What My Daughter is Teaching me about Life and Joy

We are here at the hospital for the birth of our daughter, Naomi Hannah Ortlund. She was born safely at 1:06 PM on Monday afternoon, 7 lbs, 19.5 inches. She is beautiful and tiny and...

7 Principles of Sabbath Rest

Life has been busy lately. Our daughter is due soon, I am taking my comprehensive finals next month for my PhD, I’m writing/editing stuff, and I’ve taken on expanded responsibilities at our church. I’m sensitive...

Clarity Needs Humility

C.S. Lewis was an accomplished academic. He taught at Oxford and then Cambridge, and wrote several significant academic works that are still highly regarded today (The Allegory of Love, The Discarded Image, English Literature in...

Why a Local Flood?

A Poem For Times When Something is Just Off

When I was in college, I struggled a bit with mild depression or melancholy. During those times, I found refuge in music, long walks, and poetry. This is a poem that I wrote during that...

What Kind of a Thing is the Bible? 6 Theses

Sometimes it’s helpful to state the obvious—to step back and remind ourselves of the forest so that we don’t get lost in all the trees. Within academia, hyper-specialization and the tyranny of the pedantic often...

What Amazed Me This Year About Christmas

Somewhere amidst all the Christmas music and advent readings over the last several weeks the story of the shepherds in Luke 2:8-20 has gotten lodged in my mind. We hear this story every year, so...

Is Gospel-Centeredness Spiritually Dangerous? Some Thoughts on Kyle Strobel’s Article

Kyle Strobel recently wrote a piece on the spiritual dangers of being “gospel-centered.” I’m probably not the best person to write a detailed response, since I don’t know Kyle or the context for his concerns,...

Does Old-Earth Creationism Undermine the Gospel? A Response to Kevin Bauder

Kevin Bauder recently wrote an article criticizing Tim Keller’s views on creation. Bauder suggests that Keller can only affirm biblical inerrancy as Richard Nixon could affirm that he did not commit a crime, since he...