Bucket Full of Grace

The Book of Ezekiel Explained How a priest in Babylon watched the glory of God depart from the temple... and heard the promise that it would come back. Explore the book of Ezekiel: the prophet's visions of God's glory, the fall of Jerusalem, the valley of dry bones, and the promise fulfilled in Christ. A Priest by the Chebar Canal The book of Ezekiel opens with a date, a place, and a sky that tears open. It is one of the most precisely dated books in the Old Testament, and that precision is the first clue to how we should read it. Ezekiel wants us to know exactly when and where God met him, because everything that follows hangs on the reality of that meeting. "In the thirtieth year, in the fourth month, on the fifth day of the month, as I was among the exiles by the Chebar canal, the heavens were opened, and I saw visions of God." (Ezekiel 1:1) Ezekiel was a priest, the son of Buzi (Ezekiel 1:3). He had been trained to serve in the Jerusalem temple, to stand near the ...

  By Grace, Through Faith The heart of Ephesians 2, where dead sinners are made alive and strangers become the household of God. Ephesians 2 unfolds the whole gospel in miniature: dead in sin, made alive by grace, saved through faith, and built together into one new people in Christ. Some chapters of the Bible you read. Ephesians 2 reads you. In the space of twenty-two verses, Paul traces the entire arc of the gospel: where we started, what God did, and who we have become. He opens in a graveyard and closes in a temple. He begins with people who were spiritually dead and finishes with a dwelling place for God himself. Nothing in between is owed to our effort. Every step of the way belongs to Grace. This is why so many believers return to Ephesians 2 again and again. It does not describe salvation from a safe distance; it hands you the doctrine and then presses it into your chest. If you have ever wondered what Grace actually accomplishes, or why your standing before God cannot be e...

The Book of Lamentations The Book of Lamentations gathers five acrostic poems mourning the fall of Jerusalem, where raw grief and the steadfast love of God meet, and point forward to Christ. Most of the Bible teaches us what to believe. Lamentations teaches us how to grieve. It is a short book, only five chapters, sitting quietly between the thunder of Jeremiah and the visions of Ezekiel, and it is unlike almost anything else in Scripture. There are no comforting narratives here, no miracles, no rescue arriving in the final act. There is only a ruined city, a broken people, and a poet putting words to a sorrow so total it can barely be spoken. And yet this book of tears has fed the faith of God's people for twenty-five centuries. It gave the world one of the most beloved lines ever written about the character of God, buried right in the middle of its darkest chapter. Lamentations shows us that faith and anguish can share the same breath, and that the God who allows us to weep is th...