Phōtizō: Getting Out of The Cave
One of my favorite Bible stories is the Samaritan Woman at the Well in John 4. While she is unnamed, later traditions called her Photini — The Luminous One — because she…
God Reveals Mysteries In the Secret Places: Revelation & Our Inner Life
“Mystery is not something you cannot understand; it is something that you can endlessly understand. There is no end to it.” — Richard Rohr The biblical tradition repeatedly moves divine…
Jacob’s Wages: The Cost of Trying Too Hard
There’s a pattern in Jacob’s story, the grandson of Abraham. It’s one that chased me until it brought me to an end. “Grace is not opposed to effort, it is…
The Joy of Knowing Christ (Philippians 3:8-16)
“The aim of spiritual formation is not behavior modification but the transformation of all those aspects of you and me where behavior comes from.” — Dallas Willard, Renovation of the…
Christians Can Use Tarot: A Case for Biblical Symbols & Spiritual Formation
“It seems as if the set of pictures in the Tarot cards were distantly descended from the archetypes of transformation, a view that has been confirmed for me in a…
Atonement With A 1000 Faces: Humanity as the Unified Theory
“The current gospel then becomes a ‘gospel of sin management.’ Transformation of life and character is no part of the redemptive message.” — Dallas Willard A millennia-long battle has been…
Speaking Two Levels at Once: How Scripture Uses Mystery as a Tutor
Scholars like Francis Schaeffer and Dallas Willard, both heavyweights, document how Western Christianity bifurcated truth into two realms. In other words, it treated the world as if there were two…
“Be Strong and Courageous” — Decoding Joshua 1:5-9 For Everyone
Joshua 1:5-9 was one of the first Bible passages I memorized as a teenage Jesus Freak. It’s a challenge to be brave following the path God placed before us (Hebrews…
The Void Left Behind by the Restoration Movement
“Theology, in this view, was simply the inductive arrangement of the facts of Scripture… Evangelicals took their cue from the Scottish Common Sense philosophy. The Bible was a Baconian handbook…
Subverting the Mysteries: Cana, Dionysus, & New Creation — John 2:1-12
“Count the days… we are on the seventh day. John is telling us that with Jesus, God’s new creation has begun. The water turning to wine is the sign that…
