1. 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.
  2. 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.
  3. We don't make Church "happen." Only Christ can do so. It's his happening.
  4. Even if the numbers are bad, the news about Jesus crucified for sinners and raised to new life hasn’t become any less good.
  5. There is a revival, no less real and even more definitive, taking place in every church, every weekend, where God’s people gather around his gifts.
  6. This is an excerpt from “The Alien and the Proper: Luther's Two-Fold Righteousness in Controversy, Ministry, and Citizenship,” edited by Robert Kolb (1517 Publishing, 2023). Now available for purchase.
  7. The sign of the cross, according to the earliest centuries of Christians, is “the sign of the Lord,” and every baptized Christian was “marked” with it.
  8. That great truth of creedal Christianity – that God is man in Christ – is not set forth for our speculative enjoyment.
  9. Psalm 98, with its promise of a sea and mountains singing, takes these imposing natural features and turns them into a praise choir.
  10. Despite our best efforts to avoid him, King Jesus remains very much unavoidable.
  11. When and how did the church start this season of anticipation?