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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This tiny rural church would bulge at the seams with worshipers from realms seen and unseen, all mixed together in the adoration of the Lamb.
This is an excerpt from the introduction of “Urchin at War: Volume 1” by Uwe Siemon-Netto (1517 Publishing, 2021).
What Luther is doing in his Catechism is teaching how the gospel is an action of the whole Trinity, not just one of the persons.
The reformers were compelled to confess the true faith and challenge corrupt practices—this is what the Augsburg Confession is about.
The story of Juneteenth is one of living between proclamation and emancipation, and the story of the Christian faith is one of living in that same tension.
We continue to run the race, knowing the victory has been won and given to us through Christ Jesus.
That a celestial phenomenon should be appropriated worldwide for iconic value or to illustrate a mythological legend makes perfect sense. One cannot copyright the rainbow.
The world’s history and Jewish history was like a story in search of an ending; and when Jesus rose from the dead the ending was now revealed.
While Elector Frederick and Martin Luther never had a face-to-face meeting, the prince can be credited with the early success of the Reformation.
Luther saw that God demands not that we become perfectly righteous like God but that we simply receive the gift of righteousness; a gift that actually makes us worthy.
God has a strange delivery system, the foolish preaching of the cross and foolish preachers for Christ’s sake delivering it.
The result of this day’s proceedings, in Luther’s mind, was likely to be a painful death at the stake.