John Mark Hicks

New Heaven and New Earth: Revelation 21:1-7 and 22:1-5 Imagine no pain, mourning, or death. It ain’t easy; I’ve tried. Imagine no chaos, brokenness, or struggle. Yeah, it ain’t easy; it sounds like fantasy. Sometimes the floods, both metaphorical and real, overwhelm us. Tornadoes, heavy rain, and lightning threaten us, and sometimes they destroy us. […]

Bobby Valentine and John Mark Hicks discuss the meaning and application of Psalm 93. It declares “Yahweh is king!” What does that mean when we also see chaos and evil in the world? Do we say that because God is king that therefore everything is the way it is supposed to be, or that the […]

Dr. Tiffany Mangan Dahlman joins Bobby Valentine and John Mark Hicks to discuss Psalm 77. This powerful and disturbing lament calls us to remember the ways of God in the midst of our grief and troubled times. What is the significance of this lament for our present moment?

Texts: Proverbs 9:9-10; Ecclesiastes 1:2-3 Days 25-26 in Around the Bible in Eighty Days. Every people group carries a shared wisdom within their history. This wisdom provides boundaries and paths for successful living. It also offers a way for people to endure the chaos that regularly invades life. Wisdom envisions the good life but recognizes […]

The first line of the Bible is a bold confession, “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.” The earth began, however, as an uninhabitable mess. The earth was a chaotic void, and darkness covered the face of the deep, as the Spirit of God hovered over the face of the waters. At […]

The earth was a chaotic void, and darkness covered the face of the deep, while the Spirit of God hovered over the face the waters. Then God saw everything made, and, Wow!, it was really good. Genesis 1:2, 31a (my translation) The title is a rather controversial one in the history of Christian theology. Many […]

Psalm 104 is one of the great creation praise hymns of Israel. As worship, it blesses God as both creator and provider. As theology, it identifies creation in theocentric rather than anthropocentric ways. God is not only sovereign over the creation but is immanent within it. The creation is more about God than it is […]

The “day of Yahweh,” or the “day of the Lord,” reverses creation. Through creation God subdued the chaos and gave it boundaries, but divine judgment releases chaos. The “day of Yahweh” uncreates. Eden is despoiled. Or, more specifically in the context of Joel, Israel is threatened with the prospect that the land flowing with milk […]

Revelation 4-16 gives us eyes to see the conflict between the kingdom of God and world powers with the eyes of God. We see the conflict between the kingdom of God and the kingdoms of this earth from a heavenly perspective; we see it from the throne room of God. John, “in the Spirit,” is […]

The Galilean hills were evangelized through heralding and enacting the kingdom. 5,000 males were fed with five loaves and two fish actualizing table fellowship within the kingdom. And now, apparently, the healded and fed expected something more. Perhaps they intended to crown Jesus king (cf. John 6:14-15) and inaugurate a rebellion against Roman authority. “Immediately,” signaling the critical nature […]