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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History won’t judge us, Jesus will. We already have his judgment. He gave it to us from the cross, where he acquitted us with his death.
Who we are buried with matters. But there is no need to go out and find a dead prophet so you can join him six feet under.
The promise here is that God is present with us in our troubles, issuing commands to save us before we ask. God does not ignore our suffering and cries.
You can die now, you can let go, and because that is true, you can begin to live!
Edward's goal of teaching his people to know the scriptures and to believe that their salvation depended on Christ is also essential for us today.
God is not a preoccupied parent, he’s an invested and interested tender loving Father. He values what perplexes us.
Confession is not another ecclesiastical bludgeon but is instead a gift. There we can tell the truth about ourselves, knowing that Christ has only mercy for us in response.
Luther had a living Word from God intended to land squarely among sinners.
This world of unbearable grief and accidental calamity is being renewed and, soon, will be completely bereft of every pernicious foe.
There is perhaps no better observation about the nature of anxiety and depression than its fundamental desire for avoidance.
An immense amount of ink has been spilled contesting and interpreting Bonhoeffer's significance as a figure of Christian history and a theologian of the church.
Rest doesn’t come cheap. Perhaps there’s no scarcer commodity in our time. Plenty sell it, but there’s no warranty, and it seldom lasts.