Wade Johnston, Life Under the Cross: A Biography of the Reformer Matthias Flacius Illyricus, Concordia Publishing House, St. Louis: MO, 2025.
This ancient “tale of two mothers” concerns far more than theological semantics—it is the difference between a God who sends and a God who comes.
This story points us from our unlikely heroes to the even more unlikely, and joyous, good news that Jesus’ birth for us was just as unlikely and unexpected.

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God never delights in seeing his children struggle or suffer. But God does desire that we trust him no matter what the circumstances might look like.
A “good death” and “good life” are not accomplished through personal striving but are grasped by faith in the promises of God.
Do our petitions move God?
This feast is the Gospel, “the power of God that brings salvation to everyone who believes.”
In this article Amy Mantravadi give a short but helpful summary of the differences in Lutheran and Reformed thought regarding assurance.
When the waters of anxiety and depression rise, there is One who understands.
A pastor shares his own experience of loneliness and hope
Confession and absolution offer more than assurance, they gift real and genuine Divine promises.
God gives good gifts to underserving workers. God gives good gifts to all of them.
We know that death does not have the last word in Christ.
The Lord assures Jeremiah he has not forgotten him. He is there and will rescue him.
The Lord has remembered to help his servant Israel, to fulfill his promises to Abraham and to his offspring forever, not mostly or mainly because of his mercy, but exclusively so.