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.
Christian spirituality is not a flight from the world, but a deep dive into its brokenness.
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.
While ambiguous “Christ-centeredness” by its very nature fragments Christianity by way of its subjectivism, Christological commitments beget unity or, at least, move strongly in that direction.
The Word seems like it is so little, like five barley loaves and two small fish, but it is all that God used to create the heavens and the earth.
Bitterness took root when he began approaching the Word merely as a burden he was called to carry rather than a balm that his soul needed, too.
The “mystery of faith” entails the article of faith: Incarnation, Crucifixion, Resurrection, Ascension, and, finally, his Parousia.
Children are not meant to carry crowns. They are not meant to rule. The burden crushes them in slow, invisible ways.
Tetzel peddled righteousness for gold, but God gives it freely through faith in his promised Word, the person and work of Jesus Christ.
Why reflect on these three men — MacArthur, Ozzy, and Hulk Hogan — in the same breath?
‘Peace’ means “I have forgiven all those sins against me.”
We don’t flinch at sin. We speak Christ into it.