Grace is Not an Excuse
By Luke Kjolhaug
10/16/26
12mins

Grace is Not an Excuse

In Jesus, God acted first, even when we were dead in our trespasses and sins (Eph. 2:5).
Jesus Is God: The Old Testament Says So
Chad Bird
Chad Bird
10/13/26

Jesus Is God: The Old Testament Says So

Yahweh who is pierced and mourned in prophecy is Jesus who is pierced and mourned in fulfillment.
World Mission and Inner Mission
John W. Hoyum
John W. Hoyum
10/09/26

World Mission and Inner Mission

There is indeed a responsibility for the church to share the gospel in the world, but never at the expense of the church’s charity and mercy for those neighbors who are nearby.

All Articles

Chad Bird
Chad Bird
04/09/14

What is That in My Casket?

What we confess concerning a corpse confesses much about how deep, or how shallow, is our understanding of the importance of the incarnation of Jesus, his death, and his (as well as our own) resurrection.
Chad Bird
Chad Bird
03/12/14

Adam's First Sunset: When All You’ve Known Sinks Away

For who of us, at some point in our lives, has not watched with horror and grief as our own “sun” vanishes? You stand around a rectangular depression in the ground to watch a box of wood that cradles your beloved slowly lowered into the dark earth.
Rick Ritchie
Rick Ritchie
02/26/14

Life Together Under the Cross (Part 1)

One of the strongest elements in the evangelicalism of my youth has a place in Lutheranism that might be surprising to many. This is what our confessions call “The Mutual Conversation and Consolation of the Brethren."
Chad Bird
Chad Bird
02/21/14

Look Who I Found in the Grave

God must kill me. He’s got to slay me, put me six feet under, and shovel dirt atop my corpse. Then, it’s like, “Hey, I finally understand! You’re God and I’m not.
Chad Bird
Chad Bird
02/19/14

Tripping Helen Keller

Why, given all the things we wish God had told us, but didn’t, does he “waste our time” by stating the patently obvious? Was there, in Moses’ day, an outbreak of violence against the disabled?
Chad Bird
Chad Bird
01/21/14

Clothing for the Naked Eye: Seeing Things as They Really Are

A cemetery is a hard place to confess because the cemetery itself seems to confess, “You, O mortal, have lost.”
Chad Bird
Chad Bird
12/10/13

Drinking with the Dead: Country Music and the Communion of Saints

The details vary, of course, but we too struggle to repair the heart broken by the tragic death of someone we love. We're dazed, angry, speechless.
Chad Bird
Chad Bird
10/25/13

Dying to Pray

The reason is much simpler than that: to learn to pray, you must first die. The language of prayer is taught in the school of death.
Chad Bird
Chad Bird
10/08/13

Nothing Gold Can Stay: The Sermons of Creation

But this dying world is still the world of our living God, who graces us with tokens of a final renewal. As leaf subsides to leaf, and frost to snow, and snow to ice, there comes a day when the gold of nature sprouts anew.
Chad Bird
Chad Bird
10/07/13

Barefoot Before God: Holy Space for a Holy God

The place where God appears or dwells ceases to be common ground; it becomes holy. Dust, rocks, vegetation, wood, metals, everything roundabout soaks in his sacredness.
Chad Bird
Chad Bird
09/09/13

'Your Church Is Too Sexy": the Sedlec Ossuary, Joel Osteen’s Lakewood Church, and the Theology of Church Architecture

In accordance with their views of what a church is, or what a church ought to be, they planned and executed each of these sanctuaries. In other words, theology designed architecture, and architecture signaled theology.
Chad Bird
Chad Bird
09/05/13

The Truth About Cemeteries

For out of the mouths of these opposition forces, gathered on enemy turf, comes the defiant declaration of death’s undoing: “Christ is risen! He is risen, indeed!” An audacious act it is, to march smack dab into the middle of a place that screams, “Dead!” and to sing, “Alive!”
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