When Jesus washes you with baptismal water, you can rest assured that the Lion of Judah is on the move.
The life we are trying to manage, improve, and secure is not something to be mastered. It is something to be surrendered. And this is where everything changes. Because in Christ, the approval we are seeking has already been spoken.
It is within this charged atmosphere that Luther’s writings take on their full significance. His responses to the Turkish threat were not merely reactions to military events; they were rooted in a deep theological reflection on the nature of God’s rule over the world, the responsibilities of Christian rulers, and the role of the Church in times of crisis.

All Articles

Isaiah speaks to our time. He speaks to our rejoicing now and an anticipated joy-filled future. Christ’s coming, Christmas, brings them both.
Pastor Craft: Essays and Sermons is now available through 1517 Publishing
The Word of Yahweh is not a trifling thing that can be visited only when it’s convenient. It’s a book of life, for all of life, that imparts life to those who believe in it and the God of it.
Forgiveness of sins does not come in bits and pieces. There are no levels of forgiveness.
We won’t use the right words, but the Holy Spirit is interceding with and for us, as we pray.
A Sermon on Psalm 130:3–6.
Our experience with good fathers – even when they are not our own – can point us to God the Father.
Grace and mercy are a powerful act of the Almighty God. God alone can grant forgiveness and restoration, salvation from the sorrow of this world.
While the insights in each chapter are uniquely personal to the individual writers, the overarching theme is one of the sufficiency of Christ.
Forty-five seconds is about how long I have as a pastor leading a Sunday morning service to sit at the feet of the cross and receive Jesus’ body and blood given to me by the hands of another at the Lord’s Table.
Wilson reminds his reader over and over again that, in his love, God accepts sinners as they are so that we may be delivered from the self-acceptance, self-worship, and self-justification of our selfish definitions of love.
Christ has taken our failures and defeats and exchanges that yoke for his own.