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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God is a judge, but unlike you, God is just!
In grace, God chooses to love his people.
Luther’s famous treatise contains great consolation for Christians struggling with grace, suffering, and hope.
I realized that no matter where I call "home," I won't be able to shake the feeling of homesickness.
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.
It's a new year, and you are still the same you: a sinner who is simultaneously perfect in every way because Christ declares it to be so.
The love of God is creative, always giving, always reviving.
In Scripture, laments are raw expressions of grief, but they always point to hope. What if our culture’s obsession with holiday lights is an unconscious way of crying out, “We need good news, and we need it now”?
The Lord has an answer to your tears, your trouble, your weariness, your enemies, your grief, your shame, your sin.
Below is the Thinking Fellows Essential Reading List with contributions from each of the Thinking Fellows hosts.
Press on, church. Yours is the victory through Jesus Christ your Lord.
Jesus took the poison of sin and drank the cup of wrath on our behalf to gain favor and righteousness for us.