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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Jesus’ coming and death and resurrection guarantee us the victory over the lies, the desire to be pitied, and the appeal of stuff.
As is usually the case with God, He uses something strange and earthly as a picture of His grace and mercy.
What does it mean to be a child of God and to carry his image? This is a theological question, but it is a question necessary for our self-understanding
When our mind betrays us, our body fails us, and our soul can’t be comforted, our Jesus now saves us.
They say girls in our society should have nothing to worry about. They should have the opportunity for education and choices far beyond generations before.
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.
Jesus opened our ears and mouth when He baptizes us. Jesus put His fingers into our ears, speaks to us, and washes our sins away.
As a bass player, when I listen to music, I listen for what the bassist is doing. But, when I listen to music in my 2004 Honda Civic I have a problem: only one of the four speakers works.
Writer’s Block, however, entertains no such fantasies. It goes straight for my ego’s jugular and pounds home the fact that I’m not good enough.
Today’s world has replaced Anfechtung with an entirely new sort of despair.
Few smells are as pervasive as the smell of smoke. Anyone who’s sat around a campfire can attest.