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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Only through Christ and his work are our sins forgiven, and our consciences set free and made glad.
The gift of new life through His death and resurrection, creates Christ’s children, all of whom are being sent with beautiful feet and beautiful tongue and lips to serve as the Lord’s hitmen and midwives.
When the direction of preaching is dictated by the hashtag issues of the day, the pulpit becomes the perpetual servant of CNN and Fox News. The news and social media cycle, with its chameleonic alterations from this all-important issue (this week) to that next-all-important issue (next week), does not create a rhythmic dance for the church but a sort of frenzied whack-a-mole worship. Now smack your homiletical hand down on this…now that…now this…now that. We need something better.
The gospel does not proclaim the results of our practical reasoning about things we experience, but the horror of God crucified for our sins and at our hands.
Since Jesus has done everything we need for salvation, we can focus our works and efforts on serving our neighbor.
Silence is an important and valuable tool for change and empathy, self-reflection, and learning.
Christ isn’t preached in his glory but in his ignominy, his utter shame, degradation, and desolation.
Christ is joy and sweetness to a broken heart. Christ is a lover of poor sinners, and such a lover that He gave Himself for us.
The image of the cross stands as central to Luther’s comfort for those who endure persecution.
There is a time for justice. And there is a time for love. But love must always have the final word. Jesus must have the final word, because Jesus is God and God is Love.
The biggest point Luther makes about the descent is not that Jesus triumphed over hell idle and unaffected, but that Jesus defeated hell by suffering hell away.
In his last novel, Islands in the Stream, Hemingway shows us what we get when we look to nature for ultimate truth: death.