The Israelite God was different from all the other gods, thus, the worship of Yahweh differed from that of all other gods.
David finally found the truth that it was not his seed of kingship but the promise made to Abraham that made him holy. From that, David refused to be moved and wrote this Psalm by the necessity of the Spirit as the assurance of faith. The law never made a man holy, not even one as robust as David; yet faith did this great thing without lifting a finger.
Today, the longing for cultural Christianity on both the left and the right hearkens back to an older version of Christendom that was a mixed blessing for the church in the western world. The cultural mediation of Christian views on created order has certainly benefitted the civilization we’ve inherited. But the gospel itself isn’t something that can be reduced to cultural mediation either. Instead, the gospel as a message stands apart from all human accomplishments and achievements, no matter how beneficial they might be.

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Our only hope in life and death is that God loves sinners, who fail and forget constantly, with a love that is just as constant.
These are not exclusive words for Israel, but for all the people of the Lord God’s creation.
The celebration of Trinity Sunday–the only church festival specifically dedicated to a doctrine–reminds us of the necessity of confessing that the one God exists in three persons, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
That on Pentecost God’s Spirit should function through a dozen seeming inebriates should be no surprise when this same God saves through the ignominy of the cross.
The list of things our kids need to know when they leave the house is much simpler than we might believe.
In the face of abject evil, these two faithfully cling to the words and truths of he alone who is Good, Jehovah God.
If you want something empty, the tomb is the way to go. The point of the manger is that Jesus was in it. The point of the cross is that Jesus was on it.
I trust that because of the gospel, God will continue to mend what I, in my sin, continue to break.
There is someone outside of I, someone outside of you, that our faith and hope is in.
Jesus does not put us on trial and make us pay for our own sin, but he, himself, is put on trial in our place.
We worry about the fact our days are as grass – so we try to scratch out a place for ourselves, to make a permanent, lasting place, to climb to higher places and succeed, more often than not, only to hurt each other in the process.
The point Luther made, again and again, was that distance between God and sinners is collapsed when the crucified Christ himself comes to sinners through a preacher.