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 miraculous catch of fish happens not just once in the ministry of Jesus but twice. And, interestingly this miracle happens twice to the same person. Simon Peter.
Paul imagines a time when we are no longer immature children, seeking to show off spiritually, but instead demonstrating the maturity that comes from edifying others.
The same Christ we proclaim to the people in our pews is the same Christ who is for those not in our pews.
Paul has no interest in a love which does not find real traction in our daily lives.
God's power and works are awesome and cannot be stifled. His grace and mercy will be heard above the growls and howls of those who deny Christ Jesus is God and Savior
The gift is God’s and not ours, and the fact that any of us have any role to play at all in the Body of Christ is an amazing grace.
During this season of Epiphany, we experience more than the revelation of who Jesus is. We also celebrate how Jesus makes God fully known.
Jesus turning water into wine calls for you to believe: To believe in Him.
The most counter-cultural action any Christian church could take right now would be to foster healthy and constructive conversations among its members and neighbors across their variety of opinions and perspectives.
Not only does God reveal the identity of Jesus in this season through what we see and hear Jesus doing and saying, but God also reveals His gracious will through Jesus despite what we see and hear.
Paul is thinking of the cross and empty tomb, but the liturgical calendar places us at the beginning of Jesus’ ministry, not the end: Jesus standing waist deep in the Jordan River.
Christ has received the mark of law that we might be marked with the gospel, with the sign of his holy cross on our heads and hearts as redeemed children of God.