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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It isn’t that God struggles to believe our repeated cries of “wolf.” Rather, we struggle to believe God when he repeatedly comes to us with forgiveness and mercy on his lips.
Luther’s allies and opponents also would not allow him to put off responding to Erasmus indefinitely. They badgered him constantly to write a response.
The Church is where God has instituted the office of the preacher of the gospel. And if you are let-down, the gospel is what you need to hear.
This is an excerpt from the introduction of “Urchin at War: Volume 1” by Uwe Siemon-Netto (1517 Publishing, 2021).
The Christ Key: Unlocking the Centrality of Christ in the Old Testament by Chad Bird is now available to order
When we read about Noah, we are reading backward to Adam and forward to Jesus.
Christ strikes a blow first against the presumption of those who would storm their way into heaven by their good works.
While baptism is a “once and for all” event that should not be repeated in the Christian’s life, the effects of baptism continue throughout the life of the believer.
The giver of life, the source of joy, stands weeping together with the human family as they grieve under the curse of sin.
The Christian sermon is Gospel preaching. We only preach the Gospel. Only the Gospel is the sermon, notwithstanding necessary admonishments of law and requisite exhortations toward sanctification.
Take away the communal aspect, take away the communal gathering around Christ’s body and blood, and the Christian will begin to suffer a malnutrition of faith.
As the sin-bearer, Jesus was also the sin-confessor in the psalms.