This is the third installment in the 1517 articles series, “What Makes a Saint?”
The Church speaks not with the cleverness of men, but with the breath of God.
I always imagined dying a faithful death for Christ would mean burning at the stake. Now, I suspect it will mean dying in my bed of natural causes.

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However knowledgeable you may become by reading Buddha or compassionate after following Gandhi, you will never find forgiveness in anyone else other than Christ alone.
The world rushes forward, lighting up screens and decking out storefronts in a mad sprint toward the next thing, but Advent pulls us back.
In Scripture, laments are raw expressions of grief, but they always point to hope. What if our culture’s obsession with holiday lights is an unconscious way of crying out, “We need good news, and we need it now”?
Below is an excerpt from the personal devotional included in this year’s 1517 Advent Resources.
Instead of a “how-to” manual, the Bible is a “what-you-didn’t-do” story.
If we picture the New Testament as a divinely painted masterpiece that hangs in the middle of a museum, then all around it are other works of the period, in different corridors of the museum, in many styles, painted by diverse artists, with variations of color and technique.
God’s creatures on four legs are some of the greatest storytellers of the Scriptures.
“Praying the Bible” sounds odd to the ears of most believers today. That’s unfortunate.
The point of Revelation is to reveal consolation in Jesus, not to revel in chaos and confusion.
Erasmus and the Unintended Reformation
This is an edited excerpt from Addendum A, “The Church Year,” On Any Given Sunday: The Story of Christ in the Divine Service, written by Michael Berg (1517 Publishing, 2023), pgs. 113-120.
Don’t get in the habit (or, if you already do it, get out of the habit) of saying, “I could never talk about these things the way my pastor does.”