The Reformers did not return to the sources because they believed the old was better than the new, nor because antiquity possesses authority simply by virtue of its age. They returned to the sources to recover the language and words that were actually written and spoken, especially those by great teachers and, most importantly, God Himself.
The certainty of faith is utter assurance because it depends upon nothing of your own. It is entirely trusting that God is a propitious, pardoning God—the God who justifies sinners by forgiving them.
Sinners get faith as a gift when Christ takes their captivity captive.

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The following is an excerpt from “A Year of Grace Volume 2” written by Bo Giertz and translated by Bror Erickson (1517 Publishing, 2019).
Our smartphones, tablets, and laptops tempt us to enter into a virtual world without flesh and blood. A world without concrete, real consequences. No real pain or suffering, and no actual death.
We love those who enable us to see our love for ourselves reflected back at us.
It is in the midst of a world marked by empty and deceptive hopes that have broken hearts and lives that we are sent to deliver the promise of a future that has as its last chapter the resurrection of the body to eternal life with the Lamb who was slain but is alive forevermore.
These last words of the Old Testament Scriptures prepare us for the incarnation and beyond.
The Gospel outpaces all would-be and eventually fleeting identity-makers and brings in the truth of a renewed-in-Christ humanity.
Jesus offer us this vision of violence not so we might be drawn into it but so we might be drawn through it to come closer to Him.
Where Erasmus saw fear and collapse, Luther saw the never-ending comfort of Christ and his gospel.
[Nearly] all of us struggle with making the move, as Thomas Long puts it, “from desk to pulpit.” The reason is because our approach to sermon preparation is inadequate.
Note Moses’ big question is, “Who am I?” However, this is the wrong question. It matters not who Moses is, or who we are. What matters is who God is.
If the resurrection were just a repetition of this world, then it would be ridiculous, indeed. But the resurrection is different. It is a world without death.
Giving Tuesday 2020