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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The firestorm of the Reformation which turned Europe upside-down was not Luther’s doing. It was the Word, and the Spirit working through it.
Luther’s confessions and writings during that time demonstrated the diagnosis of the problem he faced had always been the same.
Excerpt #2 from the new book “Withertongue Emails" by Donavon Riley.
I finally watched the film “Encanto” with my kids. I had heard many people say the subtext of this movie was deeper than most. So, we snuggled up on the couch and watched it to see what everyone was talking about.
Excerpt #1 from the new book “Withertongue Emails" by Donavon Riley.
God’s design in the Law is to enable man to know himself; to perceive the false and unjustified state of his heart; to discover how far he is from God and to disdain his own goodness.
Because Jesus has set us free, we enjoy a freedom of movement in His world, under His grace, that loosens our tongues to sing His praise.
The world we inhabit is wrong in so many ways, and a holistic approach to this “wrongness” traces its cause both to sin itself and to the effects of sin.
Aquinas would craft a systematic theology that did with the matter of faith what Aristotle had done with the natural world.
Grace remits sin, and peace quiets the conscience. Sin and conscience torment us, but Christ has overcome these fiends now and forever.
Is the serpent in Genesis 3 just a snake or Satan? Does the Hebrew refer to "the satan" or "Satan"? And does it make a difference? Let's take a look at the Old Testament, early Jewish literature, and the New Testament for the answers.
Christ is present in the pure preaching of the gospel. And if Christ is present, then we have entered into the domain of the sacraments.