1. Lutherans have a unique heritage that makes teaching predestination doubly difficult.
  2. This is an excerpt from Chapter 7 of Your God is Too Glorious: Finding God in the Most Unexpected Places by Chad Bird (1517 Publishing, 2023).
  3. The Battle of Frankenhausen stands as a warning for what can happen when we abandon the Word God has given us and chase after some vision of our own imaginations.
  4. Some part of us always wants our ability under the law to be just as important (or more) than grace.
  5. The Good Shepherd doesn’t leave the sheep to fend for themselves.
  6. A Christian story untethered from the reality of Christ and his mercy toward sinners becomes a mere fable, while a sermon disconnected from the hearts of its listeners remains a hollow oratory.
  7. Jesus continues to do the same for me and for you as he did for his disciples. He still shows up for us. He still speaks his peace to us.
  8. For Paul, the hope of the resurrection was the ultimate antidote whenever his circumstances tempted him to despair or to "lose heart."
  9. This day and its meaning provided the opportunity for an anonymous author to write a poem for Sheer Thursday about Judas' betrayal of Jesus.
  10. St. Patrick was great but only because he was a slave to Christ.
  11. Patrick's breakthrough came when he began to leverage his knowledge of the native language and customs to build a bridge between Irish lore and the Christian mythos.
  12. The church is called to preach the good news of Jesus Christ. Where is that message found? In every blade of grass, on every page of Scripture.