Christianity does not locate freedom in radical autonomy. It does not tell either men or women that happiness consists in escaping obligations arising from relationships we did not entirely choose.
Jesus never promised me a World Series championship. He never promised that my children would always succeed or that life would go according to plan. He promised something better.
In Jesus, God acted first, even when we were dead in our trespasses and sins (Eph. 2:5).

All Articles

More than a friend, Amsdorf was also an important figure in the work of religious reform, providing counsel to Luther on key occasions, shepherding the churches, and defending the faith until his death.
There are important historical reasons for making a distinction between ministry and vocation.
When the enemies of your faith surround you, don’t look to your own wits and wisdom.
Do not disregard Luther’s early disputations, but appreciate their specificity and recognize their pastoral and theological continuity with his later works.
"Every one must stand and give account before God for himself; and no one can excuse himself by the action or decision of another, whether less or more.”
Your exhaustion may not be a sign of weakness of faith. It may be the fruit of enthusiasm. It is Lent. Fast from your fever. Embrace the exhaustion. Curb your inner enthusiast and cling to Christ.
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.
When we despair of ourselves, we repent of these self-justifying schemes and allow ourselves to be shaped by God, covered in Christ’s righteousness, and reborn with a new heart.
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.
Wade Johnston, Life Under the Cross: A Biography of the Reformer Matthias Flacius Illyricus, Concordia Publishing House, St. Louis: MO, 2025.
On this, the birthday of Martin Luther, I will pause to thank God for his birth.