alden

I like my coffee black, my whiskey straight, and my theology sound, working to give hope to the hopeless.

[alden @jon_pedersen8]

I wrote my master’s thesis on AI and its potential impact on the Public Ministry and asked my AI associate to pick five quotes from our ongoing dialogue🪡

[Matt Fradd @RealMattFradd]

Do You Trust God's Writing Of Your Story?

[Wes Huff @WesleyLHuff]

Justification gets you out of Egypt, but sanctification gets Egypt out of you.

[alden @jon_pedersen8]

In case you’re subject to naval gazing until the King returns…

[alden @jon_pedersen8]

@omgsidewalks Sorry for my stupidity.

[GodlyVibez Studios @GVStudios_TV]

🚨Mother captures son who is in hospice routine of The Lords Prayer every night🙏

[alden @jon_pedersen8]

@elonmusk That’s not in the Song of Songs.

[Scott Barber @thescottbarber]

Putting wheels on this cross to bear is the best possible metaphor for American Evangelicalism

[alden @jon_pedersen8]

I long for the day when anxiety turns into anticipation.

[alden @jon_pedersen8]

People say that sisters fight, yet you wouldn’t imagine more well behaved and friendly women than my mom and her sisters. They share life together. They just want their children to know Jesus the same way their dad taught them. It’s quite a responsibility to be a father. This is the secret to their peace: they don’t fear death and they know life is nothing but a gift to share with others until the next is revealed. Love the motivation. Hope the fuel. Evil the enemy.

Why is this obvious and pure pathway also the narrow door? Because it requires denial. Denial of self interest. Denial of self. Trust that Jesus is enough. That is why he’s called Savior. That is why they are all rejoicing even as they say goodbye to their mom. There’s enough darkness in this world, time to share that great light that we truly all have seen.

[Dudes Posting Their W’s @DudespostingWs]

A father reviews a 4-month old baby and has an interesting perspective

[The Biblical Man @Biblicalman]

A Harvard philosopher once told me Christianity was "intellectually bankrupt" because God becoming human was illogical.

I told him that's exactly the point.

The scandal of the Gospel isn't that it's too simple. It's that it's too offensive.

See, we've sanitized the incarnation.

Made it a Christmas card with a glowing baby in a manger. Turned it into children's songs and nativity plays. Domesticated the most radical claim in human history.

But here's what actually happened:

The infinite compressed Himself into a womb. The omnipotent became helpless. The omniscient learned to walk. The self-sufficient nursed at His mother's breast.

This isn't poetry. This is scandal.

Philippians 2:6-8 doesn't give us metaphor—it gives us the most shocking reversal in cosmic history:

"Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage; rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant..."

Let that sink in.

The One who spoke galaxies into existence couldn't speak for His first year of life.

The One who holds all things together (Colossians 1:17) had to be held.

The One who never slumbers nor sleeps (Psalm 121:4) got tired. So tired that He fell asleep in a boat during a storm.

I remember sitting with a Muslim friend who said, "This is why I can't accept your Jesus. Allah would never stoop so low."

Exactly.

That's the stumbling block Paul talks about in 1 Corinthians 1:23.

To the religious mind, God dying is blasphemy. To the philosophical mind, God becoming weak is absurdity.

But here's what both miss:

Power that refuses to become vulnerable isn't power—it's insecurity.

Think about it.

Every dictator in history built walls around themselves. Every tyrant ruled from a distance. Every false god demanded approach through priests and rituals and sacrifices.

But the real God?

He got dirt under His fingernails. He had bad breath in the morning. He got splinters in the carpenter's shop. His feet hurt after walking dusty roads.

The Jews wanted a Messiah who would overthrow Rome with supernatural force.

Instead, they got a man who wept at His friend's grave.
The Greeks wanted wisdom—some philosophical principle that would unlock the universe.
Instead, they got a man who bled actual blood.

You know what's truly offensive?

It's not just that God became human. It's HOW human He became.

He didn't show up as a king or philosopher or general. He showed up as a bastard child (in the eyes of society) born to an unwed teenage mother in an occupied country.

He grew up in Nazareth—the ancient equivalent of a trailer park. "Can anything good come from Nazareth?" they asked.

He worked with His hands. Calloused. Rough. Blue-collar.

He hung out with tax collectors and prostitutes. He touched lepers. He let a "sinful woman" wash His feet with her tears.

The religious elite called Him a glutton and a drunk.
This is your God.

Not some distant deity demanding perfection from His throne. But God with us. Emmanuel. God WITH skin in the game.

Here's what modern Christianity gets wrong:

We try to make Jesus respectable. We dress Him up in stained glass. We give Him a British accent and flowing hair. We turn Him into a life coach with good moral teachings.

But the real Jesus?

He fashioned a whip and flipped tables. He called religious leaders "whitewashed tombs" and "sons of hell." He told people to eat His flesh and drink His blood—so offensive that crowds abandoned Him.
Yet this same Jesus—this confusing, controversial, confrontational Jesus—is the one who said:

"Come to me, all who are weary and heavy laden..."

The hands that threw out money changers also touched the untouchable. The voice that condemned hypocrites also said "Neither do I condemn you." The One who commanded storms also wept with the grieving.

You want to know why God HAD to become human?

Because a God who won't bleed for you won't understand your bleeding.

A God who won't suffer can't enter your suffering. A God who won't die can't defeat your death.

Every other religion gives you a god who stays clean. Christianity gives you a God who gets dirty.

Every other religion says "climb up to god." Christianity says "God climbed down to you."

Every other religion offers philosophy. Christianity offers flesh and blood.

Here's the part that breaks people:

He was tempted in every way you are.

That means Jesus knows what it's like to want to punch someone in the face. He knows the pull of lust. He knows the temptation to take the easy way out. He knows the desire for revenge.

Hebrews 4:15 - "For we do not have a high priest who is unable to empathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are—yet he did not sin."

He felt everything you feel. But never gave in.
Not because He couldn't sin (that would make the temptation meaningless). But because He wouldn't.
The same divine nature that spoke creation into existence lived inside human flesh that could be cut, bruised, and killed.

The invisible God became visible. Not in glory but in humiliation. Not in power but in weakness. Not to be served but to serve.

And this—THIS—is what offends.

We want a God who looks like success. He chose to look like failure.

We want a God who conquers through strength. He conquered through surrender.

We want a God who makes sense. He chose to be foolishness to the wise.

The cross wasn't Plan B. It was always the plan.

From the moment Adam fell, the solution was already in motion: God would become what we are so we could become what He is.

He would take our poverty to give us His riches. He would take our sin to give us His righteousness. He would take our death to give us His life.

The Judge would stand trial. The Lawgiver would be condemned. The Author would enter His own story.

This is either the greatest truth or the greatest delusion in human history.

There's no middle ground.

C.S. Lewis was right: Jesus is either Lord, liar, or lunatic. You can't have Him as just a good teacher. Good teachers don't claim to be God.

So here's my question for you:

What's more offensive to you?

A God who stays distant and demands you earn His love? Or a God who gets close enough for you to spit on Him?

A God who remains mysterious and unknowable? Or a God who lets you drive nails through His hands?

A God who keeps His dignity? Or a God who strips naked and dies like a criminal?

Because that's your choice.

Every other option is off the table.

The God of the universe either became a baby who needed His diaper changed, or He didn't.

He either got hungry, tired, angry, and sad, or He didn't.

He either bled real blood and died a real death, or He didn't.

And if He did—if the eternal God really became temporal man—then everything changes.

Your suffering isn't beneath His notice because He's suffered. Your temptations aren't beyond His understanding because He's been tempted. Your death isn't outside His power because He's died.

The hands that hold the universe have nail scars. The feet that walked on water were pierced. The side that breathed life into Adam was speared.

This is the scandal of the Gospel:

Not that God sent a prophet. Not that God sent an angel. Not that God sent a book.

But that God sent HIMSELF.

And He didn't come in power but in weakness. Didn't come to be served but to serve. Didn't come to condemn but to save.

To the religious, it's a stumbling block—God shouldn't die. To the philosophical, it's foolishness—God shouldn't become weak.

But to those being saved?

It's the power of God hidden in plain sight. It's wisdom disguised as foolishness. It's strength perfected in weakness.

The God who didn't need us chose to need His mother's milk. The God who owns everything chose to have nowhere to lay His head. The God who is life itself chose to taste death.

Why?

Because love does what logic never would.
Love enters the mess. Love gets its hands dirty. Love bleeds.

And a God who is love?

He doesn't send a substitute. He comes Himself.

This is what separates Christianity from every other religion on the planet.

We don't have a God who points the way. We have a God who IS the way.

We don't have a God who teaches about life. We have a God who IS life.

We don't have a God who explains truth. We have a God who IS truth.

And He proved it by doing the one thing no mere human could do:

He rose from the dead.

Not symbolically. Not metaphorically. Not spiritually.
Physically.

The same body that was broken was raised. The same hands that were pierced reached out to Thomas. The same feet that were nailed walked with disciples to Emmaus.

Because if Jesus didn't actually, literally, physically rise from the dead, then Paul says we're the most pitiful people on earth (1 Corinthians 15:19).

But if He did rise?

Then death is defeated. Sin is conquered. Hell is harrowed. Satan is crushed.

And you—broken, bleeding, doubting you—have a God who gets it.

Who doesn't stand at a distance shouting instructions. But who entered the fight. Took the hits. Absorbed the punishment. And won.

Not through avoiding suffering but through embracing it. Not through escaping death but through defeating it. Not through staying clean but through taking our dirt upon Himself.

The fully God, fully man paradox isn't a theological puzzle to solve.

It's a love story written in blood.

And it's either the most beautiful truth or the most devastating lie ever told.

I've bet my life it's truth.

What about you?

If this hit you, share it. Someone needs to hear that God isn't too holy to handle their mess.

Drop a comment with your thoughts. Does the incarnation offend you or compel you?

Follow for more unfiltered truth about the scandal of the Gospel.

Because comfortable Christianity isn't Christianity at all.

[alden @jon_pedersen8]

You were not brought into this day and age by accident. Trust in Him and He will do this.

[marcus @marcussisyphus]

I choose to be happy

[alden @jon_pedersen8]

What’s a Confessional Lutheran in 2025? Someone who loves God’s Word, teaches it at home, and shares Christ’s grace. Study the Formula, laugh a little, DM me for resources!

[alden @jon_pedersen8]

Martin Luther was on a quest to find out what it meant to be a Christian. The bible taught him the benefits of the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. So what did he do? He wrote down those words into the vernacular. The common tongue. So moms could tell their kids what Christ had done for them. No longer would they be bound by the law, they would be free children of God (Gal 5:1). The Formula of Concord (1577) guards that freedom. Join me to dig in! 🪡

[alden @jon_pedersen8]

LDS friends say works earn forgiveness? Share Eph 2:8-9—saved by grace, not works. Epitome VI shows faith alone saves, but love follows. Disagree? Let’s chat!

[alden @jon_pedersen8]

“The Gospel is… the preaching of the grace of God and of the forgiveness of sins, through Christ” (Epitome V, 5). Forget self-help—Jesus’ grace makes your heart sing!

[alden @jon_pedersen8]

The Formula’s no club—it invites everyone to Scripture’s truth (2 Tim 2:25). To LDS friends: Let’s talk grace, not works, with Christ at the center.

[alden @jon_pedersen8]

Over tacos, read Gal 5:1-6 with kids. Ask: “How does Jesus’ love free us to help others?” The Formula’s clarity makes faith a joy, not a chore. No pop quiz needed!

[alden @jon_pedersen8]

Epitome VI says Christ frees us from the law’s curse (Gal 5:1). We follow God’s will out of love, not to earn points. Teach kids: Faith is like a tree, sprouting good deeds naturally!