Acts 7 arrives at a hinge-point in the story of the early church. The church is growing, and many non-Jewish believers in Jesus are being added to their number. Over the next few chapters, the doors will begin to open wide to the Gentiles. But several key questions remain. Chief among them are, How do non-Israelites relate to the story of Israel and Israel’s God?

Maybe you’ve felt a similar way when reading the Old Testament. How does this story of the people of God in the Old Testament relate to us now as the people of God in the New Testament.

Acts 7 contains the longest speech in the book of Acts. It serves several purposes: It introduces us to the first Christian martyr; it gives us the origin story of Paul, here known as Saul; and it condenses the grand story of the Old Testament into key plot points that we must not miss.

We meet Stephen in Acts 6. He is one of the seven chosen to serve the tables of the Greek-speaking widows, but he does not stay in the background of the Story for long. Luke tells us he is “full of God’s grace and power,” and that he “performed great wonders and signs among the people” (Acts 6:8).

That is when the trouble starts. His opponents “secretly persuaded some men to say, ‘We have heard Stephen speak blasphemous words against Moses and against God’” (Acts 6:11). Stephen is seized and dragged before the Sanhedrin, the Jerusalem Council, where false witnesses accuse him of speaking against the temple and against the Law (Acts 6:13–14). “All who were sitting in the Sanhedrin looked intently at Stephen, and they saw that his face was like the face of an angel” (Acts 6:15).

Then Stephen opens his mouth and tells the Story. Through Stephen’s speech we hear a refrain: Same God. Same struggle. Same Jesus.

1. Same God.

Notice the pattern: the presence and the promise. God appears to Abraham, and then makes a covenant with him. The same rhythm repeats with Moses:

The God in the Old Testament is not different from the God that one we meet in the New Testament. Stephen’s speech teaches us what to pay attention to in the Old Testament story. He’s teaching us how to read the Old Testament.

Neither is the God of the Bible a distant God, a God who used to do things like this and has since moved on.

God has always been the God of rescue.

If you find yourself like Abraham in a new place—new city, new job, new season, no map—the same God who was with Abraham is with you.

If you find yourself like Joseph, working in an ungodly context driven by money and greed—the same God who was with Joseph is with you.

If you find yourself like Moses, embarrassed and exiled, living in the wreckage of your own attempt to fix things—the same God who was with Moses is with you.

2. Same struggle.

Stephen keeps telling the Story, and it gets uncomfortable, because the Story includes us.

Remember what the name Israel means: the ones who wrestle with God. It began as something of a compliment, given to Jacob limping away from the river with a new name. But somewhere along the way the wrestling became resistance. The struggle with God became a struggle against God.

You can see it in the other pattern that runs through Stephen’s whole sermon: the rejected deliverer. Joseph, rejected by his brothers. Moses, rejected by Israel. Every time God sends a rescuer, the people push him away; and then God uses the very one they rejected to save them.

We too are the people who struggle. We struggle against God; we resist what God is doing.

Stephen then attacks the institution they’re defending: the temple. But he doesn’t devalue it; he relativizes it. The temple was meant to be a signpost not the destination.

Some people today have devoted their lives to defending systems and structures that are meant to point us to Jesus— Christian culture; Christian values; Christian institutions. All good things. But they are not the point. The fountainhead of all this is Jesus Himself. If you’ve come back to church because you want Christian values in our country, that’s fine; but don’t miss the main point: Jesus.

Don’t get embroiled in the culture war and miss knowing Jesus!

In a way, the whole Christian life is an ongoing movement from struggling against God to surrendering to God. This is not only how we begin to follow Jesus; it’s also how we grow to become like Jesus.

3. Same Jesus.

The climactic moment of the chapter is where Stephen sees Jesus standing.

Standing.

Nearly everywhere else in the New Testament, Jesus is seated at the right hand of God—the finished work, the reigning King. Here He is on His feet. The word translated as resurrection literally means to stand up again. Jesus stands in Acts to show that He is actually alive and risen.

Here it takes on an additional significance. The scene is a trial, but this court does not ultimately belong to the Sanhedrin. This is God’s courtroom, and Jesus gets the final verdict. The Vindicated One— the Rejected Deliverer who was vindicated by resurrection— now stands to vindicate a rejected deliverer, Stephen, who suffers like Jesus did.

And do you know who else was there? Saul. The young man at whose feet they laid their coats. The man who would become Paul.

There are two moments in the book of Acts where Jesus is seen standing. One is for Stephen. The other is for Paul.

Years later, Paul is arrested and hauled before the Jewish leaders, and then on toward Roman ones, and he has his own vision: “The following night the Lord stood near Paul and said, ‘Take courage! As you have testified about me in Jerusalem, so you must also testify in Rome’” (Acts 23:11).

Jesus stood up for Stephen. Jesus stood beside Paul.

Stephen was a martyr; Paul was a persecutor. Stephen was a saint; Paul called himself the chief of sinners (1 Timothy 1:15). And Jesus stood for both of them.

Where sin abounds, grace abounds all the more (Romans 5:20).

Same God. Same struggle. Same Jesus.

Nobody else gets the last word on you.

Not the council. Not the false witnesses. Not the voices that have decided who you are. Not even the voice in your own head that has been building its case against you for years.

Jesus stands up to vindicate you.

There is nothing about your past, your story, or your mistakes that gets to define you. The verdict has already been rendered by the only One whose opinion is final. Jesus stands up for you.

When Jesus stands for you, no one can stand against you.

Holly and I celebrated 25 years of marriage last Monday. They say that love is blind, but marriage opens your eyes. Well, I can’t believe that after seeing me as I really am, she still loves me!

Weddings are amazing not because they are a cool event or a repeatable experience. Weddings are amazing because they are a transformative moment that create a new relationship and a new reality.

Imagine treating your wedding like an event with no bearing on your life. The wedding is over; you simply resume life as usual. Imagine having a great wedding but doing nothing to invest in the relationship afterward.

O imagine saying to your spouse: “That was an amazing experience—the cake, the guests, the dancing. Super fun! Let’s do it again!”

That would miss the point entirely.

Today, as we come to Acts 2 in our yearlong journey through the Bible, called “Enter the Story”, we are talking about a moment in the Story that is much more than an event or an experience. It is the beginning of a dynamic relationship and a new reality.

Some people treat Pentecost as a cool thing that happened that one time. Others say we need to experience Pentecost regularly. But Pentecost was a one-time transformative moment that created the Church and ushered in a new era where every believer in Jesus is filled with the Holy Spirit.

There are, of course, other stories in Acts where the Spirit is poured out in ways that resemble Pentecost: in Samaria (Acts 8:14–17), in Cornelius’s household (Acts 10:44–45), and among John’s disciples in Ephesus (Acts 19:1–6). But these are extensions—waves of the same moment—reaching new communities across ethnic lines.

NT scholar Patrick Schreiner writes:

So how do we live into the new relationship and reality created by the Day of Pentecost?

Acts 2 shows us three things.

1. The Spirit fulfills God’s promise

Before Jesus ascended, He told His disciples:

Then, when the Spirit was poured out, Peter stood up and explained what was happening. This was the fulfillment of Joel’s prophecy:

Peter goes on:

The Holy Spirit is a promise, not a reward. The Holy Spirit is a gift, not a wage.

The outpouring of the Spirit fulfills a long line of Old Testament promises. Moses once said, “If only all the Lord’s people were prophets and the Lord would place his Spirit on them!” (Numbers 11:29). Isaiah promised, “I will pour out my Spirit on your descendants” (Isaiah 44:3). Ezekiel anticipated the day when God would give His people a new heart and place His Spirit within them (Ezekiel 36:26–27).

The phrase, “God comes where He’s wanted” is powerful when we hear it correctly as desire for God. God loves to be loved; He wants to be wanted. The Scripture says when we “draw near to God, He will draw near to us.” That’s wonderful. But we can twist this in our minds to mean that God is playing games with us. Like a toxic friend, God pouts and is petty and manipulative, waiting for us to show Him that we really, really want Him before He shows us.

Pentecost shows us that God does not just come where He is wanted; God comes because He promised.

You do not have to manufacture God’s presence or strain to re-experience a past moment. You can welcome the Spirit with expectancy because God has given the Spirit as a gift.

You can pray with fervency, not anxiety.

2. The Spirit forms God’s people

Pentecost did not create merely Spirit-empowered individuals. It created a Spirit-empowered community. This was not a collection of individuals having personal ecstatic experiences. It was a new community being formed by the Spirit in new, radical kind of unity.

Acts tells us that the believers devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching, fellowship, the breaking of bread, and prayer. They shared their possessions, gave to anyone who had need, met together daily, and ate together with glad and sincere hearts (Acts 2:42–47).

The mark of the Spirit’s work is the formation of a new family.

In what might be the unlikeliest of podcast interviews, Rainn Wilson (the actor who played “Dwight Schrute” on The Office) told Christianity Today editor Russell Moore that the church was a new kind of community.

Is he right?

The eminent church historian Robert Louis Wilken wrotes:

Around AD 200, Christians in Rome created burial places where people who had been divided all their lives were laid to rest together. In the ancient world, even cemeteries separated the wealthy from the poor and the noble from the ordinary. But Christians offered burial freely and buried socially divided people side by side.

At the Catacombs of St. Callixtus, the young and old, rich and poor, nobles and plebs were buried together. All believers were equal in the Lord—in life and in death. And why should they not be? They had already died with Christ and been raised with Christ in the waters of baptism.

One of the markers of an outpouring of the Spirit may indeed be long prayer meetings and worship services. But when we see people committed to each other and to the Lord, welcoming the stranger and caring for orphans and widows, this too is revival.

Pentecost is the birth of the Church. I believe that the primary place you find the Spirit at work is in building the Church.

Want to get in on the move of the Spirit? Commit to a local church.

Concerts and conferences can be good, but they are not the primary place where the Spirit is at work. Show me a community devoted to God and to one another, and I will show you the move of the Spirit.

3. The Spirit fuels God’s purpose

God’s power is given to proclaim God’s message.

At Pentecost, people from every nation heard the wonders of God declared in their own languages (Acts 2:5–11). Notice this: people heard the gospel in a language they could understand.

Cultural adaptation is key to the growth of Christianity—not conformity to one early-church methodology. Read Acts and you will see the growth of the Church resists formula. The gospel remains the same, but the approaches differ across cities, people, and seasons. Where has God placed you to bear witness to the good news of Jesus?

Pentecost is the empowerment of the Church to continue the mission of Jesus.

There is a striking parallel between Luke 4 and Acts 2. In Luke 4, Jesus declares:

Then Acts begins by describing Luke’s first book as an account of “all that Jesus began to do and to teach” (Acts 1:1).

The implication is clear: Jesus is continuing His work through His Spirit-empowered people.

This power is available to you.

In the Old Testament, Pentecost commemorated the giving of the Law. In the New Testament, Pentecost marks the giving of the Spirit. It is as though the mission has been placed in our hands—but the batteries are included.

Live Into Pentecost

Put it all together:

1. The Spirit fulfills God’s promise (Encounter)

2. The Spirit forms God’s people (Formation

3. The Spirit fuels God’s purpose (Mission)

We cannot repeat an event or an experience. But we can repeat a posture: expectancy and dependence on God.

A few years ago, I got an ebike. It’s amazing. It’s pedal-assist, but it allows me to go on much longer distances and up hills that I wouldn’t otherwise attempt. It’s an imperfect analogy, but I think life in the Spirit is like being given an ebike. Every Christian has the Holy Spirit. But sometimes I wonder if we try to pedal without the power on. With an e-bike, that’s harder than a regular bike because it’s heavier. But when it comes to following Jesus, it’s not just harder; it’s impossible.

We need to turn the power on!

But it is also true that pedal-assist requires getting on the bike and pedalling. The Holy Spirit does not move our mouths for us, or make us go places. We have act and speak and take risks. But when we do, we will find the power of God pushing us onward!

Do not go into life in your own strength. Welcome the person and power of the Holy Spirit

Watch the message below or find it on Spotify here.

*AI took my 1700-word notes and reformatted them for a draft of this post, summarizing a few sections. I edited it heavily afterwards, adding whole sections, deleting others, and re-writing others. Pangram says it amounts to 5% AI.

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Everywhere you turn, someone is talking about AI. I was driving to LAX the other day and a billboard advertising chocolates said something about AI, though I can’t remember what. The conversation about AI is as ubiquitous as it is contentious.

A few weeks ago, The Gospel Coalition published their AI policy, mirroring what Christianity Today had published months prior. Both take a pretty strong stance, barring AI usage for both research and editing, not merely for writing itself. The support and the outcry were equally loud. Some called them “neo-Luddites”—

— others praised them for being “pro-human”.

Crucial to the conversation is what we mean by AI. What kind of automated features are we talking about? LLMs— Large Language Models— are the ones most people think of, the kind of AI that mimic human logic, phrasing, and sentence structure. But tech-savvy folks know there are far deeper levels: Agentic AI can run tasks for you— like combing through your emails for school bulletins and club sports schedules and adding them to your calendar and inviting people you tell it to; or analyzing three years worth of financials and creating summaries and even models to forecast next year’s outlook. I have a friend who created an AI agent that emailed me my travel itinerary and speaking schedule, and checked in with me on the day of the event to make sure I had what I needed. I had no idea she wasn’t real until my friend asked me at a conference dinner event if I had met “Amber” yet. I said no but she had been super helpful, anticipating my needs and supplying me with all the information in a very nice document. He smirked and asked if I thought Amber was real. Welcome to the new world, I thought.

My friend posted a thoughtful reflection on X last week about recognizing the difference between “work” and “toil”. Work is a gift from God, a pre-Fall, original call given to humans as part of the dignity and glory of being God’s image. Toil is the result of the Fall, the unnecessary exertion of stress that comes from the ground working against you and from thorns that pushing back against you. Work is glorious; we all long for purpose, to make a meaningful contribution to the world. That is why writers write and singers sing and architects design and teacher teach. But toil is felt when deadlines force writers to publish half-baked ideas, or when an industry squeezes every ounce of creativity out of an artist, or when education systems force children into cookie-cutter molds. Every industry is bent, every field is ridden with thorns, every job requires energy-draining, life-sucking toil that spoils the joy of work.

AI can help reduce the load of toil while not replacing the meaning of work.

AI is not going anywhere. Hard-line “either-or” solutions don’t take seriously the gifts and the dangers of it. It is not an unqualified good, nor is it an unmitigated disaster. As with so many other technological innovations, we’re going to become a “both-and” society. We shop at Walmart and at the farmer’s market. We buy stuff from Amazon and from Facebook marketplace. We post on Instagram, and we “Brick” our phones after dark. We send text messages and we give hand-writing cards.

The most fruitful questions are about what tensions we are trying to manage.

Naming tensions comes as a result of making distinctions.

A Person’s a Person…

After that lengthy preamble, we now come to the central distinction that helps us name the core tension in every conversation about AI. It has to do with personhood.

In the 1923, a Jewish philosopher named Martin Buber wrote a book called, “I and Thou”. His claim was that human relationships fall into two categories: relationships with an object (which he called, “I-It”) and relationships with a person (which he called, “I-Thou”). Anytime we relate to a human being, we must relate to them as a holy being, a sacred “thou”. We should never treat them like an “It”. Nor should we allow others to treat us like an “It”. And conversely, we should never treat an object like a person. Doing so diminishes that glory of humans being God’s image.

Building on Buber’s work, we make argue that the more we interact with objects, the more we diminish our own humanity. Humans were made primarily for “I-Thou” relationships, not “I-It” relationships. All our human relationships are meant to point us up toward the Eternal Thou, God Himself. The better we get at human “I-Thou” relationships, the more ready we are for a relationship with God. Or maybe it’s the other way around.

When we relate rightly to God, we begin to relate rightly with people.

A Christian will recognize much to love about Buber’s framing. In fact, I may already be filling in Christian theology into Buber’s paradigm. The Bible links the love of God and the love as neighbor as the Great Commandment, in Deuteronomy and Leviticus, and of course in Jesus. Epistle 1 John is all about the necessary connection between these two “loves”. We cannot claim to love God whom we have not seen if we do not love our brother and sister whom we do see. John essentially says if we are truly alive, we will truly love.

Dynamic relationships with relational beings are the core of true life.

Other philosophers have a similar way of speaking about “personhood” and the relationship between people by talking about “subject-subject” relationships versus “subject-object” relationships. An “object” is a thing that can be acted upon; but it cannot act upon us. We can move an object, but it cannot move us. This is not only true in a literal sense but also in a metaphorical sense.

Have you ever been in a relationship with a person who only wanted you to do everything they wanted to do? Whenever you were upset, they were indifferent to you, or if you had a desire, they ignored it. But anytime they have a want or express an emotion, you’re supposed to jump to do it or to respond to them. If so, how long did that relationship last? Not long, I’d guess. Why? Because no one wants to be the “object” in a relationship. We want to be treated like a “subject”. A subject is a person who acts. Think of the word “subject” in a grammatical sense— the noun at the start of a sentence— not as another word for “servant”.

A healthy human relationship is between two “subjects”, two people who have their own verbs and actions and being.

A simple way to test this is to ask, “Am I moved by them? And are they moved by me?” Subjects move each other; objects are only moved by another. Even a newborn baby is a subject: what they do moves their parent. A baby cries, and a parent attends to them. We learn early on that we are not objects; we are subjects. We get to start the action in someone else.

Christian theologian Alistair MacFadyen, in his foundational work, “The Call to Personhood: A Christian Theory of the Individual in Social Relationships (1990)”, argued that a person is “formed through social interaction, through address and response.”

Whatever we call it— I-Thou relationships, or subject-subject relationships— they are dynamic. They make us human and they keep us human. They keep us from becoming an “It”, from becoming an object.

Presence > Intelligence

I was on a zoom call the other day with several pastors convened by Carey Nieuwhof to talk about the age of AI and the best ways the church should prepare for it. Carey has a brilliant new book on the subject coming out next month. On our call, he shared a slide that arrested me. It showed that for two years in a row, the number one reason Americans use AI is for therapy.

This is crossing an important line. It is one thing to rely on artificial intelligence or augmented intelligence or accelerated intelligence or even aggregated intelligence. It is another thing to begin to count on it for presence.

In a recent study, Barna found that “Practicing Christians express majority-level trust in AI across most domains of personal flourishing—and nearly half (48%) say they would trust AI with their spiritual growth.” Fortunately, pastors “express far lower trust across all the same domains.” There’s plenty to be concerned about in this graph:

If humans are to be treated as a sacred “I” and “Thou”, as subjects worthy of empathy and love, then our deepest need is for presence. We need the presence of God; and we need the presence of God’s image-bearers, humans. In fact, our presence is the best gift we can give another person.

AI is excellent at intelligence; but it can never replace presence.1

Two of the surest markers of the presence of a dynamic being (read: a living subject versus a static object) are unpredictability and imperfection. The first is true of both God and humans; the second is true of humans.

A word to pastors:

In a world of AI polish, human imperfection and divine unpredictability may be the most powerful things the church can offer.

Why? Because it means God is present, and so are we.

Policy Drafts

When a small group of staff and elders convened a meeting to talk about how to draft an AI policy for our staff team, we invited a friend who serves at a senior leadership level at a tech AI company that you all probably own stock in. As we tried to lay out some of the issues, I was eager to press to rules and policies. He suggested starting with first principles. That has stuck with me. He said we should we start by defining what a human is, and what a human requires.

The best way to think through the tensions of what AI should and should not do is to start with what humans are and what we should and should not be.

Here’s what I’ve got so far:

1. AI is an “It”.

2. AI must never be treated like a “Thou”. It is an “object” to be moved by me and never to move me.

3. AI must never act as an “I”. It should not do work for me that diminishes my humanity or the humanity of others.

What does that mean, practically?

1. AI does not replace my thought-work. I do not let it think for me. AI can function like a high level research assistant for some projects. It can supply me with data, research, synopses and summaries.

2. AI does not do my creative work. AI never creates the first draft nor is it a content originator. AI can do derivative work. It can take a draft and fill it out, or my 1500-word sermon notes and turn it into a Substack, or create supplementary resources like group discussion questions, or summary reports from data files.

3. All writing that deserves to be a human speaking to a human should be written by a human. I’m thinking about sermons, personal letters, funeral speeches, wedding vows, and more. Bizarre as it sounds to have to say this, I keep hearing more and more stories of Claude or ChatGPT writing eulogies and wedding vows!

4. AI usage should be disclosed. A human deserves the dignity of knowing when they are not interacting with a human. All AI writing or writing that incorporates AI in structure and argumentation or is collaboratively written with AI should be disclosed. A human deserves to know when a digital brain is talking to it vs when a human is.

5. I don’t give AI a human name. With apologies to “Amber”, I don’t want my brain acting or interacting with AI as if it is a person. (I appreciate Perplexity’s choice to call it “computer”.)

You could sum up my proposal in one sentence (without the use of AI):

It is humans, not machines, that should become more human.

The flourishing of the world and the glory of God come through God’s image-bearers.

What about you? How might the “I-Thou” versus “I-It” frame help your discussions and decisions about AI?

I am sitting in the café of a big box bookstore like it’s 1999. Back then, these behemoth booksellers were cast as the villain, as in my favorite rom-com of all time, You’ve Got Mail. But these days, any brick-and-mortar place where I can be surrounded by books and sit leisurely with them is a treasure. Something about it makes me smile. I’ve just browsed several rows of books—some of them religious, most not. Some are nonfiction; others are fiction. And then there are memoirs that surely live somewhere in between. All of them are trying to stand out to the casual browser. And all are, in some form, a story. The story of an idea, the story of a life, the story of a city or a company and more.

Humans are storytelling creatures. It is how we make sense of the world; it’s how we make meaning of our lives. And there is something of a template for the stories we tell. There is a line, variously attributed but perhaps most often to the great Russian novelist Leo Tolstoy, though I have not seen it cited, that “All great literature is one of two stories: A man goes on a journey or a stranger comes to town.”

Many have remarked that if this were true, then it could also be argued there is really only one story told from two perspectives—for the man who goes on a journey is also a stranger who comes to someone else’s town. Even if we didn’t reduce it that way, think of some great stories that connect these themes:

• Bilbo Baggins goes on a journey because Gandalf, a stranger, comes to town.

• Harry Potter goes to Hogwarts and begins his quest to defeat Voldemort because an owl (or rather, many owls!) comes to town (and eventually because Hagrid comes to the remote lighthouse cabin where the Dursleys seek to escape).

• Little Women, a favorite with my wife and daughters (and let’s be honest, a favorite of mine too), is arguably about Jo’s journey to find herself after deciding against marriage to Teddy, who initially was the stranger who came to town.

Did you catch my reflection on Nolan’s spin on The Odyssey?

Anyway, I’m not convinced that all stories can be meaningfully reduced to these two themes. But there is something fascinating about searching for the repeated themes human stories seem to trace.

For Christians, there is one story that stands behind all stories: the story of God coming to us in human flesh, to be for us what we are not, to do for us what we cannot; the God who suffered with us, as us, for us; the God who died; the God who was raised up in victory, having gone through death to resurrection life.

This is a story that pulls together all human stories. It makes sense of our longing; it accounts for our failure and our frailty; it offers us a hope beyond ourselves, a redemption outside our reach; it answers the dream of life that goes beyond death.

But maybe the ubiquity of the Jesus story is the very reason some reject it. After all, is this not some version of an old human myth or of several myths? C. S. Lewis, acquainted with myth because of his academic field of medieval literature, referred to Christianity as “a myth which is also a fact.”^[i] What he meant is there was an old myth of a “Dying God” that happened “at a particular date, in a particular place, followed by definable historical consequences.”^[ii] These parallels ought not make one nervous, Lewis argued. In fact, “they ought to be there—it would be a stumbling block if they weren’t.”

It could be that Lewis had in mind what the writer of Ecclesiastes referred to as God putting “eternity in [our] hearts” (Eccl. 3:11). These myths exist for a reason; they are clues from our own longing. Yet the key in Christianity is that God actually came into our world. Lewis put it this way: “For this is the marriage of heaven and earth: perfect myth and perfect fact: claiming not only our love and our obedience, but also our wonder and delight, addressed to the savage, the child, and the poet in each one of us no less than to the moralist, the scholar, and the philosopher.”^[iii]

Christian confession of Jesus is not only the marriage of heaven and earth in the sense of what Lewis called myth and fact. It is also because the confession of who Jesus is links the eternal Son with the incarnate Son. The one who was before all things and through whom all things were made is the one and the same who came into the world that He made. John put it this way in the opening lines of his Gospel account: “In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God. The Word was with God in the beginning. Everything came into being through the Word, and without the Word nothing came into being. . . . The Word became flesh and made his home among us” (John 1:1–3, 14).

Jesus creating all things and then coming into creation to redeem; Jesus coming to earth for us, dying for our sin, rising in victory—this is the heart of the Creed and the center of our faith.

It is the story of all stories, and because it is the myth that is also true, it captures our wonder and our worship.

This was an excerpt from my latest book, “What’s A Christian, Anyway? Finding Our Way in an Age of Confusion and Corruption”. It is a pastoral guide through the oldest and fullest confession of the Christian faith, the Nicene Creed. I wrote it to help all de-constructors and doubters, disappointed and disillusioned, seekers and skeptics find their way back to the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

Find out more and get a whole bunch of free resources for small groups and preachers HERE.

^[i] C. S. Lewis, “Myth Became Fact,” in God in the Dock (William B. Eerdmans, 1970), 58.

^[ii] C. S. Lewis, “Myth Became Fact,” in Essay Collection: Faith, Christianity, and the Church (HarperCollins, 2001), 141–42.

^[iii] Lewis, “Myth Became Fact,”

Our journey through the Bible via 50 key episodes continues at Rockharbor. Catch up the series through my message recaps on Substack here.

The Pressing Question

An expert in the law stands up to test Jesus: “Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” (Luke 10:25).

He is not asking about “heaven” in the way we often mean it. He is asking about the life of the age to come. In other words: Who really belongs in the Kingdom of God?

Jesus turns the question back to him. What is written in the Torah? How do you read it?

The man gives the right answer. Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, strength, and mind. Love your neighbor as yourself. Jesus tells him, “Do this and you will live.”

But the man wants to justify himself. He wants to make himself appear better—to show that he is already doing what God requires. So he asks the pressing question: “And who is my neighbor?”

It is an understandable question. Leviticus 19 gives instructions for loving fellow Israelites and caring for travelers among them. But after Greek and Roman conquest, with strangers and foreigners all around, the question became sharper: Who really is my neighbor?

This is not merely an ancient question. We still ask it whenever we want to decide who deserves our mercy, who belongs among “our people,” and who can remain outside the circle of our concern.

The question is not merely, “Who is my neighbor?” It is, “How will I treat the people who are not like me, people whom I might not have chosen?”

The Road to Jericho

Jesus replies with a story. A man is going down from Jerusalem to Jericho when he is attacked by robbers. They strip him, beat him, and leave him half dead.

The road itself was steep and notoriously dangerous, descending from Jerusalem to Jericho through rugged terrain. Yet Jesus does not pause to blame the man for traveling that road. He simply presents someone wounded, vulnerable, and in desperate need of help.

Then a priest comes down the same road. He sees the man and passes by on the other side. A Levite comes along, sees him, and does the same.

Perhaps they feared ceremonial uncleanness if the man was dead. Perhaps they feared danger if he was alive. But the reasons are ultimately irrelevant. The point is that they did not help.

How often do we make excuses for withholding mercy from someone?

Sometimes the barrier is not hostility but hurry.

Mercy is not just a matter of what we believe. It is a matter of whether we will stop.

At this point, we might expect an ordinary Israelite to arrive—the person who succeeds where the religious professionals failed. Or perhaps God himself will appear as the rescuer of the poor.

But no one could have guessed what comes next.

The Unlikely Hero

Then comes the twist: “But a Samaritan…”

To Jesus’ hearers, a Samaritan was not the obvious hero. Samaritans and Jews were divided by history, land, worship, ethnicity, and deep mutual hostility. The Samaritans were precisely the kind of people many would have preferred to leave outside the boundaries of neighbor-love—and outside the hope of eternal life itself.

Yet the Samaritan sees the wounded man and takes pity on him.

He goes to him. He bandages his wounds. He pours on oil and wine. He puts the man on his own donkey. He brings him to an inn and takes care of him. Then he pays for his continued care and promises to return.

Jesus flips the script: the unlikely hero reveals the person we do not want to love.

The Samaritan does not begin by asking whether the wounded man is safe, deserving, clean, or one of his people. He sees a person in need, and he acts with mercy.

The Question Flipped

Then Jesus flips the question itself.

He does not ask, “Who was the wounded man’s neighbor?” He asks, “Which of these three do you think was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of robbers?”

The answer is unavoidable: “The one who had mercy on him.”

Jesus tells him, “Go and do likewise.”

Jesus flips the question: The emphasis on action reveals our responsibility.

The answer does not come from asking who your neighbor is. It comes from asking who you can be a neighbor to. Jesus moves us from passive to active: from defining the limits of our responsibility to taking responsibility for someone else. In that way, the story of the Good Samaritan is the undoing of the Cain and Abel story. Am I my brother’s keeper? Yes!

Mercy Without Exception

Luke 10 opens with a sending. Jesus sends his followers to live on mission with him. But the biggest barrier to our mission is often the way we see people.

The legal expert interrupts the sending with his question: Who are “our people”? Who deserves to be shown mercy? The clean or the unclean? The righteous or the unrighteous?

We still use labels to get ourselves off the hook.

The labels may change, but the temptation remains the same. We use them to create distance. We use them to explain why we do not have to stop, see, or help.

But Jesus will not let us use a label to turn away from a human being in need.

God’s mercy is for everyone.

Who would you receive mercy from? That’s who you should have mercy for.

Jesus links love for God with love for neighbor because you cannot receive mercy from God and not show mercy for others. In that way, it is like a healthy heart: we cannot just pump blood it; we’ve got to pump blood out. Anything less than that and you’re dead. That’s why Jesus told the expert in the law, “Do these things, and live.”

When God’s love flows into us and out from us, we are alive with new life. (This, by the way is the central message and metaphor in 1 John!)

The Final Plot Twist

Now for the final plot twist: Jesus is the truly Good Samaritan.

Jesus himself will be treated like the rejected outsider. He will be despised, excluded, and crucified outside the city.

Yet he is the one who comes near to the fallen and wounded.

He is not concerned with preserving his own purity. He binds up our wounds. He carries us to safety. He provides what is needed for our healing. He brings us into the care of his people. And he will come back for us.

Jesus became the outsider in order to show mercy to all outside God’s Kingdom.

This is the mercy we have received. And it is the mercy we are called to extend.

Who is God asking you to show mercy to in this season?

Catch the whole message on Spotify or on YouTube below.

Last week, I sent a video to paid subscribers called, “How to Fight the Corruption of Comparison”. At the end of it, I talked about C. S. Lewi’s concept of “The Inner Ring.”

Because that might not be as familiar to folks, I’m including more about it here.

In a Memorial Lecture at King’s College, University of London, in 1944, C. S. Lewis described the corrupting effect of comparison better than anything I’ve ever read or heard. He uses the phrase “The Inner Ring” to describes a moving target, a shifting goal, a shrinking circle of Important People or Influential Thinkers that we are prone to pursue. Membership in such company is the subconscious goal of any young person with ambition. Yet it is as devastating as it is delusional.

In the middle of his lecture, Lewis makes a haunting prediction of the students in the room:

Then comes the line that sums it all up:

No place is this clearer than in Lewis’s third installment of the “Space Trilogy”, That Hideous Strength.

The truth is, I’ve seen it in my own life, my own conversations and chatter, my own vain ambitions to belong, to matter, to be included, to be “cool”.

Lewis goes on to describe the cure:

Friendship, true and easy companionship, unfettered by status or accomplishments, is the gift which the Inner Ring mimics and distorts.

And friendship is the power that breaks the spell of the allure of the Inner Ring. Friendship is the cure for the corruption of comparison.

Check out my recent post on “Friendships After Forty”:

Enter the Story is a yearlong series at Rockharbor Church through 50 key episodes of the Bible. Each week, I’ve been posting an AI-assisted expanded version of my message notes. You can find the rest of the series here.

Jesus is full of the Spirit and He is led by the Spirit into the wilderness. You can be full of the Spirit and still be in the wilderness. In fact, the Spirit may be the one who leads you there.

The wilderness is not a God-forsaken place; the wilderness is a place of testing.

God led Israel through the wilderness for forty years to purify them, to see what was really in them.

Test or Temptation?

Before we get to the three tests themselves, we need to sort out a question: What’s the difference between a test and temptation?

First of all, God does not tempt.

The devil tempts. The devil attempts to distort our desires to create a landing strip to launch his work in us.

God tests us to refine our faith. What we experience as temptation from the devil may, at the very same moment, be testing from God.

But lets be clear: God and the devil are not equal forces. This isn’t the old cartoon image of a little devil on one shoulder and God on the other, evenly matched, waiting to see who wins the tug of war. Spoiler alert: Jesus passed the test and went on to defeat the devil!

So when God tests us by allowing the devil to tempt us, the devil is less like a rival power and more like a dog on a chain. Martin Luther, the 16th-century German reformer, put it this way:

“He can do no more than a bad dog on a chain, who barks, runs around... But because he is tied up, he cannot bite you unless you get too close to him.”

Here’s the key difference:

The devil wants us to make us fall, God wants to make us strong.

The late British NT scholar, Michael Green, puts it this way:

“God deliberately allows temptation. Its arrival does not mean that God’s blessing has evaporated…Temptation builds spiritual muscle.”

1. The Test of Provision

The first test is the test of provision, and the temptation underneath it is this to meet a legitimate need in an illegitimate way.

This temptation shows up when we chase significance through success because we’re starving for a sense of worth. It shows up when we reach for comfort through a drink or a screen, or for companionship through a friendship or relationship we know isn’t wise.

The Scottish novelist Bruce Marshall wrote about a Catholic priest, Father Smith, who meets a “modern” woman who has rejected Christianity as a fairy tale. She can’t imagine how anyone lives without sex, and tells him she believes “that religion is only a substitute for sex.” Fr. Smith answers her: “I still prefer to believe that sex is a substitute for religion and that the young man who rings the bell at the brothel is unconsciously looking for God.”

Every test in this wilderness is really about a good desire pulled into disorder. Here, the desire is security. Your need for bread is not bad. Your dependence is not the problem. The problem is our desire for independence from God.

I think back to seasons in my own life where trusting God for provision wasn’t a metaphor, it was the daily reality. Look, planning ahead is good; prosperity is a blessing. But we must not pursue security so that we never actually have to depend on God.

The resistance to this temptation is depending on God.

2. The Test of Power

The second test is the test of power, and the temptation is to do God’s work in the devil’s way.

The book of Revelation contrasts the Beast and the Lamb, the way of domination versus the way of sacrifice. The authority the devil is offering is the kingdoms of the world without death on a cross.

The desire underneath this test is authority. God gave Adam and Eve dominion over the garden and the animals. Authority itself isn’t the problem; it’s the way we choose to use it.

The resistance to this temptation is worshipping God. Worship the Lamb, and you get the Lamb’s version of power (sacrifice). Worship the Beast, and you get the Beast’s version of power (control and domination).

3. The Test of Proof

The third test is the test of proof, and the temptation is to pursue miracles without mystery.

We want proof that God is powerful and good. That desire isn’t wrong on its own. But it crosses a line when what we actually want is a God we can control — a God who performs on command, the way the devil is baiting Jesus to perform here, on cue, in front of a crowd, from the highest point of the temple.

To be clear: Jesus is unequivocally against sickness and darkness. The rest of this chapter shows Him standing up in the synagogue, reading from the scroll of Isaiah, declaring that He is the anointed one, the Messiah — and then demonstrating His authority over sickness and demons among people who believe. He’s not indifferent to suffering. He’s not telling us not to expect Him to act.

The desire underneath this test is certainty. But faith is not certainty. Sometime our desire for certainty is actually a desire for immunity. I think of the promises you hear from faith healers “nothing bad will ever happen to you” — which sound like faith but are really a demand for a guarantee.

The truth is, doubt is part of the journey of faith. If there is no room for doubt, there is no room for faith.

The resistance to this test is trusting God.

Here’s a summary:

The goal of testing is produce a loving trust in God.

This can happen in us whether we pass the test of fail it. Why? Because Jesus is faithful when we are not! Adam and Eve failed in the garden. Israel failed in the wilderness. But Jesus was faithful!

The same God who led us into the wilderness will lead us through!

Listen on Spotify here.

Watch the message here:

The second discipline is to be grateful for what you get to do. Remember your calling. Remember your unique focus. You cannot do everything, and you are not meant to. Gratitude steadies the heart, restores joy, and helps us stay faithful to the work God has actually entrusted to us. So bless what God is doing, be thankful for what you’re doing, and stay joyful in the kingdom of God.

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Enter the Story is a yearlong series at Rockharbor Church through 50 key episodes of the Bible. Each week, I’ve been posting an AI-assisted expanded version of my message notes (which are usually around 1500 words).

You can find the rest of the series here.

For nearly a mile, you are inside solid mountain.

In the early 1930s, engineers bored straight through granite, using hundreds of tons of dynamite to blast a passage into the heart of the rock. When it opened in 1933, it was the longest highway tunnel in California. And then, at the end, you burst out—and there it is: El Capitan, Bridalveil Fall, Half Dome. A sweeping, panoramic view.

They call it Tunnel View.

It is a fitting contrast to something we know well: tunnel vision. When life closes in. When grief, doubt, or failure narrows what we can see until all that remains is darkness.

In the aftermath of Jesus’ death, that is exactly where the disciples found themselves. Their world had closed in. The hopes of Israel for a Messiah. The hopes of sinners and outsiders who had finally been included. The hope for a new age, a new world, a revolution. All of it seemed buried with Him.

Jesus’ death felt like the ultimate dead end.

But the resurrection is the most explosive thing there is.

Jesus did not simply come back from death; He went through death and made a way to life. Encountering the risen Jesus, the disciples went from tunnel vision to Tunnel View.

What do we see when we see the risen Jesus?

Mary stands outside the tomb, weeping. She has known what it is to be excluded, to be unseen, to be pushed to the margins. Jesus had changed everything for her. To lose Him is to lose her place, her dignity, her sense of being seen.

When Jesus speaks, He first addresses her as “Woman”, and then He says her name: “Mary.” David Ford sees in this an echo of Eden. Adam, the first man in the garden, called the one from his side “woman”, and then named her, “Eve.” Here the second Adam in the garden of new creation calls her “woman”, and then by her name, “Mary.” It’s John’s way of saying a new Genesis is here.

Jesus brings us to a new beginning.

1. Jesus knows your name.

Some of us live with a kind of inner dislocation, as though we have lost our place. We may feel that we have lost sight of God. But the witness of the Gospel is this: God has not lost sight of us. Again and again, John gives us these personal encounters so that we might understand what it means to say that God so loved the world—not in the abstract, but one person at a time.

Thomas’s story moves in a different direction. He is not overwhelmed by grief so much as guarded by doubt. When the others tell him they have seen the Lord, he refuses to accept their testimony. He wants something more solid, more certain. He wants to see and touch for himself.

When Jesus comes to him, He does not rebuke him. He does not shame him. He invites him to touch His wounds.

2. Jesus knows your pain.

Our doubts are often born from suffering. Beneath the questions and objections of a skeptic, there is often a wound. Jesus does not meet us with abstract answers or philosophical arguments. He shows us His wounds.

Where is God in the suffering of the world? He is with the weeping mother, the cancer patient, the struggling couple, the betrayed spouse. God is with the suffering and the dying.

How do we know? Because the risen Jesus still bears His wounds.

Peter’s story takes yet different turn. After everything that has happened, he goes back to fishing. The one who walked on water, who confessed Jesus as Messiah, who led the others now returns to his old life.

He had denied Jesus. Not simply out of fear, but out of disillusionment. Nothing we know about Peter indicates that he is a man of fear. I suspect that when Jesus told him to put away his sword and then healed Malchus’s ear, Peter began to spiral. He watched Jesus get arrested and beaten. Was this the Messiah he had given his life to follow, the one he was ready to fight for and die for?

Disillusionment with God is the beginning of disobedience to God.

Peter’s denial began with a disorienting disillusionment. When expectations collapse, when the promises seem delayed or absent, it is not uncommon to retreat to go back to what is familiar, what feels manageable.

And it is there that Jesus meets him. Jesus recreated the scene of Peter’s first call; He took Peter back to the start.

3. Jesus knows your shame.

Jesus asks Peter one question, three times: “Do you love me?”

Not, “Do you love the ministry or the church or miracles or revival?” Jesus refuses to seduce Peter with success. He draws him back to the person of Jesus— the true and beautiful Jesus. Do you love Him?

Are you like Mary, lonely and floundering?

Are you like Thomas, hurt and skeptical?

Are you like Peter, failing and ashamed?

Jesus is here, calling your name, showing you His scars, and returning you to your first love.

Listen on Spotify.

Watch the message here:

I saw Christopher Nolan’s take on Homer’s “The Odyssey” this week. It was fantastic. Despite one truly grotesque scene (Circe and the pigs!), Nolan’s artistry is on full display. But I’ll leave the specifics about camera choices and lighting and angles to the artists and film experts out there. I just want to comment briefly on what struck me about the worldview the movie inhabits.

If you’ve missed it, there’s quite a few debates out there on various aspects of the film. Some of it is dumb culture-war infused takes about casting; some of it is about purists opining for Shakespearean English and alternate costumes.

But the one conversation that interests me is whether the film is pagan or Christian.

I can see what Brett McCracken and Paul Anleitner mean when they say that Nolan’s naturalism or materialism (i.e. the belief that the natural or material world is all there is) is framed from the beginning. “A time of apparent magic”— the text displayed in the opening scene— sets us up to expect an unreliable narrator. The narrator turns out to be a traumatized, guilt-ridden, war general, casting doubt on whether the monsters in his story are real or metaphors emerging from his troubled psyche. Calypso is much closer to a therapist who blurs the lines with her client than a seductress who holds her lover captive. And Athena is more like an externalized conscience than a divine guide.

But Nolan’s naturalism/materialism is not post-Pagan, but rather post-Christian. He is not rejecting the world of gods and monsters, magic and fate. Instead, he has left the world of Christianity. And yet, he still inhabits a world that is “Christ-haunted”, to borrow Flannery O’Connor’s famous phrase about the American South. Nolan’s universe— and ours— is one which bears the marks of a Christian imprint but without one essential piece. Here’s what I noticed:

Free Will Over Fate

C. S. Lewis contrasted the world of Greek mythology versus the world of the Old Testament in his short book, “Reflections on the Psalms”. Lewis said that in the ancient myths, the capricious actions of the gods affect humans. The gods are petty and jealous, violent and ambitious. There is disagreement and resentment, trickery and betrayal. And whatever happens in the realms of the gods spills over to the real of humans.

But in the Old Testament, we see God above all gods, clear and consistent, good and faithful. And while His nature and actions impact life on earth, it is also undeniable that God himself moved by what humans do. When humans love one another, God is pleased. When humans betray God or oppress each other, God is grieved and angered.

In Nolan’s movie, humans have more agency than humans in the Ancient Greek myths. In the movie, there is no council of the gods in the beginning arguing and plotting about what to do how to get Odysseus home. He is the captain of his fate. Even when he builds a raft and surrenders to “fate”, it is his choice to do so.

Moreover, in the movie, humans have a sense of responsibility. The primary thread in Nolan’s retelling is the guilt Odysseus feels over the violence at Troy. He is not a pawn at the mercy of the gods; he is not blown about by fate. He is culpable for his actions, accountable for his mistakes. And he knows it.

Moral Clarity Over Moral Ambiguity

The Free Press announced, “There Is Good and Evil. Christopher Nolan’s ‘The Odyssey’ Isn’t Afraid to Say So.”

After seeing the movie, I agree.

There is clear morality. Nolan’s movie has Zeus as the god over the gods, with a clear moral law that was to govern all human interactions: “Treat others the way you wish to be treated.” And it had a clear practical implication for hospitality: “Welcome the stranger and the beggars, for they may be gods in disguise.”

This law itself may be an overstatement of Greek practice and much more clearly an encapsulation of something Jesus said in the Sermon on the Mount. My friend Ian Speir said it well here:

Unlike the character in Homer’s epic, Nolan’s Odysseus is not morally ambiguous. He is not a trickster given to pettiness and pride. He has remorse over a clear violation of “Zeus’s Law”.

Circe turns the men into pigs because she says that is their true nature; that is how they acted when they pillaged Troy, raping the women and slaughtering the children. When she turns them back to their human form, she calls them their “disguises”. They are pigs disguised as humans. Later, when Odysseus returns home and shows up at the feast like a beggar, Antinous mocks him by laughing at the idea that he may be a god in disguise.

The contrast is a clear:

Human skin conceals our true natures. Underneath we may be swine or divine.

Because of the moral clarity in the movie, accountability is essential. The scene where Odysseus casts himself on the sea is a kind of “whosoever loses his life, will find it” kind of moment. He even lands ashore in the shape of a cross. Death and rebirth— kind of.

As some have pointed out, his confession of guilt to Penelope at the end is visually and dramatically very much like a confessional booth. Surrender and repentance are necessary.

What’s Missing? Atonement

There is awakening of consciousness. Athena, as mentioned above, is a kind of projection of his conscience. And there is judgement. Zeus is angry after the incident at the island of the sun god. Poseidon has his revenge. There is even self-flagellation of sorts, when he lashes himself to the mast to keep from the trap of the sirens song.

But there is no atonement. The self-imposed exile at the end is a Nolan addition. This is akin to our modern “Cancel Culture”, except the central figure has censured himself.

In today’s Christ-haunted world, there is a longing for moral clarity and consequence; but there is no pathway to redemption and rebirth. There is only exile.

This is what is missing in our Christ-haunted world: the Gospel itself.

My friend, the New Testament scholar, , put it this way:

There is one who left home to come after a wayward people. He went to the depths— through Death and to Hades itself. And He was raised from the dead, victorious and vindicated. All who call on His name can become who we were meant to be: children of the one true God. Jesus shows us what God is really like, a God more gracious and faithful than Zeus.

As it turns out, the only way to truly come home is through Jesus.

All year at Rockharbor, we’re walking through fifty key episodes of the Bible, organized in ten seasons that trace the larger story of God’s redemption. Each week, we’re sitting with one passage on Sunday, and then lingering with it here, learning to let Scripture read us even as we read it. I’m posting a recap of the message on Substack each week. You can catch up HERE.

This week, we’re in John 15:1-17. It’s one of the richest chapters in the New Testament—an astonishing cluster of promises bound up with a single repeated word.

The Astonishing Promises of John 15

In these verses, Jesus offers an almost overwhelming list of assurances:

• Answered prayers: “Ask whatever you desire, and it shall be done for you.”

• Bountiful fruit: “By this My Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit.”

• Complete joy: “These things I have spoken to you… that your joy may be full.”

• Friendship with God: “I have called you friends.”

• Eternal impact: “I chose you and appointed you so that you might go and bear fruit—fruit that will last.”

These are not vague religious sentiments; they are concrete promises of a life that counts, a life that touches eternity. The question is: How do these promises get activated? How do they become more than words on the page?

The Key Word: Abide

In the space of nine verses, one word appears multiple times: meno. It means to stay, to remain, to abide, to dwell, to endure—to make your home.

Abiding is not about technique or spiritual performance; it is a posture of deep, settled rest. All too easily, we trade abiding in the Father’s arms for the swings and slides—the beautiful distractions—of life. We become addicted to performance, appearance, achievement, even in Christian ministry.

But Jesus says: The key to your productivity is not your ability, and not your activity; it is your proximity.

Before He sends the Twelve to preach, Mark tells us He “appointed twelve that they might be with him and that he might send them out to preach.” Being with Him comes before doing for Him.

This is why Jesus’ warning in Matthew 7 is so sobering: “Many will say to me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name… and perform many miracles?’ Then I will tell them plainly, ‘I never knew you.’” Doing spectacular things for God is not the same as living in sustained closeness with God.

Abiding in Christ is the way the astounding promises of John 15 actually become real in our lives—answering of prayers, lasting fruit, deep joy, and genuine friendship with God.

So what does it mean, practically, to abide? How do we abide at work tomorrow morning? Is it just a metaphor? A feeling? No.

Pete offered three very concrete, very simple ways to prime our minds and reset our behavior this summer.

1. Reset Atomic Habits of Abiding

“You will never change your life until you change something you do daily,” John Maxwell writes. “The secret of your success is found in your daily routine.”

That can sound daunting, but it doesn’t have to be.

James Clear has popularized the idea of “atomic habits”—tiny, simple, easily achievable behavior changes that, over time, reverse negative patterns and establish new, positive ones. Applied to abiding, it means we don’t start with grand spiritual resolutions; we start with very small practices that tether our attention to God.

Examples might include:

• Two minutes of contemplation: a short, repeated prayer like, “Keep me as the apple of your eye.”

• Praying in tongues in the shower.

• A worship playlist in the car or around the house.

• A set prayer at noon—something like the Lord’s Prayer or a simple liturgy.

• A “sacred secret” between you and God: a hidden, regular act of devotion or generosity.

You don’t have to do all of these. The invitation is to choose one or two small practices and let them reset your daily routine around presence, not performance.

2. Let the Word Dwell in You

Jesus links abiding in Him to letting His words abide in us: “If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you…” (John 15:7). This is more than reading or studying the Bible; it is meditating on it, allowing God’s Word to “dwell” richly within us.

Over time, the goal is that Scripture becomes so absorbed into our very being that it speaks even when we cannot. To have the words, “I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever,” on our lips at the very end is to have lived a life in which the Word has taken root and borne fruit.

This week, that might be as simple as:

• Taking a single verse from John 15—“Abide in Me, and I in you,” or “These things I have spoken to you, that My joy may remain in you”

• Repeating it slowly throughout the day

• Letting it shape your thoughts, your reactions, your decisions

Praying the Bible is one of the most straightforward ways for Christ’s words to abide in us.

3. Lean Into Seasons of Loss and Pruning

Jesus also says: “Every branch in Me that does not bear fruit He takes away; and every branch that bears fruit He prunes.” (John 15:2). Pruning is not God’s rejection; it is His commitment to further fruitfulness.

Jesus loves you too much to leave you as you are. To abide in Him means learning to lean into seasons of loss and stripping back, rather than numbing ourselves or running away from them.

Hebrews 12 tells us not to make light of the Lord’s discipline and not to lose heart when He rebukes us, “because the Lord disciplines the one he loves, and he chastens everyone he accepts as his child…No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it.”

There will be painful seasons: the failure of a cherished plan, the passing on of a leadership role, illness that changes us, the long road of parenting and then an empty nest, family transitions that unsettle us, new opportunities that only come after something else has ended. Abiding means trusting that, through it all, the Vinedresser knows what He is doing.

Joy: The Fruit of Abiding

When we reset atomic habits, let Scripture dwell in us, and lean into loss instead of resisting it, something begins to grow underground. We root ourselves more deeply in Christ. The result, Jesus promises, is joy: “These things I have spoken to you, that My joy may remain in you, and that your joy may be full.” (John 15:11).

The Holy Spirit “turns to joy whatever He touches,” as St. Seraphim of Sarov put it. The fruit of the Spirit is not spiritual intensity; it is love, joy, peace—the quiet, resilient gladness of a life that knows it is held.

Suffering is inevitable, and happiness often depends on circumstance. Joy is different. Joy is bigger and deeper—a “defiant nevertheless,” in Karl Barth’s phrase. It is the grace that can say, even after long years of illness or loneliness, “I am so happy; I loved my life.” It is the atmosphere that Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s friends noticed even in prison: gratitude for the mere fact of being alive.

You can find moments of happiness in romance, money, or children—but none of these can bear the full weight of your joy. True joy comes to those who devote themselves to something greater than their own personal happiness.

Response: A Prayer of Relinquishment

John 15 invites us into a life of fruitfulness and joy—a life of abiding. This week, the invitation is simple and concrete:

1. Reset one atomic habit of abiding this summer. Choose a small practice—a two-minute prayer, a noon liturgy, a hidden “sacred secret”—and build it into your daily routine.

2. Fill your heart with Scripture. Let one verse from John 15 abide in you; repeat it, pray it, carry it with you.

3. Lean into one area of loss or pruning. Name it honestly, and instead of resisting, bring it to the Vinedresser in trust.

To help us yield ourselves to God in this way, Pete ended with Richard Foster’s “Prayer of Relinquishment.” Let’s make it our prayer this week:

Watch the message here:

We’re still in this year-long journey through fifty key episodes of the Bible, organized in six seasons, tracing the story of God and his people. Every week, I’ve been posting on here a fuller version of the message we just walked through on Sunday at Rockharbor. Catch up HERE.

This week, it was John 11. The teaching came from my friend and teammate, , whose notes form the backbone of what follows. We worked together on this outline, as I had preached from this text that same Sunday at Mill City Church…I love the way he filled in the outline and the way he preached better!

Love and Loss Go Together

The Gospel of John shows the ministry of Jesus through seven signs. It starts at a wedding and ends at a funeral. In life you will experience the full range: the joy of celebration, of life, of wine overflowing, and the pain of loss, grief, and death. This week we’re talking about the death of Lazarus and the life that Jesus wants to give us.

Upon hearing the news that his friend Lazarus is sick, Jesus says that it will not end in death. And so he delays his coming. But the problem is that Lazarus does in fact die. That leaves us with a framing question: Where is Jesus in the delays, the disappointments, the death?

When Jesus does arrive, both Martha and Mary say the same thing to him:

We can feel their lament, because we have spoken their lament.

1. It Should Not Be This Way

When tragedy hits, we wrestle with what God could have done but didn’t do. It’s easy to talk about living in a fallen world in the abstract, but it’s another thing entirely when the fallen world becomes personal, when it punches you in the gut, when you feel its devastation. Where have you experienced the weight of living in a world that is not as it should be?

Jesus knows what that feels like. Jesus meets us in our grief. Both Mary and Martha say the same thing to Jesus, yet Jesus doesn’t say the same thing to each of them. Jesus meets Mary in her pain—he weeps with her. When he meets Martha, he lifts her head, to the promise of resurrection.

Jesus knows what we need, and when we need it.

To say that Jesus meets us where we are is not a nice metaphorical sentiment. This is the mystery of the incarnation. Jesus is not sad from above. He grieves with us at the graveside. He comforts us with tears and hope.

Jesus meets us where we are. But at the heart of both these responses, Jesus is affirming that it should not be this way, and...

2. It Will Not Always Be This Way

To Martha, Jesus gives the promise of resurrection:

This was the common Jewish belief, that there would be a bodily resurrection at the end of the age. Martha says, “I know that one day my brother will live.” But Jesus offers her something more:

Look at the journey Jesus takes her on. Jesus asks her to make two interconnected jumps, about time and about his identity. On time: the future resurrection is available in the present. On his person: the author of life is standing in front of you.

When Jesus says, “I am the resurrection and the life,” he is saying that whether you live or die, you can have life in his name. This is why Christian funerals are filled with hope. We mourn the loss, but we know that our loved ones are wrapped in the loving presence of God. We don’t grieve as those without hope. We look forward to the resurrection of the dead.

The good news of the gospel is that even when you die, you will live, that when Christ returns there will be a bodily resurrection in the new creation, and that the first fruits of that resurrection life are available right now in the present, because Jesus is here, and Jesus is the resurrection and the life.

Jesus’ question to Martha is the same as his question to us: do you believe it?

The invitation is to move like Martha, from “if only you had been there” to “because you are the Messiah, there is life in your name.”

If Jesus is the resurrection and the life, that means your worst day doesn’t have the last word on your life. Your worst day will form you. But your worst day is not the end. There is hope for you today because...

3. Jesus Makes a Way

To Martha, Jesus gives the promise of resurrection. But to Mary, Jesus gives the process of resurrection.

Jesus is deeply moved and disturbed by Mary’s tears. He is troubled—the same word Jesus uses in his prayer in Gethsemane as he considers his own death (John 12:27). Jesus enters her pain. He asks, “Where have you laid him?” They reply, “Come and see.” And Jesus weeps. One translation says he burst into tears. He enters our pain.

Christian hope is formed through tears.

As Christophe Munzihirwa, the former Archbishop of Bukavu in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, once said: “There are things that can be seen only by eyes that have cried.”

Jesus doesn’t save us by overriding grief, by telling us that we will have a life free of trouble, hardship, pain, or death. He saves by enduring suffering, by going through hardship, by sharing with our humanity all the way to death. He doesn’t avoid death—he goes through it—and in so doing makes a way for us to experience everlasting life. Jesus goes through death to life.

Her objection is real. Dead things stink. And many of us are afraid to invite Jesus in, because we know that the dead places in our life stink. There is a stench, an odor, a messiness, a shame. But Jesus moves right into the mess.

God’s glory and our belief frame this whole passage. Jesus is telling us that this miracle isn’t just a cool party trick, or even just a nice thing he did for his friend. It’s a foreshadowing of his own death and resurrection, an invitation to believe in who he is. This miracle isn’t about the faith of Mary, Martha, Lazarus, or the crowds. It’s a miracle that calls forth faith. It stirs up faith.

Where Is Jesus in Our Delays, Disappointments, and Death?

When we look at Mary, Martha, and Lazarus, we learn this:

• Mary: Jesus weeps with us

• Martha: Jesus lifts your head

• Lazarus: Jesus makes dead people alive

One of the great challenges of life is that love and loss go together. When Jesus grieves Lazarus, the people see him weeping and say, “Look how much he loved him” (John 11:36). At the cross, we can say the same thing: look how much he loves us. Love and loss go together. Jesus gave his life for us, so that you and I could live.

Some of you are Mary: Jesus is comforting you.
Some of you are Martha: Jesus is inviting you to faith.
Some of you are Lazarus: Jesus is making you alive.

Whatever the Holy Spirit is stirring in you, bring that to him: bring your tears to be comforted, bring your discouragement to have your head lifted, bring the dead places in your life to be made alive.

Watch the full message on YouTube.

You can also listen on Spotify or wherever you find podcasts.

This post was prepared by AI based on careful prompts and Ben’s 1500+ word outline.

I was invited recently to give a plenary session talk at the 46th General Assembly of the Evangelical Presbyterian Church on “Preaching for Spiritual Formation”. In the talk, I discussed the challenges and opportunities for the church in a changing world, focusing on how to preach toward spiritual formation in a culture of “curious skepticism.” Here are my slides and an AI-assisted summary based on my notes.

A Changing World

Post-9/11, the dominant posture toward faith was militant atheism: “There is no God, and you’re a fool if you think there is. The more devoted you are, the more dangerous you become.” Then around 2012, that gave way to indifferent agnosticism: “There may be a God; there may not be a God—but we can’t really know, and it doesn’t really make a difference.” And now, post-pandemic, we’re in a new era: curious skepticism. People have experienced something they can’t explain. They think there might be a God. But they don’t trust organized religion—and honestly, we’ve given them reasons not to.

Barna’s research puts numbers on what we can already feel: 10% of Americans are committed naturalists, 19% are practicing Christians, and 71% are spiritually open or curious.

And yet only 9% of people with no faith say they’d consider a pastor a trustworthy source of wisdom on spirituality. We’ve certainly done things to deserve that.

Here’s what makes this moment different, though: institutional trust may be at a historic low, but openness to Jesus is rising—especially among younger generations and among men. The opportunity in front of us is real.

So what do we do?

I keep coming back to the road to Emmaus.

Two disciples are walking away from Jerusalem—confused, disillusioned, done. “We had hoped he was the one who would redeem Israel.” They are telling themselves a story of disappointment and loss. And then Jesus himself arrives and joins them on their journey. Not “come find me at the temple.” Not “come and see.” He walks with them, toward Emmaus, in the direction they’re already headed.

That scene maps to four things I think we need to recover.

Jesus right-sizes himself. He doesn't inflate his presence or disappear into the background—he shows up human-sized, asking questions, walking at their pace.

Ministry in a culture of curious skepticism requires that same humility. We come to people with their actual questions, their real fears, their genuine longings. We don't lead with our agenda. We meet them where they are.

There’s a difference between cultural Christians and Christian culture. In a heavy Christian culture, you can draw people deeper into Christian history and theology and terminology; the reference points are already shared. But in a culture where those reference points are gone, you have to use their starting points.

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…and many Christians feel their confidence wobble.

A couple months ago, Rockharbor hosted a Bible Forum with our dear friend and fellow member of our church community, Dr. . Carmen is an esteemed Old Testament scholar who teaches at Biola University. In addition to scholarly articles and commentaries, she is also the author of several popular level books, with her newest, “Becoming God’s Family”, the completion of her trilogy (joining “Bearing God’s Name” and “Being God’s Image”). She also releases weekly videos on YouTube called “Torah Tuesday”.

The conversation came as we were wrapping up our time through the Old Testament in our yearlong journey through the Bible via 50 key episodes— a series we’re calling “Enter the Story”.

In our conversation, Dr. Carmen Imes helped us slow down and actually read what is happening in many of those troubling narratives. Rather than sanitizing the text, she shows how the Old Testament holds a mirror up to human brokenness while still bearing witness to a moral vision that runs from creation to Christ.

Dr. Imes is not just an academic who lives in the world of footnotes and conferences; she’s spent years helping ordinary Christians read the Old Testament without fear or embarrassment. She knows exactly where modern readers tend to get stuck—and how to patiently walk us through those hard places.

Here are a few clips from our conversation:

Why did God allow polygamy in the Old Testament?

In this clip, we discuss the presence of polygamy in the Old Testament, emphasizing the importance of distinguishing between biblical description (what happened) and prescription (what is taught as ideal). Dr. Imes explains that polygamous marriages in the Bible consistently lead to conflict and negative outcomes, refuting the idea that such practices were God-ordained. While she acknowledges that levirate marriage—as seen in the story of Ruth and Boaz—was a system designed to protect vulnerable widows, provide them with homes, and ensure the continuation of family lineages, she clarifies that these arrangements were rooted in specific ancient cultural contexts rather than being a universal moral endorsement of polygamy.

Why does God seem so angry in the Old Testament?

Here Dr. Imes challenges the misconception that the God of the Old Testament is perpetually angry, arguing instead that His anger is a deliberate, fierce defense of the vulnerable rather than a reaction to petty inconveniences. Dr. Imes emphasizes that through passages like Exodus 22:21-24, God reveals a profound commitment to protecting foreigners, widows, and the fatherless—using intense, repetitive Hebrew language to stress that He hears and will act on their behalf. Ultimately, we can connect this character of God to the ministry of Jesus, and recognize that both the Old and New Testament reveal a God who stands in opposition to everything that undermines the life and goodness He created.

What’s the deal with the tabernacle and the temple?

In this clip, Dr. Carmen Imes explores the theological significance of the Tabernacle in the Old Testament and its connection to the incarnation of Jesus in John 1. She explains that the extensive building instructions in Exodus (chapters 25-40) represent God's desire to dwell among his people in the wilderness. Dr. Imes highlights that while the Tabernacle served as a place where God's presence was shielded behind a veil for the safety of the Israelites, the incarnation of Jesus—described as the Word "tabernacling" among us—offered a more personal, accessible manifestation of God. She concludes by noting that through the death of Jesus, the veil was torn, permanently removing the barrier between humanity and God’s presence and fulfilling the promise of God living in the "neighborhood" of his creation.

Watch the full conversation!

If you’ve ever wondered what to do with Old Testament law, how to make sense of Israel’s story, or why the Bible would record polygamy at all, these clips are just a glimpse into a fuller evening where we tackle those questions head-on without defensiveness or denial.

My hope is that these brief clips whet your appetite, and making you want to watch the full conversation and see how the Bible can be brutally honest about the moral failure of its “heroes” and still call us into a different way of being human—one that culminates in Jesus’ self-giving love.

More from Rockharbor Resources

p.s., did you know the team at Rockharbor has created a whole bunch of different resources, from ebooks to podcasts to video series?

Check them out here!

Last Sunday, Brooke Hoehne— one of our pastors on our pastoral care and discipleship team and a member of our teaching team— explored two stories today in which Jesus encounters two people from very different backgrounds and invites them to believe. Today, we’re looking at John 3 and 4: they come to Jesus differently, but he comes to them with three themes—Light, Water, and belief. These are the themes we’re going to look at in these stories.

Light

Nicodemus: Curious in the dark

John makes a point of naming that Nicodemus came at night. If we’re considering this theme of light, we might ask why he comes in the night. For some reason, he wants the cover of darkness. He’s seen signs, he’s heard of Jesus’ miracles, and so he comes with curiosity—but he comes in the dark.

Later in the chapter, Jesus says,

This is Nicodemus: curious but from the shadows, not ready for the light. And here, Jesus tells him that darkness will not do. I wonder when we show up to Jesus in the dark—interested, but not public about it; Christians, but quite shy when we talk about it; curious, but not ready to actually give our lives to it. We can’t actually join Jesus and stay in the dark, because he is light, and light illuminates everything it touches.

The Samaritan woman: Seen in the light of day

In contrast to Nicodemus, who comes in the night, the Samaritan woman meets Jesus in the middle of the bright noon of day.

Samaritans were “the other”: outcasts, sellouts, half-breeds. So in contrast to Nicodemus—who is a man who’s got it all right and is in a position of strength—she is the complete opposite: a woman, marginalized, unnamed, with no theological training. There in the light of day, Jesus is not ashamed to meet with her, and Jesus further illuminates her story:

Jesus shines a light on her life—not necessarily to label it as sinful, but to look upon her life with grace. These two stories highlight that if we show up in the dark because we’re not ready, like Nicodemus, he’ll meet us there. If we show up in the day because we’re desperate, he’ll meet us there. If we show up with embarrassment or unbelief, with shame or grief, he’ll meet us there. If we show up as an elite, or as an outcast, he’ll meet us there. But his invitation will be to join the light.

Light: it’s not about living perfectly, but about living in the light.

Water

Water is a major symbol in John’s Gospel. It relates to Jesus bringing joy, new life, and the Holy Spirit.

Nicodemus: Born from above

This phrase “born again”—the best translation from the Greek here is “born again from above” (David Ford). Jesus makes it clear that it is to be born of the Spirit. You can’t earn your way into this; you can’t learn your way into this; just like you can’t return to your mother’s womb and make it happen. Just like birth, all you can do is receive. And it’s a new life, a new birth from above.

The Samaritan woman: Living water

She comes to the well to draw water. She came to this well every day—to draw water for drinking, for washing up. It’s a life source for all living things. And after coming day after day, it’s not enough; she still has to return to draw up again. Maybe metaphorically we find ourselves returning to wells over and over, and the water keeps running dry.

What wells are we returning to? What things are we expecting to give us life that are not—vacations, promotions, relational status, stuff, intellect, prominence, influence?

“You cannot walk away from one well without finding a new source of water.”

Jesus says, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” (John 4:13–14, NIV).

Water: it’s not about what we can achieve but about what we’ll receive.

Belief

Nicodemus: When knowing isn’t enough

The verb pisteuein has rich meaning, including believing truths, trusting in a person, and committing one’s life to someone. As David Ford writes, “the gift of love can be received only if its giver is trusted.” So then belief is not finally about what we know; it’s about whom we trust when the answers we have aren’t working. Nicodemus says, “How can this be?”—and we don’t see him respond right here.

But later, he defends Jesus to the other Pharisees who were trying to make it seem like only people who are ignorant about the Torah believe in Jesus (John 7:50–51). And then he is before Pilate with Joseph of Arimathea, and he helps bury Jesus’ body with spices (John 19:39). His belief seems to unfold slowly, moving from curiosity in the dark toward costly, public allegiance.

The Samaritan woman: “Come and see”

Jesus says to her:

The woman replies, “I know that Messiah (called Christ) is coming. When he comes, he will explain everything to us.” Jesus declared, “I, the one speaking to you—I am he.” Then, leaving her water jar, the woman went back to the town and said to the people, “Come, see a man who told me everything I ever did. Could this be the Messiah?” And they came out of the town and made their way toward him. (John 4:25–26, 28–30, NIV).

This is the first time in this Gospel that Jesus gives his most distinctive and daring self-description—“I am he,” or better translated simply, “I am.” It can be heard as a reference to the One she describes as Messiah, and as an echo of YHWH. To a marginalized person, three times over, this is the first time he gives the good news of the Gospel: I am he; I am the Christ.

She leaves her water jug and goes. “Come and see!” Belief is not just her intellectually agreeing; it means that she leaves her water and goes.

Belief: it’s not about knowing the answers but about trusting in Jesus—trusting him enough to move toward him.

The Gospel of John is written so that “through believing you may have life in his name.” He crosses divisions of religion, ethnicity, and gender to give her the good news, because there is no limit to it. The light of the world is for just that—the actual whole world. He comes to bring abundance. Jesus comes for everyone.

Listen to Brooke’s message here or watch on YouTube below.

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Most pastors I know want their church to be evangelistic. The desire is there. But somewhere between the desire and the doing, something breaks down. People aren’t sure how to start conversations about faith. The culture feels hostile. The church feels like it’s fighting just to keep the people it has.

That’s exactly why we wanted to have Ger Jones on th…

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In a USC Clinical psychologist Darby Saxbe argues that while involved fatherhood costs men sleep, leisure time, and sometim…

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But I’m starting to wonder if we’ve overcorrected.

What if too much vision— or more precisely, too much vision released too fast— can be just as destructive as too little?

I came across a clip recently of Jeff Bezos telling a story about how he almost ruined Amazon because he had too many ideas. Early in Amazon’s growth, one of his most trusted executives— Jeff Wilke, a manufacturing expert— pulled him aside after just one year of working together and said something blunt: “Jeff, you have enough ideas per minute, per day, per week to destroy Amazon.”

Bezos was confused. He pushed back. “What do you mean?”

Wilke explained it the way a manufacturing mind would.

Every time Bezos released a new idea into the organization, he was effectively adding an item to an invisible queue, creating a backlog of work in process. The team couldn’t execute at the rate Bezos could dream. So the ideas piled up: half-started initiatives, divided attention, diluted focus. The work wasn’t adding value; it was creating distraction.

The fix, Wilke told him, wasn’t to stop having ideas. It was to control when he shared them.

“You have to release the work [or ideas] at the right rate that the organization can accept it.”

So Bezos changed how he operated. He started keeping lists. He held ideas back. He waited until the organization had the bandwidth to absorb a new initiative before releasing it. Discipline replaced impulse.

My Magic Moment

My own epiphany came earlier this year at a retreat with our Lead Team. We had invited a leadership coach, Buck Rogers, who had already been working with me and with Kit Rae, our Associate Lead Pastor, for a year or so. In one of the exercises he led us through, we broke in to groups to identify things that were “most right, most wrong, missing, and confusing”. Our comms director, Lauren Petersen, asked how ideas or initiatives are being green-lit from the “ideation” stage to the “implementation” stage.

She was asking because their team had been tasked with creating and promoting several key projects. Just like air traffic control would be the first to know when there are too many planes taking off and landing, she was in the middle of all the things we were launching and was starting to wave a flag in the air. Much more of this, and there’s gonna be a collision!

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