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 Church needs mystics again. Not fringe figures, but saints ablaze with love.
“The fear of the Lord” is our heart’s awakening to and recognition of God’s outrageous goodness.
The women at the tomb were surprised by Easter. Amazed and filled with wonder at Jesus' Easter eucatastrophe. And so are we.
This is an excerpt from Chapter 6 in Sinner Saint: A Surprising Primer to the Christian Life (1517 Publishing, 2025). Sinner Saint is available today from 1517 Publishing.
Three Lenten songs express the same astonishing wonder of a Lord who willingly suffers and dies.
News of Kilmer's death hit me like a freight train because his Doc Holliday stirred something in me about friendship—both the earthly kind and the divine.
Sometimes the old story is the one we need to hear again and again.
Senkbeil is a pastor’s pastor, a master of the art of pastoral care.
The great lie of addiction is that suffering must be fled, must be numbed, must be drowned out by any means necessary.
To be happy is to be the object of God’s love in Christ and to love God and others with the love of Christ.
In the liturgy, Christ is present, self-giving, and ever-addressing his people.
The wrong god means love remains frail, fickle, or a fiction. The right God means love is the most reliable thing in all the world.