I’ve blogged a lot over the past dozen years—well over 200 posts, apparently. Here I’ve highlighted a top 60-ish: the most-read posts, along with a few that are just favourites of mine.

What is the Bible and how should we read it?

• What is the Bible, and How Should We Read It? A (lengthy) intro to the Bible.
• Who’s the “You” in the Ten Commandments? An exercise in careful reading of the Bible.
• What Did Og Ever Do to You? An exercise in reading the Bible’s violent texts.
• How do we know when Jesus is speaking figuratively? An exercise in reading Jesus’ violent language.
• “The Bible is Clear”: No, It’s Not—But That’s Okay: Debunking a common misconception about the Bible.
• The Bible is clear: God endorses slavery. Same theme, different angle. The Bible really does seem “clear” in endorsing slavery, but most Christians don’t read it that way. What’s up?
• Why (and How) Do I Trust the Gospels? The Gospels as ancient biographies, and what that means for their reliability (and how we should read them).
• The Bible, the Gospel, Jesus, and “The Word of God”: Spoiler: the Bible is not “the word of God” (according to the Bible).
• “All Scripture is inspired by God” doesn’t mean “All Scripture is equally important”: A “canon within a canon” is not a bad thing.
• The Polarization of “Biblical Christianity”: exploring two poles in the spectrum of “biblical Christianity,” one which reads Scripture through the lens of Jesus, the other which does not.
• Five Simple Hacks to Revolutionize Your Bible Reading: Try ’em out, and get radicalized by Jesus into love.

Who is God?

• The God Who Is: The God I believe in.
• I’m an Atheist: The gods I don’t believe in.
• What does it mean to say that “God is love”? A lot, actually.
• “God is on the throne.” What does this even mean? Nope, God is not “in control.”

Who is Jesus and what is the gospel?

• My Confession of Faith: “On Christ the solid rock I stand…”
• Which Jesus is the “Real Jesus”? Exploring ten different Jesuses found in the New Testament, and what they tell us about the “real Jesus.”
• What is the gospel, according to the New Testament? Just what it sounds like. Digs into the NT texts.
• God’s Good News: My attempt at a good old fashioned gospel tract (don’t worry, it’s not like those other ones).
• “All you ever do is talk about Jesus and love. Why don’t you preach the gospel?” Um, “Jesus and love” is the gospel.
• Hell, God’s Wrath, and the Gospel: No, Jesus dying in our place to save us from God’s wrath in hell is not the gospel.
• “Confess and believe, and you will be saved!”: May not mean what you grew up thinking this means.
• On the Logos in John 1: God’s Spoken Word Made Flesh: A bit more academicky than I usually blog.
• Why I Do Not Cease Teaching and Writing: There’s too much at stake for me to stop. We need Jesus. We need the gospel.

How did Jesus live, and what did he teach?

• God’s Dream for the World: On Jesus’ teaching about “the kingdom of God.”
• The Sermon on the Mount, Twitter Edition: Yes, I know it’s X now. And I don’t even post there anymore.
• This is Jesus: Meditating on the life and teachings of Jesus as found in the Gospels.
• Blessed Are the Outliers: Jesus saw those who don’t fit the “norm.”
• Jesus Fulfills the Law—in Love: Exploring what Jesus meant when he said he came to “fulfill the Law.”
• “Turn the Other Cheek” ≠ “Be a Doormat”: Jesus’ radical nonviolence.
• Jesus Was a Peacenik After All: More on Jesus’ radical nonviolence.
• The Lord’s Prayer: “Lord, teach us to pray,” Jesus’ disciples asked. So he did.
• The Lord’s Prayer for All People: An expanded paraphrase of the prayer Jesus taught his disciples.
• What is sin, according to Jesus? In other words, when did Jesus get mad?
• What is the “Narrow Way” of Jesus? No, it’s not about “‘believe x’ or ‘don’t do y’ or you’re going to hell.”
• Jesus and Hell: So then, what did Jesus mean when he talked about “hell”? Maybe this.
• Jesus Wasn’t “Family Values”: The Bible and Jesus on marriage and family.
• “Give Up All Your Possessions”: Wrestling with Jesus’ Teaching: What do we do with Jesus’ hard teachings? What do we do with this hard teaching?
• Does Jesus’ “Temple Tantrum” Negate Pacifism and Nonviolence? That’s a nope.
• Mary on the Margins: On Jesus and women in the Gospels.
• The Great Commission: Make Decisions? Make Converts? Or Make Disciples? The answer is c), and here’s what that means (and doesn’t mean).

What’s the significance of Jesus’ death and resurrection?

• The Foolishness of the Cross: From a sermon based on 1 Corinthians 1:18-25.
• “Jesus Died for Our Sins”: Sketching Out Atonement: Fleshing out some further thoughts on the saving significance of Jesus’ death.
• Fifteen Lessons I Learned (or Learned Again) in Teaching on the Cross this Lent: Short reflections on what the cross means—and doesn’t mean.
• Do Christians Really Need to Believe in Jesus’ Resurrection? Yes. And no. But when we do claim belief in Jesus’ resurrection, here’s what that means.

How should we live as followers of Jesus?

• Trust in God, Love One Another: Pretty much every sermon I’ve ever preached boils down to these two.
• “What Would Jesus Do?” is the right question to ask, but…: Reviving WWJD for a new generation.
• “Remember the Poor”: It’s not an optional add-on to the gospel. And it’s as much about power as wealth.
• You Know, “Love One Another” Really Is Enough: It really is.

Other Bible/theology/Christian life stuff:

• A Brief Commentary on Colossians: Curious how an Anabaptist reads Paul? Check out my concise commentary on Colossians.
• Am I “Satanic” or Just “Unbiblical”? A Guide for My Christian Critics: Tongue-in-cheek (yet serious) look at the labels thrown my way.
• Michael Pahl’s Handy-Dandy Handbook of Christian Words and Phrases: What do I mean when I talk about “salvation”? or “faith”? or…?
• What is “Sin”? It’s not a list of “don’ts.” It’s much bigger than that.
• Passive Pacifists? Exploring what it means—and doesn’t mean—to be a “pacifist.”
• Christians, Freedom, and Human Rights: What are our “rights and freedoms” as Christians?
• Christians Need to Be More Conservative, Not Less: Shocking, I know.
• Bishop Curry, Luke and Acts, and “Christianity Lite”: Really a mini-theology of Luke-Acts, pushing a re-think on what “faithful Christianity” really is.
• Exclusively Jesus, Inclusively All: Some musings on the ways Christianity’s claims are exclusive and the ways they are inclusive.
• Entering the Apocalypse: A four-part series on the book of Revelation.

Other stuff:

• “How do we know?” and “Whom do we trust?” Some Thoughts on Experts and Expertise: Digging into the reality of misinformation, disinformation, and more.
• Christians and Israel (1) – Describing the Crisis: The first in a three-part series on the topic.
• What is Christian nationalism? And why is it a problem? What it is, and why it’s a problem.
• My Journey Toward Being Affirming: A link to a video in which I share my story.
• Bad Bible Takes Cause Harm: Focusing in on the “clobber” passages, which don’t actually talk about “homosexuality” as we know it.
• Love will win. Love must win, or we all lose.: A response to the Pulse nightclub shooting in Orlando in 2016. Evergreen.
• God Regards the Lowly: From a sermon after the discovery of 215 unmarked graves at a residential school in Kamloops. Also evergreen.
• Meditations on a Broken Foot and Meditations on a Healing Foot: Reflections on brokenness and healing, ability and disability, suffering and God and more, after that time I broke my foot fighting off a bear.