Jesus Christ is relentless. He does not give up. And with him comes the certainty of redemption.
Below is the Thinking Fellows Essential Reading List with contributions from each of the Thinking Fellows hosts.
This is an excerpt from Chapter 7 of Junk Drawer Jesus written by Matt Popovits (1517 Publishing, 2024). Available today!

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He created us with an eye on recreating us. He made humanity in his image because one day he would assume that image. The Creator would become a creature while remaining Creator.
Sometimes we try be the bad god, sometimes the good god, oftentimes a freaky hybrid of both. The result is the same: Jesus the savior just gets in our way.
In those waters we are nailed to his cross and washed out the door of his tomb. Within his wounds we safely hide.
I don’t care why you left the ministry—moral failure, congregational politics, burnout, whatever—the Christ whom you proclaimed has not left you.
The church is God’s flock. Jesus is both a lion and a lamb. The zoo turns out to be as packed with theology as a seminary, if not more.
I once heard an old, retired Lutheran professor give in interview on a podcast. He was asked by the interviewer why people should bother going to church if they could just be saved through a personal relationship with Jesus?
We who fall within the Protestant camp of Christianity have longstanding issues with ritual. I get that. Ritual is often abused. Idolatrized. It can easily devolve into a hollow act of religious farce.
The side of God he has made known to us is Jesus. He is the one and only revelation of the Father, the one and only revelation we need.
We need pastors who carry that same concealed weapon in their mouths, who are outfitted with the same word the angels have: the word steeped in divine blood, shed for you. That is all we need, for the word does it all.
Imagine if Zacchaeus posted on Jerusalem's Facebook a selfie with Jesus. The top dog among the tax-gougers with Christ at his dinner table. Oh, the outrage! The puritanical zealots would have been tweeting and blogging about it for months.
Real theologians can’t shut up about who Jesus is and what he’s done on your behalf. So-called theologians with little interest in Jesus may be book smart but they're Gospel stupid.
Although I was too young to have mastered the skill of lying, I also knew that I couldn’t tell this woman the truth.