August 14, 2025
PODCASTS
Brandon Dykstra, a teaching elder at New Life and a professor in exercise science at Taylor University, will be teaching a discipleship hour class starting in September on the importance of stewarding our bodies as Christians. Anticipating some of the themes of that class, listen to an excellent talk given by Sam Allberry in 2021 at a Gospel Coalition Conference called God Cares About Your Body.
Last month, I included an article about the Apocrypha because it figures prominently in some interpretations of the book of Daniel. The Apocrypha is a collection of writings that Protestants do not recognize as part of the canon of Scripture. But what is the canon, how did we get it, and can we be certain that our Bibles include the right divinely inspired texts? Listen to Reformed Theological Seminary professor Michael Kruger helpfully address these questions as a guest on the Think Biblically podcast.
ARTICLES
6 Lessons We Learn from the Nicene Creed
As a supplement to my Sunday morning class on the Council of Nicaea, check out this article by Kevin DeYoung on some lessons we learn from the Nicene Creed.
The Only One Who Can Say ‘You Are Enough’
If you struggle with feelings of insecurity and not measuring up (all of us), yet long to be accepted and validated (all of us), Matt McCollough’s short but insightful article shows us how the gospel is the answer.
THE 6W CHRONICLES
As a way to introduce readers to some influential figures in the church’s past, I’m featuring a series called The 6W Chronicles: Short Profiles in Church History. The 6 W’s attempt to briefly address six questions: Who? When? Where? What did they do? Why should we know about them? What works can I reference by or about them? Here’s the first one:
Who? Alexander of Alexandria
When? Though exact dates may be disputed, Alexander lived around 250-328AD.
Where? Alexandria, Egypt. We should remember that North Africa was a very important center of Christian teaching and church growth in the first 500 years of the post-apostolic church. Influential leaders included Tertullian and Cyprian in Carthage, Clement and Origen in Alexandria, and St. Augustine of Hippo (in modern Algeria).
What? Alexander served as the bishop of the important city of Alexandria at a crucial time from 313-328AD.
Why? Alexander combatted the heretical teachings of Arius, who denied that Jesus was divine. The full deity of Jesus was affirmed at the Council of Nicaea in 325AD, in part, due to Alexander’s faithfulness. Furthermore, Nicene orthodoxy prevailed through the contentious decades that followed due to Alexander’s influence on a young and upcoming Athanasius. If you’re wondering who Athanasius was, check out The 6W Chronicles in The Hive next month.
Works? Unfortunately, there are few biographical works on the life of Alexander, and not many of his writings have endured. However, his Epistles on Arianism and the Deposition of Arius survives and can be found online where books are sold.
THE SCOPE OF WISDOM
Looking ahead, The Hive will continue to feature content on many different topics from varying fields of study. Some might wonder why the content is so broad. My answer: it’s a reflection of wisdom. When 1 Kings 4:30-34 elaborates on the wisdom on King Solomon, it says: Solomon’s wisdom surpassed the wisdom of all the people of the east and all the wisdom of Egypt … He also spoke 3,000 proverbs, and his songs were 1,005. He spoke of trees, from the cedar that is in Lebanon to the hyssop that grows out of the wall. He spoke also of beasts, and of birds, and of reptiles, and of fish. And people of all nations came to hear the wisdom of Solomon, and from all the kings of the earth, who had heard of his wisdom.
Commenting on this passage, Dale Ralph Davis writes: “Wisdom, Solomon shows us, is incurably and rightly curious – it ranges over the whole domain of God’s realm, joyfully investigating and describing all God’s works … since God has left the fingerprints of his wisdom everywhere, since there is no place where God does not furnish us with raw materials for godly thinking, Christians should be seized with a rambunctious curiosity to ponder his works, both the majestic and mundane. The task of wisdom is joyfully to describe and investigate all God's works.” Here's to delighting in discovery.
FINAL THOUGHT
It’s simply math that reading just three pages a day means you’d read 1,095 pages in a year. That’s one really large volume. Or its two 550-page books, five 220-page books, or 10 books just over 100 pages each. That means you can learn a lot in one year by reading just three pages a day. Similarly, walking 10,000 steps per day is equal to completing about 70 marathons in a year. The point? Don’t underestimate the power of small habits.