This is an excerpt from the third chapter of By Water and the Word: God’s Gift of Baptism for You by Brian Thomas (1517 Publishing, 2026), pgs 52-60.
Even when the bitter places sink down deep into our bones, the Restorer never relinquishes his grip on you.
To Live Well is therefore not a general advice book, but a message suffused with the gospel.

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“There,” the Queen said, “That’s so much better than talking, isn’t it?”
Only by faith in Christ are we truly awake.
Increasingly, to forgive is seen as winking at evil, as shrugging one’s moral shoulders, and as being complicit.
Good, we tend to think, is the absence of evil. But this reversal of the formula can only have disastrous consequences.
Cranach became the evangelical interpreter for the masses
God is consistently rooting us in reality—both what is seen and unseen—because that is where he is.
Our challenge today is to inspire trust and curiosity so this generation will openly ask the question, who speaks the words of truth?
At the heart of The Idiot is Dostoevsky's confession of faith and the confession of all Christians.
Sometimes I think we should be more tempted to laugh at the gospel than we are, not in derision but in sheer surprise and awe.
The world hates Jesus because he comes to lead us to love and forgive all, including our enemies.
FLAME uses Scripture and church history to argue that baptism is a gospel gift, not our work.
For Japan’s highly secularized elite, alienated by collapsing opportunity and the materialistic void left behind, Bach’s music was a balm.