Good Samaritan? How this Story Illustrates the Gospel

Introduce yourself Introduce the topic When asked about who and how we should love, Jesus tells a story of radical love - how a Samaritan goes out of his way to show love to a Jew, his cultural enemy. Before we get into the story, though, we have to understand what makes this story significant …

Scriptures for Suffering

This post is dedicated to a loved sister in Christ who is going through difficult times. Blessed are those who Suffer! Matthew 5:10-12 Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. "Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against …

Blind Faith is Not Biblical – We Need Truth and We Need Proof

As an ex-atheist, I have the unique vantage point necessary to say this: popular Christianity in America has failed atheists and has failed the rational seeker. Now, I want to say that this will likely be a very cutting post, but I do mean this from a place of love, saying "We need to be …

Truth is Controversial. So was Jesus.

There will be those who will tell us that it's arrogant to say that our worldview is right, and someone else's is wrong. That we're claiming to have a monopoly on the truth. History is written by the victors, isn't it? That might be your truth, but it's not my truth. Is truth even knowable? …

Good News! – What is the Story of the Gospel?

Hi, I just wanted to provide you guys with the most basic form of the gospel, told in a story format. I hope this proves to be a great evangelism tool (People love stories!) as well as provide some closure on the central storyline of the Bible. This is just a bare bones, dry skeleton …

What Daniel can teach us about Humility, Respect, and Being too exhausted for God

Hey if anybody’s down to do a little extra reading and Bible study, I highly recommend the book of Daniel! I'm here to give a brief synopsis and a little bit of context to flesh it out, but I highly recommend going to read it right after! Daniel is one of my favorite OT prophets …

The Case for Preaching Borrowed or Redundant Sermons

I think that there's a huge pressure on pastors in America today to come up with a new thing for each sermon: for each sermon to be original, and drafted from the growing experience of the pastor. I respectfully disagree. What's wrong with preaching the same message if it still needs to be heard?  What's …

God’s Radical Love (Even For His Enemies)

Hi, okay! Time to start another topic that I've been looking forward to getting into for a little bit! I have a couple things to share about the miraculousness of God's radical love, so stick around for a bit. This post should be a 10 minute read. Okay, let's start with our first aspect and …

Myers Briggs – Intro to Cognitive Functions

Hey, so I wanted to kick off my first post with explaining a little bit of Cognitive theory.  The Myers-Briggs personality theory is one of my favorites - for understanding people and understanding yourself.  So, the way Myers-Briggs tests work is that they ask you questions related to 4 dichotomies - E or I, S …

Welcome to Metaphors and Madness!

Hi, name's Michael, glad to see you here, thanks for visiting! I'm currently setting up the site, which should take a little while. I have a lot of blog posts planned! Prepare for a lot of Christian insights and intercontextual, topical bible studies along with Psychology and Myers-Briggs stuff. Okay, now to be completely candid: …