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 Job slowly
People reach for Job in grief and find forty-two chapters of argument that never explains why. Read slowly, the book turns out to be doing something stranger and more useful than answering the question.
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4 min read
Contentment in a restless age
Paul says he learned contentment, which means it is a skill rather than a temperament. He also says he had to learn it in both directions — and having plenty turned out to be the harder school.
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4 min read
Listening to Scripture
Most people who have ever encountered the Bible did it by ear. Listening to Scripture read aloud is the older habit, and the ear catches things the eye skims past.
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4 min read
What 'righteousness' actually means
The only form of the word most of us still use naturally is 'self-righteous', which tells you how far it has drifted. In Scripture, righteousness is relational — and God's righteousness turns out to be the reason the gospel is good news.
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5 min read
Reading Jonah slowly
Everyone remembers the fish, which is the least interesting thing in the book. Read slowly, Jonah is four chapters about a prophet who succeeds beyond anything in the Old Testament and is furious about it.
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5 min read
Hope as an anchor
We use 'hope' to mean a wish we are not sure will come true. Biblical hope is the opposite — a sure expectation grounded in the resurrection, steady enough to hold the soul when everything else is moving.
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4 min read
Reading the Magnificat slowly
Mary’s song is often heard only at Christmas, sweet and seasonal. Read slowly, it is a teenage girl singing of a God who topples the proud and keeps an ancient promise in her own body.
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4 min read
Reading Revelation slowly
Revelation is treated as a code to crack or a film to dread. Read slowly, it is a revealing — of a slain Lamb who reigns, and of a world where God wipes away every tear.
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4 min read
The atonement, plainly
Why did Jesus have to die? The cross can seem either obvious or arbitrary until you grasp what it was for. At its heart is one astonishing exchange: he took our place.
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5 min read
What 'worship' actually means
Worship is not the song slot on a Sunday. The Bible means something far wider — a whole life offered to God — and it points to the one in heaven who is truly worthy of it.