God wants us to live intentionally—believing that his unseen hand and the invisible agents loyal to him and us (Heb. 1:14) are engaged in our circumstances so that, together, God’s goal of a global Eden moves unstoppably onward. Each of us is vital to someone’s path to the kingdom and the defense of that kingdom.
Each day affords us contact with people under the dominion of darkness and opportunities to encourage each other in the hard task of fulfilling our purpose in an imperfect world. Everything we do and say matters, though we may never know why or how. But our job isn’t to see—it’s to do. Walking by faith isn’t passive—it’s purposeful.”
Michael S. Heiser (February 14, 1963 – February 20, 2023) was an American Old Testament scholar and Christian author with training in ancient history, Semitic languages, and the Hebrew Bible from the University of Pennsylvania and the University of Wisconsin-Madison. His expertise and work focused on the nature of the spiritual realm in the Bible and about spiritual matters more generally, and he wrote more than ten books on these subjects since 2010.
He served as executive director of the School of Ministry at Celebration Church in Jacksonville, Florida, and previously as scholar-in-residence at Faithlife Corporation. He ran The Naked Bible podcast and Miqlat, a ministry to disseminate his scholarship. He had additionally been active in media productions around his area of interest, and in response to popular presentations relating to spiritual matters (such as material in the Stranger Things series, and in rebutting ancient astronaut conjectures).
Heiser died from pancreatic cancer in 2023.