The Testament That Comes After the New Testament

By the time of Jesus, the Old Testament was closed, i.e. it was determined that nothing new would be included in the sacred writings of the Hebrews. The Torah was five books, not six; Moses was dead, so how could there be more anyway? Besides, five is all that is needed, they said. Psalms? There are a...

Why You Should Stop Reading the New Testament

You should stop reading the New Testament. Just stop it. Not forever, mind you. Just for a while. Just long enough to read the Old Testament. Several times. Then you can go back and read the New Testament, and when you do you’ll find that it makes a whole lot more sense. You’ll find that some things that...

A Perfect Brutality

My dad was pretty hard on me growing up. No matter what I did, he wanted me to do it better, especially in school. If I got a B on a test, he wanted me to get an A, and told me so. If I brought home an A, he wanted an A+. If I answered 49 out of 50 questions correctly and got an A+, he’d want to know why I...

Why God Hates Sameness

“Nature abhors a vacuum.” Or so we’ve been told. I read somewhere recently—I honestly can’t remember where—that some physicists or astronomists or quantum theorists or some other kind of -ists are questioning the foundation of that very firm law of the universe. But I don’t understand much of what I read by...