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 is consistently rooting us in reality—both what is seen and unseen—because that is where he is.
To “trust in God in trial” means we fight our battles by kneeling and praying to “the Holy One of Israel,” who works out our deliverance by himself.
Take heart: God is near and he is here for you.
We bring nothing with us that contributes to the preaching or the hearing of God’s promise to us.
God’s goodness spoke a promise of peace and mercy to the bewildered, a promise that rings out to this day.
The battle is not so much recognizing sins as admitting them. It is also not so much confessing them as repenting them or laying them aside. But we can do it. Looking to Jesus the pioneer and perfecter of our faith...
The real presence of the LORD does not pop-up unannounced when Jesus institutes the Lord’s Supper—it has been a theme from the days in the Garden of Eden when He walked and talked with His people.
This is true discipleship. We live with Jesus, we hold on to Jesus, we suffer with Jesus, because Jesus brings a divisive peace that saves.
The following practices will prove to be beneficial for a preacher’s regular long-range planning.
There is power in the name of Jesus, and we love to manipulate power for our own ends.
Our comfort in this seemingly endless age of crisis after crisis is the inexhaustible hope of Jesus’s reversal.
On Saturday, July 16, Luke Gabriel Bird died in a hiking accident in Chile. He was a midshipman in the United States Naval Academy. He is our son. Here are some reflections on his life, his faith, and his Lord.