1. The cross not only stands as the measure of our hatred of God but also as the measure of God’s love for us.
  2. It is difficult to overestimate the importance of these early Lutheran hymns – and their physical availability in hymnals – in the piety of common people living in Lutheran towns and territories.
  3. God chose Russell Brand, chose to defy his fast-escaping life and drink up all his swift-running sin in the River Thames.
  4. Some part of us always wants our ability under the law to be just as important (or more) than grace.
  5. In Israel today, it's still possible to witness the same scene the disciples saw 2000 years ago when the Bedouin shepherds bring their flocks home from various pastures at the end of the day.
  6. The price was really paid. Your sin remains buried in Christ’s tomb.
  7. The notion that your goodness is “good enough” to make you right with God is a lie straight from the father of lies himself.
  8. When Jesus appeared again to his disciples on that first Easter evening and again a week later with Thomas and the Emmaus disciples, what did Jesus show them? His hands.
  9. Applying the pressure of law to ensure you do not to take grace for granted squeezes the life and power out of the gospel.
  10. Like the serpent on the pole, God still puts real-life things up for us to look to for salvation.
  11. Jonah’s biggest blunder was a failure to understand that God’s grace is always undeserved and always falls on those who are unworthy of it.
  12. Don’t get in the habit (or, if you already do it, get out of the habit) of saying, “I could never talk about these things the way my pastor does.”