We are invited to entrust everything to the one who accomplished what we could not: living and bleeding and dying and rising again, so that “whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16). To put it another way, when it comes to the kingdom of God, there’s no room for DIY’ers. Best leave it to the professionals.
We live in the “already” but “not yet”. Peace is already ours but not yet. The resurrection is already ours but not yet. Justice is already ours but not yet. Until then be comforted by the fact that you are reconciled in Christ on account of his life, death, and resurrection.
Luther neither removed the Apocrypha from the Bible nor discouraged its use. Rather, he received and preserved the ancient distinction inherited from the fathers: the Apocrypha is valuable, edifying, and worthy of reading, but it is not Holy Scripture and therefore cannot serve as the foundation of Christian doctrine.

All Articles

The “New David” will manifest the power of the LORD and will not set Himself in opposition as did the false shepherds.
Although theirs is an impressive show of faith, the display of God’s faithfulness to them is far greater. After all, faith is only as strong as the object in which it is placed.
God's justice is marked and measured by sacrificial love, not power as the world defines it.
The following is an adaptation from "Law and Gospel in Action" written by Mark Mattes (1517 Publishing, 2019).
Unlike human marriage, which is marred by sin, Jesus never seeks to divorce us due to irreconcilable differences.
“Unveiling Mercy: 365 Daily Devotions on Insights from Old Testament Hebrew” by Chad Bird (1517 Publishing, 2020) is now available for purchase.
When we genuinely measure ourselves, we will find ourselves dreadfully lacking.
As we pray the Lord’s Prayer, we pray to God our Father. We come to him as his children, adopted into his family. We pray to our Father who loves us perfectly.
Good works do not make a Christian, do not secure the grace of God and blot out our sins, they do not merit heaven.
As we face our own struggles and successes, let us pray that we may be humble. Let us be grateful for whatever God has provided and not become arrogant in what we have or what we've lost.
This new life is marked not by fear of death but hope in eternal life.
We subject ourselves to the governing authorities for the sake of our neighbor, that they might be protected from our sinful nature that seeks our advantage over theirs (and vice versa)