But these good works aren’t done under compulsion. They’re done freely. They aren’t done so that God will love us. They’re done because He loves us.

Perhaps if we indulged our Christian freedom around them, they would come to see that “the kingdom of God is not a matter of eating and drinking but of righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit.

This is the third installment in our special series on Luther’s Heidelberg Disputation. Translation of Theses 5 and 6 by Caleb Keith.

No matter which side, it’s easy for all of us to build Bible verses into grenades aimed at obliterating the political other.

I don’t know if you’re like me or not, but ideas can kick around in my head in a big jumble for awhile and then, all of a sudden, something random makes all of the pieces come together.

The following is an excerpt from Martin Luther’s Commentary on Saint Paul’s Epistle to the Galatians (1535), translated by Haroldo Camacho (1517 Publishing, 2018).

When we imagine we’re living an evil-shunning, virtue-practicing, morally superior Christian life, the problem is not that our halos are too small, but that our heads are too big.

All the verbs of our salvation are passive. God calls and gathers people to him through his Gospel.

I don’t know about you, but I am perpetually of the mind that God is disappointed in me.

Our goal is to proclaim the genuine good news—that’s what “Gospel” means—of Christ’s forgiveness for you. We do not offer you better tips, techniques or checklists. Instead, You Are Forgiven is sermons by faithful pastors who will clearly show how you cannot be forgiven by your own efforts, no matter how well you do on your homework, your checklist of tasks. But they will also show how you are actually and already forgiven because Jesus has done all that is needed, for you!

Our goal is to proclaim the genuine good news—that’s what “Gospel” means—of Christ’s forgiveness for you. We do not offer you better tips, techniques or checklists. Instead, You Are Forgiven is sermons by faithful pastors who will clearly show how you cannot be forgiven by your own efforts, no matter how well you do on your homework, your checklist of tasks. But they will also show how you are actually and already forgiven because Jesus has done all that is needed, for you!

You say: Since forgiveness depends on faith alone, why must one nonetheless do good works? Answer: If faith is of the true sort, it cannot be without good works, just as no good work can be where unbelief dwells.