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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To embrace our creatureliness is to affirm the truth that we were created to worship.
This is an excerpt from chapter 6 of Scandalous Stories by Daniel Emery Price and Erick Sorensen (1517 Publishing 2018).
We can do nothing to warrant entry into the kingdom of God nor are we getting in if we think a seat at God’s table is something to which we are entitled.
Instead of a death sentence, those brothers hear the words of deliverance.
Five promises were seemingly all those apostles, staring into the sky, had to go on. Five promises that were more than enough.
The lack of history surrounding Psalm 130 allows it to endure as universally appealing even for our seasons of hopelessness and despair when we’re in “the depths.”
The Good Shepherd doesn’t leave the sheep to fend for themselves.
In Israel today, it's still possible to witness the same scene the disciples saw 2000 years ago when the Bedouin shepherds bring their flocks home from various pastures at the end of the day.
The price was really paid. Your sin remains buried in Christ’s tomb.
When Jesus appeared again to his disciples on that first Easter evening and again a week later with Thomas and the Emmaus disciples, what did Jesus show them? His hands.
Jonah’s biggest blunder was a failure to understand that God’s grace is always undeserved and always falls on those who are unworthy of it.
Heaven is yours now.