Brandon Lake, Nick Jonas - The Author

Reflection

Describing God as an author invites the same idea explored elsewhere, that life has a shape being written rather than assembled at random, but this pairing of artists also says something about where songs like this can now travel, beyond traditional Christian audiences into far more mainstream spaces. Hebrews describes Jesus as the author and perfecter of faith, language that suggests both a beginning and a completion, a story with an intended ending even when the middle chapters are difficult to read. Collaboration between artists from different backgrounds carrying a message like this into unfamiliar rooms mirrors something the early church did constantly, using existing cultural forms, from Greek rhetoric to Roman roads, to carry an old message somewhere new. Whatever a listener's familiarity with faith, the image of an author still writing offers something durable: the suggestion that no chapter, however confusing, is outside the story's intended shape or beyond its author's care.

Questions to sit with

• What does it mean to you that Hebrews calls Jesus the author and perfecter of faith?
• How do you feel about faith-themed music reaching mainstream audiences who might not otherwise encounter it?
• Which chapter of your own life currently feels hardest to read as part of a larger, good story?