Wisdom and strength require bootstrap-pulling and the placing of noses to grindstones.
“If the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed” (John 8:36).
How do the words “The righteous shall live by his faith” go from a context of hope in hopelessness to the cornerstone declaration of the chief doctrine of the Christian faith?

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This is an excerpt from Chapter 6 of Clothed with Christ written by Brian W. Thomas (1517 Publishing, 2024). Now available!
This article is part of Stephen Paulson’s series on the Psalms.
In the Bible, we meet the God who also does not prance around naked as a jaybird.
The one who delights in the law of the Lord learns to fear his own good works and trust God outside of them.
God’s headline for his church prioritizes the person of Jesus and his purpose to demonstrate God’s power by dying and rising again for our salvation.
God can never really be said to be ignoring us, even if our experience with God at any given moment is that he is.
If your faith is rooted in the gospel of Zion, in the good news of Jesus’s life, death, and resurrection on your behalf, you are already a member of the “heavenly Jerusalem”
This is an excerpt from “Confession and Absolution” by John T. Pless in Common Places in Theology: A Curated Collection of Essays from Lutheran Quarterly, edited by Mark Mattes, (1517 Publishing 2023).
Success is emphatically not your primary identity.
If you are a Christian, you already have what you need to give a reason for the hope within you. That reason, though, is not you.
Now that the Lord of Sabaoth has involved himself, something ends, something is born.
The gospel is for sinners – both the tax collector and Pharisee, both in need of the Great Physician.