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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Lent exists because we are forgetful creatures. We forget how hungry we really are.
Worship never existed as escape from the world, but preparation for life within it.
God wasn’t finished with Israel just yet. The wilderness wasn’t their home.
Christian faith is never a solitary possession. When the congregation confesses, the old speak for the young, the strong for the weak, and the clear-voiced for the trembling.
The entire history of Protestantism is downstream of a goldsmith in Mainz figuring out how to cast identical pieces of lead type in less than a minute.
Baptism does not promise us chocolates or flowers, but something far greater: life in Christ.
This is the third in a series meant to let the Christian tradition speak for itself, the way it has carried Christians through long winters, confusion, and joy for centuries.
Confession isn’t a detour in the liturgy. It’s the doorway.
This is the first in a series meant to let the Christian tradition speak for itself, the way it has carried Christians through long winters, confusion, and joy for centuries.
The crisis is not merely that people are leaving. The crisis is that we have relinquished what is uniquely Lutheran and deeply needed.
The ethos of the church’s worship is found in poor, needy, and desperate sinners finding solace and relief in the God of their salvation.
The anticipation of Advent is supposed to build us up, not make us exhausted.