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

The waiting of Advent isn’t just for Christmas; it’s for God’s reversal of all sin and evil and his renewal of all things.
Let us rejoice, then, in this grace so that our glory may be the testimony of our conscience wherein we glory not in ourselves but in the Lord (2 Cor. 1:12).
When and how did the church start this season of anticipation?
For with God we look not for the order of nature, but rest our faith in the power of him who works.
We live again, not so that we will now pay our debt, but to proclaim that we live because our debt was paid!
The epistle text from Colossians 1 declares how the great drama of redemption and human history ends.
We don’t start with behavior and work toward Christ. We start with Christ and everything works out from there.
The name of God invites us on a journey to see how God will remain present with his people, listen to their cries for salvation, know their sufferings in such an intimate way so as to incarnate them in Christ.
Logos theology is a theology of presence without division. It is a way of unification, of which the incarnation is the greatest visible example.
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.
This is an excerpt from the Sinner/Saint Advent Devotional (1517 Publishing, 2022). Now available for purchase!
For as you pick up the Holy Bible, God’s Word to you and for you in Christ, the words of the prophet Isaiah echo in your ears, "The Word of the Lord Endures Forever."