1517 Blogcast

When there is no “shining example” to follow or moral hero to aspire to, we are compelled to cry for Someone Better to instill in us the hope we so desperately crave.

Strasbourg's hymnals are especially relevant to American Lutherans because much of what we experience in our churches comes to us from Strasbourg.

If you are a Christian, you already have what you need to give a reason for the hope within you. That reason, though, is not you.

It is an epic event when the One who makes the world names us as a gift, baldly stating reality.

Little did they know that the one showing them all this kindness was the very one they had betrayed.   

The gospel is for sinners – both the tax collector and Pharisee, both in need of the Great Physician. 

The Holy Maker is going to create what no one ever sees: something from a nothing, someone from a no-one. 

Eucatastrophe is the coming untrue of all sin, evil, and death. And where that starts is the empty tomb of the risen Jesus.  

In Israel today, it's still possible to witness the same scene the disciples saw 2000 years ago when the Bedouin shepherds bring their flocks home from various pastures at the end of the day.

Fellowship is nothing if it is not ultimately fellowship with God.

The price was really paid. Your sin remains buried in Christ's tomb.  

The notion that your goodness is “good enough” to make you right with God is a lie straight from the father of lies himself. 

The Church isn't built or expanded by human efforts but by Christ himself, the chief cornerstone of our faith. 

There and back again is not just a hobbit story. It is the story of Good Friday and Easter. Jesus journeyed to the cross, through the grave, and rose from the dead on the third day.

The church is called to preach the good news of Jesus Christ. Where is that message found? In every blade of grass, on every page of Scripture.

Sometimes, we get prayer dementia. We can't remember what we were going to pray for, we can't put the words together, and, frustrated, there is nothing we can do but sigh and groan.

The number forty calls to remembrance narratives of God's great acts of redemption, but also our conformity to and participation in those narratives.

Legalism invites you to look and observe and see what Christ wants from you, to follow his example, and to do what Jesus would do. The gospel proclaims Jesus as your Savior and Mediator and therefore shus your eyes and opens your ears to the Word of God.

He was exiled from his Father for a time so we would never have to be.

One day, either through the firestorms of life or the decay of time, our earthly love will end up in ashes.  

We'll find that the driving impulse of Lent isn't so much “giving up” things as it is “putting on” something

At the Transfiguration, we say farewell to alleluia and hello to the horrific reality of our lost condition.

This is what drove Rod's theology—that the good news—that Jesus died for sins and rose for the justification of the sinner—is for you and for all people.

The essence of what it means to be a son or daughter of Abraham, an inheritor of the Abrahamic promise, was irrevocably tethered to faith.

Anderson encourages us to meditate upon the ways that Christ truly is the end of our exploring.

 What (if anything) makes a sermon distinctive?

A pastor shares his own experience of loneliness and hope 

Confession and absolution offer more than assurance, they gift real and genuine Divine promises.

When I came to view my own difficulties through the lens of Lewis' work, I realized that I was not so much rebelling against God as longing for him.

How can he say it? How can he say that Christ is after all the entire meaning of life for him, and that death is no real worry? 

The legacy of Jonah is troubled with most remembering him not for what he said but for what he did: run away.

God gives good gifts to underserving workers. God gives good gifts to all of them.

Of all the Inklings, Williams was certainly the most enigmatic. His mind and body were always moving.

Luther actually expected the Catechism to be taught in the home

God knows that when we face insurmountable odds in our moments of weakness, we are more likely to turn to him in trust and reliance.

If poetry elevates its subject, we could also say the reverse: the subject, in this case, the Most High God, elevates the language.

Even at Lewis' graveside, Havard was a faithful friend, and a friend full of faith in Christ, confessing his hope in the resurrection.

The Lord has remembered to help his servant Israel, to fulfill his promises to Abraham and to his offspring forever, not mostly or mainly because of his mercy, but exclusively so.

This week, we'll take a closer look at what it means to have a God who remembers us. Today, 1517 Scholar in Residence Chad Bird first introduces the Old Testament meaning behind the word and the Hebrew way of remembering.

Remembering is not recalling, its reflexing. It's not meditating on things past and gone, but mediating into the present the truths learned in the past.

When God remembers his covenant with Noah and causes the flood to subside, he also chooses to forget.

Faith sees your neighbor not as a means to an end, not as a way to score points, but as an object of love: Christ's love and yours.