There is a particular kind of exhaustion that comes from arguing about things that do not ultimately matter. The color of the carpet. The style of the music. The way someone folds their socks. We know these arguments well, and if we are honest, we have all been in the middle of one at some point. But what happens when these kinds of squabbles find their way into the church? What happens when Christians begin looking down on one another over matters of personal preference, habit, or tradition?  Read More

There is a question worth sitting with before anything else is said. What debt do you carry that can never be fully paid? Not a mortgage. Not a credit card balance. Not a favor owed to a friend. The debt in question is the one Paul points to in Romans 13 -- the debt of love. It is the kind of debt that does not diminish with each payment. It grows, it deepens, and it calls us back again and again to the same posture: one of humility, submission, and genuine care for the people around us.  Read More

We throw the word "love" around constantly. We love our favorite restaurants. We love a good movie. We love our sports teams. But somewhere in all that casual usage, the word has lost its weight. It has been stretched so thin that it barely holds together anymore. And when we talk about love in the context of faith, in the context of how we are supposed to treat other people, including the difficult ones, we need to go back to the source and ask a harder question: what does love actually mean?  Read More

There is a question worth sitting with for a moment: Are you affected by the outside world? Your first instinct might be to say no. Many people would answer that way. But consider a few simple follow-up questions. Have you ever had a sunburn? Have you ever stubbed your toe? Were you affected by wildfire smoke drifting through the air last summer? The outside world touches us constantly, whether we acknowledge it or not. And if that is true physically, how much more true is it spiritually, morally, and mentally?  Read More

There is a moment most people recognize, even if they have never had a name for it. It is the moment when someone who once mattered to you decides, based on a single word, a single action, or a single failure, that you no longer matter to them. The door closes. The calls stop. The relationship dissolves. In our current cultural moment, this experience has become so common that we have given it a label: cancel culture.  Read More

There is a question that cuts right to the heart of what it means to be human, to be mortal, to be standing before a holy God: Do you need to be perfect in order to have eternal life?  Read More