What I was missing—what so many are missing—is a Church that doesn’t just speak about Christ, but delivers him.
Though several generations removed from Luther’s generation, Francke came of age right on time for a new wave of spirituality to collide with the Reformation in the movement known as Pietism.
Every time someone is baptized, every time bread is broken and wine poured, every time a sinner hears, “Your sins are forgiven in Christ,” Pentecost happens again.

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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.
I have been very busy lately, trying to understand things.
What we notice less often is that this same fear wonders about both the efficacy of the Gospel and the Law.
In Christ, God’s Son, yesterday, today, and tomorrow all collapse into one. He holds in himself everything from the beginning to the end of the world.
Many scholars believe that what Jesus says in verses 18-20 are the key to Matthew's Gospel. Actually, it may be the key to the entire Bible, for in these three verses we see the full scope of the history of redemption brought to bear in one history-altering, cosmic event: Baptizing in God's name.
We are saved by grace, and strictly speaking, not by an offer.
As I write this, I wonder if perhaps I am stretching things a bit thinking that it would be relevant to a considerably more sophisticated audience. Perhaps we already know the Gospel, that we are all sinners.
I visited a senior man at his home the other day. I'll refer to him as “Jim.”
I am not a good Lutheran. I have only been around reformation theology for a few years.
He begins with Jesus and ends with Jesus. He is not going to try to complete what Jesus starts.
God’s grace is extended to the incorrigible alcoholic as well as to us, the more sophisticated sinners and drunks.
The Christian sees himself or herself as one just as guilty as the rest of the world. But we see ourselves not just as what’s wrong with the world, but in the One by whom the world has been redeemed.