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.

All Articles

In Defense of Christian Ritual is now available for purchase from 1517 Publishing
There is joy in Lent, but it is the kind of joy that comes in being made whole.
This is an excerpt from In Defense of Christian Ritual written by David Andersen (1517 Publishing, 2021). Available for purchase this Tuesday!
God preserves language so he might continue to communicate his love and grace to us, and that we might communicate his love and grace to others.
Since the law is our mother-tongue, we naturally assume it’s the only language that exists; this ceaseless, damning voice reminding us that we are not all that we should be.
"A Lutheran Toolkit" is available for purchase today from 1517 Publishing
This is an excerpt from “A Lutheran Toolkit” written by Ken Sundet Jones (1517 Publishing, 2021), pgs. 23-25.
The setting for Luke 2 is the first century analog to my backyard. The stage is dressed with rust and decay, guilt and shame, sin and death.
We’ve hung on every whisper of hope that this way of life would end and a new one would rise to take its place.
People do not seek the gospel because they want to, but because God’s Word drives them to it.
On each of the seven days leading up to Christmas Eve (December 17-23), Chad Bird will provide a meditation that focuses on the ancient “O Antiphons,” each of which addresses Christ by a different Old Testament name. Today’s reflection, the sixth in the series, is on “O King of the Nations.”
Christian peace is not the absence of problems, but it is the presence of God amid our pain and sorrows.