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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The law had to have its way with the expert to bring him around (and back) to Abraham's response.
In Memory of My Friend, James Arne Nestingen
Toy Story is indeed a Christmas story.
The good news of the Gospel is Jesus has come, and Jesus will come again.
A.I. can’t make the proclamatory move that delivers God’s word in a way that is specifically for me.
The more awareness we have that we are weak and low and frail and incapable of doing this thing called life, the more perfectly we are positioned to meet the God of grace.
When the church is a political actor, the gospel doesn’t have the final word.
All our sin and shame is answered for in the death and resurrection of our Lord.
You are the friend in low places. It’s only from this place that you are free to look outside yourself for the remedy to the issues that plague you and humanity.
You are a child of God. You’re blameless, holy, perfect, and righteous. Don’t feel that way? Too bad. God is greater than your heart.
The mind-blowing part of this entire story, though, isn’t that only one leper came back to “give thanks,” but that the Lord Jesus healed all ten knowing full well that only one would come back.
We don’t start with behavior and work toward Christ. We start with Christ and everything works out from there.