God can handle grief, rage, and cries for justice. God can handle the victim who cannot yet forgive. God can handle the prayer that comes out jagged and wounded. The good news is that God is holy and merciful enough to handle all our prayers.
But while scholars are right to focus on the bond between Martin and Hans, the evidence of Martin’s own words suggests their relationship may not have been as troubled as some suppose. For Hans Luther was not a cartoon villain but a normal human being attempting to make his way in the world and raise his children to the best of his ability.
Jesus offers something infinitely better. He tells us to put down our gavel—not because sin isn't real, but because the only Judge who has the right to condemn is the very One who was condemned for us.

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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. 32, 52.
We need redemption, and we receive it in our church community through God’s Word.
We don’t flinch at sin. We speak Christ into it.
As soon as people understand what crucifixion means, the cross becomes offensive.
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.
God chooses to clothe himself in promises and hides himself in his word.
If you struggle with doubt, take heart: You are not alone.
I realized that no matter where I call "home," I won't be able to shake the feeling of homesickness.
This is the second article in a special three-part Advent series on how Jesus is our prophet, priest, and king.
The Lord has an answer to your tears, your trouble, your weariness, your enemies, your grief, your shame, your sin.
Below is the Thinking Fellows Essential Reading List with contributions from each of the Thinking Fellows hosts.
What is it about the cross and its embrace of shame that informs and inspires Christians, who, for various reasons, might find themselves inscribed by shame, to no longer be shameful?