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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He loved me, to be sure, but in a very nondescript, emotionally detached way, which is the way my grandfather loved him.
Nonetheless, if we wish to treat apologetics as a practical endeavor for concrete engagement with people who ask about Christianity, it seems best to start with the questions young people are actually asking.
You may not believe it; you may even scoff at the claim, but here’s the truth: God hears your roar of pain on the other side of your silence. He counts every tear you let escape, or refuse to let go, from the ocean of anguish inside you.
I have found that Gandalf’s words above ring true, not only in Middle-earth, but in our world as well.
I once heard a grad school professor say that America really is a polytheistic nation since so many people believe in so many different gods.
Religious scholars of various allegiances have challenged this idea that all religions are saying the same thing.
In reality, Easter equals good news for you. And our world needs some good news. Maybe we’re not even sure what’s wrong, but we know this world is broken.
A twelve-year-old girl stomped out of the room and slammed her bedroom door. Her two parents sat at the table completely befuddled. They had been trying to lead her to grace, to forgiveness, to a remembering that she was loved.
Asking whether one's beliefs are the right ones is terrifying.
Moms, your worth is not determined by what present you get on Mother’s Day. Everything that is true about you was said on the cross thousands of years ago.
It is Tolkien's adept ability at combining imagination with Sub-Creation to give his fictional world of Middle-Earth that ‘inner consistency of reality’ which points to the truth of the Gospel.
Why do many Christians dislike apologetics? Because difference makes sectarians and xenophobic people gag.