This is an excerpt from the introduction of Stretched: A Study for Lent and the Entire Christian Life by Christopher Richmann (1517 Publishing, 2026).
We can bring our troubles, griefs, sorrows, and sins to Jesus, who meets us smack dab in the middle of our messy mob.
Confession isn’t a detour in the liturgy. It’s the doorway.

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This is an excerpt from Martin Luther’s Commentary on Saint Paul’s Epistle to the Galatians (1535), written by Martin Luther and translated by Haroldo Camacho (1517 Publishing, 2018).
God is coloring over your sin and making you fragrant; he is making you righteous in his sight. The old is gone, forever covered over by this new work.
The following is an excerpt from “The Christian Life: Cross or Glory” written by Steven A. Hein (1517 Publishing, 2015).
In this context where death looms large, Jesus reveals a kingdom where life looms even larger.
The resurrection of Jesus was the moment when the one true God appointed the Man through whom the whole cosmos would be brought back into its proper order. A man got us into this mess; the Man would get it out again.
The “New David” will manifest the power of the LORD and will not set Himself in opposition as did the false shepherds.
The tragedy of this parable is not the failure to serve. It is the failure to truly know your Savior.
There is life after death and, more gloriously, there is life after life after death, the resurrection of the body.
Obviously, the Day of the LORD looks frightening according to the words of Zephaniah the prophet. The question is: “For whom?”
Good works do not make a Christian, do not secure the grace of God and blot out our sins, they do not merit heaven.
Because Israel has turned the eschatology of the Day of the LORD into “escapism” Amos turns that notion on its head in his prophecy.
Mindful that the pagans’ understanding of death is a finality, Paul says, “NO!” Death is not the end of humanity in God’s new world.