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 gospel is his weapon that beats back the darkness — “I AM the Resurrection and the Life. Bow your head, bend the knee when I walk by.”
God can never really be said to be ignoring us, even if our experience with God at any given moment is that he is.
When the historical importance of revivalism is understood, one can appreciate that the question, “Could America experience another revival?” is also a question about the fate of Christianity in America.
God’s words do things. When God blesses you, you are blessed.
The Lion of Judah, Christ the King, Jesus of Nazareth, will not be away from us for one night.
It is Jesus himself who is the ladder by which sinners get to God, not by them climbing up but by God climbing down.
If your faith is rooted in the gospel of Zion, in the good news of Jesus’s life, death, and resurrection on your behalf, you are already a member of the “heavenly Jerusalem”
With the Spirit we will get lost in the world. We are on a new track.
This is a companion article to “Johann Spangenberg on Dying Well”
It is your privilege—we may even say “right”—to call upon this Father and to call him Father.
Success is emphatically not your primary identity.
Like Jacob, sinners approach the Heavenly Father wearing the clothes of their older brother, Jesus.