Hi, my name is Alex Kirk.
I am Assistant Professor of Old Testament and Hebrew at Beeson Divinity School in Birmingham, Alabama.
SPLINTERED LIGHT is a newsletter about Scripture in relation to life, ministry, and culture. It’s a little bit of everything I’m interested in with an eye toward serving my students present and past. You might think of it as my ongoing attempt to think out loud within the world of Scripture.
This newsletter is free for all readers—and I intend to keep it that way—but to make it worth my while, I rely entirely on the generosity of you, my patrons. If you enjoy reading and want me to keep writing, please consider taking out a paid subscription. More on this below…
What should I expect?
My main subject will be Scripture and its interpretation, especially the Old Testament, but I’ll also touch on life, ministry, and culture. You can expect a sort of working file of short articles on the Bible, ideas, insights, and connections as well as a good number of recommendations—what I’m reading, listening to, watching, enjoying—that kind of thing. The name of the newsletter comes from a paradigm-shifting conversation that C. S. Lewis once had with J. R. R. Tolkien.
The plan is to put out two issues a month.
The first issue will be called The Litany. In The Litany, I’ll collect and share quotes, songs, articles, books, etc., as well as short ideas or reflections—connections sparked by things I’m thinking about. This will be my attempt to keep a sort of digital commonplace book. The Litany will come out on the second Friday of each month.
The other issue will be a short essay (a ten-minute read, give or take) that I hope will be both instructive and encouraging. Generally these will have to do with Scripture, but there may also be the occasional piece on subjects that range further afield (a book or movie review, a spiritual reflection, a cultural comment). These may be stand-alone essays on topics I’ve been thinking about, or they may arrange themselves into the occasional series, e.g., Old Testament Theology, or, How to Read and Understand Biblical Wisdom. These articles should go out on the last Friday of each month.
This is what I’m gonna shoot for, but I’m not obligating myself (that’s why it’s free). We’ll see how it goes.
Why would I pay you for this newsletter when it’s free?
Well, because if some people don’t pay, I will quit writing it! In other words, while I enjoy writing this newsletter and want to serve the church, it is an important source of supplemental income. At this point in my life, it needs to more-or-less compensate me for the time I spend in writing it or I’ll have to invest my energies elsewhere.
Still, I want it to benefit any interested reader regardless of their ability to pay. That’s why I am running SPLINTERED LIGHT on a patronage model, which means I am entirely dependent on the generosity of people like you who appreciate and value this work. As Alan Jacobs has articulated it, “It’s my small attempt to participate in the gift economy, which is one of the manifestations of the Kingdom of God.”
This newsletter is a labor of love above and beyond my day job.
By signing up for a paid subscription …
you show your gratitude and support for my thinking and writing,
you show me that you want me to keep it up,
you keep the newsletter free for everyone, even those who can’t pay,
and you reap a deep, yet intangible, sense of personal satisfaction.
While I could be writing for other online platforms, such as The Gospel Coalition or Plough, writing my own newsletter on Substack allows me to (a.) get paid, (b.) write about whatever I want in the way that I want, and (c.) have a closer relationship with you—an invested audience of readers.
