There are important historical reasons for making a distinction between ministry and vocation.
It appeared everything would work out perfectly when Ivan the Great married Sophia Palaiologos. But when inheritance was discussed the problems arrived.
When the enemies of your faith surround you, don’t look to your own wits and wisdom.

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To keep me from becoming conceited because of the surpassing greatness of the revelations, a thorn was given me in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to harass me, to keep me from becoming conceited.
If everyone would just live by the rules, the world would be a better place, wouldn’t it?
One of my jobs in high school was helping local ranchers work cattle. We’d vaccinate, cut off horns, castrate, mark their ears, and brand them.
Martin Luther knew something about economics. Well, God’s economics anyway.
Americans love the vicarious sense of pride they get from the odds-defying underdog myth.
Your eternal salvation isn’t dependent on performance or effort. Well, not your performance anyway...
Did the Apostle Paul just say that “he fills up what is lacking in the afflictions of Christ?" That seems a little at odds with Jesus’ statement, "It is finished."
In our democratic society we love to talk about freedom. But anybody out there ever tried to be perfect? Ah, shucks. Turns out we’re not as free as we thought.
Jesus is the heart of the Gospel, and the Gospel is Good News. But it is always Good News that comes to us best on the lips of another.
Jesus’ coming and death and resurrection guarantee us the victory over the lies, the desire to be pitied, and the appeal of stuff.
Luther’s theology lets the believer in Christ dwell under the cerulean sky of God’s unchanging grace.
There’s no watch on the Lord’s wrist. No iPhone in the back pocket of his blue jeans. He did create time; it was his idea. But for him “the right time” is never our time. From our perspective, he’s either way too early or—more usually—way too late.