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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Calvary is our mountain of pardon. It is the place which reveals most definitively God’s plan to redeem and reconcile sinners to himself.
What God created, God will grow. We don’t add a few stitches onto his creation.
Baptism is always valid because no unrighteousness or faithlessness on our part could ify God’s faithfulness.
God will give you more than you can handle. But he doesn’t leave you alone. Not at all.
Faith is a living, bold trust in God’s grace, so certain of God’s favor that it would risk death a thousand times trusting in it.
Through the often abominable and lamentable and occasional commendable season, there is one who remains unmoved by it all.
We do not have to endure the pain and suffering of this fallen existence forever, just for a little while.
The good news is Christ Jesus is faithful to the end, even to the point of death and through death, with a steadfast and vocal faith in God our Savior for those who cannot do so in their lives any longer on account of their altered state.
God’s love is axiomatic; it just is. It’s a truism without a logical explanation.
While baptism is a “once and for all” event that should not be repeated in the Christian’s life, the effects of baptism continue throughout the life of the believer.
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 Holy Spirit is sent, not to talk about himself, but to point us to Jesus.