the long way home

The Church Keeps the Elect | Hebrews 3.12–14

Paul Burkhart — Thu, 08 Oct 2026 14:00:00 +0000

Take care, brothers and sisters, that none of you may have an evil, unbelieving heart that turns away from the living God. But exhort one another every day, as long as it is called “today,” so that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin. For we have become partners of Christ, if only we hold our first confidence firm to the end.
—Hebrews 3:12–14

What does a life look like when it is not moving towards falling away? It looks like exhorting one another. Exhortation is the way God keeps us. Perseverance is not an abstract fact that we cannot see, and that we merely hope for. It is a lived reality in community, encouraging one another and keeping one another. God keeps the elect by the church keeping the elect.

For more on the concrete, communal means by which God keeps those who are his, read: What is a Sacrament? (Happy Corpus Christi!).

More: Marginalia on Hebrews · Browse all Marginalia · Browse by Bible book

Grace Trains Us in Righteousness | Titus 2.11–14

Paul Burkhart — Wed, 07 Oct 2026 14:00:00 +0000

For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation to all, training us to renounce impiety and worldly passions and in the present age to live lives that are self-controlled, upright, and godly, while we wait for the blessed hope and the manifestation of the glory of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ. He it is who gave himself for us that he might redeem us from all iniquity and purify for himself a people of his own who are zealous for good deeds.
—Titus 2:11–14

What a beautiful and dense passage! Paul first tells everybody how they should govern their practice, and then says that the grounding for that is the fact that grace has been revealed. Grace is what drives our holiness. But further, in a blow to the usual faith-and-works dichotomy, Paul says that grace actually trains us in righteousness. Grace doesn’t just forgive unrighteousness or make us pure in spite of unrighteousness, or regardless of righteousness. It actually trains us in righteousness. And so good works are the evidence of grace at work. Without good works there is no grace.

Further, a key component of righteous living is a cultivation of hope towards the age to come. We often disconnect right living with the future. Or we try to live right in order to earn God’s future. This isn’t the case. Living rightly builds our anticipation for the world to come. Because righteous living is God’s future flooding into our present, expressed in our lives. We dance in the rhythm of heaven when we live righteous lives.

For a compact companion on grace creating rather than opposing good works, read: I Am God’s Poetry.

More: Marginalia on Titus · Browse all Marginalia · Browse by Bible book

The Beautiful Transition | Matthew 11.25–30

Paul Burkhart — Tue, 06 Oct 2026 14:00:00 +0000

At that time Jesus said, “I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and the intelligent and have revealed them to infants; yes, Father, for such was your gracious will. All things have been handed over to me by my Father, and no one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him.

“Come to me, all you who are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”
—Matthew 11:25–30

What a beautiful transition; from words of exclusivity to words of rest and invitation. It is precisely into the intensely exclusive intimacy between the Son and the Father into which we are invited to come and find rest. This is true Christian “Universalism”: the whole cosmos is brought into the exclusive, fiery love of the Trinity.

For more on the overflowing love of the Trinity and God’s intention to bring creation into communion with himself, read: Developing Ancient Creeds & The Trinity.

More: Marginalia on Matthew · Browse all Marginalia · Browse by Bible book

What If the Potter Is Defending the Clay? | Isaiah 45.9–10

Paul Burkhart — Mon, 05 Oct 2026 14:00:00 +0000

Woe to those who strive with their Maker,
    earthen vessels with the potter!
Does the clay say to the one who fashions it, “What are you making”?
    or “Your work has no handles”?
Woe to anyone who says to a father, “What are you fathering?”
    or to a woman, “With what are you in labor?”
—Isaiah 45:9–10

Whoa. I’ve always read this as God angrily telling humans to stop defying him, to humble themselves, and submit to his work. Because what lump of clay argues with the potter? But what if God is actually decrying our self-doubt, shame, and self-hatred? What if he is saying something closer to “How dare you think less of yourself than you ought?”

More: Marginalia on Isaiah · Browse all Marginalia · Browse by Bible book

Sometimes Obedience Makes You Unclean | Numbers 19.14

Paul Burkhart — Thu, 01 Oct 2026 14:00:00 +0000

“This is the law when someone dies in a tent: everyone who comes into the tent and everyone who is in the tent shall be unclean seven days.
—Numbers 19:14

This is kind of beautiful. The point of the cleanliness laws is not to avoid uncleanliness at all costs. To be unclean is not a failure. In fact, in these verses it seems like to become unclean is the obedient, loving thing to do. Impurity is not something to be avoided at all costs and to focus your entire life around, but to be acknowledged clearly and addressed appropriately. I can’t imagine that the more obedient response here would be to leave the body rotting in the tent.

More: Marginalia on Numbers · Browse all Marginalia · Browse by Bible book

When Christ Removes the Veil | 2 Corinthians 3.14–16

Paul Burkhart — Wed, 30 Sep 2026 14:00:00 +0000

But their minds were hardened. Indeed, to this very day, when they hear the reading of the old covenant, the same veil is still there; it is not unveiled since in Christ it is set aside. Indeed, to this very day whenever Moses is read, a veil lies over their minds, but when one turns to the Lord, the veil is removed.
—2 Corinthians 3:14–16

Wow. What a profound statement of a Christ-centered hermeneutic. It also goes to show how interpretation is a spiritual enterprise, and not a scientific or even artistic one. You cannot mainly be led by systems of doctrine or even systems of interpretation. The Spirit gives light to interpretation. This makes it dangerous and exciting.

Another note: it’s interesting that the verses that follow this are often used to talk about spiritual freedom. I wonder if the freedom and newness that Paul talks about is, in fact, freedom in biblical understanding and interpretation—a freedom to see what things in the Bible have been pointing to all along, rather than simply being fixed on a simplistic and literalistic meaning of the words.

For more on Scripture as a Christ-centered, living act of divine communication rather than merely a collection of words, read: What IS the Bible? Let’s Discuss.

More: Marginalia on 2 Corinthians · Browse all Marginalia · Browse by Bible book

When the Sheep Leave the Shepherds | Ezekiel 34.4–6, 10

Paul Burkhart — Tue, 29 Sep 2026 14:00:00 +0000

You have not strengthened the weak; you have not healed the sick; you have not bound up the injured; you have not brought back the strays; you have not sought the lost, but with force and harshness you have ruled them. So they were scattered because there was no shepherd, and scattered they became food for all the wild animals. My sheep were scattered; they wandered over all the mountains and on every high hill; my sheep were scattered over all the face of the earth, with no one to search or seek for them.
—Ezekiel 34:4–6

What a word of warning to evangelicals and comfort to the deconstructed. At some point, these defections from Evangelicalism are not a sign of persecution due to faithfulness, but a sign of faithlessness and a rot to the core.

Thus says the Lord God: I am against the shepherds, and I will hold them accountable for my sheep and put a stop to their feeding the sheep; no longer shall the shepherds feed themselves. I will rescue my sheep from their mouths, so that they may not be food for them.
—Ezekiel 34:10

If my previous analogy to the deconstructed has merit, then the verse makes it sound like these people leaving the church is a mercy and salvation to them. It is God’s faithfulness, not his judgment, at work here.

For more on failed shepherds, abusive leadership, and God’s concern for scattered sheep, read: I Am a Failed & Abusive Leader.

More: Marginalia on Ezekiel · Browse all Marginalia · Browse by Bible book

When Saul Thinks He Obeyed | 1 Samuel 15.20–21

Paul Burkhart — Mon, 28 Sep 2026 14:00:00 +0000

Saul said to Samuel, “I have obeyed the voice of the Lord. I have gone on the mission on which the Lord sent me. I have brought Agag the king of Amalek, and I have utterly destroyed the Amalekites. But from the spoil the people took sheep and cattle, the best of the things devoted to destruction, to sacrifice to the Lord your God in Gilgal.”
—1 Samuel 15:20–21

God, I hate this passage. Saul is how old here? He’s so young, and he genuinely seems to think he followed through on everything the Lord said. He destroyed the Amalekites as a people entirely, even if he brought some livestock and their king back alive. The prophecy from the Lord did not include anything having to do with livestock nor the king himself. Just an order to destroy the people, which Saul did. In fact, Saul is determined to send that livestock in for sacrifices to the Lord.

However, I know it’s important to read the entire story and not get stuck on one part. Part of the polemic here against Saul is seeing how he ends up. I guess it’s kind of the idea that who Saul really is is revealed later on, and the Lord’s anger is burning not simply because of the actions of Saul in this one case, but because the Lord knows his heart and motives, and how his whole idea of bringing back sacrifices and being all holy comes from a less genuine place than he may even know himself. David, later on, is put into similar stressors as Saul did, and the same kind of wickedness and rage did not come out of him. So I suppose part of this anger of God is in light of who Saul will reveal himself to be.

Still doesn’t change how enraging the Lord’s original command is.

More: Marginalia on 1 Samuel · Browse all Marginalia · Browse by Bible book

When God Destroys His Own Temple | Lamentations 2.6–7

Paul Burkhart — Mon, 28 Sep 2026 02:59:05 +0000

He has laid waste his booth like a garden;
laid in ruins his meeting place;
the Lord has made Zion forget
festival and Sabbath,
and in his fierce indignation has spurned
king and priest.

The Lord has scorned his altar,
disowned his sanctuary;
he has delivered into the hand of the enemy
the walls of her palaces;
a clamor was raised in the house of the Lord
as on a day of festival.
—Lamentations 2:6–7

Interesting that the text makes a point of saying that God himself is the one who has destroyed his own Temple. That had to be pretty shocking to the original readers. Not only were they so deeply shattered by the destruction of the Temple, but the writer here is saying that God himself destroyed the thing because it had become that corrupt. And all of the holiest parts of the Temple are described here as things God himself has destroyed. That’s crazy.

It does foreshadow the ultimate Temple to come—Christ himself, who tabernacled among us. God himself will utterly destroy that Tabernacle as well in an act of justice and judgment. Except while this one ushers in a time of exile, that one ends it and brings the exiles home.

More: Marginalia on Lamentations · Browse all Marginalia · Browse by Bible book

Marginalia Weekly Round-Up | September 21–24, 2026

Paul Burkhart — Fri, 25 Sep 2026 14:00:00 +0000

This week’s Marginalia keeps circling a question of presence: where God is found when comfort fails, when grace appears in another person’s face, when salvation comes by hidden means, and when what looks like abundance turns out to be a lack.

When God Is Your Existential Anchor—and Your Enemy | Job 16.6-9
What if the thing we need in suffering is not an explanation—or even “comfort”—but presence?

Seeing the Face of God in Another | Genesis 33.10
Jacob’s reunion with Esau offers a startling place to glimpse the face and presence of God.

The God Who Hides Himself | Isaiah 45.15
Sometimes the hiddenness of God is bound up with the strange and unexpected means by which salvation arrives.

When Abundance Is Actually a Lack | Mark 10.21-22
Jesus looks with love at a man who has much—and names the one thing he lacks.

From the Margins

History, Theology, & Wrestling with God | Genesis 32.24-32 — The chapter immediately before this week’s Genesis note also turns on seeing God “face to face.” Read together, the two Marginalia put Jacob’s encounter with God beside his encounter with Esau in a fascinating way.

Elsewhere in the Archive

My Sermon on Judgment, Poverty, Sheep, & Goats — Thursday’s Mark note finds Jesus confronting a wealthy man with what his possessions may be keeping him from. This older sermon turns to Matthew 25, where Jesus identifies himself with the hungry, the stranger, the naked, and the imprisoned—another unsettling Gospel meditation on what our relationship to material abundance reveals.

More: Browse all Marginalia · Browse by Bible book