The Reformers did not return to the sources because they believed the old was better than the new, nor because antiquity possesses authority simply by virtue of its age. They returned to the sources to recover the language and words that were actually written and spoken, especially those by great teachers and, most importantly, God Himself.
The certainty of faith is utter assurance because it depends upon nothing of your own. It is entirely trusting that God is a propitious, pardoning God—the God who justifies sinners by forgiving them.
Sinners get faith as a gift when Christ takes their captivity captive.

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Jesus’ miracle in this sermon, then, is a type of the compassion He has for your hearers. While they certainly have many physical needs, your hearers also (more fundamentally) need Jesus’ mercy and forgiveness.
The power of God's Word is nothing like human power. People exercise power through force and violence. God's Word manifests His power through humility, service, and self-sacrifice.
He is our gold. He is our pure garment. He is our healing. He is our sanity. He is our wholeness.
There is no comfort in naked sovereignty. A bully may be said to be “sovereign” over the elementary school playground, but that doesn’t bring much comfort nor does it promise security. We need something more than a God who is in control.
Apart from God's word, we will judge the right to be wrong and evil people as good.
The well-known Sunday School story of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego is far from a simple account of three brave and faithful Israelites. It’s a mini-story with a mega-story tucked inside it—a story that links it (backward) to Exodus and (forward) to the Gospels.
God created humanity in his image and then inhabited that image. Not just for 33 years, but for eternity thereafter.
Christ presents to us such liberty, so that we as Christians according to our faith may tolerate no other master, but only hold that we are baptized and called unto Christ, and through him have become justified and sanctified.
Lack of effort isn’t the sworn enemy of fruit-bearing. Self-sufficiency is.
“Who Am I?” edited by Scott Ashmon (1517 Publishing, 2020) is now available for purchase.
There is often no way forward for us without the prophetic lament, because such laments force out our honesty and resentment at the God who does not treat us as we expect to be treated.
God not only unites us to himself by the death and resurrection of his Son; he unites us, the church, together and to himself under Christ as his children.