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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In Christ, all things are new. This is also true in so far as His three-fold office of prophet, priest, and king.
Preaching on this text isnan invitation to express love and longing in your relationship with your hearers.
The oddness of this moment, at the beginning of Advent, is God’s way of saying, “The reason I’m here...”
Without the sacraments, God’s grace is simply an artifact behind a glass-case in a museum. We might be able to describe and even admire it, but we never get firsthand access to it.
Our experience with good fathers – even when they are not our own – can point us to God the Father.
While the insights in each chapter are uniquely personal to the individual writers, the overarching theme is one of the sufficiency of Christ.
Grace does not emancipate us from any requirement of obedience. Rather, grace allows Jesus to be obedient on our behalf that the righteous demands of the law can be fulfilled.
Except for the Augsburg Confession, Melanchthon’s Loci communes of 1521 were the most important of his writings.
The night has passed and the day broken. In response to the morning dawn, birds sing, beasts arouse themselves and all humanity arises.
Baptism is always valid because no unrighteousness or faithlessness on our part could ify God’s faithfulness.
Jesus did not need a single act of mercy to get him started on the road to mercy, his essence was by nature merciful.
Christ strikes a blow first against the presumption of those who would storm their way into heaven by their good works.