I had hoped to start posting these at the beginning of the Old Testament year. But other projects took precedence. So, I’m starting now. You’ll note that there will be posts related to each weekly Come Follow Me lesson. And, since I’m playing catch up, there will be additional posts during the week related to lessons from past months.

Every year, thousands of Latter-day Saints open Genesis with good intentions and reach Leviticus with confusion. They meet a God who commands warfare, tolerate lengthy genealogies, wrestle with laws that feel alien, and encounter suffering that goes unexplained. By the time the prophets arrive, many readers have quietly set the volume down.

This series exists for those readers — and for every reader who senses that the Old Testament holds something profound but has lacked the tools to reach it.

Fifty-two essays. One per week. Each one addresses a text, a concept, or a season of the Come Follow Me reading schedule that generates real difficulty. Every essay is designed to be short enough to read in a sitting and substantial enough to change how you see the passage.