God can handle grief, rage, and cries for justice. God can handle the victim who cannot yet forgive. God can handle the prayer that comes out jagged and wounded. The good news is that God is holy and merciful enough to handle all our prayers.
But while scholars are right to focus on the bond between Martin and Hans, the evidence of Martin’s own words suggests their relationship may not have been as troubled as some suppose. For Hans Luther was not a cartoon villain but a normal human being attempting to make his way in the world and raise his children to the best of his ability.
Jesus offers something infinitely better. He tells us to put down our gavel—not because sin isn't real, but because the only Judge who has the right to condemn is the very One who was condemned for us.

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When we Christians shoehorn Creedal Christianity into any of these ideological positions we obscure the Gospel mingling it with the Law and strip the Good News of its catholicity.
This is the seventh installment in our special series on Luther’s Heidelberg Disputation. Translation of Theses 13, 14 and 15 by Caleb Keith.
True preaching arises when the Holy Spirit steeps the proclaimer in its own cycle of judgment and mercy.
This is the sixth installment in our special series on Luther’s Heidelberg Disputation. Translation of Theses 11 and 12 by Caleb Keith.
This is the fifth installment in our special series on Luther’s Heidelberg Disputation. Translation of Theses 9 and 10 by Caleb Keith.
This is the fourth installment in our special series on Luther’s Heidelberg Disputation. Translation of Theses 5 and 6 by Caleb Keith.
This is the third installment in our special series on Luther’s Heidelberg Disputation. Translation of Theses 5 and 6 by Caleb Keith.
The Confessions instead look forward and provide a critique of the world and of all my various religions and idolatries.
This is the second installment in our special series on Luther’s, Heidelberg Disputation. Translation of Theses 3 and 4 done by Caleb Keith.
Each week, we will reflect on a few of the theses leading up to this year’s Here We Still Stand Conference in October. Each post will also include a new translation completed by Caleb Keith.
Where once we confessed reliance only in ourselves and our own power, now we confess reliance on Christ alone. So, for our relationship before God, our confession of faith matters.
It can be argued that this scene sets a pattern for Christian activity on the first day of the week from that time until the present.