Tent to Temple
The afternoon light was the kind that gilded everything, turning the dust motes into drifting sparks. I sat on the back porch steps, the wood warm and grainy under my palms, and the letter from Corinth felt heavy in my…
Justus Finds Peace
The room was quiet, save for the slow, grating scrape of a stylus on wax. Justus stared at the tablet, the words he’d copied hours ago now swimming in the dimming light. *Therefore, since we have been justified by faith,…
The Ascension and the Waiting
The air on the Mount of Olives held the last warmth of the day, a dusty gold settling on the leaves of the gnarled trees. For forty days, the world had felt upside down, and even now, standing with him…
The Sabbath Feast and the Cost
The heat of the day was beginning to soften, that long, dusty gold of a Judean afternoon settling over the streets. From the house of a certain leading Pharisee, whose name is lost to us but not his intention, came…
The Anointing and the Betrayal
The smell of the ointment filled the house, a heavy scent of nard that clung to the beard and the robes and the very timbers of the roof. It was extravagant, a year’s wages broken open and poured out, and…
The Siege of the Soul
The air over Jerusalem tasted of dust and desperation. It was the kind of heat that didn’t just press down from a white sky, but rose in shimmering waves from the pale stones, making the very city seem to waver…
Daniel’s Prayer and the Seventy Weeks
The air in the chamber was still, thick with the scent of aged parchment and the faint, metallic hint of distant rain. Dust motes swam in a single shaft of light falling from the high window, illuminating the scroll spread…
Ezekiel’s Oracles of Judgment
The air in the house by the Kebar River was still, thick with the scent of sun-baked clay and old parchment. Ezekiel sat, the weight of the silence pressing upon him, a different burden than the clamor of exile. The…
The Broken Hammer of Babylon
The air in Babylon hung thick, a greasy, perfumed haze that did nothing to mask the underlying stench of the Euphrates at low tide—a smell of dead fish and wet earth. Ezra ben Levi felt it in his lungs as…
At the Potter’s Wheel
The heat in the potter’s quarter was a thick, dusty thing. It clung to the back of Jeremiah’s throat as he picked his way down the stepped street, the cries of bartering merchants and the clatter of carts fading behind…