There is indeed a responsibility for the church to share the gospel in the world, but never at the expense of the church’s charity and mercy for those neighbors who are nearby.
The only hope for idol-addicted sinners who are utterly incapable of decluttering their souls is Jesus, the one at the heart of the gospel, and the only one who stands before the Father with an undivided heart.
More than a friend, Amsdorf was also an important figure in the work of religious reform, providing counsel to Luther on key occasions, shepherding the churches, and defending the faith until his death.

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I finally watched the film “Encanto” with my kids. I had heard many people say the subtext of this movie was deeper than most. So, we snuggled up on the couch and watched it to see what everyone was talking about.
Death is not the continuation of an adventure; death is being planted in the ground. The adventure belongs to the resurrection of the dead and the life of the world to come.
The theology is obvious: God is in control—so much so, that He can even use evil to accomplish His purposes.
By listing a series of situations in rapid succession, Jesus overwhelms us with how practical, how real, how tangible, how concrete, how utterly achievable life in the kingdom can be.
Excerpt #1 from the new book “Withertongue Emails" by Donavon Riley.
If God ever forgives you, it is not just allowing you to start over and try harder the second time, but it is a whole, new, complete justification that is given as a free gift and without any work of our own—outside the law.
The language of faith speaks promise and persecution, hope and trial, victory and pain. The language of the world may well speak the former, but rarely the latter.
God’s design in the Law is to enable man to know himself; to perceive the false and unjustified state of his heart; to discover how far he is from God and to disdain his own goodness.
The question the pericope begs us to contemplate is not whether the heart trusts or believes, but rather, what does the heart trust and believe in.
The foundation of the faith Paul wants you to cling to is not an abstract principle, but a human body: the human body of Jesus, that once was a corpse, and now is alive forever more.
Jesus curses our cultural expectations. He says "woe" to those who are rich, satisfied, joyful, and praised. The good life of our world is not good for discipleship.
The world we inhabit is wrong in so many ways, and a holistic approach to this “wrongness” traces its cause both to sin itself and to the effects of sin.