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.
“Where is Christ in this section of Scripture? What does this have to do with the ultimate purpose of Scripture: that I may know Him and Him crucified?” If you ask and answer that question, you have been spiritually disciplined in the right way. And it won’t matter if you got through one verse or a hundred.
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.

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The point of Revelation is to reveal consolation in Jesus, not to revel in chaos and confusion.
The good news for Jacob is that God humbled himself so that he could lose a wrestling match to a man with a dislocated hip so that he could give him a new name.
Erasmus and the Unintended Reformation
This is an excerpt from the Chapter 12 of Hitchhiking with the Prophets: A Ride Through the Salvation Story of the Old Testament written by Chad Bird (1517 Publishing, 2024). Now available!
It is Jesus himself who is the ladder by which sinners get to God, not by them climbing up but by God climbing down.
This is an excerpt from the introduction of Hitchhiking with Prophets: A Ride Through the Salvation Story of the Old Testament written by Chad Bird (1517 Publishing, 2024). Now available for preorder.
It is your privilege—we may even say “right”—to call upon this Father and to call him Father.
Like Jacob, sinners approach the Heavenly Father wearing the clothes of their older brother, Jesus.
Instead of a death sentence, those brothers hear the words of deliverance.
The lack of history surrounding Psalm 130 allows it to endure as universally appealing even for our seasons of hopelessness and despair when we’re in “the depths.”
Jonah’s biggest blunder was a failure to understand that God’s grace is always undeserved and always falls on those who are unworthy of it.
Don’t get in the habit (or, if you already do it, get out of the habit) of saying, “I could never talk about these things the way my pastor does.”