Use Scripture, slowly.
Writing
Articles & Devotionals
Short essays on reading Scripture slowly, honest questions about the Christian life, and devotional reflections. Newest first.
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5 min read
Reading the Bible with your family
The fantasy is a candlelit table and attentive children. The Shema puts Scripture somewhere far less dignified — in the traffic of an ordinary day, on the road, at bedtime, in the middle of everything.
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5 min read
The incarnation, plainly
Christmas language has worn the claim smooth. The church spent four centuries insisting on something harder than a visit: fully God and fully human, in one person, permanently.
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4 min read
Reading Acts slowly
Acts reads like an adventure story, and it is one. Read slowly, the first verse quietly redefines what you are watching, and the last verse refuses to close.
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5 min read
Humility as clear sight
Humility gets confused with running yourself down, which is still a way of keeping the attention on yourself. Paul asks for sober judgment instead — accurate measurement, in both directions.
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4 min read
Reading on the ordinary days
Most days you close your Bible without a revelation, and it is easy to read that as failure. Manna came daily and could not be stored, which suggests the ordinary day was always the plan.
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4 min read
What 'mercy' actually means
In English, mercy sounds like leniency from a judge — a sentence reduced. The Hebrew words behind it are warmer and far more physical, and one of them is built from the word for a womb.
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5 min read
Reading 1 John slowly
Try to outline 1 John and it falls apart — it circles instead of advancing. Read slowly, the circling is the method, and the letter turns out to be written for people who are not sure they are really in.
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5 min read
Anxiety and the peace of God
"Do not be anxious about anything" is the verse most often handed to anxious people, and handed over badly it does real damage. Read whole, it comes with a mechanism attached and a promise that is stranger than it looks.
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4 min read
Praying Scripture back to God
Most prayer lives run dry in the same place — you run out of words and start repeating the same six sentences. Scripture will lend you language, and praying it back is an old habit with a very high pedigree.
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4 min read
The church, plainly
In the New Testament the word means a gathering of people summoned together. Everything Scripture says about the church follows from that — including the parts that make it impossible to be a Christian on your own.