This is the third installment in the 1517 articles series, “What Makes a Saint?”
The Church speaks not with the cleverness of men, but with the breath of God.
I always imagined dying a faithful death for Christ would mean burning at the stake. Now, I suspect it will mean dying in my bed of natural causes.

All Articles

With the resurrection of the Christ the mystery of life after death became a lot less mysterious.
Everyone is living as a naked sufferer who’s been duped into believing that the nakedness of suffering has to be covered up.
We prefer God to forgive our sin by not paying attention to it. Then our prayer is not for grace but that God would overlook and wink at us from the sidelines.
If you and I were to examine our own lives, we’d likely have to admit that we are frequent disciples of Jeroboam’s “bootleg religion.”
The irony of our idolatry is that many of our idols could and would speak the gospel to us if we would listen.
The Holy Spirit is sent, not to talk about himself, but to point us to Jesus.
We have the Gospel in Word and the Gospel in Sacrament. Both are poised to declare the peace of the Lord, the good news of God’s forgiveness because of the life, vicarious atonement, and resurrection of Jesus the Son.
There is no life when one is separated from the Promised Land because that will be the place where God will send His Messiah.
What is it, though, that makes bedtime so fraught with anxiety?
Faith isn’t something that needs to be done. It’s something to be enjoyed because faith is a gift bestowed by God’s word through the hearing of the Gospel.
In just about every generation, there have been some who thought The End was very near. They were convinced that they were living in the last days. And they were right, though probably not in the way they thought. Likewise, if you think we are living in the last days, you too are right, but perhaps not in the way you suppose.
"Ragged" written by Gretchen Ronnevik is now available for purchase from 1517 Publishing