God chooses to clothe himself in promises and hides himself in his word.
Jesus dove into the waters of baptism, plunging into our deepest need to rescue us.
Alligood is at pains to stress that glorification is not the result of our own efforts any more than sanctification or justification.

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The church is God’s flock. Jesus is both a lion and a lamb. The zoo turns out to be as packed with theology as a seminary, if not more.
True freedom, Luther discovered, is found in Jesus crucified who sets us free.
The Word of God wrecked the room. The wise and seasoned pastor along with the smart mouth vicar were all silenced in the fear and awe of a God who can seem so absent at times.
Many Christians (including preachers) have succumbed to the idea that good preaching must be about practical living, and so most sermons are geared to scratch this pragmatic itch.
I once heard an old, retired Lutheran professor give in interview on a podcast. He was asked by the interviewer why people should bother going to church if they could just be saved through a personal relationship with Jesus?
We who fall within the Protestant camp of Christianity have longstanding issues with ritual. I get that. Ritual is often abused. Idolatrized. It can easily devolve into a hollow act of religious farce.
The side of God he has made known to us is Jesus. He is the one and only revelation of the Father, the one and only revelation we need.
We need pastors who carry that same concealed weapon in their mouths, who are outfitted with the same word the angels have: the word steeped in divine blood, shed for you. That is all we need, for the word does it all.
Fairy tales are but one chapter in the book we call storytelling. We may prefer reading other kinds of stories (mystery, science fiction, and so on).
Imagine if Zacchaeus posted on Jerusalem's Facebook a selfie with Jesus. The top dog among the tax-gougers with Christ at his dinner table. Oh, the outrage! The puritanical zealots would have been tweeting and blogging about it for months.
Not long ago I was having a conversation with a friend. She was facing a big decision about her career with a deadline looming for a decision.
We find such a temptation when the devil causes us to question God’s election or predestination of us in “eternity as a past event” (i.e. “eternity-past”).