God can handle grief, rage, and cries for justice. God can handle the victim who cannot yet forgive. God can handle the prayer that comes out jagged and wounded. The good news is that God is holy and merciful enough to handle all our prayers.
But while scholars are right to focus on the bond between Martin and Hans, the evidence of Martin’s own words suggests their relationship may not have been as troubled as some suppose. For Hans Luther was not a cartoon villain but a normal human being attempting to make his way in the world and raise his children to the best of his ability.
Jesus offers something infinitely better. He tells us to put down our gavel—not because sin isn't real, but because the only Judge who has the right to condemn is the very One who was condemned for us.

All Articles

Show me a sinner, and I’ll write you a story of a God who saves them.
Just as trick-or-treaters arrive at doorsteps as beggars, we come to the Lord’s table with nothing to offer but our sin and need for forgiveness.
The story of Jesus's temptation has much more to offer than merely giving us a "how-to" guide on kicking Satan to the curb.
God’s creatures on four legs are some of the greatest storytellers of the Scriptures.
The central message of Christianity is not a worldview, a way of life, or a program for personal or societal change; it is a person and the message of the cross.
What a small thing in the big picture to give his head for the Head of the Church who would give his life for John and all sinners.
Jesus took the poison of sin and drank the cup of wrath on our behalf to gain favor and righteousness for us.
The gospel is his weapon that beats back the darkness — “I AM the Resurrection and the Life. Bow your head, bend the knee when I walk by.”
God can never really be said to be ignoring us, even if our experience with God at any given moment is that he is.
This great victory, the true defeat of death, I receive not by my thinking, willing, or working, but simply by believing.
This is an excerpt from the introduction of Hitchhiking with Prophets: A Ride Through the Salvation Story of the Old Testament written by Chad Bird (1517 Publishing, 2024). Now available for preorder.
Like the serpent on the pole, God still puts real-life things up for us to look to for salvation.