From the very beginning, the community that God was forming was going to be much more inclusive than anyone could have imagined.
There are important historical reasons for making a distinction between ministry and vocation.
It appeared everything would work out perfectly when Ivan the Great married Sophia Palaiologos. But when inheritance was discussed the problems arrived.

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No one is harder to convert than a religious expert.
Do not disregard Luther’s early disputations, but appreciate their specificity and recognize their pastoral and theological continuity with his later works.
May we, as preachers, rise and proclaim that Jesus Christ is sufficient for all our spiritual hunger.
To not speak of hell is also to forget or ignore the great benefits of Christ and his saving work.
"Every one must stand and give account before God for himself; and no one can excuse himself by the action or decision of another, whether less or more.”
God Meets is the rare cancer book (and as above, I use that term advisedly) that addresses both the judgment God places on human creatures in the Garden (death) and the hard road anyone walks toward that end (100% of us).
This is an excerpt from the first chapter of A Reasoned Defense of the Faith by Adam Francisco (1517 Publishing, 2026), pgs 1-3.
God is not a tool in our hands. He does not exist to serve our goals, our metrics, or our platforms.
Although the outcome has been decided by Jesus victory, the devil won’t give up without a fight.
A rightly-oriented heart and a rightly-oriented love will consistently do what is best for God and best for our neighbor, which is why St. Augustine speaks of sin as a disordered love.
Your exhaustion may not be a sign of weakness of faith. It may be the fruit of enthusiasm. It is Lent. Fast from your fever. Embrace the exhaustion. Curb your inner enthusiast and cling to Christ.
If the church is going to speak to people weary of religion, it will not be by offering better techniques or louder certainty, but by daring to say what Paul so plainly said: Christ is enough.