This is an excerpt from the sixth chapter of Fear Not: How the Gospel Disrupts Our Deepest Anxieties by Luke Kjolhaug (1517 Publishing, 2026).
We draw near because Christ our Mediator has gone where we never could, and he has brought us with him.
The Israelite God was different from all the other gods, thus, the worship of Yahweh differed from that of all other gods.

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I came across a "deep commentary" in the form of a Facebook meme, extolling the frustrations of the natural man's inability to understand the things of God.
Over the next few months, I invite you to join me in looking at what the Bible and the Lutheran Confessions have to say about the subject of worship through the lens of language.
This story is all-too-common, and illustrates a key dynamic driving the youth out of church.
Imagine a church's mission statement is: "You Don't Have to Fake It Till You Make It." That is, you walk into church and an usher hands you a bulletin
If you’ve been in church long enough, you might have seen the worst of someone’s unrepentant sin get them kicked out, cast out, excommunicated or “handed over to Satan so their flesh might die and their soul might live.”
The first person who attempted to stop people from talking about Jesus was not a tyrant, a secular government, or a bully religious mob.
Thankfully, our heavenly Father sent a Champion into the game to take our place. What we failed to do, He accomplished.
God the Father Almighty is good. And He must be good in ways that surpass my earthly father.
God isn’t interested in your sins. He isn’t interested in keeping score, making sure that you keep at least one more good work than bad in your ledger.
God isn’t interested in your sins. He isn’t interested in keeping score, making sure that you keep at least one more good work than bad in your ledger.
The following conversation occurred between one of 1517's readers/listeners and Dr. Rosenbladt via email in February of 2016.
We spend the first nine months of our lives in utter darkness. There are no tiny fluorescent bulbs beaming from the ceiling of the womb, no fetal flashlights, not even a pinprick of illumination.