The certainty of faith is utter assurance because it depends upon nothing of your own. It is entirely trusting that God is a propitious, pardoning God—the God who justifies sinners by forgiving them.
Sinners get faith as a gift when Christ takes their captivity captive.

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Overcrowding on Mount Everest betrays what our culture worships. We bow down at the altar of the impossible to be seen as the conquerors, the champions.
Preaching is simply the verbal bestowal of what Scripture has already given us in written form
Stories like Onoda’s offer an interesting parallel to our life in the Gospel.
The Church, having turned the Gospel into a moral performance, a judgemental system of do's and do-nots, must come to grips with the fact that the culture has moved on.
As I weigh briefly here the advantages and disadvantages of preaching original sin and preaching actual sin, I don’t mean to argue for one and against the other. Instead, I mean to suggest a benefit in focusing a given sermon on one or the other, and that neither type of sermon should be the only type a Christian hears.
The Father knows our needs because he knows everything. This is a comforting thought, but only if He is gracious.
Martin Luther is not–or, at least should not–be the object of our affection.
One area where my theology was completely backward was the Lord's Supper. Growing up I remember that it felt more like the Lord's Funeral.
The following is an excerpt from “Let the Bird Fly” written by Wade Johnston (1517 Publishing, 2019).
The gelded Gospel is shiny and attractive and compelling, and we can perform the procedure in any number of ways.
These new texts and manuscripts, while not altering the message of the text, can give us better insight into particular historical and grammatical issues.
The real problem with the way we talk about Baptism in particular, and the sacraments at all, is that we are simply afraid of letting God’s Word get us.