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Author of A World from Dust: How the Periodic Table Shaped Life
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Category: New Writing

John Advent Calendar

December 25: John 21:24-25 (No Damage in My Country)

Posted on December 24, 2024 by bjm@spu.edu / 0 Comment

Each year from 1923 to 1943, J.R.R. Tolkien wrote elaborate letters from Father Christmas to his four children, with hand-drawn illustrations and characters inc...

John Advent Calendar

December 24: John 21:1-23 (The First Breakfast)

Posted on December 23, 2024 by bjm@spu.edu / 0 Comment

The prophet Micah wrote, “But you, Bethlehem Ephrathah, Though you are little among the thousands of Judah, Yet out of you shall come forth to Me the One to be ...

John Advent Calendar

December 23: John 20:19-31 (A Concrete Otherness)

Posted on December 22, 2024 by bjm@spu.edu / 0 Comment

Throughout John, Jesus has been talking about things of heaven and of the Spirit. He tells Nicodemus that to see the Kingdom of God a person must be born again,...

John Advent Calendar

December 22: John 20:1-18 (While it is Still Dark)

Posted on December 21, 2024 by bjm@spu.edu / 0 Comment

John gives us another one of his timestamps in the first verse of Chapter 20: “Now early on the first day of the Sabbath-week, while it is still dark, Mary the ...

John Advent Calendar

December 21: John 19:30-42 (Poured Out and Cascading Down)

Posted on December 21, 2024 by bjm@spu.edu / 0 Comment

In John 19:30, after Jesus takes his final drink of watered-down wine, he said, “‘It has been completed.’ And lowering his head he delivered up his spirit.” The...

John Advent Calendar

December 20: John 18:28-19:29 (So Many Rivulets, Foretold)

Posted on December 19, 2024 by bjm@spu.edu / 0 Comment

A week after Jesus was born, Mary and Joseph brought him to the Temple for circumcision, and Simeon prophesied over the infant: “Look: This one is appointed for...

John Advent Calendar

December 19: John 18:1-27 (Fire and Steel)

Posted on December 19, 2024 by bjm@spu.edu / 0 Comment

The first part of John 18 has two pairs of characters, set on different sides of a hasty nighttime trial that is fishing for an excuse to send Jesus to the Roma...

John Advent Calendar

December18: John 17:1-18:1 (The Lord’s Other Prayers)

Posted on December 17, 2024 by bjm@spu.edu / 0 Comment

Ask and you shall receive: the disciples had asked Jesus how to pray, and he gave them the Lord’s Prayer in response to their request. But Jesus had other praye...

John Advent Calendar

December 17: John 15:18-16:33 (Lawyer, Angel, and Midwife)

Posted on December 16, 2024 by bjm@spu.edu / 0 Comment

In John 14-17, Jesus speaks in the form of a Jewish Farewell Discourse, but as usual, Jesus challenges and transforms the genre. For example, previous discourse...

John Advent Calendar

December 16: John 15:1-17 (The Lord is Our Farmer)

Posted on December 16, 2024 by bjm@spu.edu / 0 Comment

The first food consumed on the moon’s surface was communion bread and wine, and the first scripture read (silently) was John 15:5. Buzz Aldrin was a Presbyteria...

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Recent Posts

  • December 25: John 21:24-25 (No Damage in My Country)
  • December 24: John 21:1-23 (The First Breakfast)
  • December 23: John 20:19-31 (A Concrete Otherness)
  • December 22: John 20:1-18 (While it is Still Dark)
  • December 21: John 19:30-42 (Poured Out and Cascading Down)

Recent Comments

  • William Darlington on December 4: The First Child, “God With Us”
  • George Murray on December 1: Prophecy is More Than Prediction

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