1. If you interpret James, as most do, as an encouragement toward proving your faith by your works and then say it is your "favorite" then you are proclaiming that your favorite thing about the Christian faith is the practical outworking, the proving your faith by your works.
  2. When I finished this book, I loved the Bible, and the Bible’s author, even more. And I can’t imagine a better endorsement than that.
  3. A Christian is a man who desires to enter heaven not through his own goodness and works, but through the righteousness and works of Christ.
  4. This week we will take a closer look at God's love in Scripture.
  5. This sermon was originally given at Luther Seminary chapel on May 20, 1986.
  6. Rightly distinguishing between law and gospel, as Paul helps us see in 2 Corinthians 3, is, quite literally, a matter of life and death.
  7. All of Scripture, every last syllable of it, is meant to drive us to "consider Jesus," the One who comes to "make us right" by gifting us his righteousness.
  8. This is an excerpt from “The Alien and the Proper: Luther's Two-Fold Righteousness in Controversy, Ministry, and Citizenship,” edited by Robert Kolb (1517 Publishing, 2023). Now available for purchase.
  9. Jesus not only healed her daughter, but he also gave himself to her. Wherever she went from then on, he was with her.
  10. This is an excerpt from “The Alien and the Proper: Luther's Two-Fold Righteousness in Controversy, Ministry, and Citizenship,” edited by Robert Kolb (1517 Publishing, 2023).
  11. God gives us the power and authority to proclaim the forgiveness of sins to burdened sinners who entrust us with their pain, guilt, and defeat.
  12. The law had to have its way with the expert to bring him around (and back) to Abraham's response.