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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To preach Christ and Him crucified is to reveal again the revealed God who saves.
Clarity enables mobility. When preachers make the message clear, the people of God are freed-up to follow Jesus.
The reason that God’s commandments are not burdensome is that Jesus has fulfilled them.
Both now and forever, the bruised and crucified Lord nailed to a cross is our assurance of deliverance.
Righteousness before God is possessed only by grace and that through the currency of faith.
This parable does its surprising work of turning everything upside-down, as Christ’s Kingdom always does.
Jesus is the only one who is His brothers’ keeper on behalf of all of humanity and the only one who answered the rhetorical question fully and correctly for you.
Jesus speaks His Word, and a new world order emerges, with the possibility of uniting disparate parties in the true faith.
Sometimes in hanging on to our useless guilt, we are idolaters. We believe our sin or conscience is more powerful than our God.
We can appreciate what we have received from God, we can receive it all as free gift, but only when we stop investing in fool's gold.
Paul calls them the fruits of the Spirit after all
The true masterpiece of the Bible’s narrative is that we are blessed not in the way we want but in the way God gives freely on account of Christ alone.