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.
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

All Articles

God comes to fix what is broken by being broken himself. He abolishes death by dying. He subsumes sin by being made sin itself.
God invites us to have intimate conversations in a world filled with mockery and hate. To trust Jesus reigns whenever and wherever He extends a word of promise to the displaced and the disfavored, welcoming them home.
Our smartphones, tablets, and laptops tempt us to enter into a virtual world without flesh and blood. A world without concrete, real consequences. No real pain or suffering, and no actual death.
Jesus offer us this vision of violence not so we might be drawn into it but so we might be drawn through it to come closer to Him.
If the resurrection were just a repetition of this world, then it would be ridiculous, indeed. But the resurrection is different. It is a world without death.
On All Saints Day, the beatitudes remind us how God in Christ claims people, frail, humble, poor, mourning, and makes them His own.
Any conception that contends that Jesus only died for some sinners turns the gospel into an uncertain message for everyone.
Faithful celebration of the Reformation is possible only for those who understand they have nothing. Whose incapability and insufficiency are obvious and owned. Who recognize their dependence on God for all things. In other words, Reformation is for children.
If the gospel is promise that means it is essentially relational. It stands that the nature of any promise is that it's only as good as the one who issues it.
Jesus is a heroic warrior that not even hell can defeat.
Terror and even hatred of God are the only things with which divine hiddenness can leave us.
I suggest preaching a sermon that directs attention away from the main characters. Instead, highlight for your hearers (and proclaim loudly and clearly) the promise of Jesus in this text.