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

We might not appreciate that God chooses to save us by his word alone, but our discomfort doesn’t make the promise any less effective.
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.
We love those who enable us to see our love for ourselves reflected back at us.
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.
Where Erasmus saw fear and collapse, Luther saw the never-ending comfort of Christ and his gospel.
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.
True love isn't a thing. We can't find true love in our souls, soul mates, or safe spaces. We can't marry true love, buy it, or create it from scratch.
On All Saints Day, the beatitudes remind us how God in Christ claims people, frail, humble, poor, mourning, and makes them His own.
Our very lives as parents and children implicitly proclaim this higher and lovely truth: we have no value to God based upon our usefulness.
Any conception that contends that Jesus only died for some sinners turns the gospel into an uncertain message for everyone.