Luther felt the reform of the church could not simply remain a matter of aesthetics and practice. Something much deeper needed to be rooted out.
While God can, and often does, appear to people face to face, he also often employs the use of several types of messengers.
The “further up and further in” we go, the table keeps getting bigger, the guest list keeps getting longer, and the grace keeps on flowing.

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Luther felt the reform of the church could not simply remain a matter of aesthetics and practice. Something much deeper needed to be rooted out.
While God can, and often does, appear to people face to face, he also often employs the use of several types of messengers.
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.
God can handle grief, rage, and cries for justice. God can handle the victim who cannot yet forgive. God can handle the prayer that comes out jagged and wounded. The good news is that God is holy and merciful enough to handle all our prayers.
Prayer is only possible because Jesus has given you access to the Father through His shed blood. Prayer is a gift purchased for you by Christ.
Your God is not artificially intelligent, but the source of all intelligence (including yours).
I pray my children see God’s faithfulness not in the riches of this world, but in the riches of grace through Christ Jesus.
There are important historical reasons for making a distinction between ministry and vocation.
No one is harder to convert than a religious expert.
Through baptism, absolution, and the Lord’s Supper, Christ meets you with his radical forgiveness which changes everything, even the self!
Do not disregard Luther’s early disputations, but appreciate their specificity and recognize their pastoral and theological continuity with his later works.
This is an excerpt from the Chapter 7 of Being Family by Scott Keith (1517 Publishing, 2026), pgs 72-74.