Wade Johnston, Life Under the Cross: A Biography of the Reformer Matthias Flacius Illyricus, Concordia Publishing House, St. Louis: MO, 2025.
This ancient “tale of two mothers” concerns far more than theological semantics—it is the difference between a God who sends and a God who comes.
This story points us from our unlikely heroes to the even more unlikely, and joyous, good news that Jesus’ birth for us was just as unlikely and unexpected.

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It would serve us well to embrace the beauty of our diversity within the unity of the body of Christ.
Do our petitions move God?
God has a hall ready for us, for us and for so many more
C.S. Lewis, Grief, and the Holiday Season
An Anglo-Saxon poem gives fresh insight to the cross
How the pumpkin patch has a lot to teach us about the love and work of Christ
Human solutions to problems, important as they are, are inadequate to meet our deepest needs
How Leviticus 17 is a key passage for understanding atonement
We know that death does not have the last word in Christ.
The issue is not the existence of so-called inner rings, but our desire and willingness to spend our lives in order to gain from an inner ring what is freely promised in Christ: hope, security, and identity.
While midnight might seem long, the mercy of God assures us that the morning will come.
This is an excerpt from “Finding God in the Darkness: Hopeful Reflections from the Pits of Depression, Despair, and Disappointment” by Bradley Gray (1517 Publishing, 2023).