Wednesday in the Word

A practical guide to sharing the psalms: choose passages, frame the context, ask great questions, and point people to hope in Christ. Series: How to Study Psalms Most people fail at Bible study because no one ever taught them how. Bible Study Boot Camp fixes that: one short email a day for a week, plus a worksheet you can use on any passage for the rest of your life. Sign up for Bible Study Boot C...

How to study the Psalms: understand Hebrew poetry and parallelism, follow structure, and apply wisdom with confidence.  Series: How to Study Psalms Most people fail at Bible study because no one ever taught them how. Bible Study Boot Camp fixes that: one short email a day for a week, plus a worksheet you can use on any passage for the rest of your life. Sign up for Bible Study Boot Camp

Paul’s closing words in Colossians 4:2–6 bring his whole letter down to street level: in a world that feels confusing, unfair, and tempting, will we keep turning to God in faith—or quietly give up and drift? In this episode, we look at what it really means to “continue steadfastly in prayer,” to stay spiritually awake and grateful, and to walk with wisdom and grace among people who don’t share our...

Paul’s words in Colossians 3:18–4:1 press the gospel right into the places we live every day: marriages, families, workplaces, and situations of power and vulnerability. In this episode, we explore how doing “whatever you do…in the name of the Lord Jesus” reshapes what it means to submit, to lead, to obey, and to exercise authority—not as a way to win or protect our rights, but as people who ultim...

Paul’s words in Colossians 3:8–17 call us away from a Christianity built on religious performance and into a life genuinely reshaped by the gospel—especially in how we speak, how we see one another, and how we live together as a church. In this episode, we explore how putting off anger and deceit, and putting on compassion, forgiveness, and love, grows not from moral willpower but from seeing ours...

Colossians 3:1–7 calls us to a new way of seeing ourselves and our world: if we have died with Christ and been raised with him, then our true life is no longer rooted in this passing age, but “hidden with Christ in God.” In this episode, we look at what it really means to “seek the things that are above,” how that connects to holding fast to the true gospel, and why Paul links this heavenly perspe...

Paul’s words in Colossians 2:16–23 confront a subtle but powerful temptation: to trade the finished work of Christ for a life built around spiritual rules, rituals, and disciplines that look impressive but cannot actually make us clean. In this episode, we trace Paul’s warning against legalism, explore his contrast between shadows and substance, and see why trusting Christ alone is fundamentally a...

Paul’s words in Colossians 2:4–15 cut through our craving for “something more” in the Christian life. In this episode, we look at what it really means to “walk in Christ,” why Paul warns the Colossians about persuasive but empty spirituality, and how the cross of Jesus has already given believers everything they truly need: forgiveness, new life, and freedom from every rival power.  In this week’s...

Paul’s words in Colossians 1:24–2:3 invite us into a strange but beautiful reality: real Christian hope is so weighty that it can make sense of suffering. In this episode, we look at why Paul can rejoice in chains and hardship, what it means to “fill up what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions,” and how God uses Paul’s costly ministry to give believers a settled, joyful assurance that Christ really...

Paul’s words in Colossians 1:13–23 lift the curtain on who Jesus really is and why he stands at the absolute center of the Christian gospel. In this episode, we explore how God has rescued us from darkness, brought us into the kingdom of his beloved Son, and chosen to reveal everything we most need to know about himself and our salvation in Christ alone—so that we cannot truly seek God while tryin...

Paul’s opening prayer in Colossians shows us where real hope begins and what it produces. In this episode on Colossians 1:3–12, we look at how hope “laid up for you in heaven” reshapes what you value, how you relate to other believers, and what you ask God for in the middle of an ordinary, complicated life.  In this week’s episode, we explore: Why Paul, sitting in a Roman prison, is overflowing wi...

Colossians opens with a brief greeting—but behind it is a world of context: a small church in a shaken city, surrounded by confusing ideas, and a former persecutor of Christians now writing from prison to steady their hope. In this introductory episode, we step back from the text itself to understand who Paul is, who the Colossians are, what threatens their faith, and why this short letter about t...

Peter's main concern in this section is how we treat others, both inside and outside the family of God. But his point is a fuller richer picture than 'be nice.' His advice is fix your hope completely on the grace that is coming to you. And then be humble. Be soft-spoken. Seek their welfare. Don't give evil for evil. There's a bigger gospel perspective to take. Part of the...

In a season where “busy” feels like the default setting, this episode invites you to trade a frantic Martha Christmas for a “Mary Christmas”—one shaped by sitting at Jesus’ feet rather than sprinting through your to-do list. Drawing from Luke 10:38–42, we explore what it means to choose the one necessary thing in the middle of shopping, hosting, cooking, and all the pressures that come with the ho...

The more I study the Lord's Prayer, the more I conclude the prayer asks for one and only one thing: that God would make us completely righteous once and for all. Most people fail at Bible study because no one ever taught them how. Bible Study Boot Camp fixes that: one short email a day for a week, plus a worksheet you can use on any passage for the rest of your life. Sign up for Bible Study B...

What can the story of a coal miner's kid trying to build rockets teach us about Bible Study and Psalm 27?  Series: Understanding Psalms Most people fail at Bible study because no one ever taught them how. Bible Study Boot Camp fixes that: one short email a day for a week, plus a worksheet you can use on any passage for the rest of your life. Sign up for Bible Study Boot Camp

Psalm 143 is about being in the deepest blackest pit of despair and finding God anyway. It’s about depression, but the particular depression and anguish you feel when you’re confronted with the consequences of your sin.  Series: Understanding Psalms Most people fail at Bible study because no one ever taught them how. Bible Study Boot Camp fixes that: one short email a day for a week, plus a worksh...

All through my academic career I rubbed shoulders with people smarter than I. The standard was always higher than I could reach, no matter how I hard I tried. Holiness is like that. Most people fail at Bible study because no one ever taught them how. Bible Study Boot Camp fixes that: one short email a day for a week, plus a worksheet you can use on any passage for the rest of your life. Sign up fo...

Think about what you'd wish for if you had a genie. Think about what you pray for. How similar are they? Most people fail at Bible study because no one ever taught them how. Bible Study Boot Camp fixes that: one short email a day for a week, plus a worksheet you can use on any passage for the rest of your life. Sign up for Bible Study Boot Camp

When Paul writes in Ephesians 2 that believers are "growing into a holy temple in the Lord" and "being built together into a dwelling of God in the Spirit", he's drawing on rich Old Testament history. Most people fail at Bible study because no one ever taught them how. Bible Study Boot Camp fixes that: one short email a day for a week, plus a worksheet you can use on any p...

Explore 7 biblical steps to find your unique calling. Learn how to align your passions with God’s purpose and overcome obstacles through faith In this week’s episode, we explore: The biblical foundation of calling, rooted in being made in God’s image with dominion over creation. How every vocation, sacred or secular, reflects God’s purpose for humanity. The seven stages of calling, from discoverin...

The Apostle Paul divides humanity by one thing: those who belong to God and those who don't. It is the only distinction that matters. Most people fail at Bible study because no one ever taught them how. Bible Study Boot Camp fixes that: one short email a day for a week, plus a worksheet you can use on any passage for the rest of your life. Sign up for Bible Study Boot Camp

What one particular husband thinks that other husbands might appreciate him telling their wives. Most people fail at Bible study because no one ever taught them how. Bible Study Boot Camp fixes that: one short email a day for a week, plus a worksheet you can use on any passage for the rest of your life. Sign up for Bible Study Boot Camp

When I was a new Christian, I told another believer that I was struggling with controlling my temper. She told me that I was not a genuine Christian because if I was, I wouldn't sin. If she is right, not only was I not a Christian then — I still am not a Christian now. When you discover two very different interpretations of the Bible, how do you decide who's right? Most people fail at Bi...

Is the gospel message of the Word of Life, a "pie in the sky" other worldly gospel? Suppose I give a starving person enough food to eat to this week and next week she starves. Have I failed? Most people fail at Bible study because no one ever taught them how. Bible Study Boot Camp fixes that: one short email a day for a week, plus a worksheet you can use on any passage for the rest of yo...