Christian love?
He barely wakes to find himself nearly dead; even so, he can’t feel a thing.
Salvation starts in being a sinner and knowing it because that's where God starts salvation, in making "Him to be Sin who knew no sin."
God’s Son is infinitely more than our fragile egos have flattened him out to be.
I grew up with a great deal of guilt. It still keeps me up at night. For one reason or another, I was convinced I hadn’t done enough to be loved by God.
The dragon who failed to devour the child in the manger swallows the man atop the cross. In so doing, unbeknownst to this beast, he ate poison.