Falling Down and Getting Up Again

I heard once of an Italian peasant woman who happened to bump into a monk who lived in a monastery high on a hill above her village. Since she bumped ...

No Hidden Sin

Do not expect God to cover what you are not willing to uncover.

Praying the Ten Commandments

In "A Simple Way to Pray" (1535), Martin Luther writes:

If I have had time and opportunity to go through the Lord's Prayer, I do the same ...

Wycliffe on Absolution

There is no greater heresy for a man than to believe that he is absolved from sin if he gives money, or because a priest lays his hand on his head and ...

Life after Repentance

All of us, perhaps, are too ready, when our behaviour turns out to have appalling consequences, to rush out and hang ourselves. Sometimes we do worse, ...

Turn Around

Repentance is not basically a religious word. It comes from a culture where people were essentially nomadic and lived in a world with no maps or street ...

That Grace May Abound

We need not "sin that grace may abound." We are sinners and need only to confess that grace may abound.

180-Degree Repentance

Wabush, a town in a remote portion of Labrador, Canada, was completely isolated for some time. But recently a road was cut through the wilderness to reach ...

The Root of Sin

The essence of sin is the refusal to recognize that we are accountable to God at all.

John Knox Pleads Guilty

Fiery reformer John Knox was keenly aware of his own shortcomings:

Although I never lack the presence and plain image of my own wretched infirmity, yet ...