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.
Was Jesus ambitious or unambitious? We have to say that the answer is…yes.

All Articles

If your faith is rooted in the gospel of Zion, in the good news of Jesus’s life, death, and resurrection on your behalf, you are already a member of the “heavenly Jerusalem”
With the Spirit we will get lost in the world. We are on a new track.
Success is emphatically not your primary identity.
Moltmann is gone now, but his theology will continue to provoke and provide.
God does not give us an undebatable answer to suffering. Instead, God suffers, too.
We know we are made for something great. We humans were created in God’s image and restored through Christ in his perfect image.
Lutherans have a unique heritage that makes teaching predestination doubly difficult.
This is an excerpt from Chapter 7 of Your God is Too Glorious: Finding God in the Most Unexpected Places by Chad Bird (1517 Publishing, 2023).
The gospel is for sinners – both the tax collector and Pharisee, both in need of the Great Physician.
Five promises were seemingly all those apostles, staring into the sky, had to go on. Five promises that were more than enough.
The Good Shepherd doesn’t leave the sheep to fend for themselves.
A Christian story untethered from the reality of Christ and his mercy toward sinners becomes a mere fable, while a sermon disconnected from the hearts of its listeners remains a hollow oratory.