Christmas in Isaiah: Be Fruitful and Multiply
Isaiah speaks to our time. He speaks to our rejoicing now and an anticipated joy-filled future. Christ’s coming, Christmas, brings them both.
Contributors
Kyle G. Jones
Kyle is a husband and father. He serves as Director of Faith Formation at Calvary Lutheran Church in Brookfield, WI. He graduated from Concordia University Texas with a B.A. in Religious Education with an emphasis in Worship and the Arts through the Director of Christian Education program. He is the co-author of The Sinner/Saint Lenten Devotional and is a regular contributor for 1517.
Most Recent
The Bible and How to Read It - Part 4: How Do I Study It?
Reading, understanding, and studying Scripture is a life-long process of contemplation in conversation with others.
The Bible and How to Read It - Part 3: How Do I Understand It?
We must be careful in how we use Bible verses to establish Scriptural truth both to others and to ourselves.
The Bible and How to Read It. Part 2: How Do I Read It?
God’s word is creative in both the imaginative sense and the constructive sense. It brings things into existence and displays new ideas, images, and concepts we did not previously perceive.
The Bible and How to Read It. Part 1: What is the Bible?
A famous saying of Augustine (echoing Jesus in Luke 24:44) perhaps puts it best, “The New Testament lies concealed in the Old, the Old lies revealed in the New.”
The Holy Spirit: The Gift and Gift-Giver
The Holy Spirit is sent, not to talk about himself, but to point us to Jesus.
Psalm 23 and the Apostles' Creed
The Holy Spirit does what his name implies. He makes us holy. We believe in Jesus Christ, our Lord, and come to him only by the Holy Spirit who calls us with the gospel.
Christ's Words of Comfort: Matthew 5:4
We will always need comfort until the reign of God, his kingdom, comes in full with Christ’s return, and our suffering and the sin that causes it is no more.
Scripture Speaks with an Accent
The accent of Scripture emphasized that Christ is for you. Yes, you. He’s not for the perfect people of our imaginations. He’s not just for Abraham, Moses, David, Peter, or Paul. Christ is also for you.
Waiting with Simeon
We’ve hung on every whisper of hope that this way of life would end and a new one would rise to take its place.
The Comfort of Luther's Daily Prayers in 2020
In a year in which every day seems to blur together, Luther's orders of daily prayer help order our daily lives.
Theses on How Christians in America Can Relate to Government
We subject ourselves to the governing authorities for the sake of our neighbor, that they might be protected from our sinful nature that seeks our advantage over theirs (and vice versa)
Freedom For, Not From Our Neighbors
Our freedom as Christians is not a form of independence. Our freedom in Christ comes from our dependence on him.
Comfort When You Don't Feel Like Praising God
These words not only rescue and defend; they also attack.
More In Christ Than Was Lost In Adam
God created humanity in his image and then inhabited that image. Not just for 33 years, but for eternity thereafter.
United in the Father by the Son
God not only unites us to himself by the death and resurrection of his Son; he unites us, the church, together and to himself under Christ as his children.
Out of Fatherly, Divine, Goodness and Mercy
When a manager faces imminent termination by his wealthy master for mishandling his wealth, what will he do? Where can he turn? In this challenging parable, Jesus teaches us that our salvation lies outside of ourselves and our works.
Let’s Go to Dark Gethsemane
So let’s go to dark Gethsemane. For there we see that even in his greatest moment of weakness, Jesus is our only source of strength. He drinks the cup of wrath so we can drink the cup of grace.
Pilate's Baptism
The following is an excerpt from “The Sinner/Saint Lenten Devotional” written by Kyle G. Jones and Kathy (Strauch) Morales (1517 Publishing, 2019).
Cutting Hair and Saying Prayers: Luther on When, How, and What to Prayer
When Luther's barber, Peter Beskendorf, asked him how to pray, Luther wrote him an open letter that has become a classic expression of the "when, how, and what" of prayer. It is as instructive today as when it was first penned it in 1535.
The Root of It All: The Fifth Petition of the Lord's Prayer
This petition is proof that the Christian life is not a practice in perfectionism. Rather, it is a life of dying and rising, lived under the cross of Christ, in the continual forgiveness of our sins.
Understanding Jesus’ Parables
When anything other than the gospel of Christ crucified for sinners becomes the center of the parables, we exchange the Gospel for the law.
Where Jesus Is Found
Where our sins are forgiven, there God in Christ is to be found.
The Introduction: Our Father Who Art in Heaven
This article begins an eight-part series inspired by the Lenten themes of catechesis, prayer, and repentance found in the Lord’s Prayer as Luther taught it in his Small Catechism.
Limping In The Faith: How the Narrative Order of Scripture Teaches the Gospel
What then does this sequence of stories teach us? It teaches us a pertinent lesson about the Christian life.