Wade Johnston, Life Under the Cross: A Biography of the Reformer Matthias Flacius Illyricus, Concordia Publishing House, St. Louis: MO, 2025.
This ancient “tale of two mothers” concerns far more than theological semantics—it is the difference between a God who sends and a God who comes.
This story points us from our unlikely heroes to the even more unlikely, and joyous, good news that Jesus’ birth for us was just as unlikely and unexpected.

All Articles

I looked up at the cross and saw what God had become to bring me home. He had become what I was.
What is really good for the soul is not so much confession as absolution. If confession is us telling the truth about ourselves to God, then absolution is God telling us a truer truth about ourselves.
When God is at work, oftentimes the best activity is non-activity, the best speech is non-speech. Sometimes God wants us to shut up.
As with so many things, regret can begin as something natural, even beneficial, as you struggle to recover from a wound in your past. But over time, regret can devolve from a sadness to a sickness.
All other subjects—even Biblical subjects—were subservient to an accurate view of the Person and work of Jesus Christ for sinners.
I’m still piecing together fragments. I’ve spent my life collecting scraps of personal stories that will explain my father to me.
What is it about David’s life, and this psalm, that make this so fitting a place to utter this dire pronouncement of humanity’s corruption?
Isn’t it strange how the Jesus we end up with bears such a striking resemblance to ourselves? Our Jesus thinks as we do, acts as we act, speaks as we speak.
It had just been a few weeks in my friend’s life since he had been converted to the Christian faith. He was very much still learning the ropes of what it meant to be a Christian.
It doesn’t matter how good you seem to be, you’ll always be able to find someone who seems better than you. We’re addicted to comparing, measuring, quantifying, and judging.
Last night our family watched Pixar's Inside Out and yes, I'm very late to that Pixar party. I enjoyed the film. The personification of Joy and Sadness was extraordinary.
I was recently challenged to write about someone I know. A very specific someone who is extremely flawed and broken, even if they don't know it or care to admit it.