Understanding Iran therefore requires more than studying military capabilities or diplomatic strategy. It requires taking theology seriously. Christians understand this because the gospel shapes lives, cultures, and civilizations. Our calling is not merely to analyze those competing stories but, more importantly, to proclaim the true King whose kingdom comes not through revolution or coercion, but through His death and resurrection.
For those Christians who feel the tug to read great literature, know that it is not a waste of your time. These books will only deepen your appreciation for the Scriptures and will open your eyes to a fuller, more profound vision of reality and the God who loves you.
We are invited to entrust everything to the one who accomplished what we could not: living and bleeding and dying and rising again, so that “whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16). To put it another way, when it comes to the kingdom of God, there’s no room for DIY’ers. Best leave it to the professionals.

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To preach Christ and him crucified is to keep the message simple and accessible.
Below is the Thinking Fellows Essential Reading List with contributions from each of the Thinking Fellows hosts.
The sinful nature loves self, and pride is its native tongue.
This article is part of Stephen Paulson’s series on the Psalms.
In the Bible, we meet the God who also does not prance around naked as a jaybird.
The one who delights in the law of the Lord learns to fear his own good works and trust God outside of them.
God’s headline for his church prioritizes the person of Jesus and his purpose to demonstrate God’s power by dying and rising again for our salvation.
Despite the fact that this could sound strange to modern ears, Luther has an important reason for saying what he does about the Commandments.
Erasmus and the Unintended Reformation
This great victory, the true defeat of death, I receive not by my thinking, willing, or working, but simply by believing.
This is an edited excerpt from Addendum A, “The Church Year,” On Any Given Sunday: The Story of Christ in the Divine Service, written by Michael Berg (1517 Publishing, 2023), pgs. 113-120.
This is an excerpt from chapter 6 of Scandalous Stories by Daniel Emery Price and Erick Sorensen (1517 Publishing 2018).