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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If we believe that ours is truly the greatest story ever told, then we must share that story in creative ways and allow it to change the desires of its hearers.
Christ Jesus brings his word and presence to where you are and he is even willing to do so through the likes of your personally present pastor.
The Parable of the Lost Sheep bursts through the confines of convention and demands that we embrace the messiness of life and the unpredictable ways in which God's grace and forgiveness operates.
Below is a compilation of some of our staff and contributor’s recommended reads for this summer (based, of course, on what we are reading). Let us know if you find a book you love!
We live for the most part, on the strength of our moral fiber, under the law, by our zeal for God and all that which tickles our proud fancy.
His successes were not the result of his brilliance, might, and ability as an apostle. They were the result of the all-sufficient grace of God.
The Holy Spirit isn’t so much the one you look at, as he is the one who turns you from looking at yourself and your sin to your Savior, Jesus.
Tim wanted everyone to know to the deepest part of their being that they were justified by Christ alone.
This is the Christian word: grace. Such grace is found only with this Lamb who is also our Shepherd.
God wants his word of promise to be the only thing we bank on, the only thing we have confidence in.
Sunday morning is about receiving, not giving.
In the sacrament, we receive an earnest of that future promise here and now in the body and blood of Jesus given and shed for us.