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?
As soon as people understand what crucifixion means, the cross becomes offensive.
This is the third installment in the 1517 articles series, “What Makes a Saint?”

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God can never really be said to be ignoring us, even if our experience with God at any given moment is that he is.
The good news for Jacob is that God humbled himself so that he could lose a wrestling match to a man with a dislocated hip so that he could give him a new name.
When the historical importance of revivalism is understood, one can appreciate that the question, “Could America experience another revival?” is also a question about the fate of Christianity in America.
God’s words do things. When God blesses you, you are blessed.
The Lion of Judah, Christ the King, Jesus of Nazareth, will not be away from us for one night.
It is Jesus himself who is the ladder by which sinners get to God, not by them climbing up but by God climbing down.
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).
It is your privilege—we may even say “right”—to call upon this Father and to call him Father.
Like Jacob, sinners approach the Heavenly Father wearing the clothes of their older brother, Jesus.
What we do much less of, even in Christian circles, is recognize just how pervasive sin is, such that it has thoroughly corrupted us.
Now that the Lord of Sabaoth has involved himself, something ends, something is born.
God chose Russell Brand, chose to defy his fast-escaping life and drink up all his swift-running sin in the River Thames.