Latest Posts
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Harry Potter & Epiphany
Read more: Harry Potter & EpiphanyLast week we celebrated Christmas, and later this week we’ll be celebrating Epiphany. Although you wouldn’t know it from the way that Christmas is typically celebrated in America – beginning sometime in November and culminating on December 25th – Christmas is a 12 day celebration (hence the famous song). Christmas (in the West) officially ends…
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Advent and the Meaning of Life
Read more: Advent and the Meaning of LifeChristmas and the days leading up to it, otherwise known as advent, have profound implications for our everyday experience. The incarnation infuses meaning into a humanity lost in a void of meaninglessness. It has certain clear ethical implications, as well as direction for reflections on place and vocation. Lastly, it musters up an incarnational ideology…
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Advice To Those Considering Biblical Academia
Read more: Advice To Those Considering Biblical AcademiaIf you’re considering the path of Biblical and/or Theological academics, there are some things to consider. For now, I’m only going to consider the academic climate in context of an evangelical church climate. There will be conflict that will be difficult to navigate. It is important to understand the role of biblical academics in the…
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Dickens, Death, and the Christian Christmas
Read more: Dickens, Death, and the Christian ChristmasThis week, a woman at my church faces the harrowing decision between two Christmases. On the one hand, she could join a few friends and the son from which she has been estranged, risking the possibility of running into the guy who things “didn’t work out with.” It would be too uncomfortable for her to ask…
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On Contentment and Simplicity: An Advent Reflection
Read more: On Contentment and Simplicity: An Advent ReflectionEnough for him whom cherubim, Worship night and day, A breastful of milk, And a mangerful of hay; Enough for him whom angels Fall down before, The ox and ass and camel, Which adore (A Christmas Carol, Christina Rossetti) It’s hard to imagine the King of the universe, the Word of God through which everything has been…
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A Little Thing
Read more: A Little ThingThe Showings: Lady Julian of Norwich 1342-1416 I Julian, there are vast gaps we call black holes, unable to picture what’s both dense and vacant: and there’s the dizzying multiplication of all language can name or fail to name, unutterable swarming of molecules. All Pascal imagined he could not stretch his mind to imagine is…
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Advent and Jerusalem
Read more: Advent and JerusalemO come! O come! Emmanuel! And ransom captive Israel; That mourns in lonely exile here, Until the Son of God appear. Advent is a time of mournful waiting. Participants in this season undergo a theatrical embodiment of the struggles of the people of God. In this drama, the Church relives, in a sense, a time…
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The Apocalypse of Santa Claus
Read more: The Apocalypse of Santa ClausAs a scholar of the decades preceding the Great Outage of 2059, I am always intrigued when a “paper” document of such tremendous historical and cultural influence surfaces from the clutter of the past. Rumors of the cultic devotion attributed to pagan deity Santa Claus have circulated through academic circles for years. However, it wasn’t…
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Coco
Read more: CocoCoco was probably one of the best films I’ve seen this year. The animations and cinematics were just mind-blowing. If I remember correctly, a special sneak peek at Disney California Adventure mentioned that there were more than 8 billion lights used in the Land of the Dead scene–CRAZY. Also, I grew up with folks that…
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Help Volodya from Ukraine study in Australia
Read more: Help Volodya from Ukraine study in AustraliaI recently taught a week-long intensive on Galatians at Zaporozhye Bible Seminary in Ukraine. The entire class was conducted in Russian, so I had a translator for all of my lectures (as well as for preaching and doing devotionals). My main translator was a Ukrainian named Volodya Lavrushko who is a Greek instructor at the…