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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We won’t use the right words, but the Holy Spirit is interceding with and for us, as we pray.
Our experience with good fathers – even when they are not our own – can point us to God the Father.
The emphasis for All Saints Sunday is not on the saints, but the Sanctifier, Jesus Christ.
The same Spirit who gives us his overabundant life has also given us doctrine. Scripture and Spirit cannot be put in opposition to each other.
Erasmus sought to find meaning behind the words of Scripture in order to make an ultimate claim. Luther, on the other hand, found the Gospel to be meaningless outside of Christ and his Cross.
When we — sinful, reprehensible we — become the enforcers of justice, we never bring about true justice. We either go too far or not far enough.
Hebrews proclaims you absolutely need a priest and you have one. This priest is Jesus!
The entrance of children into the world reminds our world of the hope of redemption in Genesis 3:15.
There are plenty of reasons why you do not already do whatever you want out of fear of the law, and you will find these reasons persist and remain long after the gospel has its way with you.
The goal of language in the mouth of a Christian isn’t to hold power for ourselves but to give it.
Man and woman together are complete. Apart, they are incomplete. The two correspond and form “one flesh” when combined in sexual relationships and as helpmates.
The essence of sin is man substituting himself for God, while the essence of salvation is God substituting himself for man.