welcome
Thank you for visiting. Here, you’ll find some of my thoughts on Scripture, theology, history, and mission. Feel free to contact me at the email below.
blog
Waiting
As a kid, December brought with it a lot of waiting—waiting to decorate, waiting for school to be out, waiting for my sisters’ Christmas concert to be over. And of course, I was waiting for Christmas morning and unwrapping presents.
Such waiting has made it easier to embrace a more concerted observance of Advent, for Advent is a time that teaches us to wait. In this season, we look back and remember God’s people expectantly longing for the first coming of Christ, and we look forward, waiting in hope for his second.
Advent’s lessons in waiting seem increasingly important to me, for I grow more and more convinced that the life of faith is a life of waiting. We’re waiting on God. We’re waiting for him to fulfill his promises and to unite all things in Christ.
Sent Together into the World
Often, the church is seen, at best, as a by-product of the missionary endeavor and, at worst, a hindrance to it. Yet, in John 17, Jesus’s prayer challenges us to consider the importance of community for our continuing in his mission.
Endurance.
Enthusiasm is easy, but it tends to leave us as easily as it comes. Endurance in life is the real challenge. Last endurance in the life of faith can only come through the encouragement of the gospel.
Joining Christ in His Work
"The deepest motive for mission is simply the desire to be with Jesus where he is, on the frontier between the reign of God and the usurped dominion of the devil." - Lesslie Newbigin
Christmas Comfort from Heidelberg
The first question and answer from the Heidelberg Catechism (1563) serves as a great reminder of our true comfort and hope at Christmas.
Augustine on Prayer
For our Advent series through the exilic psalms, I was reading through Augustine’s expositions of the Psalms. His comments on prayer from Ps 77:2 struck me.
a confession from Philippians 2
As a church staff, we read through and discussed Paul David Tripp’s Lead this fall. Chapter 9 on identity prompted me to pray this prayer based on Philippians 2.
Evangelicalism as Protest
In The Missionary Movement in Christian History, Andrew Walls comments on the origin and nature of the evangelical movement in the eighteenth century: “Historic evangelicalism is a religion of protest against a Christian society that is not Christian enough. . . . The evangelical bugbears were less professed infidelity than professed Christianity without the ‘distinguishing doctrines of the gospel’” (81).