1. It was meant to be Karlstadt’s moment to shine, but all anyone remembered was Luther.
  2. When properly distinguishing law and gospel in the Word of God, it is important to use the God-given gift and abilities of the imagination as your ears.
  3. As Luther said, “Our Lord has written the promise of the resurrection not in books alone, but in every leaf of spring.”
  4. The Holy Spirit unleashes his power through us, his vines, and we then get to watch as his fruits blossom and ripen.
  5. The Parable of the Lost Sheep bursts through the confines of convention and demands that we embrace the messiness of life and the unpredictable ways in which God's grace and forgiveness operates.
  6. It’s not our eloquence or persuasive rhetoric that changes hearts, but the Word of God that pierces through the hardened shells of unbelief and breathes life into the dead bones of sinners.
  7. Church historians attempt to determine why Melanchthon made those controversial decisions.
  8. This is an excerpt from chapter 9 of “What Can Really Know?: The Strengths and Limits of Human Understanding” by David Andersen (1517 Publishing, 2023).
  9. No matter how far away they wander, God always hears the prayers of his children.
  10. Prayer is not just about asking for things. It's about receiving what has already been given to us in Christ.
  11. What I desperately needed was not to preach to myself, but to listen to a preacher—not to take myself in hand, but to be taken in the hands of the Almighty.
  12. Just like for Mordecai and Esther, our lives are also sustained by the hand of God in the ordinary, in events begging to be seen as the work of Christ in our lives.