Taking a little break. I’ll be back for Christmas! #Advent #socialmediabreak

And so it begins… #LOTR

A great conversation with my man Rich Villodas talking about his new book, a devotional for Advent. open.spotify.com/episode/3fnx...

Eating Turkey is not biblical. Enjoy that bird, sinners. #biblicism

Pope Leo is right. What unites Orthodox, Catholic, and Protestant Christians is much greater than what divides us! Christianity unity, in fulfillment of Jesus’ prayer in John 17:21, is possible. If you want it. #onechurch

What we usually call prayer, vocalizing our thoughts and needs to God, and Scripture reading aren’t two separate practices because much of prayer is listening. And we listen for the voice of God as we open the Scriptures and read. #prayer

It’s Christ the King Sunday! As the Christian calendar winds down and we prepare for another Advent season, today we remember what is most foundational about the gospel: Jesus is King! #ChristtheKingSunday

In the opening lines of his timeless and monumental Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle writes, “Every art and every inquiry, and similarly every action as well as choice, is held to aim at some good. Hence people have nobly declared that the good is that at which all things aim.”

C.S. Lewis, a self-proclaimed rationalist, describes the necessity of imagination in order to make sense of those things that are true. For example, think of Psalm 23, “The Lord is my shepherd...”

Does God have limits? Yes, but not in the way we often think, because God cannot act against God’s own nature. This isn’t weakness. It’s perfection. It’s coherence and consistency.

Billy Graham in 1981: "I want to preserve the purity of the Gospel and the freedom of religion in America. I don't want to see religious bigotry in any form. Liberals organized in the '60s, and conservatives certainly have a right to organize in the '80s...

It is much more helpful to imagine America as a kind of Babylon and not a kind of Israel. We pray for Babylon. We work for the peace of Babylon. We participate in the general life of Babylon but we recognize that Babylon is not our homeland. It’s not our source of identity, purpose, or meaning.

Go Eat Pop Corn #IYKYK

There is beauty all around us. If only we have eyes to see it. #autumnvibes🍁

Jacob Needleman has me thinking about the value of not just solving problems but asking big important questions to get to real ideas, because “in front of real ideas, I become still. I am in question…” #philosophy

Jacob Needleman has me thinking about the value of not just solving problems but asking big important questions to get to real ideas, because “in front of real ideas, I become still. I am in question…” #philosophy

“The evidence is mounting: unchecked social media exposure is shaping us, not toward Christlike love or holy attentiveness, but toward division, distraction, and chronic anxiety.” - Glenn Packiam Go read this! open.substack.com/pub/glennpac...

It's frustrating when Christians choose to form their identity (or build their platform) based on who they are against. Especially when they do it in the name of "discernment" or "standing up for the truth" or "defending the word of God."

Part of putting on the mind of Christ and thinking like Jesus is replacing the paradigm of "time vs. eternity" with "this present age vs. the age to come." Jesus and the New Testament writers understood that they were living in this present evil age and there was an age that was to come.

A view from my deck! #NorthernLights

You’ve fell victim to one of the classic blunders! The most famous is never get involved in a land war in Asia, but only slightly less well known is this; never go in against a Sicilian, when death is on the line! #VizzinitheWise

The kid is legal! Congrats Dylan! You worked very hard to get to this point. Rage-baited and all. You are a great driver! I’m so proud of you. #newdriver

We have spent so much time asking if we are prospering, productive, and well-protected people that we forgot to ask: Are we becoming good people? #telos

We fight against dying by being born again and again and again. Every day presents us with a new opportunity to get busy with the activities that bring us life, new life, born-again life. Without a pursuit of being born we will be overcome with the business of dying. #chooselife

Perpetual spiritual adolescents who are stuck in the shallow ground of a superficial version of the Chritian faith make a mockery of the redemption offered to us in King Jesus. Shallowness keeps us far away from the transformative power of the Spirit to form us into the image of Jesus. #amwriting

As a pastor, my goal is to embody faithfully the politics of Jesus as summed up in the Sermon on the Mount, highlighted by humility, compassion, gentleness, righteousness, justice, mercy, purity, peace, and faithfulness.

Christian brothers and sisters, we are not called to “win the culture.” We are called to make disciples. Jesus didn’t call us to be culture-war warriors. He called us to be peacemaking servants. #NoMoreCultureWars

Today is a good day to recall Jesus’ command to love your neighbor as your self, this includes our Muslim neighbors. Not all Muslims are jihadists, just like not all Christians are insurrectionists. Carry on. #loveyourneighbor

Today is a good day to recall Jesus’ command to love your neighbor as your self, this includes our Muslim neighbors. Not all Muslims are jihadists, just like not all Christians are not insurrectionists. Carry on. #loveyourneighbor

I'm leading an online study of my new book, Incarnation, beginning THIS Thursday, November 6 at 7PM central time. I wrote this Bible study using The Message Bible focused on Advent and Christmas themes. Wanna join our discussion? Register here: subspla.sh/n775k7j

Jesus is the… –Son of God –Word of God –Word of life –Bread of life –Bread of heaven –Hope of heaven –Hope of Israel –King of Israel –King of kings #Jesus

I love the Bible! I believe the Bible is true but we cannot defend the veracity of Scripture against modern attacks by using the tools of modernity. It’s like Satan trying to cast out Satan. It’s self-defeating.

For the record, modern Christian fundamentalism is a poor representation of the ancient Christian faith. The tenets of fundamentalism include: 1. No FUN 2. A lot of DAMN 3. Not much MENTAL 4. All this wrapped in an ISM #contendforthefaith

I loved this conversation with Andrew Arndt on the strangeness and the graciousness of the story of Jesus based on his newish book A Strange and Gracious Light. Go check it out! open.spotify.com/episode/1jsm... #PeaceableandKind

Eugene the Wise on joy. It's not a requirement. It is a consequence. SO GOOD! (As quoted by Rich Villodas in his new book Waiting For Jesus.) #joy

ADJECTIVE WARS: BIBLICAL OR CHRISTIAN? 🧵 The adjective “biblical” can be problematic. The Bible isn’t a single book. It’s a collection of books, each inspired by the Holy Spirit yet uniquely written in different genres, settings, and historical contexts.

WOULD YOU GROW UP?!? The temptation of the people of God from the beginning has been to become well-adjusted to the pagan culture around us. A worldly culture conforms us into its immaturity, but God the Holy Spirit transforms us into maturity—that is, to the full and complete standard of Christ.

Jesus is the new and more glorious Temple where divinity and humanity meet, the place where peace is found. #JesusIntheOldTestament

Jesus is the new and more glorious Temple where divinity and humanity meet, the place where peace is found (Haggai 2:9). #JesusIntheOldTestament

The loss of the value of character, moral integrity, and virtue is at the root of a number of cultural ailments.. I'm advocating for Christians to resume a holy quest for virtue. C.S. Lewis said the same thing 70 years ago and it is MORE true today. #CharacterMatters

While neither Jesus nor the apostles specifically called for the abolition of slavery, I believe Philemon 1:16 is a seed planted that would flourish into the end of slavery. You cannot own as property him you love as a brother. #dailyoffice #lectionary #BibleReading

Great bike ride on the River Bluff Trail this morning! 🚲 #getoutdoors

The Missio Alliance editorial director and I sat down for a Q&A to talk more about the shared falsehoods of both of these popular, and yet deeply flawed, movements. Read more here: www.missioalliance.org/a-needed-con... #RejectChristianNationalism #RejectProsperityGospel

Praying for an end to the government shutdown in part because it affect the least of these. Over a half million people in Missouri depend on the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). www.kq2.com/news/second-...

Both Christian nationalism and the prosperity gospel promise greatness without humility. They confuse self-determination with discipleship, and success without sanctification. We must courageously, and with great clarity, reject the false gospels of both. www.missioalliance.org/how-christia...

Christian nationalism baptizes the American ethos of superiority. The prosperity gospel baptizes the American dream of upward mobility. Both conflate God's purposes and God's power for personal gain. www.missioalliance.org/how-christia...

My latest piece is up on Missio Alliance where the death of Charlie Kirk prompted me to reflect on how Christian Nationalism and the Prosperity Gospel share the same theological deficiencies and our need to reject both of them. www.missioalliance.org/how-christia... #RejectChristianNationalism

Happy Release Day to Ingrid Faro & Joyce Koo Dalrymple! 🎉 Redeeming Eden invites us to see how women in Scripture advance God’s redemptive story, restoring dignity, courage, & hope. A beautiful, needed book. 👉 amzn.to/4qh65IR

CHRISTIAN NATIONALISM AND THE PROSPERITY GOSPEL American Christians struggle with Christian Nationalism and the Prosperity Gospel because both ideologies mirror America’s own myths, particularly the myths of rugged individualism, exceptionalism, and the pursuit of success.

31-0. #Chiefs over the #Raiders. The most lopsided Chiefs win in recent memory and I loved every minute of it! #ChiefsKingdom