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.

All Articles

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.
What do we do with Katie Luther? What kind of historical character can we paint her to be?
The gospel is best understood in terms of those two most important words: for you.
Epiphany is one of the most important festivals of the church year, although often sadly overlooked.
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.
While Christmas may or may not have pagan roots, it will certainly have a pagan future if Christians lose sight of what it is all about.
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”?
Show me a sinner, and I’ll write you a story of a God who saves them.
Our faith is precisely where Paul puts it, namely, in the blood of Christ.
More certain than death or taxes and more certain than “anything else in all creation” is the fact that God loves you.
Jesus Christ is relentless. He does not give up. And with him comes the certainty of redemption.