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.
Was Jesus ambitious or unambitious? We have to say that the answer is…yes.

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The expectation of the Old Testament is NOT first and foremost obedience, but rather adoration!
If Christ is the holiness, righteousness, salvation, truth, grace, resurrection life, eternal life, and perfection of God, then the spirit of the world is the antithesis of all those.
Jesus is the vine. You are His branches. And God the Father delights to bring the inside out.
Now, if there were another way to heaven, doubtless, he would have made it known to us.
The creatures and the elders show us what to do now. They hit the deck, sing, and worship, so we would know what the liturgy is supposed to look and sound like.
For those of us who recognize the disciples’ despair in ourselves, Jesus comes with the same word: “Relax, it’s me. Peace be with you.”
This is an excerpt from the introduction of Ragged: Spiritual Disciplines for the Spiritually Exhausted written by Gretchen Ronnevik (1517 Publishing, 2021). Now available for preorder.
It’s God’s love that sets us free to love in the first place.
The biblical shepherd leads his sheep. He provides for their needs. He protects them from enemies, and he does not leave his sheep unattended.
Resurrection life is not something cast into the future. The future is now.
He continues to gather other sheep in, and He does it through the selfless serving and the gracious speaking of His people.
The result of this day’s proceedings, in Luther’s mind, was likely to be a painful death at the stake.