How do the words “The righteous shall live by his faith” go from a context of hope in hopelessness to the cornerstone declaration of the chief doctrine of the Christian faith?
As soon as people understand what crucifixion means, the cross becomes offensive.
This is the third installment in the 1517 articles series, “What Makes a Saint?”

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The difference between God's gospel and man's could not be greater.
This is an excerpt from Chapter 4 of Clothed with Christ written byBrian W. Thomas (1517 Publishing, 2024). Now available for preorder.
As both law and gospel are proclaimed, judgment and deliverance are miraculously pronounced over the hearer.
What the gospel does is take people who were enemies of God and transform them into lovers of God
Free speech isn't dead yet, and when it comes to the proclamation of the gospel, it never will be.
Despite the fact that this could sound strange to modern ears, Luther has an important reason for saying what he does about the Commandments.
The Christian must always remember that personal piety and liturgical uniformity are by no means the marks of true religion.
We don't associate the word "regret" with anything "good," but God does.
If your faith is rooted in the gospel of Zion, in the good news of Jesus’s life, death, and resurrection on your behalf, you are already a member of the “heavenly Jerusalem”
This is an excerpt from “Confession and Absolution” by John T. Pless in Common Places in Theology: A Curated Collection of Essays from Lutheran Quarterly, edited by Mark Mattes, (1517 Publishing 2023).
The cross not only stands as the measure of our hatred of God but also as the measure of God’s love for us.
It is difficult to overestimate the importance of these early Lutheran hymns – and their physical availability in hymnals – in the piety of common people living in Lutheran towns and territories.