God makes us pure saints by planting us back in the earth we imagined we needed to escape.
Salvation is not merely to be put in “safety” but to be put into Christ.
Bringing your family to church to receive “the one thing needful” (Luke 10:42) in Word and Sacrament honors and pleases God.

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In the last two decades U.S. Americans have given way to fear of many things: economic decline, loss of values, limits on our personal rights, to name a few. Too many of us live with some sense of threat and menace hanging over our heads and haunting our hearts.
The Feast of the Reformation affords preachers a special opportunity to catechize on the doctrine of justification by faith. It is also a perfect week for us to read through Romans in full for our devotions. It is an opportunity to hear again those marvelous words of absolution and sins forgiven and to recognize a righteousness which is revealed apart from the Law (Rom. 3:21); our need for absolution must be very great.
So, in keeping with Mark’s focus on discipleship this Fall, your Reformation Sunday sermon on John 8 might reflect on what it means to be a disciple. As you proclaim the commands and promises of Christ, you might invite your hearers not only to believe his Word, but also to abide in it. To hear and mediate on his promises in the various ways he delivers them.
The following is an excerpt from the introduction to Theology of the Cross: Reflections on Luther’s Heidelberg Disputation written by Steve Paulson and edited by Kelsi Klembara and Caleb Keith (1517 Publishing, 2018).
Finally, we draw near the end of this three-part article on Revelation 1:10-20.
It is only when individuals are bound together in community that they become fully human.
Good communication depends on trust to make such conversation work effectively. The truth springs, first, from God's own promise and the punch put into that promise by the mysterious power of the Holy Spirit.
The “entering into His rest” of Hebrews 4:1 is paralleled with Jesus’ words in the Gospel for the day: “How difficult it is for those having riches to enter the kingdom of heaven.” Love of riches or material wealth certainly bars us from God’s kingdom and eternal rest. They weigh us down miserably. Israel’s idolatry, however, was not only about the love of money.
The heart of a sermon on this text, therefore, would be fairly basic. God alone graciously saves. We, in response, do what the rich man didn’t do. We follow Jesus humbly. As we do so, we cling to the promises of eternal restoration.
But these good works aren’t done under compulsion. They’re done freely. They aren’t done so that God will love us. They’re done because He loves us.
She said, “Keep coming back, and you’ll know joy.” He wanted to vomit a rainbow of resentment, bitterness, and loathing all over her faux-leather boots.
The white hair of Jesus’ head teaches us that the Gospel is an ancient mystery.