Use Scripture

Use Scripture, slowly.

Writing

Articles & Devotionals

Short essays on reading Scripture slowly, honest questions about the Christian life, and devotional reflections. Newest first.

  1. 5 min read

    Reading John 1 slowly

    Eighteen verses at the start of John's Gospel that contain the clearest single statement in scripture about who Jesus is. A slow read of the prologue.

  2. 5 min read

    Sin, plainly

    A word that has shrunk in modern usage to mean a list of bad behaviours. Recovering the biblical meaning of sin — and why it is bigger, sadder, and more hopeful than the moralistic version.

  3. 5 min read

    Reading the Bible with someone else

    The Bible was almost never read alone for most of its history. A short case for shared reading — the simplest, most underused practice that grows a Christian's understanding.

  4. 5 min read

    Forgiveness as freedom

    Forgiveness is one of the hardest things Christianity asks. It is also one of its most practical gifts — not for the offender, but for the one doing the forgiving.

  5. 4 min read

    The image of God

    One short phrase in Genesis 1 that quietly redefines what a human is. A short essay on what it means that humans bear the image of God — and why it changes how we treat each other.

  6. 4 min read

    Reading the parables slowly

    Jesus' favourite teaching method was the short, vivid story. Why parables work, why they are sometimes confusing on purpose, and how to read them well.

  7. 4 min read

    Heaven and the renewal of all things

    The Christian hope is bigger than the cloud-and-harp picture. The Bible's vision of the future is the renewal of the world, not its replacement. A short essay on what scripture actually promises.

  8. 4 min read

    Reading the Bible with a pen

    Underline. Mark in the margins. Keep a notebook. A short, unsystematic case for active reading — and a few easy patterns to start with.

  9. 5 min read

    What 'born again' actually means

    A phrase that has become a label, a punchline, sometimes a brand of Christian. Going back to John 3 and recovering what Jesus actually meant when he used it.

  10. 4 min read

    Why Jesus came as a Jew

    Christianity is sometimes preached as though Jesus came out of nowhere. He did not. He came as a first-century Jew, into a specific people with a specific story — and that particularity is part of the gospel, not a footnote to it.