For those of us who do entrust ourselves to Christ, then death becomes just like sleep, from which we will all awake. God creates Eden after banishing the darkness and creating light but that night grew long as the curse took hold. But when this world is over and God creates the New Heavens and the New Earth, he will not just banish the darkness during the day, but forever.
Author Archives: Jared W. Saltz
Don’t You Care that We’re Dying? (Matthew 26)
We need sleep, but too often we want sleep on our own terms. When our sleep is not ordered and life giving, it no longer serves as a bridge that God provides to escape the darkness of night, but becomes instead a destructive spiral into deeper darkness.
Joy Comes in the Morning (Psalm 30)
I will exalt you, LORD,because you have lifted me upand have not allowed my enemiesto triumph over me.LORD my God,I cried to you for help, and you healed me.LORD, you brought me up from Sheol;you spared me from among thosegoing down to the Pit. Sing to the LORD, you his faithful ones,and praise his holyContinue reading “Joy Comes in the Morning (Psalm 30)”
In Defense of Boring Truths
We all know that truth matters. Jesus is the truth; the truth will set us free; and Satan has no truth in him at all (John 1.14, 17; 8.32, 44). But, sometimes, we might be tempted to throw up our hand and ask along with Pilate “What is the truth?” (John 18.37). There’s a lotContinue reading “In Defense of Boring Truths”
New Jerusalem: A Garden City
Cities tempt us to see them as permanent dwelling and ourselves as sojourners no longer. Cities make people think “This world is my home, I’m no longer passing through.” But their permanence is a lie; cities made by human hands are still just way stops in our journey to a City with Foundations, whose builder and architect is God (Heb 11.10).
Not Built with Hands: Cities as Tabernacles
The story of city builders in the Bible is an infamous list, a sort of Who’s Who of folks who traded in God’s promised Garden for creations of their own hands (we talked about that last time). Among such a distinguished list of city-builders, city-lovers, and city-dwellers, we might be surprised at the “sudden” changeContinue reading “Not Built with Hands: Cities as Tabernacles”
Living as Exiles: Cities and Sin
One of the type scenes (or tropes, like the Woman at the Well) folks run into in the Bible is also one of its most prevalent metanarratives: “Cities are bad.” You look at Babel, Sodom and Gomorrah, or Gibeah and quickly realize “No, cities are really bad.”1 But sometimes we don’t think further about whyContinue reading “Living as Exiles: Cities and Sin”
Women and Wells (John 4)
The woman who at first mocked Jesus for not even having a bucket as he proclaimed to her the value of living water (John 4.11), left her own water jar to tell others of the waters of life (4.28).
Reflections on My Time at Florida College
I love Florida College. It has a way of getting in your bones. When I came to FC as a student in 2005, my plan was to stay only a single year. Then I changed my mind and I figured I’d just stay two years and get my AA. Then I changed my mind againContinue reading “Reflections on My Time at Florida College”
Hospitality, Power, and Sacrifice: Reading the Bible’s Little Lambs
“Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for by doing that some have entertained angels without knowing it” (Heb 13.2, NRSV). Hospitality was an enormously important ritual in the ancient world. Because traveling was dangerous, ancient Mediterranean societies often attempted to incentivize protecting strangers by honoring those who practiced hospitality. In ancient Greece–since atContinue reading “Hospitality, Power, and Sacrifice: Reading the Bible’s Little Lambs”
Ben Neviim 