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 weeps because his heart pulses with furious rage and fierce love.
While midnight might seem long, the mercy of God assures us that the morning will come.
If Jesus did not rise, then religion is just religion — a mere anthropological phenomenon.
Everything in Scripture is God revealing himself to his people, you and me.
Christ Jesus brings his word and presence to where you are and he is even willing to do so through the likes of your personally present pastor.
When we forget that we live by promise, that's when the danger tends to creep in. Because failing to embrace promise means we usually fall back into notions of luck, or even worse--into works.
Luther's emphasis on the need for sinners to have preachers who can provide them with the comfort and support they need for their faith in Jesus Christ and life is as relevant today as it was in his time.
Jesus cries on the cross for us. He suffers and cries and dies in our place. He is forsaken by his father so we don’t have to be.
The drama of Scripture is about God renaming us by bringing us into his image-bearing family once again. And it would take “a name above all names” to accomplish it.
His love for you is so deep that in his mercy, while you were yet a sinner, God sent his only begotten Son to die for you.
Predestination, Jim knew, is no longer a frightening doctrine of mystery when you understand that God makes his choice about you in the simple word of God, given from one sinner to another.
Christ our Word, as with a two-edged sword, burst the devil's belly.