Understanding Iran therefore requires more than studying military capabilities or diplomatic strategy. It requires taking theology seriously. Christians understand this because the gospel shapes lives, cultures, and civilizations. Our calling is not merely to analyze those competing stories but, more importantly, to proclaim the true King whose kingdom comes not through revolution or coercion, but through His death and resurrection.
The Christian does not meditate because life is calm. The Christian meditates because life is anything but calm. Trials teach us that we cannot live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.
“Where is Christ in this section of Scripture? What does this have to do with the ultimate purpose of Scripture: that I may know Him and Him crucified?” If you ask and answer that question, you have been spiritually disciplined in the right way. And it won’t matter if you got through one verse or a hundred.

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It is the story of a God who is not distant, not indifferent, not doing anything in half-measures, but who is here, now.
Nature ends in stinging judgment from its Creator.
As both law and gospel are proclaimed, judgment and deliverance are miraculously pronounced over the hearer.
The one who delights in the law of the Lord learns to fear his own good works and trust God outside of them.
Free speech isn't dead yet, and when it comes to the proclamation of the gospel, it never will be.
God’s headline for his church prioritizes the person of Jesus and his purpose to demonstrate God’s power by dying and rising again for our salvation.
God can never really be said to be ignoring us, even if our experience with God at any given moment is that he is.
Despite the fact that this could sound strange to modern ears, Luther has an important reason for saying what he does about the Commandments.
The Christian must always remember that personal piety and liturgical uniformity are by no means the marks of true religion.
Erasmus and the Unintended Reformation
This great victory, the true defeat of death, I receive not by my thinking, willing, or working, but simply by believing.
This is an edited excerpt from Addendum A, “The Church Year,” On Any Given Sunday: The Story of Christ in the Divine Service, written by Michael Berg (1517 Publishing, 2023), pgs. 113-120.