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.

All Articles

The law had to have its way with the expert to bring him around (and back) to Abraham's response.
As the writer to the Hebrews affirms, what makes the Christian gospel so much better is that we are no longer dealing with “types and shadows."
Maybe, just maybe, our goal for 2023 should not be to live more but to die more.
Who would ever want all these screamers and haters? It turns out that Christ does.
For with God we look not for the order of nature, but rest our faith in the power of him who works.
The epistle text from Colossians 1 declares how the great drama of redemption and human history ends.
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.
From the beginning to the end of his letter, John really wants one thing: for us to be in Jesus.
We don’t start with behavior and work toward Christ. We start with Christ and everything works out from there.
The name of God invites us on a journey to see how God will remain present with his people, listen to their cries for salvation, know their sufferings in such an intimate way so as to incarnate them in Christ.
There is no true life and meaningful community apart from forgiveness.
The reason that God’s commandments are not burdensome is that Jesus has fulfilled them.