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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The Son of Eve disarmed Satan’s hold on humanity, not with an earthquake, atomic bomb, or brilliant essay, but with his dead body and final words, “It is finished.”
The real question we must ask about God’s will isn’t, “God, command us according to your will and we’ll do it,” but, “God, what are you willing to do for us who can’t do what you command?”
We might not appreciate that God chooses to save us by his word alone, but our discomfort doesn’t make the promise any less effective.
Understanding the doctrine of the hypostatic union can help us understand what God is up to in the Incarnation.
Through the means of grace, Christ grants us a share in all the blessings of this ancient hope.
He will do it because God is the truth, and always deals with and in the truth.
Jesus gave His disciples the Lord’s Prayer as a gift. It’s really our prayer when you think about it.
Christ’s indwelling in the Christian must be tied relentlessly to these external and objective events of God’s own action.
The following is an excerpt from“Where Two or Three Are Gathered” edited by Scott Keith (1517 Publishing, 2019).
Theology is not to simply adopt the positions and presuppositions of philosophy, nor should it reject philosophy.
Every day, in everything we do and experience, we are busy hearing, seeing, and telling stories.
Ultimately it’s at the cross of Calvary, through the shed blood of Jesus Christ, the great Lion of Judah, that the stone table is broken, and everything sad does indeed finally come untrue.