Wisdom and strength require bootstrap-pulling and the placing of noses to grindstones.
“If the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed” (John 8:36).
How do the words “The righteous shall live by his faith” go from a context of hope in hopelessness to the cornerstone declaration of the chief doctrine of the Christian faith?

All Articles

This is an excerpt from Romans 14 in Romans: A Devotional Commentary by Bo Giertz, translated by Bror Erickson. (1517 Publishing 2018), pgs 79-80.
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).
This is an excerpt from the introduction of Hitchhiking with Prophets: A Ride Through the Salvation Story of the Old Testament written by Chad Bird (1517 Publishing, 2024). Now available for preorder.
With the Spirit we will get lost in the world. We are on a new track.
This is a companion article to “Johann Spangenberg on Dying Well”
God does not give us an undebatable answer to suffering. Instead, God suffers, too.
Strasbourg’s hymnals are especially relevant to American Lutherans because much of what we experience in our churches comes to us from Strasbourg.
We know we are made for something great. We humans were created in God’s image and restored through Christ in his perfect image.
This is an excerpt from Chapter 7 of Your God is Too Glorious: Finding God in the Most Unexpected Places by Chad Bird (1517 Publishing, 2023).
Instead of a death sentence, those brothers hear the words of deliverance.
The cross not only stands as the measure of our hatred of God but also as the measure of God’s love for us.
It is difficult to overestimate the importance of these early Lutheran hymns – and their physical availability in hymnals – in the piety of common people living in Lutheran towns and territories.