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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Steven Paulson shares the meaning (and grace) found in All Saints Day
Matthew 22 sees Jesus address Jewish legal debates. In the process, he makes disticntions between the Law and Gospel.
The goodness of God's grace is also offensive to our egos
Attempting to escape the errors of medieval Catholic thinking, Agricola ended up making the same mistake of conflating law and gospel.
Faith sees your neighbor not as a means to an end, not as a way to score points, but as an object of love: Christ's love and yours.
What if Jesus had said on the cross, “Earn it”?
Is salvation by the law or not? Moses or Jesus? Indeed, we find a fundamental parting of the ways put forward here, and the stakes couldn’t be higher.
God comes to us through the flesh and blood and spirit of Christ precisely where he promised to be manifest to us and for us.
The gospel tells me that the revelation of weakness in myself, my husband, and my son is the occasion for the revelation of God’s strength.
While we wait in tribulation for our white robes (or pants) to be washed in the blood of the Lamb, we confess to one another our seen and unseen stains.
When properly distinguishing law and gospel in the Word of God, it is important to use the God-given gift and abilities of the imagination as your ears.
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.