For Bonhoeffer, Christ crucified, and the cross of the Christian life were not of peripheral importance, but foundational.
Your exhaustion may not be a sign of weakness of faith. It may be the fruit of enthusiasm. It is Lent. Fast from your fever. Embrace the exhaustion. Curb your inner enthusiast and cling to Christ.
If the church is going to speak to people weary of religion, it will not be by offering better techniques or louder certainty, but by daring to say what Paul so plainly said: Christ is enough.

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Jesus is very difficult to bring down. That’s the power of it.
Luther’s final thoughts were not meant to bum you out or lead you to despair.
This is an excerpt from Ditching the Checklist: Assurance of Salvation for Evangelicals (and Other Sinners) by Mark Mattes (1517 Publishing, 2025), pgs. 5-7.
The liturgy ensures that the gospel is never something inward, merely a thought or sentiment of the believer.
The gospel is best understood in terms of those two most important words: for you.
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.
Longstanding tradition must be bolstered by something outside of ourselves that also lies outside of the traditions of men.
Instead of a “how-to” manual, the Bible is a “what-you-didn’t-do” story.
What do we learn from the widow? We learn how to be dependent upon God.
This article is part of Stephen Paulson’s series on the Psalms.
No matter how many times we hear this good news, it never stops being good news.
Our faith is precisely where Paul puts it, namely, in the blood of Christ.