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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Freedom from the Law does not come through personal perfection, it comes through Jesus Christ. The answer is not a better you, but a you who is united to God through Christ.
“Christ came with no goals when it came to Himself. His only goals entailed us. He didn’t come to be fulfilled, but to give Himself. And He did that for me.”
As a new year approaches, a mawkish paranoia sets in. Looking over our shoulders, we add up our good choices, our praises, and our reasons to celebrate.
When I was a kid, punchdrunk in church by all the legalistic blows to my head, I stumbled into a warped state of mind about what’s going to happen when Jesus crashes the world’s party at the end of time.
Christ rose from the grave so that the eternal Light of Christ would be your forever identity.
There’s a lot of family drama from Thanksgiving through New Years.
Death is never natural. Death is abnormal. Death is not human. Death is the enemy.
This is why a Christian must keep learning to forget himself so long as he lives.
It’s a subject that for some comes up every 4th of July. How does the American Revolution square with Romans 13?
Heaven is not our ultimate hope. Our promise is not to live forever riding on rainbows and soaring in the clouds.
What if I just hadn’t repented enough? Or prayed enough? Or really, really given my whole heart to Jesus? What if I just wasn’t ready?
Because salvation is by grace through faith, I believe that among the countless number of people standing in front of the throne and in front of the Lamb, dressed in white robes and holding palms in their hands, I shall see the prostitute from the Kit-Kat Ranch in Carson City, Nevada, who tearfully told me that she could find no other employment to support her two-year-old son.