This is an excerpt from the third chapter of By Water and the Word: God’s Gift of Baptism for You by Brian Thomas (1517 Publishing, 2026), pgs 52-60.
Even when the bitter places sink down deep into our bones, the Restorer never relinquishes his grip on you.
To Live Well is therefore not a general advice book, but a message suffused with the gospel.

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Below is a list of our favorite theological books - across all categories - from 2025. A special thanks to our contributors who submitted titles, wrote summaries and full reviews for these books and more throughout the year.
Merry Christmas, Christ has spoken, and his verdict stands.
Christmas is not for remembering, thinking, pondering, trying to make sure you are really celebrating it properly, or for wondering whether you truly have faith.
The anticipation of Advent is supposed to build us up, not make us exhausted.
Lewis once pointed out that Christianity does not begin by telling us how to behave, but by telling us what is wrong.
Christianity doesn’t start with our speculation about God. It starts with God’s self-revelation.
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.
The unity of God’s people is grounded not in lineage nor land but in the promise of the coming Christ.
“The well that washes what it shows” captures the essence of Linebaugh’s project, which aims to give the paradigmatic law-gospel hermeneutic a colloquial and visual language.
It is by his perfect surrender that our true Exodus was accomplished.
This is the second installment in our article series, “An Introduction to the Bondage of the Will,” written to commemorate the 500th anniversary of Martin Luther’s Bondage of the Will.
Why did the church dedicate a day to St. Michael anyway? Who is he, and what does he do?