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Excerpt #3 from the new book “Withertongue Emails" by Donavon Riley.
An immense amount of ink has been spilled contesting and interpreting Bonhoeffer's significance as a figure of Christian history and a theologian of the church.
Lutheran theology begins not with God in His terrifying majesty but with God in the flesh, God crucified for sinners. Advent is about this trajectory.
When you don’t know whom to thank, you start thanking yourself. Praise turns inward. This is a double bondage. When you have only yourself to thank, you end up having only yourself to depend upon.
The point is that the whole lot was wicked. And so were the Galatian Christians. And so are we.
Jesus is still in the business of dividing. He has come to divide us from our sinful thoughts and habits. He has come to divide us from false views of the world and distortions of His Word.
The only obedient son is shunned so that the disobedient one may return. Why? Because God loves sinners. He doesn’t leave them alone.
I hear voices in my head accusing me, telling me these sins will be there on the Day of Judgment unless I make atonement.
The only churches that live are churches that have died. That still die. And that rise to newness of life in Christ’s life alone.
He barely wakes to find himself nearly dead; even so, he can’t feel a thing.
It was by listening closely to Dr. Rosenbladt's words and watching his quiet actions that one could learn many things about being a dad.
Recently I took eleven kids to the movie theater, only three of them were my own. Crazy, I know. When we found our seats, I told the kids that I was going to get popcorn. One child asked me in a panicked voice, “What about me? Will I get popcorn?”