Have you ever needed to hear something over and over again for it to stick? Probably something a parent or your spouse reminded you of countless times before you realized it was, after all, the best thing for you? When my dad was a teenager, he was pretty rebellious, he told me. He didn’t rebel…
What is the Apocrypha, and Why Should You Read It?
This is the first part of Dr. Noll’s series, “Reading and Enjoying the Apocrypha.” It is hard enough to pronounce or spell Apocrypha, so why should you want to read it? Good question. Answering that question is my task in this series of articles. Did you know that the Apocrypha is part of the Bible?…
A New Generation of Anglicans
Today there is a new generation of Anglicans joining the Church. Through my work on the Word & Table podcast, and with Saint Paul’s House of Formation, I have had the privilege of meeting and speaking with many. In my experience, the majority of these converts are millennials from evangelical protestant traditions. Over the last…
The BibleProject Coffee Table Book (Review)
You need to know about the BibleProject If you’ve not yet browsed the BibleProject’s free library of resources, stop what you’re doing and go browse BibleProject.com! Seriously, other than perhaps the free tools available at NetBible.org, the BibleProject is the best collection of free Bible study resources online that I know of. Not only do they have…
Do Anglicans even *care* about the Bible? 📖
Let’s be honest: When you think of a “Bible church,” you probably don’t think of an Anglican church. Nevertheless, Holy Scripture has played a very important role in the Anglican tradition. Let’s take a look at what some of the foundational documents of Anglicanism have to say about the Bible! By the way, these Anglican…
The Holey Scriptures: Why Bible Reading Leaves You Empty
“If you want to understand what a particular verse of Scripture means you have to stop reading it. In fact, you should never read a Bible verse.” This is how I have opened virtually every talk that I have ever given to would-be Bible students. The Bible is a collection, not of individual verses and…
Reading Scripture Together: Recapturing Thomas Cranmer’s Vision
In 2008 Phyllis Tickle made the important observation that about every 500 years, a significant transformation takes place in the Church. She points to the arrival of Jesus in the first century, the collapse of the Roman empire five-hundred years later in the late 5th century, the Great Schism five-hundred years after that in 1054,…
Lessons in Omission: Why Are Some Chapters Missing in the Daily Office Lectionary?
Many folks accustomed to reading Bible-in-a-year plans are delighted to find out that the Book of Common Prayer (2019) has a Daily Office lectionary that leads the faithful Anglican to read through the whole Bible in a year—at least, most of it. Those same folks are sometimes a little dismayed to then find out that…
Reading the Bible with the Caroline Divines: 4 Homiletical Takeaways
In the shadows cast by the early English reformers (such as Cramner and Hooker) on the one side, and the giants of Anglican theology since the 18th century on the other, sits the rich trove of Anglican theologians and devotional writers known collectively as the Caroline Divines. “Caroline” (derived from the Latin version of the…
What Does the Bible Say about Justice? 5 Things to Remember
This is an incredibly important time for the community of Jesus as our nation grapples with the injustice of racial inequality. An unavoidable light is now shining on the systemic oppression and racism that has plagued the history of our country from its inception. The complicity of large swathes of the American church on issues…
