Oliver was a friend, chaplain, professor, author, and loyal church reformer. This Gnesio-Lutheran giant will be missed.
We don’t need another brand. We need a people who remember who they are. And that’s us, Gen-X.

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It’s the following that caught my attention this week. It seems especially appropriate to consider this Sunday, for Holy Week is designed to help Christians follow Jesus through his last and consequential days.
Every misty road and agonizing moment of indecision reminds us that life is not about becoming—or finding—perfection. Life is the One who is perfect.
When we preach Jesus crucified for the sin of the world, Jesus crucified to put away God’s harsh judgment, that good news creates faith
If sin is not “imputed” or “reckoned to” the sinner then who is it reckoned to? The good news is that it’s reckoned to God
The texts compel us to deal with the “new thing” (Isa.43:18) that God is doing, namely, preaching the righteousness of faith to all nations. God’s judgment of justification is now for all. It has nothing to do with the flesh and everything to do with faith.
What he says in this parable has significance for us today, and needs to be preached. But the application is not direct and therefore should be done carefully.
Where contrition is evident, the conscience has already been prodded, piqued, finally terrified. More Law only serves to confirm the lie this person is already at risk of believing: that the last work of the conscience is also God’s last word. But God’s last word is the word of absolution, not the confirmation of the conscience’s testimony, but now its contradiction.
In our own lives, we might find that the Law is not an alien word, whether we call it our conscience or our values, our Holy Writ, or our municipality’s laws and regulations
No matter what happens, whether failure, pain, or discouragement, Jesus says, “Come to me... and I will give you rest"
All the piety, rigor, and discipline presented to the world by the believers, the General knew, was done out of fear and the denial of God’s grace
Lenten meditation is the one time Luther might advise us to be turning in on ourselves--and taking a cold, honest glance. For only in the shadow of the Cross can we look honsetly into the cause of the death of the man from Nazareth, the second person of the Trinity.
As you preach this week, you’re at it again, announcing the free forgiveness won by Christ, handing over the inheritance of eternal life, and distributing into their mouths the blood of the covenant and the foretaste of the Feast to come. The Father’s arms are wide open. His promises are irrevocable.