READ: GENESIS 1:26-31; MICAH 6:8; 1 CORINTHIANS 10:31 I love food. It’s a wonderful way God sustains us, as well as a source of joy, and it often provides opportunities for community. But sometimes I get bogged down wondering about my food. I’ll pull a bell pepper out of its plastic bag, put the bag [...]

READ: GENESIS 1:26-28; ROMANS 8:22-25; COLOSSIANS 1:15-23; 1 PETER 1:3-5 "Humans have made a mess of this world. It’s time for them not to be in charge.” I backed away after the android said this, clicking its long metal fingers together. A product of the recent technological singularity, this artificial intelligence was trying to take [...]

READ: MATTHEW 1:22-23; JOHN 8:1-11; ROMANS 8:1 The music blasted, and we sang so loud that dogs started barking. My car full of friends bounced as we moved to the thumping bass. Then—CRUNCH! That wasn’t part of the song. Did I hit a mound of icy snow? I wondered. I opened my door and looked [...]

READ: MARK 4:35-41 We rocked violently against the waves and wind. The men I had grown to know and love over the last several months huddled together near the mast, what was left of the sail covering over them like a massive cloak. They held it tightly, but still the vicious weather fought to tear [...]

READ: 1 CORINTHIANS 3:1-11; 8:1-3; PHILIPPIANS 1:9-11 I was just reading an article about sheep, and I learned about something called sheep bloat. Sometimes a farmer goes out one morning, and there’s this dead sheep laying on its back, feet up in the air. Its belly is swollen tight. And sheep bloat has slain another [...]

READ: ACTS 10:34-36; 1 CORINTHIANS 12:12-27; GALATIANS 3:28; JAMES 2:1-10 Equal, not just a term that’s used in math Let me see others as equal, God, the way You see them Help me see the celebrity and know they are just another human Help me see the poor and know they have a story Equal, [...]

READ: PSALM 1; JOHN 1:1-14; ROMANS 15:4 Trying to understand the Bible can be…overwhelming. The more I learn about it, the more I realize I don’t know. And I find myself wondering if I’ll ever truly know the Bible—and the God it reveals. If you’ve ever felt this way too, take heart. The Lord is [...]

READ: ISAIAH 7:13-14; MATTHEW 1:18-23 Another tool that can help us understand Scripture is genre. The Bible has lots of different genres, like historical narratives, parables, poetry, letters, wisdom literature, apocalyptic literature, and more. Today, we’re just going to take a look at one genre: ancient biographies. Specifically, we’ll look at the book of Matthew. [...]

READ: JEREMIAH 29:4-14 Another important piece to consider when interpreting a verse is the literary context. In other words, what’s going on in the Bible before and after this verse? To do this, we have to zoom all the way out to consider where the verse fits into the larger story of the Bible, then [...]

READ: GENESIS 1-2 One of the most important parts of interpreting the Bible is understanding the historical-cultural context of the text. In other words, asking questions like, “How would the original audience have understood this text? What was the world like for the original audience?” Finding answers to these questions often involves looking at historical [...]