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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What follows is a little crash course in how to read Calvin with respect, for our benefit, and with an eye to how we keep Reformation giants at a proper historical arms distance.
When Jesus told the Parable of the Good Samaritan, He was not simply encouraging us to be good citizens. He was continuing a conversation which had begun with a serious question about salvation.
I'm having one of those days. You know, the kind where you're filled with confusion, guilt, and fear? If you don't know what I'm talking about, just stop reading now.
We might assume that all ways are equal to raising a child in wisdom, but they are not.
Thomas was without a doubt a skeptic. And he was a skeptic without a doubt.
With this declaration of peace, Jesus was telling His disciples, ‘Because I died for you, you are now justified.’
After teaching his disciples many things about himself, the world, and the things to come, Jesus concluded his last evening with his disciples in prayer to the Father. And he concluded his prayer with the words in this text. As the old saying goes, you can learn a lot about a man by listening in on his prayers.
Throughout the centuries, “Inferno” has also played a large role in the development of Christianity, particularly in the Western Medieval church.
There is God. He existed before anything existed, for he has always existed and he will always exist. He created everything that exists outside of himself, and therefore he owns it all, including humankind.
I know some of us get excited to show that faith and reason are like oil and water, and natural theology is the death of a theologian of the cross. But there’s a bit of nonsense in that. If we teach our people only to suffer (which they will do anyway), and to expect nothing more than suffering, we are sometimes unintentionally teaching them to want less. But Christ is more. His resurrection means there’s more.
When you are not experiencing this kind of tribulation, the promise of “you will” hardly seems comforting. But when you are in the midst of it—when the pressure of this world is bearing down on you—it is comforting to know it has not caught God unawares.
In these two stories - one ending and the other beginning just a day apart - we find many ingredients that are uniquely American. We find grit, determination, and conquest.