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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God leads us to green pastures. He comforts us with his grace in our darkest valleys.
The following entries are excerpts from Chad Bird’s upcoming book, Untamed Prayers: 365 Daily Devotions on Christ in the Book of the Psalms (1517 Publishing, 2025), pgs. 191-192.
Here is the true story, the one worth remembering: You are a gift.
For those with faith in Christ, there is always a happy ending.
Tetzel peddled righteousness for gold, but God gives it freely through faith in his promised Word, the person and work of Jesus Christ.
Instead of offering more details or more information, he does something even better: he promises his very presence.
MacArthur’s courage to speak Scripture’s truth, no matter the audience, should be commended.
Paradoxes hold everything together, not just in Inception’s plot, but in your life and mine.
We don’t flinch at sin. We speak Christ into it.
This is the first installment in the 1517 articles series, “What Makes a Saint?”
The doctrine of the Trinity is not so much the story of a “who-dunnit” as it is the story of the “who-is-it.”
You are a soul. Not an algorithm. Not a hashtag. A soul knit together by a God who does not mock, does not abandon, and does not lie.