Human praise is short-lived. Whether it’s my students, the conference organizers, or publishers, praise is not always on their lips. And we see the same happening for Jesus. Read more…
Do I Really Need a Sabbath? (Scholar’s Compass)
The key to Sabbath is to trust God rather than ourselves. Read more…
Defensiveness
Our “identity” as Christians is in Christ (Galatians 2:20). Breaking into adversarial groups should not be a part of Christian conduct (1 Corinthians 3:1-9). Read more…
Discernment
Discernment in Proverbs is the means to foresee potential results from our decisions. Read more…
Disagreement
University settings can create verbal combat zones. Territorial attitudes sometimes leave little room for hearing others.Read more…
Approach
It is important to begin conversations by admitting our presuppositions or prejudices about the given topic of discussion. Agree or disagree? Why or why not?Read more…
A New Beginning (Scholar’s Compass)
The first few chapters of 1 Samuel serve as the origin story of the prophet Samuel. This is a low moment in the history of Israel.Read more…
The Baptism of the Lord (Scholar’s Compass)
On this day, we commemorate the baptism of Jesus. This chronological jump in the church calendar is jarring. Just yesterday—on Epiphany—Jesus was a small child receiving gifts from the magi. Today, he is a grown man beginning his public ministry.Read more…
Fourth Week of Advent: The Coming King (Scholar’s Compass)
The Incarnation was an act of greatest love and imagination.Read more…
Third Week of Advent: The Incarnation (Scholar’s Compass)
The Incarnation reveals, among other things, the immense tenderness and unexpected ways of God. He who spoke the world into being decides, in order to communicate with us, to become human himself.Read more…
Second Week of Advent: The Hope (Scholar’s Compass)
Advent invites us to bring before God every weary and wasted place in us and around us . . . Read more…
Continuing Thanksgiving (Scholar’s Compass)
How do we practice gratitude on an ongoing basis? Read more…
First Week of Advent: The Word (Scholar’s Compass)
Who we are, and are becoming, is subject, at least in part, to the words we hear and read, speak and write, and receive and dismiss. Read more…
Consider the Ravens (Scholar’s Compass)
If I were to sum up my last five years in one word, it would be “change”. I have lived in four different houses, worked three different jobs, lived on two continents, gotten married, gone to grad school, and had a child. Read more…
Living in the Moment (Scholar’s Compass Transitions Series Summer 2017, Post 4)
The Gospel opens to us a new reality, a new awareness of timeRead more…
Living in Transition (Scholar’s Compass Transitions Series Summer 2017, Post 3)
We daily live in this tension of the “already and the not yet.”Read more…
“Where You Go, God Is” (Scholar’s Compass Transitions Series Summer 2017, Post 2)
What Christian Brady learned about transitions from a vaudeville performer turned expository preacher. Read more…
Reshaped, Reworked, and Redeemed (Scholar’s Compass Transitions Series Summer 2017)
When I began college thirty years ago I was intent on being “a real doctor.” I loved science and medicine, I had interned at NIH, and I was going to be a physician. Until I wasn’t.Read more…
The Perfection of our Praise: Reclaiming our Inner Folly on Palm Sunday (Scholar’s Compass)
Palm Sunday clarifies the purpose of Lent. It reminds us that our repentance is ordered toward a God who uses the foolish and weak things of this word to confound it. Viewed through Palm Sunday, Lent serves as preparation for an encounter with folly.Read more…
Words of Authority (Scholar’s Compass)
In large engineering projects such as the construction sites I work on, engineers rely on documents issued by others to make decisions and build things under time constraint. A “for construction” stamp and the author’s initials on a drawing assure us that the design is ready for construction, and that we can contact the engineer for further advice.Read more…
The Spiritual Act of Naming: Truth Telling in Writing (Writing As a Spiritual Discipline Series)
My desire to write comes from an experience of reading. I read a transforming word. As I am transformed, I wish to influence transformation in a confusing and unjust world.Read more…
Faith and Doubt in Emily Dickinson’s “This World is not Conclusion”
What is fascinating about Dickinson’s poetry is her wrestling with the mystery of faith, oscillating as she does between the comfort of traditional faith and the gnawing presence of doubt.Read more…
Rejoice: Fourth Week of Advent (Scholar’s Compass)
As we continue to wait and listen in Advent, we hear the extraordinary promises once again in our ordinary lives.Read more…
Watch: Third Week of Advent (Scholar’s Compass)
Watching and keeping awake requires us to live in the present. But we don’t often live in the present.Read more…