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 lives to intercede. So we needn’t bring him our feigned righteousness or our faux rehabilitation.
In schools and on barstools and in delis and where two or three gather, your Savior turns you loose to encounter those who are delightful and loveable.
Apathy, melancholy, and disillusionment plague the footsteps of the up-and-coming generations more than ever, especially in the realm of religion, and it’s worth asking, “Why?”
The place where it is most difficult for us to accept God’s will is when suffering, calamities, and finally, death itself.
Yes, Adam and Eve both participated in sin. This was a joint effort of the two genders of mankind. They are both sinners. But the first sin wasn't letting the serpent in the garden.
Jesus Christ is our peace because he doesn't criticize us. He declares us freed from our perceptions to accept the truth about ourselves.
We can celebrate what others consider mundane and ordinary because it's miraculous. After all, it's God-given.
John T. Pless has prepared a midweek Lenten sermon series that will fix our eyes on the saving work of the triune God. Based on Martin Luther’s hymn “Dear Christians One and All Rejoice,” this series will provide preachers an opportunity to proclaim the saving work of God to their hearers throughout the season of Lent.
Regardless of my experience, my talents, or even my mood, it’s these gifts of Christ that I have to give away. They are all I have, and they are everything.
Our anxiety about the future is a consequence of our old self’s attempts to achieve freedom for himself apart from Christ Jesus.
And because Jesus on the cross was sin in its entirety, God cannot look at him. He turns his face away, causing Jesus to cry out in utmost agony, “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?”
When God cancels you, it is an occasion for all of the canceled who are in heaven and earth to rejoice in that one more is added to our number.