Wade Johnston, Life Under the Cross: A Biography of the Reformer Matthias Flacius Illyricus, Concordia Publishing House, St. Louis: MO, 2025.
This ancient “tale of two mothers” concerns far more than theological semantics—it is the difference between a God who sends and a God who comes.
This story points us from our unlikely heroes to the even more unlikely, and joyous, good news that Jesus’ birth for us was just as unlikely and unexpected.

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If Psalms 1 and 2 reveal the Christ who reigns, Psalms 3 and 4 reveal the Christ who remains.
He has freed you from a selfish fixation on gifts. He has freed you to look to the Giver.
When faith seeks understanding—when belief is grounded in revelation and open to the light of reason—truth can travel.
When a congregation is abused by its pastor, it loses more than a shepherd. It loses its threshold place; that fragile seam between earth and heaven.
Fideistic Christianity may look bold, but it is fragile.
Even if the Shroud were proven a medieval forgery, it would only highlight the skill of its maker. The case for Christ’s resurrection rests on eyewitness testimony.
God leads us to green pastures. He comforts us with his grace in our darkest valleys.
The following entries are excerpts from Chad Bird’s upcoming book, Untamed Prayers: 365 Daily Devotions on Christ in the Book of the Psalms (1517 Publishing, 2025), pgs. 191-192.
Here is the true story, the one worth remembering: You are a gift.
The doctrine of the Trinity is not so much the story of a “who-dunnit” as it is the story of the “who-is-it.”
You are a soul. Not an algorithm. Not a hashtag. A soul knit together by a God who does not mock, does not abandon, and does not lie.
“The fear of the Lord” is our heart’s awakening to and recognition of God’s outrageous goodness.