“Faith, therefore, is a certain steadfast beholding, which looks upon Christ alone, the conqueror of sin and death and the giver of righteousness, salvation, and eternal life…So, if I would find comfort and life, when I am at the point of death, I must do nothing else but apprehend Christ, and look at Him, and say: I believe in Jesus Christ, the Son of God, who suffered, was crucified, and  [ Read More ]

“Yet it is also a word of judgment because it reminds us that our temptation to be preoccupied with those that our celebrity-aesthetic society finds lovely – the young, the artistic, the talented, the famous, the trendy, the brash, the bold, the beautiful, the cool, the self-promoting and the hip – does not reflect the priorities of the God of the cross. He is more likely to build his church  [ Read More ]

Luther was a former monk who, at the age of 42, married an apostate nun named Katherine. Luther really needed to get married. He once said, “Before I was married the bed was not made for a whole year and became foul with sweat” (Bainton, Here I Stand, 226).

I greatly longed to understand Paul’s Epistle to the Romans and nothing stood in the way but that one expression, “the justice of God,” because I took it to mean that justice whereby God is just and deals justly in punishing the unjust. My situation was that, although an impeccable monk, I stood before God as a sinner troubled in conscience, and I had no confidence that my merit would assuage  [ Read More ]