About Me

The sinless life, atoning death, and justifying resurrection of God incarnate is the only true hope anyone can have in the face of death, so looming ever nearer. Only through faith in him can one hope to rise again from the dead and live forever thereafter. And allegiance to Christ doesn’t only secure future life; it beautifully transforms this one. It imbues life in the here and now with purpose; fills it with joy; rescues from its addictions; uplifts its downtrodden; humbles its proud; galvanizes its servants; deepens its relationships; strengthens its families; unites its communities; and so much more. In no one and nothing else can one find anything remotely close to the boundless majesty, wonder, and fulfillment of life in Jesus Christ.

Sadly, Christ’s people—the church—have often stymied their own efforts to take this glorious, life-giving message to a dying world that so desperately needs it.

Too many settle for an infantile faith that knows Jesus died for them but seeks to understand little more than that; too many others uncritically accept the traditions they’ve inherited and whatever the leaders and teachers they cherish tell them to believe. Too many subject God’s unchanging word in Scripture to perennially fluctuating social, cultural, and political mores and to sophisticated but speculative philosophies; too many others make no effort to formulate or learn to articulate a biblical worldview that is accessible, intelligible, and defensible to skeptics. Too many vie for a community of faith with no substantive, defining doctrinal core, under a tent so big that virtually no belief or disbelief disqualifies one from its ranks; too many others refuse to fellowship with a professing Christian who disagrees with them on the minutest and least essential of doctrinal positions, vying for a community of faith under a tent so small that it can hardly accommodate more than one.

In these and many other ways, the church is in desperate need of reform.

My calling—my desire, my passion, my mission—is to serve Christians by helping to reform their hearts and minds and inviting their help to reform my own.

To this end, In 2017 I graduated summa cum laude from Liberty University with a Bachelor of Science in Religion, concentrating on biblical and theological studies, and in 2020 I graduated with a 4.0 GPA from Fuller Theological Seminary, where I focused on exegesis of the Old Testament in its original Hebrew. I’m an adjunct professor of Bible and theology at Trinity College of the Bible and Theological Seminary, and I hope to teach full-time one day, once I can pursue a doctorate in Old Testament biblical studies.

I’m a congregant and occasional preacher at Table of Hope Community Church in Puyallup, Washington, where I am being developed for eldership.

I’m the public face of the ministry Rethinking Hell and the host of the Theopologetics YouTube show and podcast. I publish books and academic journal articles, speak at conferences, participate in debates, and minister whenever and wherever else the Lord gives me the opportunity.

My wife Starr and I were married on May 27, 2000, when we were both twenty years old. Since then, we’ve had four sons: Brandon in 2001; Logan in 2005; Sawyer in 2009; and Miles in 2013. We live in the beautiful Pacific Northwest, where Starr and I were raised.