This article is the first part of a two-part series. The second part will take a look at when pastors abuse their congregations.
The following entries are excerpts from Chad Bird’s new book, Untamed Prayers: 365 Daily Devotions on Christ in the Book of the Psalms (1517 Publishing, 2025), pgs. 311 and 335
Why did the church dedicate a day to St. Michael anyway? Who is he, and what does he do?

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Some have built an entire theology on the false assumption that when God commands us to obey or believe, we have the ability to obey or believe.
The Law must attack because nothing outside of Christ can enter Heaven—nothing!
We all look forward to Lent’s conclusion and the celebration of Resurrection Sunday. This is the Sunday of victory and joy as the Church enters into the reality that Christ has defeated death and hell, declared victory over such enemies and set history on its final course of consummation.
As sinful humans, we are adept at taking what God gives as gift and making it into a work. Nowhere is this made more evident than in the universally misunderstood doctrine of sanctification.
No matter how great our efforts or how righteous our intent, we will go from troubled to scared, and scared to terrified, unless we are sprinkled with the blood of the Lamb.
God goes to work on us through His Word like a woodcarver chisels a block of wood.
While I was still an over-eager seminarian the professor warned me, “Mr. Riley, this is exciting stuff.
Freedom from the Law does not come through personal perfection, it comes through Jesus Christ. The answer is not a better you, but a you who is united to God through Christ.
One of the most famous things Jesus ever said was “Follow me.” He said it over and over. So much that it was recorded more than twenty times in the New Testament.
“Putting hope in the cross of Christ means putting hope outside of anything – mentally, physically or even spiritually – you do.”
The folly of sinful man attempting to bridge such an infinite gap to God Who is holy becomes obvious.
You are made new by the eternal satisfaction for sin in Christ, by the precious treasure at God’s right hand.