The greatest obstacle to friendship in middle age isn't that nobody wants friends. It's that everyone is waiting for someone else to go first. But here's the good news: Christ has already gone first for you. And because He has, you are free to go first for someone else.
Ecclesiastes tells us that there is a time for everything under heaven. But God has also placed eternity in our hearts, and that makes us strange creatures: able to rejoice in this life yet always aching for a life that only Christ can give.
What does it take to draw near to God? It takes a perfect priest, a finished work, and a broken body to open the way. In short, it takes everything, which is exactly what Christ has given for you.

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This is an excerpt from “The Alien and the Proper: Luther's Two-Fold Righteousness in Controversy, Ministry, and Citizenship,” edited by Robert Kolb (1517 Publishing, 2023). Now available for purchase.
That great truth of creedal Christianity – that God is man in Christ – is not set forth for our speculative enjoyment.
Hains offers a novel yet simple contention: Luther is most catholic where he is boldest.
Whatever else may be said of Advent, it is above all devoted to making Christ known as the Lord who condescends to come as Brother to and Savior of sinners.
If a key part of the Reformation was placing God’s Word back into the hands of the people in a clear, understandable way, then John of Ragusa can be called a “Prometheus” in his own right.
When the Reformers read the Bible (especially when studied in the original languages), they found a God who was gracious and merciful for the sake of Christ.
The good news is that with our God there is always more: more than we deserve, dare, ask, or expect, more than we can see, hear, feel, or think.
Every incendiary move of God’s Spirit is accompanied by a group of penitent people rediscovering the power and preeminence of God’s Word.
The phrase “works of the law” has an antithesis when it comes to righteousness—faith. What keeping the Law could not do, the gift of faith does.
To preach Christ and Him crucified is to reveal again the revealed God who saves.
Sometimes in hanging on to our useless guilt, we are idolaters. We believe our sin or conscience is more powerful than our God.
In the Reformation, as in the tabernacle, God gave skill, artistry, and craftsmanship to put his Word in images so that through art, his Word would be revealed.