Auden understands Luther’s doctrine of justification by faith not as a mere theological platitude, a trick of biblical grammar, or a catchphrase for men to rally around.
Our Lord Jesus builds, forms, and fashions his church as an artist forms a mosaic.
Luther felt the reform of the church could not simply remain a matter of aesthetics and practice. Something much deeper needed to be rooted out.

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It is Jesus himself who is the ladder by which sinners get to God, not by them climbing up but by God climbing down.
This is an excerpt from chapter 2 of The Resurrection Fact: Responding to Modern Critics, edited by John Bombaro and Adam Francisco (1517 Publishing 2016).
This is an excerpt from the introduction of Hitchhiking with Prophets: A Ride Through the Salvation Story of the Old Testament written by Chad Bird (1517 Publishing, 2024). Now available for preorder.
Like Jacob, sinners approach the Heavenly Father wearing the clothes of their older brother, Jesus.
Strasbourg’s hymnals are especially relevant to American Lutherans because much of what we experience in our churches comes to us from Strasbourg.
Lutherans have a unique heritage that makes teaching predestination doubly difficult.
We can do nothing to warrant entry into the kingdom of God nor are we getting in if we think a seat at God’s table is something to which we are entitled.
Instead of a death sentence, those brothers hear the words of deliverance.
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.
Five promises were seemingly all those apostles, staring into the sky, had to go on. Five promises that were more than enough.
The price was really paid. Your sin remains buried in Christ’s tomb.
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.