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.

All Articles

The LORD sends His Son who targets those who are trampled and downtrodden. He comes for all, but He specifically includes the less fortunate.
My words are peanuts compared to the porterhouse of God’s Word.
Only by faith in Christ are we truly awake.
The LORD God declares He Himself will shepherd His sheep. He will seek them out. He will rescue them. He will save. He will gather them in. In other words, the Good Shepherd will take care of His own sheep.
The smallest amount of Holy Spirit-created faith defeats every antichrist belief we hold.
These words direct the people of God how to live in their identity as God’s children. We would say, this is the reality of our baptismal identity!
The Ichthus is a confession in picture form, a visual sermon of the gospel of Christ crucified.
The legal record of debt for our sin was canceled because Jesus satisfied the legal demands for us by his life, death, and resurrection.
All of this is interesting and useful in preparing a sermon, however, there are no explicit words of Gospel in this text. How does one preach without shoe-horning the Gospel into the message, perhaps in an inappropriate or confusing manner?
As is often the case in Scripture, creation is about a renewed, restored, and redeemed relationship with the Creator.
To “trust in God in trial” means we fight our battles by kneeling and praying to “the Holy One of Israel,” who works out our deliverance by himself.
The real presence of the LORD does not pop-up unannounced when Jesus institutes the Lord’s Supper—it has been a theme from the days in the Garden of Eden when He walked and talked with His people.