This is an excerpt from the third chapter of By Water and the Word: God’s Gift of Baptism for You by Brian Thomas (1517 Publishing, 2026), pgs 52-60.
Even when the bitter places sink down deep into our bones, the Restorer never relinquishes his grip on you.
To Live Well is therefore not a general advice book, but a message suffused with the gospel.

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That great truth of creedal Christianity – that God is man in Christ – is not set forth for our speculative enjoyment.
Hains offers a novel yet simple contention: Luther is most catholic where he is boldest.
When the church is a political actor, the gospel doesn’t have the final word.
When God makes promises, he is incapable of not keeping them.
What the gospel promises is not escape from our humanity, but resurrection from the dead.
False holiness is always a possession and achievement of the individual in isolation from the good of others. And so it isn’t holiness at all.
An immense amount of ink has been spilled contesting and interpreting Bonhoeffer's significance as a figure of Christian history and a theologian of the church.
Baptism is always valid because no unrighteousness or faithlessness on our part could ify God’s faithfulness.
What Luther is doing in his Catechism is teaching how the gospel is an action of the whole Trinity, not just one of the persons.
Forde’s work testifies to the liveliness and vitality of confessional Lutheranism, and its promise for the continuing need to preach Christ crucified in this, and every, age until the Lord’s return.
Repentance means being cut down by the law’s declaration of judgment. It’s not an activity we do to prepare for grace, but a point of despair worked by God himself.
Has the modern world taken too strong a dose of the gospel as its inheritance from the Reformation?