Jerome Blanco works at Fuller Theological Seminary. He received his MDiv from Fuller Seminary and his MFA from New York University.
Exploration of Self: Clarissa Joan Middleton’s Story
In 2009, Clarissa Joan Middleton was fresh out of college, living in New York City, engaged to her now-husband, and working an enviable job…
Read Post
Abigail: The Peacemaker
What would it take for you to rush unarmed towards a mob of angry men who only mean you harm? The situation sounds absurd,…
Read Post
Jesus of Monday Mornings: A Meditation on Epiphany
The Christmas season is over. We’ve put away nativity scenes and unstrung our lights. That distinct festivity is no longer in the air. Another…
Read Post
The God of New Things
The passage above comes from the greater passage in Acts 10 in which God gives Peter a vision, and then a word, which leads him to eventually preach the gospel to a group of Gentiles. This move was revolutionary. For a Jew like Peter, it took some readjusting and re-understanding to realize that God’s kingdom was not only for the Jewish community, but actually for everybody. On that day, Peter, and many others, witnessed God doing a new work—though very much in keeping with who God always was and is.
Read Post
An Estuary Where Streams of Work Meet: An Interview with Jeff Reed
Jeff Reed is a pastor and poet located in the Bay Area. He is the author of a number of works, including Estuarial (2014),…
Read Post
When Calling Isn’t Career: Bob Matsushima’s Story
Bob Matsushima never felt a calling to a particular career path. “I think my journey started off with avoidance rather than a desired goal……
Read Post
God Willing
God willing, I will do these things that I intend to do. If the Lord wills, I will follow through on these plans of mine. If God allows, I will achieve these goals. Sometimes, things get in the way of our plans. Sometimes, these things are catastrophic, and sometimes, they are minor inconveniences or small distractions that pile up. Other times, God may simply have something different in store. We all know life doesn’t go how we intend it to.
Read Post
Creating Rest
For as much as we like to look at the work God has done, do we also recognize him as the God who rests—as the God who knows the value and necessity of rest? In our working lives, no matter what we do, do we value our own rest? Do we prioritize it, giving it equal respect as our work? I confess not being very good at this myself. Yet Genesis cements rest into the fabric of creation’s rhythms. Thank the Lord for that!
Read Post
God of the Ordinary: From Beginning to End
In this series of devotions, we’ve looked at the importance God placed on the “very good” creation that he made, the way that Christ took on flesh and lived in it, the promise of God’s redeeming all things. From beginning to end, the Bible suggests a straightforward and happy truth, that the seemingly ordinary world we spend our days in is not marginal to God’s story, but central to it. A constant thread, from Genesis to Revelation, is the narrative of God’s good creation… and where it’s headed.
Read Post
God of the Ordinary: All Things Reconciled
In Colossians 1, Paul says that all things were made in Christ, all things were made for him, and all things hold together in him. Finally, Paul says, all things will be reconciled to him. No language can be plainer: all means all. For Paul, the Gospel of Jesus is not only about getting human souls right with God, but getting every single part of his very good creation right with him. When we think about it, doesn’t it make such wonderful sense that the redemptive story of the Bible is not only for everyone but for everything?
Read Post
God of the Ordinary: His Working Hands
Jesus ate, he slept, and here we see, he worked. And though the word we translate “carpenter” could have meant a broader range of things back then, we know Jesus worked humbly and diligently with his hands. He learned his trade, refined his skills, and worked the daily and ordinary grind, like many of us.
Read Post
God of the Ordinary: A Very Good Creation
But what if the Gospel really does involve all the ordinary stuff? Every bit of the “very good” creation that God smiled down upon… If the world, and everything in it, has an important place at the beginning of the very important Christian story, then they must matter. If everything God made then was “very good,” then surely, even sin-tainted, a spark of goodness and the potential for redemption remains—just like it does for us.
Read Post