The Use of Scripture in Cases of Abuse (with Steven Stracy)

Kirk E. Miller

God’s Word is meant to be a source of life and healing. But when misused, it can become a weapon to inflict harm. This damage is all the more the case when Scripture is mishandled to justify, excuse, or shield abuse.

When done by spiritual authorities (pastors and churches), such misuse scripture is itself spiritually abusive and thus deeply harmful in its own right. As Steven Tracy helpfully put it,

While any type of abuse can be extremely damaging, we have found that spiritual abuse is often some of the most damaging due to the way it shatters the very resources we need for health and healing.1

In this episode of Logos Live, I sit down with Steven Tracy to talk about how to use Scripture to heal, not harm, especially in instances of abuse.

Check out the full episode and accompanying article.

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  1. Personal correspondence over email. February 5, 2026. ↩︎

The Early Church Held Everything in Common | Darrell Bock on Acts 2:44–45; 4:32–37

Kirk E. Miller

Luke records that the early church in Jerusalem held everything in common: Believers sold property and land and gave proceeds to the apostles who distributed the funds as any had need (Acts 2:44–45; 4:32–37).

So did the early church practice something like communism? Dr. Darrell Bock joins me on today’s episode of What in the Word? to discuss.

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What Is Political Theology? A Brief Definition

Kirk E. Miller

What exactly is political theology?

In his article, “A Guide to Political Theology: Its Key Concepts and Perspectives,” Jake Meador quotes me defining political theology as follows:

[Political theology refers to] a discipline of theology dedicated to applying the resources of Christian theology to the interests or questions of politics, i.e., how society is organized.

This includes exploring questions such as the origin, responsibility, and domain of government, the appropriate means of government (e.g., law, lethal coercion), the moral foundations of civil law, the relationship between church institutions and the state, the responsibility of Christians to the state and society, and the material and social implications of the gospel of the kingdom.

Autism Isn’t Sin: Mistaking Difference for Disobedience

Kirk E. Miller

The following is an excerpt from Jonathan Machnee’s “Autism & Christianity: A Square Peg in a Round Hole?” 

Within many Christian circles, autism in all its forms remains little understood. Autistic ways of thinking and processing are often construed by pastors and clergy as problems to fix, rather than as different ways of understanding. …

Don’t mistake difference for sin. Autistic people will see things differently; they will process information differently; and they will interpret relationships and social dynamics differently.

Christians often interpret these differences as sin, disobedience, defiance, or a lack of spiritual fruit, when in fact they are simply differences in neurodevelopment. While autistic people are undoubtedly imperfect and sin like everyone else, differences that are often benign are treated as matters of spiritual failure. …

Because people are different, the fruits of the Spirit (Gal 5:22–23) will often express themselves differently in an autistic person than a non-autistic person. What love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control look like in someone without autism will often be quite different from what they look like in an autistic person.

We know that these qualities take different forms across different genders, ages, and cultures. Yet for some reason, we fail to extend that same expectation to differences in neurodevelopment. We unfortunately expect these fruits to appear identical. But fruit looks different when it grows on different trees.1

  1. Jonathan Machnee, “Autism & Christianity: A Square Peg in a Round Hole?,” Word by Word (Logos Bible Study blog), May 15, 2026, https://www.logos.com/grow/min-autism-and-christianity-contextualization/. ↩︎

Gentiles Who Obey the Law: Believers or Unbelievers? | Jarvis Williams on Romans 2:14–15

Kirk E. Miller

Romans has several debated passages:

  • Does the slavery to sin described in Romans 7 match the experience of the believer or the unbeliever?
  • Does Romans 9 describe God predestining some for salvation and the rest to damnation?
  • What does it means for “all Israel” to be saved in Romans 11?
  • Must we always submit to the government per Romans 13.

However, when I taught through Romans back in 2013, I personally found Romans 2 to be the most difficult to interpret in the entire book, despite often being overlooked compared to these others.

Today New Testament scholar Jarvis Williams joins me on Logos’s What in the Word? to discuss the identity of these law-abiding gentiles. Are they

  1. Non-Christian pagans who, at least to some degree, abide by their morally calibrated consciences (natural law)?
  2. Or regenerate gentile Christians who have God’s law written on their hearts as promised in the new covenant?
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