(1) Expecting things in your life to go perfectly. Yes, you were made for eternity. That’s why you seek perfection, desire beauty, and hunger for unending happiness. But we live in an imperfect, ugly, and forlorn world because of sin. So when things don’t go your way or when things get you down or when…
I’d like to take this time to officially announce that I’m writing a children’s book with my son. We started writing it a few years back. I just finished putting together a query letter, which I’m sending to Kregel Publications. I’m sharing it with you now to get some honest feedback. Please leave a comment…
Sin is a form of self-harm, some might even say, self-hatred. For example, when a man is not a good husband, and, say, repeatedly commits adultery, he not only hurts his wife and children, but also his own wellbeing. Put differently, by fulfilling his role as a faithful husband, who models his loving actions to…
You were made for fulfillment! But that’s not the same thing as saying you were made for pleasure. Pleasure, however, is not a bad thing. Matter-of-fact, pleasure can be the natural consequence of eating a satiable meal or spending quality-time with an ole friend or behaving virtuously. The kind of pleasure that gets a bad…
From the dark abyss of suffering was born my book Biblical Ethics. Five years ago, the last thing on my mind was writing a book on how to live a morally happy, flourishing life. I was deep in the throes of a PhD program when the walls of my intellectual ivory tower came crashing down….
What to do when you feel overwhelmed about the blurred lines of morality? What to do when you feel grieved over the cross-pollination of good and evil, right and wrong, in our ever-changing culture? There’s been so much media-attention recently concerning the political views and actions of the Right and the Left. There’s a presidential…
I am sharing with you what is now Chapter 7 of my book Biblical Ethics. This happens to be my favorite chapter because it’s chock-full of vivid explanations of God’s emotional life and flourishing. It’s also a topic that is not talked about much from the pulpit, which I believe needs to be discussed in…
When we live the way we are supposed to, God is glorified and we are blessed (happy)! Sadly, most well-meaning dutiful Christians take issue with the notion that happiness is for the here-and-now, delaying it for the afterlife. Too often they gorge themselves on an ethical diet of doing the right thing out of a…
one should read the BIBLE as a mystery novel: a story of prideful irony (sin) and ironic pride (salvation) one should peruse its pages for the character development of villain and hero one should be prepared to personally invest into the proverbial love story that takes place between author and reader
When we live the way we are supposed to God is glorified and we are blessed or happy (shalom). The biblical view of happiness is cultivated by living according to biblical virtues, such as justice and righteousness, which are motivated by flourishing (shalom). In this paper, I explore the prophet Isaiah’s prognostication in Isaiah 32:16-17…