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Bible & Theology

The Bible and Theology are the things I'm most passionate about and write about the most often.

It's A Sin Problem?

The disciples telling Jesus about 5,000 hungry people— Jesus: “It’s not a food problem, it’s a sin problem.” The centurion asking Jesus to heal his sick servant— Jesus: “It’s not a disease problem, it’s a sin problem.” Peter chopping off the ear of a temple

Open Communion at The Table

The Table Church practices open Communion, open even to those who don't follow Christianity. When we offer Communion we say, "Anyone who seeks the grace of God is welcome to this table." Traditionally there have been 3 positions on whom is allowed to participate in Communion:

Did it make a difference?

(Easter Week Table Church Newsletter) Around Holy Week, that's a question I often find myself thinking about. Each year in the church (for the past 1,989 years, to be precise), we retell the stories of Jesus turning over tables, washing feet, being betrayed and abandoned, being nailed

How to Edit the Bible Like Jesus

I recently preached on two of Moses’ encounters with God. The first, in Exodus 3, Moses meets God at the burning bush. Moses, anticipating questions from the Israelites he’s been asked to deliver out of Egypt, asks what he should call this God. God reveals the divine name Yahweh

Exodus 14

Setting aside, briefly, the issue of divine violence in the Old Testament, I want you to notice this brilliant literary touch in Exodus. The book begins with the command to commit genocide against the Israelite slave population in Egypt. Pharaoh commands that every Israelite male infant is to be drowned

My prayers are directed to two things today.

First, towards the people of Ukraine. “I don’t understand, I decidedly do not understand, why men can’t live without war.” “You would think that humanity has forgotten the laws of its divine Savior, who preached love and the forgiveness of transgressions, and that it finds its greatest merit

The new ARC denomination is on the slippery slope of conservatism

Religion writer Rick Pidcock once said, "It's funny how I've always heard the 'slippery slope' argument as a warning for becoming more liberal, but have never heard it as a warning for becoming more conservative." For example, some might warn that if

Reading the Septuagint

For my morning devotions I have been reading the Septuagint. The Septuagint is the Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible.  Why read a translation instead of the "original" Hebrew? Well, two big reasons. First, the Septuagint was THE "Bible" of the New Testament writers. Most times,

Does Genesis Condemn First-Born Daughters?

Genesis 1—4 tells the story of a man and a woman in a relationship who have three sons. These chapters tell us a lot about human nature, family dynamics, how we relate to God, how we relate to creation, and much more. From these stories, we can make theological

Q&R On Atonement Theories

A Question from a Facebook Commenter: "How do you connect a dead God to ending death without using the biblical understanding of ransom/sacrifice/substitution the scripture speaks of (Romans 5:10)?" Response: This right here is my problem with Penal Substitution theories of atonement (PSA), in that