This article is the first part of a two-part series. The second part will take a look at when pastors abuse their congregations.
The following entries are excerpts from Chad Bird’s new book, Untamed Prayers: 365 Daily Devotions on Christ in the Book of the Psalms (1517 Publishing, 2025), pgs. 311 and 335
Why did the church dedicate a day to St. Michael anyway? Who is he, and what does he do?

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The power and the purpose of the Reformation was to bring the full force of the Law and the Gospel to the ears of sinners.
The Law though it does many things—restrains, exhorts the Christian unto righteousness, punishes—always rightly accuses and condemns sinners of their sin before a righteous, holy, and just God.
This is a selection from, "A Path Strewn With Sinners" by Wade Johnston
I spend a lot of time talking to people in coffee shops. Some share my Christian faith, some are exploring and questioning faith and others have left the church, having had a crisis of faith.
Here's to the crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels. The troublemakers. The round pegs in the square holes. The ones who see things differently.
We sinners share a common problem when it comes to Jesus’ parables. We read them with an eye to our own righteousness.
Yet, just as the Jews had two choices, true God or no God, the Christian has the same, true Jesus or no Jesus.
In a world so wired by law and rules, judgement is everywhere.
I believe it’s no small charge to assert that there’s a massive problem in the majority of America’s pulpits.
I recently began seeing a chiropractor for what turned out to be a compressed disc. He took routine x-rays to facilitate his diagnosis, and on the day he was to go over the results with me, I was placed in a conference room to wait for our consultation.
The common knock against “grace people” (or to put it another way, “Christians”) is that preaching too much grace will encourage licentious living.
Some form of the Rule of Benedict will not save or reinvigorate the church. The church already has what the church needs to do her work in the world: she has the Gospel.