For those Christians who feel the tug to read great literature, know that it is not a waste of your time. These books will only deepen your appreciation for the Scriptures and will open your eyes to a fuller, more profound vision of reality and the God who loves you.
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.

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Our faith is precisely where Paul puts it, namely, in the blood of Christ.
This is an excerpt from the Chapter 12 of Hitchhiking with the Prophets: A Ride Through the Salvation Story of the Old Testament written by Chad Bird (1517 Publishing, 2024). Now available!
This is an edited excerpt from Addendum A, “The Church Year,” On Any Given Sunday: The Story of Christ in the Divine Service, written by Michael Berg (1517 Publishing, 2023), pgs. 113-120.
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).
God does not give us an undebatable answer to suffering. Instead, God suffers, too.
Instead of a death sentence, those brothers hear the words of deliverance.
The cross not only stands as the measure of our hatred of God but also as the measure of God’s love for us.
For Paul, the hope of the resurrection was the ultimate antidote whenever his circumstances tempted him to despair or to "lose heart."
The love of God in Christ Jesus never changes. That love is for you.
One way or another, Rod always found a way to bring whatever story he was telling back to the gospel and God's grace in Christ.
What’s the big deal about Jesus’ name?
I didn’t see Christmas as a gift given to me to enjoy, I saw Christmas as a long list of expectations I needed to hold up to love those around me.