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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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.
Paul knew that, without the resurrection, the Christian life was a “Smells Like Teen Spirit” video.
Heaven is yours now.
This article is written by guest contributor, Christopher J. Richmann.
The opponents of Father Brown thought that debunking the fake resurrection of Father Brown would discredit the good news of Christ's resurrection. The truth, however, is the other way around.
This is the sound of freedom. The Eternal One died so that we who are dying might live eternally with him.
Rod Rosenbladt, the encourager of all things good, true, and beautiful and a tireless warrior for Jesus and the Gospel message, finally rests at the marriage feast of the lamb.
He declared you what you might not always feel you are, but what you were from the moment he knew you, before you were you, when he foreknew you.
He shows up when we are at our worst to usher us back to his side, lead us to repentance, rescue us, and reclaim us as his own.
There is no AA for legalists. At least not officially. But there ought to be, and it should be called your local church.
We are the fruit that grows from the branch, which extends from the trunk of the tree, which is rooted in the soil that it grows out of, which is all Christ.
What if the dissonance in this calendrical coincidence can be harmonized into a deeper melody?