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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The throne of grace is always available to us. For the Christian, it isn’t and never will be a throne of judgment. All of the judgment for all of our sin was laid upon our perfect Savior.
Jesus does not give as the world gives. With Jesus, everything is guaranteed and has been finished from the start.
The primary point of Joseph’s life (and every story in Scripture) is to point us to Christ. To tell us something about what God is like and how He interacts with His Creation.
They were righteous, but they were righteous because God declared it so. Just like us.
I venture to assert I have never read, in the entire Scriptures, words more beautifully expressive of the grace of God than these two children words.
If I’m honest, I want that completed Bible reading plan more than I want grace.
Have you ever felt haunted by fear, shame, and guilt? Have you ever worried that Jesus couldn't love you anymore? I have.
Do not be afraid of seeing the depths of your depravity. Do not be offended, because the story doesn’t end there, and it’s completion is glorious.
Into the suffocating prison of sorrow, God sends his Breath, his Holy Spirit to help us. We may suffer, but we will not be alone.
By every conceivable category, grace shouldn't exist. It shouldn't have been bestowed. It's the card in God's trick we never saw coming.
I can only disbelieve you or believe you. If I disbelieve you, I go on being a miserable bore.
We would be utterly miserable if we could not find somebody less than ourselves, somebody to look down on, somebody to make us more pleased with ourselves.