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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This article is part of Stephen Paulson’s series on the Psalms.
There is a bit of Narcissus in all of us. We are all lost within ourselves.
In the Bible, we meet the God who also does not prance around naked as a jaybird.
The one who delights in the law of the Lord learns to fear his own good works and trust God outside of them.
God’s headline for his church prioritizes the person of Jesus and his purpose to demonstrate God’s power by dying and rising again for our salvation.
The gospel is his weapon that beats back the darkness — “I AM the Resurrection and the Life. Bow your head, bend the knee when I walk by.”
When the historical importance of revivalism is understood, one can appreciate that the question, “Could America experience another revival?” is also a question about the fate of Christianity in America.
This is an excerpt from chapter 6 of Scandalous Stories by Daniel Emery Price and Erick Sorensen (1517 Publishing 2018).
With the Spirit we will get lost in the world. We are on a new track.
We know we are made for something great. We humans were created in God’s image and restored through Christ in his perfect image.
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.
Five promises were seemingly all those apostles, staring into the sky, had to go on. Five promises that were more than enough.