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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This article is part of Stephen Paulson’s series on the Psalms.
In the Bible, we meet the God who also does not prance around naked as a jaybird.
God’s headline for his church prioritizes the person of Jesus and his purpose to demonstrate God’s power by dying and rising again for our salvation.
The gospel is his weapon that beats back the darkness — “I AM the Resurrection and the Life. Bow your head, bend the knee when I walk by.”
When the historical importance of revivalism is understood, one can appreciate that the question, “Could America experience another revival?” is also a question about the fate of Christianity in America.
In Christ, this world’s never-children are his always-children, because he isn’t a God of death, after all.
With the Spirit we will get lost in the world. We are on a new track.
It is your privilege—we may even say “right”—to call upon this Father and to call him Father.
Moltmann is gone now, but his theology will continue to provoke and provide.
What we do much less of, even in Christian circles, is recognize just how pervasive sin is, such that it has thoroughly corrupted us.
I have to believe that grace - God’s grace - will be waiting on the other side.
The profound significance of Christ’s resurrection comes from the threefold justification it provides: it justifies the sinner, the sinner’s hope, and God himself.