Author
  1. My fear of this coming darkness only lasts a moment.
  2. The needs of the people remain the same, but now the people are you and me. We still sin, and that sin causes so many challenges in our lives.
  3. It’s scary to share my struggle and to show that I have cracks because once I’ve shown my cards, I open myself up for judgment.
  4. This is an excerpt from the introduction of “Common Places in Christian Theology: A Curated Collection of Essays from Lutheran Quarterly,” edited by Mark Mattes (1517 Publishing, 2023).
  5. Human history, our history, is the story of two Adams with two very different encounters with the devil.
  6. What we discover in O’Connor’s stories and Martin Luther’s theology is that God’s grace is elusive because the human heart is resistant to it.
  7. Sunshine and rain, food and harvests, family, friends, and health, love and joy. All these things and more he gives, not because of what you do or don’t do, but because he is generous and gracious.
  8. We can’t predict the harvest. We can only sow.
  9. Nothing moves or drives Paul more than preaching about “Christ and him crucified” (1 Cor. 2:2).
  10. We don't make Church "happen." Only Christ can do so. It's his happening.
  11. Some explanations are better than others, but they remain our explanations—except if we had some perspective from outside, above, and behind nature.
  12. Unprompted, without any warning, for no reason at all, without any instigation say, "I love you." And that will wash over your parents like a beautiful absolution.