1. His love for you is so deep that in his mercy, while you were yet a sinner, God sent his only begotten Son to die for you.
  2. “So loved,” then isn’t about how much but instead simply how.
  3. Love is pointing to Jesus who said, “Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends” (John 15:13).
  4. Rightly distinguishing between law and gospel, as Paul helps us see in 2 Corinthians 3, is, quite literally, a matter of life and death.
  5. This is an excerpt from “The Alien and the Proper: Luther's Two-Fold Righteousness in Controversy, Ministry, and Citizenship,” edited by Robert Kolb (1517 Publishing, 2023). Now available for purchase.
  6. God gives us the power and authority to proclaim the forgiveness of sins to burdened sinners who entrust us with their pain, guilt, and defeat.
  7. The law had to have its way with the expert to bring him around (and back) to Abraham's response.
  8. As the writer to the Hebrews affirms, what makes the Christian gospel so much better is that we are no longer dealing with “types and shadows."
  9. Maybe, just maybe, our goal for 2023 should not be to live more but to die more.
  10. That great truth of creedal Christianity – that God is man in Christ – is not set forth for our speculative enjoyment.
  11. Who would ever want all these screamers and haters? It turns out that Christ does.