The church is not renewed when one pastor tries to do the work of the whole body. The church is renewed when Christ’s body begins to act like a body again.
This is what Christian catechesis does; it turns the knobs of the Scriptures and throws the doors of God’s word wide open to tell us the story of salvation.
Christianity isn’t simply a tool to fix social, spiritual, or economic problems. Its claims are much larger, touching upon truth itself and therefore all things and all people.

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The danger was not necessarily inside the city. Nor was it from an obvious source. Outside the walls of Thyatira, lay a small shrine of white stone.
God is used to working with colorful figures. One of the most colorful in the Bible is Balaam. Hailing from Mesopotamia, Balaam was what we might call a shaman or a soothsayer.
Holding to Jesus’ teaching while denying His divinity presents a host of complications that make it difficult to take one and leave the other.
Your eternal salvation isn’t dependent on performance or effort. Well, not your performance anyway...
The following is an excerpt from Law and Gospel in Action written by Mark Mattes (1517 Publishing, 2019).
Like the Pharisees, as well-meaning, contemporary Christians we too can often add fences to God’s Law.
The history of the early Reformation in the New World is both a tale of pirates and the battle of catechisms.
Pergamum! Oh, Pergamum! Behold the glory of Pergamum! It was not at this time the greatest provincial power, nor was it the most favored in the Roman Empire.
Theology is a practical habit—that is, an aptitude cultivated to be applied in the real world in daily life.
And so, when you preach the Law, you are also instructing the conscience and thereby forming it. For some of your hearers, this will result in activating their consciences, making them more sensitive, so they become more aware of their sin and more urgently seek the Gospel. For others, it is a re-instruction.
In our democratic society we love to talk about freedom. But anybody out there ever tried to be perfect? Ah, shucks. Turns out we’re not as free as we thought.
We expect God to try us, not for our crimes, but for our better moments.