Wisdom and strength require bootstrap-pulling and the placing of noses to grindstones.
“If the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed” (John 8:36).
How do the words “The righteous shall live by his faith” go from a context of hope in hopelessness to the cornerstone declaration of the chief doctrine of the Christian faith?

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The Lamb is where we are, opposite God, in our place as sinners. He bears our punishment of sin, the forsakenness of God. Anyone bearing his or her own sin is finally lost, but not Jesus.
The biggest point Luther makes about the descent is not that Jesus triumphed over hell idle and unaffected, but that Jesus defeated hell by suffering hell away.
In his last novel, Islands in the Stream, Hemingway shows us what we get when we look to nature for ultimate truth: death.
Dangerous Bible stories show us a God who has no problem whatsoever using the muck and mire of our worst days to make his progress toward his good goal happen.
Bonhoeffer’s simple little book makes clear how privileged many of us are to enjoy the Communion of the Saints here on earth.
Elisabeth Cruciger is the first female Lutheran hymn writer. In fact, her hymn was included in the very first evangelical hymnal, published in 1524. With her life and her hymn, she becomes a witness, an example, and a proclaimer of the gospel to us almost 500 years later.
What fundamentally and truly matters about me is not what I do, but what has been done for me. Discipleship isn’t a virtue or habit that is honed through practice. Instead, the emphasis is placed on the one who has made it his mission to forgive sinners, raise the dead, comfort the troubled, and exorcise the demons that haunt us.
There is great value in reading fairy tales in a pandemic. There is freedom and joy to be found when we turn off the news, stop scrolling Facebook, and read. Above all, read, mark, learn and inwardly digest Christ’s holy Word. And while you’re at it, take some time to read a good fairytale too. You won’t be disappointed.
Every time the Scriptures are opened, we are repeating this scene. Every time the gospel is preached, we are replicating a moment wherein the faithless ones are greeted by their faithful Lord.
When Luther's barber, Peter Beskendorf, asked him how to pray, Luther wrote him an open letter that has become a classic expression of the "when, how, and what" of prayer. It is as instructive today as when it was first penned it in 1535.
Without the influence of a 19th-century minister named George MacDonald, we may never have had classics such as The Chronicles of Narnia, The Lord of the Rings, or even Alice in Wonderland. It was George MacDonald whom C.S. Lewis claimed as his master, saying, “I have never written a book in which I did not quote from him.” So who is this MacDonald?
Jesus does not give as the world gives. With Jesus, everything is guaranteed and has been finished from the start.