Sacred and the secular were merged.
But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. Once you were not a people, but now you are God's people; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.--1 Peter 2:9-10 
(ESV)
(ESV)Who's the holiest person you can think of (and don’t give the Sunday School answer of "Jesus")? What do they do? Where is the holiest place you can think of? What kind of place is it?
In the Medieval world, that was an easy answer. The holy people were the priests and monks. After all, they had given up everything to follow God. And they stood between the common, unholy people and God. And the holy places were churches. In those four walls the sacred work happened. You met God there.
- Andy Wulff
WWJD bracelet nailed to Wittenberg door?
For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit. Romans 8:3-4 (ESV)
(ESV)A few years ago the easiest way to display your Christianity was to wear a rubberized bracelet with the letters WWJD stamped into it. It was meant for people to live constantly with the question, ‘What would Jesus do?’ This movement gained momentum, solid millions of bands, and even fostered pop culture reactions.
- Andy Wulff
What if instead of pride, your name was associated with shame?
For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. -- 1 Corinthians 1:18 (ESV)
(ESV)What is your proudest achievement? What would you want to let everyone know about you? Would it be a project you worked on? Or an athletic achievement? Or some problem you solved? Or something you invented? We are taught from a young age to achieve and be proud of it. We wear it as our identity.
What if what you were known for was a notorious event? What if instead of pride, your name was associated with shame? How would you feel?
What if what you were known for was a notorious event? What if instead of pride, your name was associated with shame? How would you feel?
- Andy Wulff
How will we be reconciled with a completely holy God?
For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith, as it is written, “The righteous shall live by faith.” -- Romans 1:17 (ESV)
(ESV)You might say that the central question of the reformation is how will we, as sinful creatures, be reconciled with a completely holy God. The medieval answer took the work of Christ and mixed it with our own work to create a rickety bridge back to God. But for those who were honest with themselves, this bridge would not hold the weight of their guilt. Luther was someone plagued by these honest doubts. Even after becoming a monk with doing holy things and regularly confessing his sin, salvation assurance was an elusive truth.
- Andy Wulff
Ongoing war with the world outside or within ourselves?
For I delight in the law of God, in my inner being, but I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. --
Edwin Star famously asked the question in his 1970 lyric ‘War, what is it good for?’ His conclusion was ‘nothing’. Is that how you think of your Christian life? It’s a war which ain’t good for nothin! Maybe you see that war as one with the combating forces outside of you and with the battlefront all around you.
- Andy Wulff
The Book of the Bible that Propelled the Reformations
I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting him who called you in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel—not that there is another one, but there are some who trouble you and want to distort the gospel of Christ.Galatians 1:6-7 (ESV)
(ESV)If you were to pick one book of the Bible that propelled the Reformation forward it would be Galatians. It was a lighting bolt that shot through Martin Luther and the thunder that resulted echoed across Europe.
- Andy Wulff
