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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In grace, God chooses to love his people.
There is no one — not now, not ever — who cannot be included in the family of God through the efficacy of Christ’s saving power.
It's a new year, and you are still the same you: a sinner who is simultaneously perfect in every way because Christ declares it to be so.
The love of God is creative, always giving, always reviving.
In Scripture, laments are raw expressions of grief, but they always point to hope. What if our culture’s obsession with holiday lights is an unconscious way of crying out, “We need good news, and we need it now”?
This article is part of Stephen Paulson’s series on the Psalms.
You have real freedom through the gospel of Jesus Christ, a freedom that doesn’t rest on founders, votes, or power plays.
One Christ rules over all of it. He is the constant, the root that nourishes every estate and every vocation.
Mary looms large in our theology, our liturgy, our confessions and creeds.
Below is the Thinking Fellows Essential Reading List with contributions from each of the Thinking Fellows hosts.
In his resurrection, God says "Yes" to Christ, and all those in him.
Jesus has instituted his living-breathing disciples, his shepherds in his church, to declare the full forgiveness of sins.