As soon as people understand what crucifixion means, the cross becomes offensive.
This is the third installment in the 1517 articles series, “What Makes a Saint?”
The Church speaks not with the cleverness of men, but with the breath of God.

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Transfiguration is like a farewell party for a dear friend drafted and going off to war. We celebrate all that has brought us there, we rejoice in our friend, and yet we know we are sending him off to great danger.
We're ALL sinners in need of a Savior. We're all saints whose Savior forgives ALL our sin. We're all the same in relation to Christ crucified for the sin of the world.
He is no sweet and sappy, romanticized and Disneyfied, cartoonish Christ. He is ferocious, free, untamed, and heaven-bent on not leaving the battlefield until the war is won and he makes his enemies a footstool for his feet.
John Pless offers thoughts on preaching for your midweek Lent sermons.
This post contains notes on orders of service, texts, and hymns for your midweek Lent services.
God interrupts Peter, but not only to quiet him. He also directs Peter to listen to someone else.
The coming of Jesus the Son was the fulfillment of all the Old Testament promises and prophesies, types and covenants. His resurrection and, as Peter asserts here, His transfiguration proved it.
Because God makes the rules He is free to break them when He chooses, however, God only breaks His own rules on the side of grace!
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.
God’s will is not sparkly, flashy, exciting, extraordinary plans for your life—at least not in the Old Adam’s eyes. So, what is the will of God?
The implications were clear: Jesus’ death destroyed the things that distinguished people as educated or uneducated, rich or poor, free or enslaved, black or white, pious or godless.
There is true help in the midst of our pain. Someone who suffered as we suffer, who embraced all our pain in his suffering and death on a cross.