Oftentimes, the Gospel According to John, or just John for short, is the book of the Bible that new believers get directed to on their first venture into Bible study and understanding the faith. Poignant, because that is exactly why John wrote it. As the Gospel According to John was one of the last books of the Bible to be written, its purpose was to introduce the foundations of a very Jewish faith to a very non-Jewish world. John is believed to be writing from the city of Ep

Why are you doing this?: Because context matters. Too often, we read the Bible while imposing our own cultural and individual interpretations on it, (I think the word is exegesis?) while not wondering about the original intention of the books. The Spirit of God reveals truths to us through the Word all the time, new revelations even. Yet I believe there is a revelation to be found by understanding what the author of the book intended for the target audience. Plus, I'm

This Advent season, I'm taking a look at some of my favorite subversive Christmas songs, because how many more reminders do we need that Christmas is about Jesus coming to Earth to save humanity? Week One of Advent is about Hope, and few songs capture the hopefulness in the midst of despair in the way that "O Come, O Come, Emmanuel" does. The hymn itself is at least 1,200 years old, and was first transcribed into English in 1851 by John Mason Neale and has been sung in church

Well...didn't expect that hiatus to last so long... Anyway, a lot has happened since I last posted up on here, a few good, a lot bad, and...

Hypocritical, but hey. Social media think pieces, at their core, are the equivalent to the guest columns or the opinion pages of the...