Jesus Christ is the Ark of the New Covenant. He is our place of atonement, our mercy seat. He puts a lid on the righteousness that might otherwise condemn us by offering his very self in our stead on the cross.
Because the biblical story unfolds in real places among real people, archaeology helps us understand the world in which God's saving work took place and, in turn, enriches our reading of Scripture.
The Reformers did not return to the sources because they believed the old was better than the new, nor because antiquity possesses authority simply by virtue of its age. They returned to the sources to recover the language and words that were actually written and spoken, especially those by great teachers and, most importantly, God Himself.

All Articles

This is the first installment in our series, From Eden to Easter: Life and Death in the Garden. Each day throughout Holy Week, we will take a special look at the gardens and wildernesses of Scripture, and in particular, these scenes' connections to Christ's redemption won for us on the cross.
Three Lenten songs express the same astonishing wonder of a Lord who willingly suffers and dies.
News of Kilmer's death hit me like a freight train because his Doc Holliday stirred something in me about friendship—both the earthly kind and the divine.
Sometimes the old story is the one we need to hear again and again.
We are called to believe in the church even when we don’t believe in the church.
The great lie of addiction is that suffering must be fled, must be numbed, must be drowned out by any means necessary.
Is there a significant difference between changing your mind and doing penance? Absolutely.
To be happy is to be the object of God’s love in Christ and to love God and others with the love of Christ.
You cannot sever the saint from the sinner. Christians remain both simultaneously.
God is a judge, but unlike you, God is just!
Luther’s final thoughts were not meant to bum you out or lead you to despair.
This is an excerpt from Ditching the Checklist: Assurance of Salvation for Evangelicals (and Other Sinners) by Mark Mattes (1517 Publishing, 2025), pgs. 5-7.