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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You are the baptized, for in Christ we are all wet. The demographic dividers are washed away.
The seemingly small, the particular, the previously overlooked, magnifies in importance.
This article is written by guest contributor, Christopher J. Richmann.
He represents our likeness, fulfills it, and so has the prerogative to reproduce his likeness in us.
Sin is a heavy thing to bear. Its jacket is shame, its medals are guilt.
We can interpret "be the Church" as either law or gospel.
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.
Sometimes, we get prayer dementia. We can’t remember what we were going to pray for, we can’t put the words together, and, frustrated, there is nothing we can do but sigh and groan.
The more I got to know Dr. Rosenbladt, the more I saw that he wasn’t a man divided.
Anyone could tell he enjoyed teaching theology and loved his students.
In normal human relationships, when reconciliation is necessary, we place the burden on the person who did wrong, who disrupted the relationship.
A “good death” and “good life” are not accomplished through personal striving but are grasped by faith in the promises of God.