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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It's one thing to hope for a new reality; it's quite another to stand before it, no matter how wonderful.
Dave weaves together music, movies, and documentaries to illustrate all the ways we seek relief—and then, full and free, he connects our need to Christ’s gift.
Kleinig continually directs the reader's attention to Christ and his gifts.
In response to the Lord's undeserved love, Manasseh looked to him as the true God.
Sometimes the old story is the one we need to hear again and again.
The great lie of addiction is that suffering must be fled, must be numbed, must be drowned out by any means necessary.
You cannot sever the saint from the sinner. Christians remain both simultaneously.
In grace, God chooses to love his people.
Luther’s famous treatise contains great consolation for Christians struggling with grace, suffering, and hope.
The addict’s condition speaks a hard truth: that we are all beggars before God, every one of us bent toward the grave.
There is no one — not now, not ever — who cannot be included in the family of God through the efficacy of Christ’s saving power.
"When God has his say, have confidence that his Word and sacraments bestow precisely what he says."