When Religion Becomes Obsolete, Christ Does Not

By Russ Lackey | Mark Mattes

01/20/26

19mins

When Religion Becomes Obsolete, Christ Does Not

American religion did not become optional because the gospel failed. It became optional because religion slowly redefined itself around usefulness.

Bradley Gray

01/19/26

Behold the Lamb

The Passover wasn’t just Israel’s story; it’s ours.

Psalm 12, Part 2: The Saint Fails, The Word Purifies

Steven Paulson

01/16/26

Psalm 12, Part 2: The Saint Fails, The Word Purifies

God makes us pure saints by planting us back in the earth we imagined we needed to escape.

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Chad Bird

01/27/22

The Mountain that Israel Moved

In Israel, once a year, a priestly climber would reach the peak of a very different kind of mountain. Here's his story.

John Bombaro

01/24/22

Jesus' Transfiguration and Disfiguration

If we think God’s power, love and beauty are reserved merely for the glories of Transfiguration, then we have not understood the Father; we have not understood divine revelation.

John Bombaro

01/22/22

Preaching Justification and Regeneration Together

Justification and regeneration are, therefore, necessarily connected and have profound implications upon the craft of preaching.

Martin Luther

01/21/22

Grace and Peace for Stubborn Sins

Grace remits sin, and peace quiets the conscience. Sin and conscience torment us, but Christ has overcome these fiends now and forever.

Wade Johnston

01/18/22

Our Weekly Epiphany: Boring?

Here, robed in Word and Sacrament, is your King, infant though He be, come out of eternity into time to bring you out of time and into eternity.

Wade Johnston

01/14/22

Peace for Simeon, and Us

Our children are not our own, but even more, our children are born in need. They are sinful, from conception and from birth.

Bradley Gray

01/13/22

The Words That Fill the Halls of Our Churches

I write this as someone who’s genuinely concerned that American congregants are getting bamboozled by preachers who are giving them less than what they need Sunday after Sunday.

Ryan Stevenson-Cosgrove

01/12/22

Death and Rebirth in James McBride's Deacon King Kong

At its heart, this is what Deacon King Kong is all about: the paradox of Jesus carving his victory out of the last thing we expect, not our triumphs but our defeats.

Brad Soenksen

01/11/22

Losers Not Choosers

Our only claim to fame is that we have been claimed by a God who is consistently drawn to losers!

Wade Johnston

01/10/22

Jesus' Baptism

You are not in debt to sin. You don’t owe it anything. There’s no reason for you to serve it.

John Bombaro

01/08/22

When Sermon Meets Sacrament

Christ is present in the pure preaching of the gospel. And if Christ is present, then we have entered into the domain of the sacraments.

Chad Bird

01/07/22

A Review of 'Figuring Resurrection' by Jeffrey Pulse

Viewing the Word as a unified theological narrative prevents us from treating the Scriptures like a cage match between competing theological systems, with prophets duking it out with apostles, and psalmists with evangelists, all supposedly fighting for their voice to be heard.

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