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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It’s not our eloquence or persuasive rhetoric that changes hearts, but the Word of God that pierces through the hardened shells of unbelief and breathes life into the dead bones of sinners.
We live for the most part, on the strength of our moral fiber, under the law, by our zeal for God and all that which tickles our proud fancy.
His successes were not the result of his brilliance, might, and ability as an apostle. They were the result of the all-sufficient grace of God.
Jesus is the only answer to the nagging question. He is the only way to make sense of this unsettling story in Exodus 4.
Sing of Jesus’ Easter victory for you, and watch Satan flee with his worries and cares!
God wants his word of promise to be the only thing we bank on, the only thing we have confidence in.
The Lord knew how it felt to be a rejected stone.
Sunday morning is about receiving, not giving.
What might Christians of the Reformation tradition think of claims like these about the nature of salvation?
Jesus makes David’s words his own, because David’s words were Christ’s to begin with.
The drama of Scripture is about God renaming us by bringing us into his image-bearing family once again. And it would take “a name above all names” to accomplish it.
A father's struggle to pray for his child's healing is one of the most difficult experiences he can face.