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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It isn’t that God struggles to believe our repeated cries of “wolf.” Rather, we struggle to believe God when he repeatedly comes to us with forgiveness and mercy on his lips.
The Psalms aren’t the clandestine successes of a faithful soul, but are the journaled hopes of a desperate soul — of one teetering on the edge of oblivion.
We are not saved by the success of our refining process. We are saved precisely because our impurities, no matter what the percentage, ruin the whole thing.
Luther’s allies and opponents also would not allow him to put off responding to Erasmus indefinitely. They badgered him constantly to write a response.
Faith is a living, bold trust in God’s grace, so certain of God’s favor that it would risk death a thousand times trusting in it.
The presence of the Glory Cloud at the presentation of the manna makes clear who is providing this meal.
In His grace, Jesus promises that all who come to Him in faith will live abundantly and eternally.
The unity we have in the Church is a gift, a gracious creation of the triune God and not a work we accomplish or decide on.
Jesus did not need a single act of mercy to get him started on the road to mercy, his essence was by nature merciful.
Through the often abominable and lamentable and occasional commendable season, there is one who remains unmoved by it all.
The rainbow is a sign of the covenant God is making with “all flesh which is on the earth” and to the coming generations.
Prayers for the faith of the Church—prayed in love from a place of suffering—not only define much of Paul’s ministry, but are formed by the Christ they imitate.