Whither Jealousy?

30 June 2026

Some while back, I found myself in a public discussion with a husband who does not approve of his wife “exchanging attention” with men, which for him includes working with male coworkers, having a male chiropractor, and so on. “I just cannot share her with other men in any way,” he said. Some of their friends had objected to his approach; he felt he was just being a faithful Christian husband, but he wanted a wider range of counsel, so he’d aired the question in public to see what people would say.

Now, the culture in which we live immediately responds with a wave of condemnation. He’s controlling, abusive, jealous. He needs therapy. She should divorce him. And so on. But not so fast. Our culture approves of adultery, fornication, infanticide, and a host of other evils; nobody should be trusting the culture’s judgment. All these evils are founded on a specific spiritual poison: a worship of personal autonomy that bridles at any infringement by anybody for any reason — and at this particular cultural moment, that goes double for a man infringing on a woman’s choices.

In the conservative evangelical world, we’re tempted to notice that poison, and respond to this husband with approval. Whatever annoys our autonomous, self-worshipping, adulterous, feminist culture must be a good thing, right? It’s a tempting line of thought.

Not so fast. Our culture is certainly not an authority on healthy marriage, but it is not a universal anti-authority either. Just because it disapproves of something doesn’t make that thing good. Which is to say that we’re not relieved of the duty of discernment; we have to make our own determination. This is nothing new: “Test all things; hold fast to what is good.”

So let’s do the work. First, this man is jealous of his wife’s attentions. The world wants that to be a bad thing, but it isn’t, necessarily. Jealousy is not automatically out of bounds; God is jealous too. Righteous jealousy is a zeal for what is rightfully yours. So the question we need to ask is, is this man claiming what’s his, or is he overreaching? As always, we norm our expectations by Scripture.

As a practical matter, Scripture paints a picture that’s hard to square with this man’s sentiment. It’s difficult to see how the excellent wife of Proverbs 31 could do what she did without interacting with men: servants in her own house, other members of the community, whoever owned that field, the workers in her vineyard. It’s difficult to see how a wife could follow the instructions given her in the New Testament without interacting with men. The command that women should be “keepers-at-home” did not mean they never interacted with the world; much the contrary. Managing a first-century household was not a reclusive affair: there were merchants to interact with, servants (or masters) to work with, work to get done that, especially in a preindustrial world, would require the assistance of (physically stronger) men. What about today? Really, this hasn’t changed. Being good at the business of life means being able to interact with the people who provide the goods and services you need. A goodly chunk of them will be men.

Thus far the prudential discussion. At a purely practical level, imposing this requirement of “exchanging no attention with men” will make a modern wife’s life difficult to impossible, just as it would have done in OT or NT times. That said, if it really is a righteous requirement, then we should stick with it, trust God and forge ahead. Righteous living is frequently inconvenient, after all. Since when was that a reason not to be righteous?

But it’s not a righteous requirement. There’s no biblical basis for the claim that all of a wife’s attention and interactions belong exclusively to her husband. No passage says that, and as we’ve already seen, the instructions to wives generally require her interaction with the wider world. In all but the most unusual circumstances, she will need to interact with other men in order to be a good helper and “battle-mate” to her husband. (See Leithart’s excellent The Glory of Man for a longer discussion of what it means for the woman to be a helper.)

The biblical instructions on how to treat members of the opposite sex do not align with this husband’s sentiment either. Paul tells Titus to treat the older women as mothers and the younger as sisters. He doesn’t say “don’t exchange attention with them; all their interactions belong to their husbands.” What this husband is describing as his boundary to nip any hint of adultery in the bud is simply not biblical. He needs to go and read Genesis 3: adding our own made-up laws to God’s doesn’t make life better and safer. “Neither shall you touch it” didn’t work for Eve, and “Don’t exchange attention with any other man” isn’t going to be proof against sin either; faith in extrabiblical prohibitions is simply misplaced.

Now, to a man who has settled on “don’t exchange attention with the opposite sex” as his bulwark against adultery, the above paragraphs are going to sound like we simply don’t care about righteousness. If that’s not the answer, then how are we going to prevent adultery? Don’t we understand how destructive it is, and how capable we all are of sin? In other words, where are the brakes on this thing?

This is a sensible set of concerns, and one that every recovering legalist has to face. If the legalism isn’t the bulwark against sin that it’s supposed to be, then what is? The answer to that question starts with a realistic appraisal of the threat. The man who’s demanding more than God thinks he’s taking the threat more seriously than the rest of us, but in fact that’s not the case. He’s missing something crucial.

We are all capable of adultery. All of us are at risk — most of all the ones that think they’re not. If 1 Corinthians 10:13 is true (“No temptation has overtaken you except such as is common to man”), then the temptations other people fall to are common to the rest of us as well. Just because we haven’t fallen yet doesn’t mean we can’t. Difficult as it may be to imagine, there is some combination of circumstances under which you — you, personally — would want to cheat on your spouse. And the same is true for any other sin. If it tempts anybody, then there is some version of that same sin that would tempt you under the right circumstances. Same for me. The circumstances that tempt me might be easy for you, and vice versa, but none of us is immune to anything. Like the Man said, only God is good. I don’t know what it would take for any given person, but make us angry enough, triumphant enough, sad enough, happy enough, lonely enough, desperate enough for something, anything, to numb the pain…everybody has weaknesses. We’re all in danger, and it’s silly to think we’re not.

It’s equally silly to pretend that sticking to some rule we made up will change that. Even God’s laws cannot keep us from sin. What are the chances that man’s laws will do what God’s cannot? “If there had been a law that could have given life, then truly righteousness would have been through the Law” (Gal. 3:21), but law can’t do that.

So where’s the hedge against sin? If we don’t make up a bunch of extra rules to protect ourselves from adultery (or whatever else), then how do we do it? Paul gives us the answer: “For what the law could not do in that it was weak through the flesh, God did by sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, on account of sin: He condemned sin in the flesh, that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit” (Rom. 8:3-4). As he will go on to say a bit later in the chapter, there is no solution to this problem other than the Spirit being at work in you, bringing life where there should be only death.

I’ve been married almost 23 years. Neither of us has ever cheated. Opportunities have come up; we’ve shut them down, hard. I lost a friend over one such situation; I don’t care. If you won’t be a friend of my marriage, you ain’t no friend of mine! We protect our marriage energetically. So should you. But do it in a way that fits with Scripture, not in a way that’s at odds with what God has taught us. That doesn’t mean you have no habits you can’t attach a verse to. I’m not saying that a boundary like (say) the Billy Graham rule is always nonsense; it was probably wise for Billy Graham and Mike Pence, and may be wise for other people too. Each couple gets to work things out between them, to a point. But it seems worth noticing that the rule ain’t in the Bible anywhere, and Jesus violated it good and hard.

Once upon a time, Jesus sent all His accountability partners to the grocery store, and when they came back, they found him engrossed in a conversation with a woman, alone — and exactly the sort of woman a virtuous man “shouldn’t” be alone with, too! (For the rest of the story, see John 4.) For a particular person, being like Jesus in that way might be off the table for a time, in the same way that a recovering drunkard shouldn’t hang around with people who are drinking (although again, Jesus did). That’s a weakness we should be honest about, but also looking to correct, but likely not a “boundary” we should be committed to for all time. It doesn’t seem wise to decide in advance that we’re going to just commit to being unlike Jesus. There’s nothing wrong with fleeing temptation; it’s a great idea! But when your protections get so tight they’re in the way of fulfilling Scripture, something is wrong. Real protection comes from norming ourselves to God’s way of thinking, feeling, and living, not from performative and/or immature reactions to our ungoverned passions.

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Posted by Tim Nichols

Fire on Every Head

24 May 2026

This post is officially my 800th since the beginning of this blog back on May 15, 2008. It’s been a privilege to serve you all! If this has been a blessing to you, consider supporting me.

Today at Jason Park in Englewood, Colorado, three churches will gather to worship God, reflect on His Word, and share a meal together. Why do we take time out of our regular routines to do this?

When God called Moses out of the Midianite desert to free His people from slavery in Egypt, He revealed Himself to Moses in fire—a bush that burned, but was not consumed. When Moses led the children of Israel out of Egypt, God stood between His people and the Egyptian army all night in an impassable cyclone of fire. He led them to Sinai, where He came upon the mountain in fire and storm. From that mountain, He spoke the Law, and on that mountain, He showed Moses the heavenly tabernacle, of which Moses made an earthly copy, a place for God’s special presence on earth. When Aaron began priestly ministry at that copy, fire came out of the sanctuary and devoured the sacrifices on the altar, signalling God’s acceptance of their work and His continued intention to dwell among His people. A pillar of fire remained over the tabernacle, and led them through the wilderness. When Solomon dedicated the Temple as a permanent dwelling to replace the portable Tabernacle, fire came down from heaven itself and consumed the sacrifices on the altar, again signalling God’s intention to dwell there, that His people should be a light to the Gentiles and a place where the world could draw near to Him.

To that nation, the custodians of His special presence on earth, God sent His prophets. Some they ignored, some they persecuted, some they killed, until finally He sent His Son—the Way, the Truth, and the Life—whom they took with lawless hands and murdered outside the city. But since it is not possible for Life Himself to be contained by death, Jesus was raised, showed Himself to His people, ascended to the right hand of power, and from Heaven sent His Holy Spirit. At Pentecost as at Sinai, the Spirit came upon His people in storm—a mighty rushing wind—and fire. But with a difference: the fire did not reside on a place or an altar, but on every head. From that day to this, the fire of God rests on the people His Spirit indwells. Jerusalem remains special to Him, and may God grant her peace! but He means to do it by provoking her to jealousy through the Gentiles, in all the different nations and cultures of the ends of the earth to which our people have carried the gospel, running like Samson’s foxes through the Gentile fields, setting everything ablaze as we go.

We come together today, two millennia later, to remember that the fire does not dwell only in Jerusalem, nor only at Christ the Anchor, or Lighthouse, or The Cord, but on every head, uniting us as Jesus prayed to the Father: “May they be one, even as We are one.” We will one day stand all together, every tribe, tongue, and nation assembled before God’s throne, and in this present earthly shadow of our heavenly future, whichever nation, culture, or family you come from, if you belong to Jesus, you belong to us, and we to you, and we are eager to meet the Holy Spirit manifested in each other.

Welcome to Pentecost!

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Posted by Tim Nichols

Hunting for the Innocent

5 April 2026

There’s a lineal descent of protest and grievance in American politics that runs from the civil rights movement to second-wave feminism to gay rights to the trans movement to supporting Hamas in the wake of October 7. (I suspect this line could be extended back in time a good ways: parts of the labor movement, temperance, abolitionism, and more.) The line of descent is less a matter of the causes being related than a matter of the same class of people supporting them, one after the other.

Good has been done along the way. Evil has been done along the way. But as the trajectory becomes both undeniably clear and undeniably evil, honesty compels us to ask if we got something wrong at the very start.

We did. Not with the causes themselves—the merits of the causes are a whole series of separate conversations—but with what we think it means to support them.

There’s a class of Americans that reliably supported all these causes, one after another, in an attempt to relieve itself of guilt. The emotional logic has been the same all along: if I can find innocent victims of oppression, lionize and defend them, then I will be redeemed from my guilt. When it fails—and it fails just as surely as Stalin’s Five-Year Plans—we always react the same way: jump to a new group of supposed innocent victims and try harder. The less obviously innocent they are, and the more extremely we debase ourselves to support them, the better our chances at excising our own inner stain.

It has not worked, and it never will. We are trying to self-medicate our way out of the wrong problem.

That inner stain cannot be removed by any amount of your own effort. Even if we only consider your own life, let’s be honest: your life contains plenty of evil you can’t blame on anyone else, and in your more honest moments, you know it. And that’s to say nothing of your ancestry: we surely all have ancestors who deserve to have their entire legacy wiped from the earth. Do you imagine that in the long history of humanity, you are descended from nothing but saints? No. All of us are descended of rapists, murderers, child molesters. We try to forget. We pretend that if we belatedly rescue the innocent now, we will somehow balance the scales, as if the lives our ancestors destroyed could somehow be restored to health after they’ve ended. As if the murder victims’ descendants who will never be could somehow be brought into existence after generations.

Sometimes a thing gets broke, can’t be fixed.

We are guilty children of guilty parents. We will never find someone so innocent that the rescue, were it even possible, would balance the scales. The endeavor is doomed from the start.

But our intuitions are not wholly wrong. In the dark recesses of the long, long memory of the Christian church, deep truths move that even most Christians aren’t consciously aware of. Here’s one of them: we hunt that innocent victim for good reason…just not the reason we tell ourselves.

We won’t rescue the innocent. The experiment has been tried. We were once given a truly good human, a man who did literally no wrong. We murdered him in cold blood. So it’s too late. You can’t “stand with” him, and it wouldn’t matter if you did. Thinking there was something you could do…that was the mistake all along. You can’t. Worse, you wouldn’t if you could.

But you don’t need to stand with him. You need him to stand with you.

That day he died, the world changed. Drawn by the monstrous perversion of his murder, every moral failure, every twisted desire, every sin, every sickness, every dark thing that stains our souls was drawn into Him. He willingly accepted it all, carried all of our darkness in his very flesh.

When He was nailed to the cross, so was all your darkness. When He died, it died. When He was buried, it was buried. And because He was righteous, God the Father would not leave Him in the grave. Raised to new, unending Life, He did not come out of the grave dragging a giant bag of your crap. He came out clean, infused forever with the power of an endless life. He lives now to make you clean. That stain you could never remove, no matter who you stood with, no matter how hard you tried? He knows every quarter-inch of it, better than you ever will. And He removes it.

What does He require in exchange? Nothing. Which makes sense, if you stop and think about it for a minute. Nothing you can do contributes to the solution. You have nothing that He needs. And so what could it be, other than sheer gift?

If you want to be clean, you can be. Trust Him to take care of everything, and it’s taken care of. Too simple? Too good to be true? Downright offensive, even? Yup. But there it is. God loves you that much, and so He just did it anyway. You don’t have to contribute; you don’t even have to approve. But since it’s already done, don’t pretend it isn’t. The cost is paid. Just say yes.

…and then, because you have been given mercy beyond imagining, do the same—in whatever limited way you can—for others. Not in a frantic and doomed effort to put yourself right, but as a secure expression of the truth: you are righteous. You are clean. You are forgiven. Because Jesus is risen from the dead.

Happy Easter!

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Posted by Tim Nichols

Epiphany: Joining the Dance

6 January 2026

I love Epiphany. Christmastide is a celebration of the Divine Word becoming flesh, with all that entails. But in those first couple years, only a few people knew, all of them Jews: Mary and Joseph, of course, Elizabeth and Zacharias, Simeon and Anna, some shepherds. That’s pretty much it. At Epiphany, we celebrate the good news going to the Gentiles, to the astrologers, to the world beyond the “known world” of the Roman Empire. 

1400 years before Jesus was born, Balaam (another Gentile prophet) gave a prophetic word: “A star will rise out of Jacob.” In 586 B.C., the people and treasures of Israel, including their scriptures, were carried away to Babylon by Nebuchadnezzar. There Daniel and the three Hebrew children—vocal devotees of the God of Israel—became leaders among the Magi, a leadership that survived the fall of Babylon and the rise of the Persian empire. About a hundred years after that, a Hebrew girl named Hadassa became Esther, the queen of Persia, once again bringing the Jews to official attention. And nearly 500 years later, a star appeared in the East, bringing the Magi to Bethlehem, and here we are: the Divine Word became flesh. Blasphemy to the Jews, foolishness to the Greeks, and sedition to the Romans, but it happened all the same.

The very fact that such a thing is even possible demonstrates the central promise of Christianity: that we human beings, just as we are, can partake of the divine nature, just as it is, without any fudging, equivocation, or dismal compromises. Any and all of the resources of heaven—whatever you might need to face the natural and supernatural challenges of your life—will fit into a human being.

We know this, because it has already happened. And when Jesus proved it possible, He also invited you to join Him in the dance. Want in? Ask, and it will be given to you, like the Man said.

If you’ve enjoyed these reflections on Hebrews over the past 12 days, you might want to hear the Hebrews Overview that concludes my Hebrews podcast with Chris Morrison of Gulfside Ministries.

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Posted by Tim Nichols

The Twelfth Day of Christmas: Every Beggar’s Hand an Altar

5 January 2026

Reading: Hebrews 13

If we really can go into the throne room of heaven, what do we do there? Up until now, the whole book has focused on one activity: ask for help! Writing to people who are tired, worn out, and struggling to endure very trying circumstances, the author focuses on that first. But there’s more. 

Before we get to that, we’re given some very practical reminders about what endurance looks like: brotherly love and hospitality, especially toward strangers and imprisoned brothers, taking good care of your marriage, placing high value on contentment, trusting God to protect us, minding our spiritual leaders. And lastly, don’t get preoccupied with weird arguments about food purity. 

That seems an odd way to finish that section, but it leads right into a discussion of eating from the altar. See, not everything that happened on the altar was a sacrifice for sin; there were also peace offerings that were a meal you ate with God. It was an important part of fellowship with God under the old covenant. As followers of Jesus the superior Priest of a superior covenant, we have superior means of fellowship; those who are still serving the obsolete earthly tabernacle have no right to what we can now do. What is that?

To understand the answer, we go back to the sin offering: the bodies of the sin offering animals were burned outside the camp. Jesus therefore suffered outside the city; we go outside the city to Him, rejected as He was rejected, knowing that we have no continuing city on earth, and seeking the heavenly Jerusalem. Through Jesus—our High Priest who entered God’s sanctuary as our Forerunner—”let us continually offer the sacrifice of praise to God, the fruit of our lips, giving thanks to His name. But do not forget to do good and to share, for with such sacrifices God is well pleased.” There’s no longer a pin on the map locating the spot where heaven meets earth in some particular building. You are the pin on the map. You have the authority to call heaven down, wherever you happen to be standing. How do you do it? Some elaborate ritual? Nope. Every praise and thanksgiving to God is a fellowship offering, and heaven meets you, right where you’re standing, to receive it. Every beggar’s hand is an altar when you share with him in Jesus’ name. Every good deed you do, no matter how slight, is a sacrifice that God receives in His throne room, which meets you wherever you’re doing it. 

This God-given ability—dare I call it a magical power?— does not depend on unique clothing, specially formulated oils and incense, specific furniture or buildings or elaborate rituals of any kind. God doesn’t have any problem with those things; He used them all at one time. But those were the trappings of an earthly city, and we are the ambassadors of a better—a heavenly—city, wielding a more powerful magic. Let’s be about it.

If you’d like to hear more about this passage, check out the Hebrews 13 episode of my Hebrews podcast with Chris Morrison of Gulfside Ministries.

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Posted by Tim Nichols

The Eleventh Day of Christmas: On Sapphire Pavement

4 January 2026

Reading: Hebrews 12

Hebrews 12 starts with a claim that we’re surrounded by the witnesses of Hebrews 11. We tend to think of them as above us in heaven, not all around us. Ever wonder why “surrounded”? That question gets answered, but first there’s some instructions: put aside everything that interferes with your endurance. Look to Jesus to fend off discouragement. Know that present difficulties are like the wind sprints a coach makes you run—it’s training. Accept the training. Pursue peace, look out for each other, watch out for bitterness. 

And then we get the answer: we are surrounded by witnesses because we “have not come to the mountain that may be touched and that burned with fire [Sinai]…But you have come to Mount Zion and the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, to an innumerable company of angels, to the general assembly and church of the firstborn who are registered in heaven, to God the judge of all, to the spirits of just men made perfect, to Jesus the Mediator of the new covenant.” Notice: “you have come,” not “will come.” This is not a promise that we’ll be in heaven one day; it’s a claim that we’ve already been there. What could that possibly mean?

This is what Jesus bought us in the Incarnation. God became man; lived as one of us lived and died as the last sacrifice for sin, was raised and ascended to heaven as our Forerunner, where He sits today at God’s right hand in the Holy of Holies of the heavenly tabernacle. Earthbound and embodied as we are, the Incarnate Christ brings us with Him. When we draw near to God seeking help, where are we? 

In the heavenly tabernacle, that’s where. In the throne room of God Himself; we go there whenever we draw near for help. We go there whenever we make our offerings (we’ll get to that tomorrow). When we do these things—even something as simple as calling out to God for help with a screaming toddler—the roof opens up, the walls evaporate, and we are standing in front of God’s throne, surrounded by the entire company of heaven, the angels, and all the saints who have gone before us. That’s where we really are. If we can’t see it, well, we walk by faith, not by sight. 

This is what the Incarnation bought us: you, in this body, embedded in this life, can stand on the sapphire pavement before God Himself in heaven—boldly, let us not forget—and ask for help. And you can expect to get it, because your High Priest is sympathetic. So ask.

If you’d like to hear more about this passage, check out the Hebrews 12 episode of my Hebrews podcast with Chris Morrison of Gulfside Ministries.

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Posted by Tim Nichols

The Tenth Day of Christmas: Still No More Sacrifice!

3 January 2026

Reading: Hebrews 10:19-11:40

Since there is no more sacrifice for sin, since Jesus put paid to all of that forever, what’s stopping us from going into the Holy of Holies, the very presence of God? Nothing, that’s what! So now we draw near boldly, trusting His faithfulness to His promise. Part of that life is making a point to be with God’s people so that we can encourage one another. 

At the time and place this was written (Jerusalem, c. A.D. 60), that was bold advice. The Hebrew church was greatly persecuted, and publicly associating with Christians would bring the persecution down on your head, too. It would have been much easier to go back to the Temple service, and forget about the whole Jesus thing. After all, God built the Temple, too, right? We can just serve God by offering sacrifices there, and life will be so much easier. 

Nope. There’s no more sacrifice for sin, remember? Jesus finished it. If you turn your back on Jesus to go back to that, (1) the sacrifices don’t help, because that magic doesn’t work anymore, and (2) you face God’s judgment for rejecting His Son. Again, remember the time and place: Jesus promised the destruction of the Temple before that generation was over. Clock’s ticking. Now anybody who’d just ignored Moses’ Law on a serious matter would be stoned to death—not the most humane way to go, maybe, but pretty quick. If you knowingly, willfully disregarded this warning and went back to the Temple, then you got caught up in the Jewish revolt of A.D. 68. The Christians fled the city; they knew the revolt was doomed. The Temple believers stayed to fight—a slow death by starvation in the siege at best, and a crucifixion when the city fell at worst. Titus lined the roads in Judaea with crosses: days of constant torture eventually ending in death by thirst or asphyxia, whichever came first. 

How terrible would it be to have endured decades of persecution as a Christian only to give up at the last minute just in time to catch that judgment? So the writer urges them to keep trusting God and remain faithful, and sets before them a series of examples. Some of them trusted God and triumphed in this life; others trusted God and “wandered about in sheepskins and goatskins, benign destitute, afflicted, tormented, of whom the world was not worthy.” What they all have in common is that God is allowing them to wait to receive His final consolation, because He is giving us a chance to join them. So follow the Man Jesus, who lived His life trusting God. 

If you’d like to hear more about this passage, check out my Hebrews podcast episodes on The Fourth Warning Passage and The Hall of Faith with Chris Morrison of Gulfside Ministries.

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Posted by Tim Nichols

The Ninth Day of Christmas: Sit Down; There’s No More Sacrifice

2 January 2026

Reading: Hebrews 9:1-10:18

As we saw yesterday, the second half of Hebrews’ main point (8:1-2) is that Jesus ministers in the heavenly tabernacle, the reality that Moses copied in Israel’s tabernacle. Even the earthly copy had a whole set of furniture and services, Hebrews says, but “of these things we cannot now speak in detail.” (That’s an invitation if there ever was one! If you want to read more, the description starts in Exodus 25. Notice that among all that furniture, there’s nowhere to sit. The work is never done!)

Once the furnishings were consecrated, then the sacrifices began in earnest. There’s a whole litany of services, pre-eminent among them the annual Day of Atonement sacrifice. No one ever entered the Holiest Place in the tabernacle, except on this day, when the High Priest would go in to present the blood of the sacrifice and cover the nation’s sins for the year. In that very service, the Holy Spirit showed the planned obsolescence of the Levitical order: the sins were only covered (not taken away) and only for a year. Next year, you had to do it all again…. 

…until Christ—”pleased as Man with men to dwell”—came into the heavenly tabernacle. He too bore the blood of a sacrifice, not of bulls and goats, but of a sinless man. Administering a superior priesthood in a better sanctuary, He offered the final sacrifice: His own innocent blood. The innocent man died for guilty mankind’s sin, and that’s the end of the matter. The stain is gone, the debt settled. And then Jesus sat down at God’s right hand, until His enemies are made His footstool (Psalm 110 again!). Remember how I said there’s nowhere to sit in the tabernacle? That’s not quite true. There is the Mercy Seat—the top of the Ark of the Covenant, between the cherubim, where God Himself sits. “Come and sit at My right hand” indeed! 

Jesus sits, as no priest did before him, because He fully and finally settled the matter. Fulfilling Jeremiah’s New Covenant promise, God says, “Their sins and lawless deeds I will remember no more.” When that happens, when Jesus puts paid to all the sin forever, there is no more sacrifice for sin. There’s nothing you must do—or can do—to expiate your sins and failings. It’s all been done. It’s over. That’s the best possible news.

If you’d like to hear more about this section of Hebrews, check out Episode Ten and Episode Eleven of my Hebrews podcast with Chris Morrison of Gulfside Ministries.

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Posted by Tim Nichols

The Sixth Day of Christmas: Anchored Souls

30 December 2025

Reading: Hebrews 6

Hebrews is written to encourage people not to give up, and we all need that from time to time, don’t we? For the original readers in their time and place, giving up meant conceding that the respectable people were right to murder Jesus. High stakes, right? “If you’re gonna do that,” the author says, “then nothing I say is going to make you repent, so I’m just gonna move on to talking about other things.” He’s right; after they’ve experienced all the goodness that God gives in Jesus, if they’re gonna go back to “Give us Barabbas!”—what do you say to somebody like that? But they’ve come so far already; he’s confident of better things from them.  

These people don’t lack experience of God. The same way they are seeking to be partakers with Jesus, they are already partakers of the Holy Spirit; the same way Jesus “tasted death” for them, they have “tasted the good word of God and the powers of the age to come.” They have what they need; they just need to be diligent. Keep encouraging each other daily. Keep going to Jesus for help. All it takes is faith and patience—the same faith and patience Jesus showed, and helps us show—to inherit the promises. 

What promises? It doesn’t really say yet, but we’ve had some sneak peeks. Jesus has anointed companions; He unashamedly calls us brothers; He partook in all our weakness and temptation, won the victory, and has ascended to God’s right hand as our High Priest. Where do you reckon His companions end up? 

God promised Jesus this priesthood, and confirmed it with an oath (see Psalm 110, and we’ll come back to that). In every storm, we can anchor our souls to that promise: Jesus enters behind the veil into the very throne room of God, and He enters as our Forerunner…which means we are coming along with Him. Because He became one of us and attained to the very presence of God, we—His little brothers and sisters, the children God has given Him—now have access to the very presence of God. How’s that work? Stay tuned.

If you’d like to hear more detail about this passage, see Episode Seven and Episode Eight of my Hebrews podcast with Chris Morrison of Gulfside Ministries.

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Posted by Tim Nichols

The Fifth Day of Christmas: Every Second Counts

29 December 2025

Reading: Hebrews 4:14-5:14

As we saw yesterday, holding fast to our confidence in God is not a solo effort; we need to be exchanging daily encouragement with our brothers and sisters. But that’s not the only place we should be seeking help; we also have Jesus Himself as our High Priest. Like any other High Priest, He was appointed by God from among the people. He has compassion on us who are “ignorant and going astray” because He was one of us. He was tempted in every direction just as we are, with one crucial difference: He didn’t ever give in.

Because He was one of us, God could appoint Jesus as our “priest forever after the order of Melchizedek” (more about him later). Following the duties of that office Jesus “offered up prayers and supplications, with vehement cries and tears” to the Father – think Garden of Gethsemane, here. The Father heard Him, and was able to save Him from death. But He didn’t, and because He didn’t, Jesus “became the author of eternal salvation to those who obey Him.”

I’ve often heard this passage preached in a completely unsympathetic way: “Jesus endured every temptation without sin—what’s wrong with you, ya wimp?!!!” But that’s not how Hebrews presents it. Hebrews acknowledges our weaknesses, assures us that Jesus sympathizes, and orders us to “come boldly to the throne of grace” to get the help we need. You know what “come boldly” looks like? It’s how you go into the E.R. with chest pains or an arterial bleed. You don’t wait demurely in line; you stagger right up to the desk, interrupt everything, and loudly announce your problem, because every second counts. That’s how you come to Jesus. He knows that every second counts, and He stands ready to help. 

If you’d like to hear more on this passage, check out my Hebrews podcast with Chris Morrison of Gulfside Ministries.

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Posted by Tim Nichols

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