God can handle grief, rage, and cries for justice. God can handle the victim who cannot yet forgive. God can handle the prayer that comes out jagged and wounded. The good news is that God is holy and merciful enough to handle all our prayers.
But while scholars are right to focus on the bond between Martin and Hans, the evidence of Martin’s own words suggests their relationship may not have been as troubled as some suppose. For Hans Luther was not a cartoon villain but a normal human being attempting to make his way in the world and raise his children to the best of his ability.
Jesus offers something infinitely better. He tells us to put down our gavel—not because sin isn't real, but because the only Judge who has the right to condemn is the very One who was condemned for us.

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The point of Revelation is to reveal consolation in Jesus, not to revel in chaos and confusion.
The good news for Jacob is that God humbled himself so that he could lose a wrestling match to a man with a dislocated hip so that he could give him a new name.
When the historical importance of revivalism is understood, one can appreciate that the question, “Could America experience another revival?” is also a question about the fate of Christianity in America.
The Christian must always remember that personal piety and liturgical uniformity are by no means the marks of true religion.
Surely a division now called the "Great Schism" should command our attention, but it is vital that we do not impute similar significance to all modern disagreements in the church.
Erasmus and the Unintended Reformation
This is an excerpt from the Chapter 12 of Hitchhiking with the Prophets: A Ride Through the Salvation Story of the Old Testament written by Chad Bird (1517 Publishing, 2024). Now available!
It is Jesus himself who is the ladder by which sinners get to God, not by them climbing up but by God climbing down.
This is an excerpt from chapter 2 of The Resurrection Fact: Responding to Modern Critics, edited by John Bombaro and Adam Francisco (1517 Publishing 2016).
This is an excerpt from the introduction of Hitchhiking with Prophets: A Ride Through the Salvation Story of the Old Testament written by Chad Bird (1517 Publishing, 2024). Now available for preorder.
Like Jacob, sinners approach the Heavenly Father wearing the clothes of their older brother, Jesus.
Strasbourg’s hymnals are especially relevant to American Lutherans because much of what we experience in our churches comes to us from Strasbourg.