Bible study: Jesus is everyone’s Savior
Justification is the doctrine by which the church stands or falls because the Christian faith is lost without it. We use four different adjectives to define the word justification: forensic,…
Bible study: Love one another
For many, Valentine’s Day has become a Hallmark holiday filled with sappy sentiment and red hearts . . . everywhere! The exact details of the original St. Valentine are a…
Bible study: Above all things!
The First Commandment states: “You shall have no other gods.” Martin Luther’s explanation says, “We should fear, love, and trust in God above all things.” This means that anything we…
Bible study: The comfort of God’s providence
God's providence means that everything happens according to God’s design (even permitting evil to work for the good of his people). It also refers to what God actually does in…
The book of James: Waiting for Christ’s return
Christ is coming! That was the Old Testament believers’ great hope. He did come to lowly crib and cross to save the world. Christ is coming! That is the New…
Bible study: Precious grace
The German theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote about “cheap grace.” By cheap grace, he meant that too many preach forgiveness without repentance and grace without the cross. In other words, people…
The book of James: Active in using prayer
From Jesus comes an example of how to pray. On the mountaintops and in the Garden of Gethsemane, he prayed for strength to do his Father’s will. From Jesus also…
What it means to be truly Lutheran: Public ministers of the gospel are called to serve
Priests in the Middle Ages had two primary tasks: Correctly perform the sacraments of the church to earn God’s grace on behalf of the people and listen to confession. The…
What it means to be truly Lutheran: The church is believers in Jesus
In Luther’s days, there were differing views about what the church looked like. The Roman Catholic Church considered the one holy church to be the church of Rome. Others, like…