As Jesus hung on the cross there would be no last second escape. No Greek goddess would swoop in to rescue him. He suffered alone. And yet even in that suffering he declared his victory on the spiritual battlefield to be your victory.
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.

All Articles

As the sin-bearer, Jesus was also the sin-confessor in the psalms.
“Poverty of spirit” is not an ethical value we strive for. It is an act of God’s mercy spoken to the deepest recesses of our soul when it’s overwhelmed by God’s grace.
Our certainty is of Christ, that mighty hero who overcame the Law, sin, death, and all evils.
Christian hope means always hope in God and hope in Christ simultaneously without distinction.
The only one truly blessed of God, who in himself is God’s incarnate makarios, surrounds himself with a multitude of the accursed, the non-makarios.
It is not her sacrifices that define Jane's faith, but her belief in the one who sacrificed for her.
This is an edited excerpt from “The Pastoral Prophet: Meditations on the Book of Jeremiah” written by Steve Kruschel (1517 Publishing, 2019).
Despite what the Pharisees believed and advertised, Jesus was not intent upon deconstructing the fundamental tenets of the Old Testament law. Actually, he proceeds to do just the opposite.
Hermeneutics in Romans: Paul’s Approach to Reading the Bible is now available from 1517 Publishing
Jesus comes to you. He binds your wounds, and he pours out his body and his blood for the forgiveness of your sins.
This is an excerpt from “Hermeneutics in Romans: Paul’s Approach to Reading the Bible” written by Timo Laato (1517 Publishing, 2021). Now available for preorder.
Everyone is living as a naked sufferer who’s been duped into believing that the nakedness of suffering has to be covered up.