God can handle grief, rage, and cries for justice. God can handle the victim who cannot yet forgive. God can handle the prayer that comes out jagged and wounded. The good news is that God is holy and merciful enough to handle all our prayers.
But while scholars are right to focus on the bond between Martin and Hans, the evidence of Martin’s own words suggests their relationship may not have been as troubled as some suppose. For Hans Luther was not a cartoon villain but a normal human being attempting to make his way in the world and raise his children to the best of his ability.
Jesus offers something infinitely better. He tells us to put down our gavel—not because sin isn't real, but because the only Judge who has the right to condemn is the very One who was condemned for us.

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The grain of God’s goodness and grace is made known by many trees throughout the Bible.
The love of God is creative, always giving, always reviving.
Longstanding tradition must be bolstered by something outside of ourselves that also lies outside of the traditions of men.
No matter how many times we hear this good news, it never stops being good news.
Our faith is precisely where Paul puts it, namely, in the blood of Christ.
Below is the Thinking Fellows Essential Reading List with contributions from each of the Thinking Fellows hosts.
Dr. Montgomery taught me the Christian faith is both a true story and a delightful story—in fact, it is the greatest story ever told.
Dr. Montgomery spent his life—even into his final year at the age of 92—contending for the whole Christian faith once and for all delivered to the saints.
The connection between music and the created order is a long lasting one.
The point of Revelation is to reveal consolation in Jesus, not to revel in chaos and confusion.
This is an excerpt from the Chapter 12 of Hitchhiking with the Prophets: A Ride Through the Salvation Story of the Old Testament written by Chad Bird (1517 Publishing, 2024). Now available!
This is an excerpt from “Confession and Absolution” by John T. Pless in Common Places in Theology: A Curated Collection of Essays from Lutheran Quarterly, edited by Mark Mattes, (1517 Publishing 2023).