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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Devoid of the gospel of Jesus’s death and resurrection, sufferers are left to frantically run the halls of self-salvation, turning this way and that but never getting anywhere.
The great lie of addiction is that suffering must be fled, must be numbed, must be drowned out by any means necessary.
You cannot sever the saint from the sinner. Christians remain both simultaneously.
God is a judge, but unlike you, God is just!
Luther’s famous treatise contains great consolation for Christians struggling with grace, suffering, and hope.
There is no one — not now, not ever — who cannot be included in the family of God through the efficacy of Christ’s saving power.
As you step into the days ahead, remember this: no matter how lost you may feel, you have a God who seeks you out, celebrates your return, and rejoices over you.
It's a new year, and you are still the same you: a sinner who is simultaneously perfect in every way because Christ declares it to be so.
The Lord’s provision doesn’t rest on the strength of our gratitude.
The Lord has an answer to your tears, your trouble, your weariness, your enemies, your grief, your shame, your sin.
Jesus Christ is relentless. He does not give up. And with him comes the certainty of redemption.
Below is the Thinking Fellows Essential Reading List with contributions from each of the Thinking Fellows hosts.