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.

All Articles

Sometimes in hanging on to our useless guilt, we are idolaters. We believe our sin or conscience is more powerful than our God.
We can appreciate what we have received from God, we can receive it all as free gift, but only when we stop investing in fool's gold.
Paul calls them the fruits of the Spirit after all
To say that whoever loves has been born of God is also to say that those who are born of God are recipients of love. They do not have God because they love but because they are loved.
In the Reformation, as in the tabernacle, God gave skill, artistry, and craftsmanship to put his Word in images so that through art, his Word would be revealed.
This is an excerpt from the Sinner/Saint Advent Devotional (1517 Publishing, 2022). Now available for purchase!
Do you confess Christ as God in the flesh, born, died, and raised to new life for you? Any answer of yes will do
It seems to me that our greatest task is not that of seeking skills and methods whereby we can inject power into the gospel, but simply to beware lest we obscure the power that the gospel is
Jesus remakes us, rebuilds us, and resurrects us so the demons that hide in the cracks cannot get ahold of us, the devil cannot break us, and hell will never know us.
Jesus is the anti-Cain: a giver, not a taker.
When we cry to the Lord in our trouble, he will send us a preacher with words that deliver us from destruction.
Hymns were a means by which people were brought into direct contact with the Gospel that brought justifying faith. Set to music, they could readily memorize it, take it home with them, and rehearse its messages around the hearth and at work.