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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Jesus’s freedom is different. It isn’t meant to indicate that the moorings which tether men and women to what is true, beautiful, and holy are unfastened, liberating them to do anything they please.
The upright, in whom the law has exercised its work, when they feel their sickness and weakness, say: God will help me; I trust in him; I build upon him; he is my rock and hope.
But the biggest problem with the Pharisee’s prayer is that he judges himself compared to other people, rather than to God. Our natural tendency is to do just this.
The Second Edition of “The Christian Life: Cross or Glory?” by Steven Hein is now available from 1517 Publishing.
The night has passed and the day broken. In response to the morning dawn, birds sing, beasts arouse themselves and all humanity arises.
Although God is always closer to us than the nose on our face, he has not taken the wraps off and given any sinful and mortal human being a full-measure, face-to-face meeting.
When explaining that sinners were saved by grace alone Erasmus would not go so far as to say that the reception of God’s grace erased human responsibility.
Erasmus laid out his argument for a theology of grace and free will in much the same way modern Protestants have done since the Enlightenment.
As long as the church teaches the gospel, it will suffer persecution.
Urchin at War is now available from 1517 Publishing
I am cognizant of the powerful lessons for life I owe to those nights in the air-raid shelter.
Luther's response to Erasmus was not meant to be a polite contribution to an academic duel.