Jesus Published and Blazed Forth
I hope this Christmastime affords ample opportunities for you to publish the Good News of Jesus Christ.
Contributors
David Rufner
David J. Rufner is the 1517 Director of Relations and Development. His B.A. in Philosophy is from Concordia University - Chicago, and his M.Div. is from Concordia Seminary - St. Louis. He and his wife, Megan, have four excellent children. David enjoys cooking, sipping bourbon, smoking meats, reading, parties with neighbors, hiking, camping, and long road trips with his family to lands where mountains loom and canyons yawn.
Most Recent
Stewardship
On Giving Tuesday 2020 the Thinking Fellows discuss stewardship.
An American Myth Meets the Gospel of Jesus
This is our frontier religion: God is waiting to shower blessings upon us if only we will unlock those blessings with the right kind of works, and a sufficient quantity of the same.
The American Story in Light of the Gospel
In these two stories - one ending and the other beginning just a day apart - we find many ingredients that are uniquely American. We find grit, determination, and conquest.
The Psalms on His Lips
Suddenly Psalm 1 is opened to you and to me and to all people as Jesus walks with us, stands with us, sits with us, and gives us His words and gifts of life!
Jesus and Pint-Sized Preachers
Jesus is the heart of the Gospel, and the Gospel is Good News. But it is always Good News that comes to us best on the lips of another.
Betrayal and the Plunge
We take what we perceive to be freedom and turn it into a new credo, a new law, an idol to be lifted up and lived out.
The Gift of Belonging
It is only when individuals are bound together in community that they become fully human.
Reflecting on the International Academy of Apologetics
Producer Caleb is joined by three guests to talk about their experience at the International Academy of Apologetics.
Mind the Gap Between Dreams and Reality
Led by God’s Word we can grasp why this gap exists, grows, and threatens us. Simply put, we don’t take sin seriously. We don’t take the effects of our sinful rebellion on all of creation seriously.
Community in the Worn and Used
And your life, weary and broken as it is, is hidden by God in Christ—tucked away in God’s enduring and eternally given Word, in Jesus.
The Gift of Ashes
Gone, abolished, put away with, undone, and destroyed are any and all notions that my repentance unlocks, sets free, or earns God’s forgiveness.
Life Wrapped in Death, Wrapped in Life.
In Adam and in us, life has been wrapped in death. But in Jesus, God has wrapped death in life.
Joyful Birds, Joyful People
Even now we sing as we live in His gifts, and await His second Advent—His second-coming.
A Lost Prayer in the Valley of the Gods
God graciously bursts our foolish plots by coming our way, into our very flesh, and being God with us.
This Repairing of Eden
Jesus loves His church. He cleans her up. He takes her as His own. And He leads her.
Psalm 1 - Wide Open
If this opening verse offers to us both door and doorkeeper, then the doorkeeper stands with the door held securely shut.
Look Upon the Tree
Every age gives cause for both hopefulness and despair.
The Devil’s Music?
Those clinging to God in Christ can be assured that it’s all clean.
Beware The Lament
Beware the lament, dear readers, that is not soothed with the good-goods of Jesus.
Christians Say the Darndest Things
I’m still laughing now as hard as I laughed back then. And the salve that he gave me in that moment still works some strange magic on me to this day.