Six categories of the cross: JI Packer begins, “Jesus Christ is, in fact, an expression of the temper of the whole New Testament. For explaining the cross, the New Testament uses many images, many categories, many modes of thought blended together. These various categories and modes of thought serve to enrich our understanding of the cross and its meaning.”
A game of hide-and-seek: how shame keeps us from the Father’s love: Bethany Broderick shares a moment with her daughter, “The angry speech I was ready to give her melts away, and I drop to the ground next to her. I pull her close, and she cries against me. She is broken over her sin, yet she doesn’t know what to do other than try to hide.”
Amazing Grace in deep despair: Bruce Hindmarsh shares the story of John Newton and William Cowper’s friendship that navigated the dark waters of depression. “Newton offers a good example of what it might mean to walk with friends who go through the valley of the shadow of death.”
The difference two years can make: John Onwechekwa reflects on the death of his brother, “I remember fragments of these days: dreading stepping into the pulpit, crying through more sermons than I can count, putting my wife through the wringer, and ultimately feeling like a fraud because of how hard it was to believe the good things I was preaching about God.”
An open letter to Christians who doubt: Randy Newman offers lots of wisdom here, “Sometimes doubt wields a power it really doesn’t deserve. Pausing to evaluate might reveal doubt to be more like an earthworm than a boa constrictor. We need to define or describe our doubts and subject them to rigorous inquiry to see what they really entail. Just how big is this particular doubt or question?”

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