The Consuming Fire and the Holiness That Comes Down
By Bradley Gray
10/02/25
23mins

The Consuming Fire and the Holiness That Comes Down

He doesn’t consume us, even though that is what we deserve. Instead, Jesus comes down to us and consumes all our sin by taking it on himself.
When Pastors Are Abused by Their Congregations
Donavon Riley
Donavon Riley
10/01/25

When Pastors Are Abused by Their Congregations

This article is the first part of a two-part series. The second part will take a look at when pastors abuse their congregations.
An Excerpt from Untamed Prayers: Psalm 123 and Psalm 136
Chad Bird
Chad Bird
09/30/25

An Excerpt from Untamed Prayers: Psalm 123 and Psalm 136

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

All Articles

Bruce Hillman
Bruce Hillman
01/24/17

Spitting on Jesus

Last year, a friend I follow tweeted, “Calling yourself a sinner is spitting on all the work that Jesus did to make you a saint.”
Bradley Gray
Bradley Gray
01/16/17

Law-Abiding Citizens

Among the things that perturb me about modern Christianity is our residual clinging to a sort of “Christian-karma.”
Paul Dunk
Paul Dunk
12/12/16

Grace Came Down

God coming to us at Christmas encapsulates the essence of Christian faith: we don't make ourselves strong and then work our way up to a strong God.
Chad Bird
Chad Bird
11/30/16

Gospel Phobia

If the devil took over a church, I suspect it would be bursting at the seams every Sunday, with smiling faces, clean noses, straight morals, conservative voting, institutional fidelity
Donavon Riley
Donavon Riley
10/20/16

The Naked How and the Fleshy Why

Over and over, generation after generation, sinners repeat the same mistake. "How is it possible that God can be a man," we ask.
Paul Dunk
Paul Dunk
09/15/16

Tremors Of Grace

For those of you unfamiliar with the Richter scale, our friends over at Wikipedia define it as a 1930s invention that "is a base-10 logarithmic scale, which defines magnitude as the logarithm of the ratio of the amplitude of the seismic waves to an arbitrary, minor amplitude."
RJ Grunewald
RJ Grunewald
08/19/16

Calling "Bull" On Theology

It’s time to call bull on a theology the dominates Christianity.
Larry D. Hughes
Larry D. Hughes
08/09/16

The Reality of Sin, Death, and Forgiveness

When we explain away God’s Word, we jettison the reality of our ominous diagnosis in the “Thou shall/shall nots” of the law, and with it the sweet cure in the, “This is My body/blood” of the Gospel.
Chad Bird
Chad Bird
07/14/16

Your Own Personal Bible—And Other Insanities

We treat the Scriptures as if they’re our literary property to toy with as we please.
Brian W. Thomas
Brian W. Thomas
07/07/16

What's The Big Deal About The Liturgy? (Part 4: The Dialect of Worship)

We are continuing our summer series on a theology of worship through the lens of language. Before moving forward, let me highlight a few points by way of review.
Scott Keith
Scott Keith
06/25/16

Celebrating the Anniversary of the Augsburg Confession

The time constrained authoring of the Augustana caused great angst, for the part of Melanchthon that was never satisfied with his own literary output.
Brian W. Thomas
Brian W. Thomas
06/14/16

What's The Big Deal About The Liturgy? (Part 3: The Syntax of Worship)

Like any language, the liturgy has syntax—a structure that provides order and intelligibly communicates meaning through all that is said.
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