Jason Albertson

I really like Proverbs. And I am also a giant nerd, it is true, but I don’t think you have to be a giant nerd to love Proverbs.  I think some of the reasons people don’t like Proverbs… Not very clear, too complicated Promises a lot, too rosy-eyed Doesn’t address women, too male Connects prosperity to morality, too prosperity-gospel … are misunderstandings. I want to tell you why I like Proverbs so much, and I’ll use these misunderstandings as a roadmap. Objection 1. Too Complicated Of all these objections, this is the one that resonates most with me. There are complications between us and Proverbs. But I want to persuade you that those complications are not too big or too many: you can hear God’s Word in the Proverbs despite the complications. This, I think, is the biggest complication, and it holds several smaller ones: Proverbs is an unfamiliar kind of book: Ancient Near Eastern (ANE) Wisdom Literature.  Some things that are helpful to know when you’re working with ANE Wisdo...

The Fruit of the Spirit has kind of a VBS-theme vibe going on. That might be why it doesn't come up a lot in adult discipleship. Maybe it's just typecast—"Oh, that's mostly in the Bible so there's safe imagery for children's church. It's not really important for adults. Too cute." But the Fruit's position in Galatians 5 is actually really theologically significant. The Fruit is significant because Paul contrasts it with the acts of the flesh. They're opposites. Gal. 5:19  Now the works of the flesh are obvious: ... Gal. 5:23  But the fruit of the Spirit is: ... It almost sounds like Paul is contrasting two ways of living. In fact, that's exactly what he's doing! Gal. 5:16  But I say, walk by the Spirit and you will not carry out the desires of the flesh. This is one of the big themes in Paul's depiction of the Christian life. You either carry out the desires of the Spirit or you carry out the desires of the flesh. Those desires are ...

In Terry Pratchett's novel, Equal Rites , there's a scene that illustrates a thread I keep seeing in his writing.  An older woman, a mentor-figure, is trying to teach a young girl how to use magic effectively. One of the things she teaches the girl to do is "borrow" the mind of an animal, like an eagle or bear, to use the animal like a periscope - see what they can see, sense what they can sense.  The older woman warns the girl not to take control of the animal's mind, only to ride alongside it, but the girl ignores her warning. She seizes the mind of an eagle and flies away with a triumphant screech while her human body falls into a coma. But because she doesn't know the limitations of the eagle's body, it gets tired and falls to the earth on a remote mountain. But the older woman tracks the eagle, brings it home and warms it again. Patiently she coaxes the girl's consciousness out of the eagle and back into her human body, and it passes from a coma i...

In his book, Art + Faith , Makoto Fujimura describes the Garden of Eden as a “discovery zone” God prepared for Adam and Eve. God filled the garden with every kind of tree (Gen. 2:8-9). He brought to the garden all the beasts and birds (Gen. 2:19-20). God introduced the materials of the earth to humans, and then He expected them to make something of those materials by naming and cultivating them (Gen. 2:15; 2:19). And we get hints in Gen. 2 of fabulous and exotic materials God placed beneath the soil for Adam and Eve and their children to eventually explore, excavate, discover, refine and employ (Gen. 2:11-12). Fujimura wonders, “are we to assume that they would have begun the work of building the city of God in some way, to use the materials, even if the Fall had not occurred?” Consider God’s actions in Eden as an analogy for education. God… Introduces unfamiliar material and Provides opportunities for creative, meaningful work (naming, cultivating) that results in Growth in knowledge ...

Integrating grief into worship is hard, but there are times when it's important for a Christian community to figure out how. 1. I've seen grief verbally acknowledged from a pulpit, then someone leading the service asked the participants to set it aside to enter into worship. This seems better than not acknowledging the grief, but I think it conveys the impression that grief is insignificant, or that the show must go on—that the participants are less important than the ceremony of worship. 2. I've seen someone invite participants to enter into triumphant worship with their grief, to express their faith in the middle of the circumstances. This seems like a better response because it invites participants to meditate on how their worship relates to their grief. It opens up opportunities to recognize Jesus as the resurrection and the life (John 11:23-27). The drawback of 2 is that it can tend toward papering-over grief rather than integrating it. We are often so uncomfortable ...

New Year’s Day is just another midwinter day, but it marks the progress of time and prompts us to reflect—maybe on the passing year, maybe on hopes and expectations for the coming year.  In our New Year’s reflections, I think it can be easy for us to partake of a belief that is unhelpful to our souls, but fills the air Americans breathe: we must make something ultimate of the new year .  I’m struggling to find words for the belief I’m trying to describe, but I hope you can feel what I mean. Though most people don’t talk about this belief in these terms, it can feel like a new year impresses on us a burden that could be described as … saving ourselves or producing something profoundly meaningful or  achieving some purity or righteousness,  … especially by means of self-discipline or work. That’s a belief that flows naturally from the American culture’s secular, pluralistic civic religion. It isn’t polite to talk publicly about truth, goodness or beauty, but there stil...

I used to think suffering comes from God to sculpt away the pieces that aren't part of the design. But I keep seeing pieces falling with scraps of the pattern  still pinned to the material. So I read James again.  He didn't say God sent suffering for good.  He said every suffering could bring about good. I used to think God does only ever all that will bring the greatest good. But I've seen good seeds become dry shoots in the wilderness— burning bushes that are consumed.  Every day, chances to bring about good soar over the plate strike after strike. And I guess, I don't really know what you do, God? Like, what do you do? Mary didn't even get the guest room.  This is the part where I'm supposed to say "Yet I will hope in the God of my salvation." I want to. Tonight, all I've got is "What are you waiting for?" I'm grateful that you notice when the sparrow falls but the sparrow's still broken, right? You noticed Adam and Eve, but t...

I took a chance on an audiobook this year.  It’s been a year without much slack, and leisure reading has been hard to come by, so I’ve been listening to more audiobooks while I work around the house. This one was a recommendation from Hoopla , and I gave it a try: Time Shelter by Georgi Gospodinov. From the description, I thought it would be a funky story about time travel. Instead, it was a tragic and often funny story about how Alzheimer’s disease affects individuals and societies, and I think it has something to say about this week’s kerfuffle over the US Senate’s dress code. Time Shelter Time Shelter is a Bulgarian novel, published in 2020 in Bulgarian then translated into English in 2022. The narrator’s relationship with a mysterious friend, Gaustine, is the core around which the story develops.  Gaustine pulls the narrator into a business venture: he is developing a clinic for patients with Alzheimer’s disease. He wants to provide them with the greatest possible comfor...

I think most of us are used to thinking of Christian worldview in education as something that affects class content. For example, if I’m teaching a high school science class, I might take time to talk about what creation reveals about God, and I might think of that as Christian worldview integration.  Those content-level connections often end up feeling—and being —squashed in where they aren’t actually helpful. When that happens, it cheapens the way we and our students think about the truth, because it’s a misuse of the truth. That kind of mis-integration can lead us to think of a Christian worldview as a habit of tipping our cap toward God at the end of every conversation. If we only ever portray God’s perspective as an obligatory afterthought, I would argue that that’s actually a subversion of a Christian worldview. There’s a deeper level of Christian worldview integration available, and I think it’s actually a more helpful level. What if we could apply Christian teaching not jus...

Across the canon of Andy Griffith, there’s a type of episode that pops up again and again.  “The Bed Jacket” is an example that illustrates the type. It’s Aunt Bee’s birthday, and she insists that she doesn’t want any frivolous gifts. She’s a Very Sensible Person, after all. Then she sees something frilly that she really wants, and she’s in a bind—she can’t tell Andy and Opie, because that would mean she’s actually not a Very Sensible Person. The usual hijinks ensue, and Andy finally discovers what Bee really wants through one of her friends. He gets her the gift in such a way as not to reveal that he knew she wanted it. She’s happy, and he’s The Good Guy that we all knew he was.  That’s the type of episode I’m thinking of: Andy becomes aware that another person’s self-perception is just plain wrong, and then he bends over backwards to keep them from being confronted with that reality, and therefore he is The Good Guy. The problem-person is usually Barney (e.g., “Andy Saves Ba...

I recently witnessed a discussion where a question arose: is it ever appropriate for a lay-person to confront a leader about a problem in their teaching? This is an attempt to address that question by surveying confrontation in Scripture. This doesn't address the question from other perspectives that would be helpful—Christian spirituality more broadly, systematic theology, psychology and sociology would all add valuable insights. This is just intended as a baseline. Religious leaders can confront those under their authority. In Scripture, there are examples of religious leaders confronting people who are under their authority about problems in their beliefs or practices.  For example, Paul confronts the Corinthians believers about a number of problems, and he explicitly says he has a right to their respect (1 Cor. 9:1-12). He cites his apostleship, the fact that he has personally seen Jesus and the fact that he founded the church in Corinth (1 Cor. 9:1).  But Paul denies that...

As I read the gospels, I’m amazed by how many people Jesus delivered from suffering, most often from disease or demon-possession. Of course, He warned us that following Him would deliver us into suffering too, especially social suffering (Matt. 5:11-12; John 15:18-25). His example also teaches us that following Him may expose us to spiritual (Matt. 4:1-11) and physical suffering (Matt. 27:26-50). But for the people I know and pray for, His Kingdom doesn’t seem to deliver people from disease and death as often as I would expect. Why? Not for lack of power. I know people who have been touched by His power in unmistakable ways. But why so rarely? In some cases, I think I can tell why. In this stage of history, the one between Creation and the Judgment, God often appears to avoid overpowering people who rebel against Him (Rev. 22:11). That accounts for suffering that comes from people who choose evil.  But what about disease?  Why doesn’t God always heal? There are some standard a...

A Reconciled Life… Paul’s message in 2 Cor. 5:14-21 exhorts us to be reconciled to God through Christ. It’s easy for me to truncate that reconciliation—to think of it only in terms of my guilt being taken away, and not to consider what kind of life flows from that reconciliation. And he died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for him who died for them and was raised again.  Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come. What is it like to live that new kind of life? How could you describe it? From my own experience, I would describe a reconciled life with God as deeply satisfying. There are a bunch of things that go into that satisfaction. For example, The experience of walking in step with the Spirit (Gal. 5:16-25). We get a hint that this is a little bit like life with God in Eden (Gen. 3:8), which is just astounding to me. Living without the shame of unconfessed sin. I don’t thin...