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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Through Martin Luther, God would unleash a far greater storm than the one which overwhelmed Luther on July 2, 1505.
Ethics begins not with our doing, but with the Triune God’s giving.
When the Law is viewed in its true light, when its "glory" is revealed, it is found to do nothing more than to kill man and sink him into condemnation.
The list of things our kids need to know when they leave the house is much simpler than we might believe.
God’s gifts, in turn, conform our minds to the mind of Christ, and catechize our imagination in the image of God’s Son.
Theologians of glory searched for God everywhere except the Cross of Christ.
Edward's goal of teaching his people to know the scriptures and to believe that their salvation depended on Christ is also essential for us today.
For Luther, those who refuse Christ as a curse want their sin removed not in Christ but in themselves.
Confession is not another ecclesiastical bludgeon but is instead a gift. There we can tell the truth about ourselves, knowing that Christ has only mercy for us in response.
Luther had a living Word from God intended to land squarely among sinners.
Christ powerless on the Cross is where the false definitions of glory theologies are exposed and everything is turned upside down.
Luther’s confessions and writings during that time demonstrated the diagnosis of the problem he faced had always been the same.