God makes us pure saints by planting us back in the earth we imagined we needed to escape.
Salvation is not merely to be put in “safety” but to be put into Christ.
Bringing your family to church to receive “the one thing needful” (Luke 10:42) in Word and Sacrament honors and pleases God.

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As usual, Luther took what he received and turned it inside-out, so that it shifted from a series of demands and became a bestowal of God’s gracious promise.
At the core of Luther’s advice is the proclamation that we are free to hand over our pain, our sin, and our inabilities to our Savior.
To be lukewarm is to take refuge in your own works apart from the works of God.
Worship not only starts with God; it also returns to Him through the filter of the cross. Jesus did not enter a cosmic retirement after his ascension.
Only in this manner could the good that the law pointed to be completed. It was completed in us, not by us.
Our sin marked Christ. Jesus was marked with the scars of nails and a spear for us. His hands, feet, and side are marked with scars displaying the cost of our redemption.
The danger was not necessarily inside the city. Nor was it from an obvious source. Outside the walls of Thyatira, lay a small shrine of white stone.
God is used to working with colorful figures. One of the most colorful in the Bible is Balaam. Hailing from Mesopotamia, Balaam was what we might call a shaman or a soothsayer.
The following is an excerpt from Law and Gospel in Action written by Mark Mattes (1517 Publishing, 2019).
Pergamum! Oh, Pergamum! Behold the glory of Pergamum! It was not at this time the greatest provincial power, nor was it the most favored in the Roman Empire.
Many say Balaam was a prophet, but this was not so. Balaam was no prophet. At least, not a prophet of Yahweh.
This blog is a part of our Advent series on the hope we find in, through and given by Christ. Each week’s installment will look at hope from a different perspective with special emphasis on corresponding passages of Scripture.