1. What if sin was truly removed and what if the one who took it from us had the power to conquer it’s curse and spit in the face of death?
  2. This is the prelude of Easter. Is a dead Jesus still resting in the tomb? No!
  3. It’s scary to share my struggle and to show that I have cracks because once I’ve shown my cards, I open myself up for judgment.
  4. This is an excerpt from the introduction of “Common Places in Christian Theology: A Curated Collection of Essays from Lutheran Quarterly,” edited by Mark Mattes (1517 Publishing, 2023).
  5. What we discover in O’Connor’s stories and Martin Luther’s theology is that God’s grace is elusive because the human heart is resistant to it.
  6. We can’t predict the harvest. We can only sow.
  7. Ash Wednesday's purpose is not to motivate our resolve to redouble our efforts to do better.
  8. To believe God is love and thus loves you is a miracle wrought by the Holy Spirit.
  9. His love for you is so deep that in his mercy, while you were yet a sinner, God sent his only begotten Son to die for you.
  10. “So loved,” then isn’t about how much but instead simply how.
  11. Love is pointing to Jesus who said, “Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends” (John 15:13).
  12. Rightly distinguishing between law and gospel, as Paul helps us see in 2 Corinthians 3, is, quite literally, a matter of life and death.