Christmas is not only about a cradle in Bethlehem, it’s also about a cross outside Jerusalem where salvation was won for us.
A quick recap of some of our best content from 2025. Every year, we publish over 250 articles, release podcast episodes from 20+ unique podcasts, host two conferences (and participate in numerous speaking engagements), and more. This list just scratches the surface of our best of - thank you to everyone who makes this work and much more possible.
The story of your life stretches beyond the dash on the tombstone.

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Just as trick-or-treaters arrive at doorsteps as beggars, we come to the Lord’s table with nothing to offer but our sin and need for forgiveness.
Luther understood that music is an exceptional teaching tool.
Jesus loved us and gave himself up to save us. He would not abandon you to your hurt or cast you away because of the hurt you caused others.
Jesus has instituted his living-breathing disciples, his shepherds in his church, to declare the full forgiveness of sins.
To obtain this righteousness, you have to admit you don’t have it and could never produce it on your own because you are unrighteous.
When joined with a good Reformation theology of vocation and the freedom of a Christian, Fujimura’s vision for culture care is something all Christians can embrace, regardless of whether they are artists in the formal sense.
The Christian must always remember that personal piety and liturgical uniformity are by no means the marks of true religion.
Erasmus and the Unintended Reformation
This great victory, the true defeat of death, I receive not by my thinking, willing, or working, but simply by believing.
In Christ, this world’s never-children are his always-children, because he isn’t a God of death, after all.
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 a companion article to “Johann Spangenberg on Dying Well”