Notes from the margins
A reading room.
Slow notes on faith, scripture, and the days in between — with the occasional tech footnote.
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The Day I Rode My Bicycle into the Eye of a Hurricane
There are only a handful of childhood memories that remain crystal clear more than sixty years later. One of mine happened on a September afternoon in 1960, when I was eight years old and living just a block north of the Gulf of Mexico in Biloxi, Mississippi. Our home stood on Father Ryan Avenue, under…
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Signal vs. Noise: Learning to Hear What Scripture Is Actually Saying
One of the most valuable questions I’ve learned to ask isn’t just for technology or current events. It’s equally important when opening my Bible. What’s signal, and what’s noise? In my professional life, signal is the information that actually matters. Everything else is distraction. Noise is everything that distracts from it. The same principle applies…
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The Bible’s Forgotten Turning Point: Why Genesis 11 Explains the Rest of Scripture
If you were to walk into a coffee shop and ask a well-read Christian to summarize the storyline of the Bible, you’d likely hear a familiar cadence. It usually sounds something like this: Creation (Everything is good) The Fall (Everything breaks) The Flood (A cosmic reset) Abraham (The promise begins) Israel (The chosen family) Jesus…
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My Zechariah Study with ChatGPT: A Snapshot
I’ve been working through several books of the Bible with ChatGPT providing commentary. I’ve given it a lot of information, actually about five volumes full, about: I instructed it to draw on trusted sources but to challenge me, not just tell me what I want to hear. It’s done a pretty amazing job. I really…
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Seeing the Whole Story: How Greg Koukl and Michael Heiser Illuminate Different Dimensions of Biblical Reality
The more I immerse myself in the study of Scripture, the more I find that good theology is rarely a matter of selecting one isolated concept over another. It is, rather, an exercise in allowing the entire counsel of God to speak in its own voice, even when those voices seem to operate on different…
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What is “nachash?”
The Hebrew word נָחָשׁ (nāḥāš / nachash) is one of the more debated words in the Old Testament because it has a range of meanings depending on context. Basic meaning The primary lexical meaning is: This is how it is translated in passages like: The root has related meanings The Hebrew consonants נחש (N-Ḥ-Š) can…
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The Words That Matter: Why We Still Read the Nicene Creed
At my church, we have a rhythm that some might find archaic, or perhaps even repetitive. Once a month, we stand together, clear our throats, and recite the Nicene Creed. We don't do it because we’ve run out of contemporary songs or because we’re particularly fond of fourth-century prose. We do it because these words…
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The Bridge: How to Integrate a Non-Cessationist Perspective With Conservative Evangelical Theology
For decades, we have been conditioned to believe that we must choose between two mutually exclusive silos. On one side stands the fortress of Conservative Evangelical Theology: a world of rigorous exegesis, doctrinal precision, and a high view of Scripture, but often characterized by a "tame" and predictable cessationism. On the other side lies the…
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Sin is an infection, not just an error.
This phrase has shown up in several of my posts. I thought it would be helpful to see how this is supported by scripture. From Logos: Scripture strongly supports this distinction. The biblical language of sin consistently employs medical and pathological imagery rather than treating it as a mere intellectual mistake. The Psalms depict sin…
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Research Note: The Tabernacle and the Temple as Mini-Creations
Core Idea The Tabernacle and later the Temple function as mini-creations because they are designed as sacred spaces where heaven and earth meet, where God dwells with humanity, and where ordered holiness pushes back against chaos. Why This Works Biblically 1. Eden was the first sanctuary Eden is not merely a garden. It is portrayed…
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