Announcement: My First Book in the 'Crumbs' Series is Out

Beloved of God and Called to Be Saints: Crumbs from Paul's Letter to the Romans

I’m excited to announce Beloved of God and Called to Be Saints has finally dropped. A print version is on its way to paid subscribers! Woot!

BELOVED OF GOD AND CALLED TO BE SAINTS is not another devotional meant to make you feel better about yourself. This 378-page book is a humble invitation to those who want to see more clearly.

The text centers on Paul’s letter to the Romans expressing his desire for first-century saints living in “the eternal city” to support his upcoming missionary work to Spain. In order to assure them that he is worthy of their support, Paul lays out his longest and most sustained theological explanation of the gospel.

The theme of Paul’s letter is the gospel’s power to save the unrighteous and to establish a flourishing humanity in the new age of Spirit-led liberty, a humanity united in and by Jesus Christ for the glory of God the Father. What we discover by the end of the letter is this: God is the rightful monarch; amidst all his creation, human beings are his special subjects; his desire for humanity is that they flourish; but we can only flourish when we embrace the grace of our benevolent God’s rightful rule.

Written as 267 daily reflections drawn from Paul’s letter to the Romans, BELOVED OF GOD AND CALLED TO BE SAINTS offers 9 months of meaningful theology for ordinary mornings. Each crumb is genuinely thoughtful, honestly bracing, and quietly hopeful. These are not sermons, nor are they banal “inspirational” sentiments. They are crumbs written for our nourishment: small portions of Scripture carefully exposited to be slowly and patiently chewed. Most importantly, each daily crumb is meant to whet the reader’s appetite for the greater feast of Word and Sacrament.

This book matters because it is written from a Christian humanist perspective. That means it teaches Christians to think biblically, patiently, and humbly once again. And, it does so at a particular time when much of the Church has adopted the culture’s mantra of “reward reaction and reject reflection.”

The Crumbs format teaches Christians to read Paul’s letter written to the Romans for our own spiritual and intellectual formation. In short, this book is meant to be neither kitsch sentimentality nor an arsenal for gathering more ammunition for the culture wars. It is meant to help ordinary believers recover the habit of patient obedience in the same direction, an obedience guided by Spirit and Scripture instead of the more common model of therapeutic pietism.

FREE SHIPPING through the end of January and only purchasable through Books.by.

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The CRUMBS FROM OUR MASTER’S TABLE series is a daily morsel of theological soul food, short expositional readings and thoughtful commentary on every verse of Scripture. Crumbs may be small, but there is nourishment in every morsel because they come from our Master’s table—good for daily food and great with a morning cup of coffee.

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With the help of my good friends at Romans Roads Press, I am launching a new imprint, Epistolae Press, a boutique press that will publish works in Christian humanism.