Law and Gospel
God speaks two words that do two different things: the Law demands and accuses, the Gospel gives and forgives. Rightly distinguishing them is the key to reading Scripture, to preaching, and to a conscience at rest.
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Essays
28 essays
Longer-form essays on the confessional Lutheran faith — free to read, share, and hand on. Each is offered as a printable PDF for congregational use. New essays are announced in Ordinary Means first.
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Four essays to start with
How Are Lutherans Different from Other Protestants?
The deepest difference between Lutherans and most other Protestants is where they locate God's grace. Much of Protestantism finds grace in the believer's inner response — the sincerity of a decision, the intensity of an experience. Lutherans confess that God delivers His grace through external means: the Word preached and the Sacraments administered. Almost every other difference follows from that one.
Read essay →A Word From Outside Us
A defense of the confessional Lutheran faith — not as heritage or subculture, but as a particular comfort spoken to the terrified conscience from outside itself.
Read essay →The Theology of the Cross
A theologian of glory expects to find God in power, success, and visible blessing. A theologian of the cross finds Him hidden under the opposite — in suffering, weakness, and the crucified Christ. Learning the difference reframes how you read God, your suffering, and the Christian life.
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All essays
The Christ Behind the Doctrine
On a graphic that makes you choose between theology and love
Read essay →The Trouble with "Some"
A question about other people's errors, answered honestly
Read essay →The Wrong Address
Why a Debate Group Could Never Have Given Her What She Came For
Read essay →One Fold of Paper
What Do the Invitation Hymns in the Ambassador Hymnal Teach?
Read essay →If Weakness Is the Goal
On a viral graphic, a missing word, and a comfort that does not depend on you
Read essay →Mice from a Dirty Shirt
Two thousand years of believing life makes itself, and one Frenchman with a bent glass neck
Read essay →It Was Not an Enemy
The wounds friends leave, the scars Christ kept, and the forgiveness He gave away
Read essay →Let Go and Let God: The Altar Call in the Passive Voice
A five-word slogan that sounds like grace, borrowed from the Higher Life movement and carried into both the sanctuary and the church basement. It is right about the problem and wrong about the cure.
Read essay →Rahab the Prostitute
Scripture never takes the label off her. Fifteen centuries later the apostles are still calling her the prostitute — and that is better news than a rewrite.
Read essay →When the Answer Is "He Said It"
Reason Is Not the Enemy of Faith — and It Is Not Its Foundation
Read essay →You Are Egypt
Why the Disney Princess critique lands — and why it lands somewhere other than the Lutheran confession
Read essay →The Wordless Book and the Baptized Child
Why Child Evangelism Fellowship Cannot Be Made Lutheran
Read essay →Depart, Unclean Spirit
What the Lutherans Lost at the Font
Read essay →The Text the Church Copied for a Thousand Years
The Majority Text Position, Fairly Presented — and Why I Do Not Finally Hold It
Read essay →Double Honor
What a Congregation Owes Its Pastor
Read essay →Who or What Is the Antichrist?
A Confessional Reading Against the Prophecy Charts
Read essay →What Sola Scriptura Actually Means
The Bible Above Everything, Not the Bible and Nothing Else
Read essay →The Theology of the Cross
How God Hides in Order to Be Found
Read essay →Law and Gospel
The One Distinction That Unlocks the Bible
Read essay →Is Christ Really Present in Communion?
Taking Jesus at His Word
Read essay →How Are Lutherans Different from Other Protestants?
The One Difference Behind All the Others
Read essay →The Proof of the Cup
Where the power of the sacrament actually lies — and why the wine-only argument misplaces it
Read essay →Held, Not Holding
Perseverance, the Means of Grace, and the Ground of Assurance
Read essay →Love the Sinner, Hate the Sin
A saying that isn't there — and the harder thing the Gospel actually asks
Read essay →A Word From Outside Us
Why the Anxious Conscience Needs a Faith It Did Not Invent
Read essay →No One Takes This Honor for Himself
The External Call, the Enthusiast's Error, and the Comfort of Rite Vocatus
Read essay →Two Kingdoms, One Lord
The Two Kingdoms Doctrine in Confessional Lutheran Perspective
Read essay →The Leaderboard
How a Copyright Service Quietly Decided What the American Church Would Sing
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