1. God has a plan for this world that he put into place from eternity, a plan that is carried out in Jesus Christ and promises unimaginably great blessings for believers.
  2. The Trinity is a handy shorthand for all that God has done to justify sinners.
  3. For Japan’s highly secularized elite, alienated by collapsing opportunity and the materialistic void left behind, Bach’s music was a balm.
  4. After the big, splashy, exciting day of Pentecost in Acts 2, church life faded into the ordinary life of ragtag sinners encountering the God of the cross coming to them in seemingly unawesome ways. What can we learn from this?
  5. That on Pentecost God’s Spirit should function through a dozen seeming inebriates should be no surprise when this same God saves through the ignominy of the cross.
  6. The relationship between faith and prayer or belief and worship is mutual. Faith produces prayer and prayer expresses faith.
  7. Just as the disciples on the road to Emmaus recognized Jesus in the breaking of the bread, so we, through the working of the Holy Spirit, recognize our Lord in the Word and Sacraments.
  8. I trust that because of the gospel, God will continue to mend what I, in my sin, continue to break.
  9. 1517 would not exist without the leadership, friendship, and faithfulness of Pastor Ron Hodel.
  10. Jesus does not put us on trial and make us pay for our own sin, but he, himself, is put on trial in our place.
  11. Every part of Jesus’ encounter with Mary Magdalene in John 20 was incredibly intentional and personal for God to systematically redeem what was lost.
  12. On May 2nd, Cantate Sunday, in the year 1507, Luther celebrated his first Mass.