As soon as people understand what crucifixion means, the cross becomes offensive.
This is the third installment in the 1517 articles series, “What Makes a Saint?”
The Church speaks not with the cleverness of men, but with the breath of God.

All Articles

Written in commemoration of the 50th anniversary of J.R.R. Tolkien's death.
This is an excerpt from Faith in the Face of Tyranny: An Examination of the Bethel Confession Proposed by Dietrich Bonhoeffer & Hermann Sasse in August 1933, written by Torbjörn Johansson and translated by Bror Erickson (1517 Publishing, 2023).
Lewis takes us to the planets to satisfy our cravings for spiritual adventure, which, as he says, “sends our imaginations off the Earth,” in the first place.
Prior sees much of evangelicalism’s imaginary trouble arising from the fact that it emphasizes quick and dramatic conversion experiences and a personally directed relationship with God.
This is an excerpt from “Finding God in the Darkness: Hopeful Reflections from the Pits of Depression, Despair, and Disappointment” by Bradley Gray (1517 Publishing, 2023).
The only place to begin a discussion of human/creaturely identity is with our relationship to the God whose breath filled dust, brought us to life, sustains us and gives us a hopeful future.
We may not all be mass-murdering Nazis. But we all have the same root sin that causes the most egregious criminal activity on the face of the earth. We all have the desire to be our own God.
The Bible not only calls us to remember God’s past acts of deliverance; it also invites us to recognize that God in Christ is still in the business of delivering sinners from bondage.
One word from one God says it all to our tired hearts.
It’s not our eloquence or persuasive rhetoric that changes hearts, but the Word of God that pierces through the hardened shells of unbelief and breathes life into the dead bones of sinners.
We live for the most part, on the strength of our moral fiber, under the law, by our zeal for God and all that which tickles our proud fancy.
Jesus is the only answer to the nagging question. He is the only way to make sense of this unsettling story in Exodus 4.