Wade Johnston, Life Under the Cross: A Biography of the Reformer Matthias Flacius Illyricus, Concordia Publishing House, St. Louis: MO, 2025.
This ancient “tale of two mothers” concerns far more than theological semantics—it is the difference between a God who sends and a God who comes.
This story points us from our unlikely heroes to the even more unlikely, and joyous, good news that Jesus’ birth for us was just as unlikely and unexpected.

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Cranach became the evangelical interpreter for the masses
Our comfort in this seemingly endless age of crisis after crisis is the inexhaustible hope of Jesus’s reversal.
At the heart of The Idiot is Dostoevsky's confession of faith and the confession of all Christians.
Faith is like a horse with blinders because it only beholds God’s promise. It is obsessed with what God has already said.
Sometimes I think we should be more tempted to laugh at the gospel than we are, not in derision but in sheer surprise and awe.
The world hates Jesus because he comes to lead us to love and forgive all, including our enemies.
FLAME uses Scripture and church history to argue that baptism is a gospel gift, not our work.
For Japan’s highly secularized elite, alienated by collapsing opportunity and the materialistic void left behind, Bach’s music was a balm.
Our daily remembrance of baptism, our daily dying and rising, is a daily joining to Jesus and His death and resurrection for us.
The celebration of Trinity Sunday–the only church festival specifically dedicated to a doctrine–reminds us of the necessity of confessing that the one God exists in three persons, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
A few of our staff members have shared what they are looking forward to reading in the coming months below. If you’re looking for titles to fill your own summer reading list, we hope this list is a helpful resource.
How might your preaching of the work of the Spirit expand your own view of the Spirit’s work, and help your hearers gain an appreciation for the Holy Spirit’s activity in their lives beyond a standalone celebration, one day a year?