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?

All Articles

Paul says that the power of sin is the law. The more clearly we understand the law, the more sin oppresses and stings us.
The primary point of Joseph’s life (and every story in Scripture) is to point us to Christ. To tell us something about what God is like and how He interacts with His Creation.
Christ has forgiven you, and all of your worship, all of your prayers, all of your offerings are accepted because they are built on the foundation of Christ’s forgiveness.
Christ teaches that we are not lost, but have eternal life. That God has so loved us that he allowed the ransom to cost him his only beloved child.
God and love are synonymous. Any talk about love that is not talk about Jesus is, at most, a half-truth.
This article is the second installment in an eight-part series inspired by the Lenten themes of catechesis, prayer, and repentance found in the Lord’s Prayer as Luther taught it in his Small Catechism.
We're ALL sinners in need of a Savior. We're all saints whose Savior forgives ALL our sin. We're all the same in relation to Christ crucified for the sin of the world.
Faith is a gift from God. It’s not flashy or boast-worthy. It’s total dependency on the God who saves utter fools.
God’s will is not sparkly, flashy, exciting, extraordinary plans for your life—at least not in the Old Adam’s eyes. So, what is the will of God?
His resurrection reveals that Jonah, and all of us, even the evilest people, are salvageable, even from suicide, in Jesus' death and resurrection.
The following is an excerpt from "Finding Christ in the Straw," written by Robert M. Hiller (1517 Publishing, 2020).
They were righteous, but they were righteous because God declared it so. Just like us.