This is an excerpt from the first chapter of Being Family by Scott Keith (1517 Publishing, 2026), pgs 1-6.
God has told us everything necessary for faith. However he has not told us everything there is to know.
Jesus didn’t enter the water because he was sinful; he entered the water because John was sinful, as are we all.

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Few couples faced the kind of pressures they endured in their two decades of marriage prior to Martin’s death in 1546.
The doctrine of the Trinity is not so much the story of a “who-dunnit” as it is the story of the “who-is-it.”
What I was missing—what so many are missing—is a Church that doesn’t just speak about Christ, but delivers him.
Every time someone is baptized, every time bread is broken and wine poured, every time a sinner hears, “Your sins are forgiven in Christ,” Pentecost happens again.
In Christ, you are bound. Bound to mercy. Bound to grace. Bound to a God who won’t let you go. And because of that, you are free—gloriously, joyfully free.
When Jesus ascends, he does so, bearing gifts for you.
Should you then abandon David’s plea that God use his law against his enemies and send a Legal Avenger? No, the law must be preached to the Christian (insofar as he is not one).
The Christ who rescues does not wait for you to be clean. He comes to clean you. He does not need your strength. He brings his own.
When you remember your baptism, you're not recalling a ritual. You're standing under a current of divine action that has not ceased to flow since the moment those baptismal waters hit your skin.
“The fear of the Lord” is our heart’s awakening to and recognition of God’s outrageous goodness.
We needn’t fear statistics and studies as palm readings into a certain future. God is God, and his Spirit is alive through his Word.
The church does not await a verdict; she proclaims one.