When Religion Becomes Obsolete, Christ Does Not

By Russ Lackey | Mark Mattes

01/20/26

19mins

When Religion Becomes Obsolete, Christ Does Not

American religion did not become optional because the gospel failed. It became optional because religion slowly redefined itself around usefulness.

Bradley Gray

01/19/26

Behold the Lamb

The Passover wasn’t just Israel’s story; it’s ours.

Psalm 12, Part 2: The Saint Fails, The Word Purifies

Steven Paulson

01/16/26

Psalm 12, Part 2: The Saint Fails, The Word Purifies

God makes us pure saints by planting us back in the earth we imagined we needed to escape.

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Ken Sundet Jones

07/28/22

Church Fathers: Cyril of Alexandria, Saint and Sinner

Cyril’s fervor for pure explication of the gospel was present throughout his career.

Dan Weber

07/24/22

Gospel: Luke 12:13-21 (Pentecost 8: Series C)

What Jesus promises is better than justice. Jesus promises grace.

David Clay

07/22/22

Calling, Politics, and the City of God

Finding the balance between indifferentism and obsessiveness has never been easy, and it’s especially difficult in our environment.

John Bombaro

07/20/22

Hate and Death Flipped Upside Down

Vilification of the other is married to the justification of the self.

Martin Luther

07/19/22

Miniature Death

The spirit indeed is willing and desires bodily death as a gentle sleep. It does not consider it to be death; it knows no such thing as death.

Dan Weber

07/17/22

Gospel: Luke 11:1-13 (Pentecost 7: Series C)

This is not just a pericope about hereditary sin and actual sins, nor is it providing a pattern for prayer. It is fundamentally about God our gracious Father and His promise to hear us, answer us, and provide for us.

Bradley Gray

07/14/22

Having Done All to Stand

History is the painful realization that we aren’t the ones who can save the world but, rather, we’re the ones who get saved.

John Bombaro

07/13/22

An Impossible Standard...Attained!

In Jesus, the most totalizing summary of the law becomes the gospel of the one made perfect through obedience.

Philip Bartelt

07/12/22

Marx, Prayer, and Humanity

In the place of God, Marx sets the material, autonomous, self-creating man.

Dan Weber

07/10/22

Gospel: Luke 10:38-42 (Pentecost 6: Series C)

But it is not always helpful to create tidy categories of good and bad and to say, “Stop being ‘a Martha’ and do a better job of being ‘a Mary.’” That is a dangerous sermon to preach. In doing so, we can fall into the very thing we see Martha doing.

Daniel Emery Price

07/07/22

The Law Cannot Enter The Promised Land

Moses is no Jesus but he, like us, is saved by Him. The law cannot enter the promised land, and yet the true and greater promised land is occupied by nothing but lawbreakers.

Sam P. Schuldheisz

07/06/22

Rainstorms and Reformations

Through Martin Luther, God would unleash a far greater storm than the one which overwhelmed Luther on July 2, 1505.

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