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.
“Where is Christ in this section of Scripture? What does this have to do with the ultimate purpose of Scripture: that I may know Him and Him crucified?” If you ask and answer that question, you have been spiritually disciplined in the right way. And it won’t matter if you got through one verse or a hundred.
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.

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True religion or true faith is heavenly. It understands that mankind’s only hope has to come from outside of itself.
He will never leave you nor forsake you. Your faith is not fragile glass.
This is an excerpt from Chapter 6 of Clothed with Christ written by Brian W. Thomas (1517 Publishing, 2024). Now available!
The one who delights in the law of the Lord learns to fear his own good works and trust God outside of them.
God can never really be said to be ignoring us, even if our experience with God at any given moment is that he is.
This is an excerpt from the Chapter 12 of Hitchhiking with the Prophets: A Ride Through the Salvation Story of the Old Testament written by Chad Bird (1517 Publishing, 2024). Now available!
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”
This is an excerpt from “Confession and Absolution” by John T. Pless in Common Places in Theology: A Curated Collection of Essays from Lutheran Quarterly, edited by Mark Mattes, (1517 Publishing 2023).
Success is emphatically not your primary identity.
God does not give us an undebatable answer to suffering. Instead, God suffers, too.
Now that the Lord of Sabaoth has involved himself, something ends, something is born.
Instead of a death sentence, those brothers hear the words of deliverance.