Christopher Gillespie

by Christopher Gillespie Jun 28, 2026 · Edited

The Teacher Who Is Mercy Itself

You have been somebody's disciple since the day you were born, and Jesus warns that you never rise above your teacher — given enough time, you simply become him. The world is a blind guide that trains us to judge first and forgive slowly, and we have become blind guides ourselves, reaching for the speck in a brother's eye with a plank in our own. But there is another Teacher: Jesus is the Father's mercy in the flesh, who takes our score-keeping heart to the cross and trains us in Baptism, Word, Absolution, and the Supper until we begin to look like Him.

by Christopher Gillespie Jun 21, 2026 · Edited

“He isn’t using a club. It is a broom. He’s sweeping you home.” Trinity 3 2026

The affliction that sweeps through your life is not a club driving you out but a broom sweeping you home: His pursuit, not your punishment. He answers the charge that He receives sinners with the lost sheep and the lost coin—lighting the lamp of His Word, laying the sheep on His own shoulders rejoicing, carrying you to the rail. You came in a lost coin and go out treasure in the King’s own hand.

by Christopher Gillespie Jun 21, 2026 · Edited

Jeremiah Chapter 4–5 — The Foe from the North

The Lord sends Jeremiah running through Jerusalem to find one righteous man so the city may be pardoned—and finds none. The foe gathers from the north and Jeremiah’s vision unmakes creation itself over a people wise to do evil. The one Just Man is found at last outside the walls, and for His sake the city is spared.

by Christopher Gillespie Jun 17, 2026 · Edited

There's Always More Where That Came From

For twelve years she had been unclean — exiled from the assembly, emptied by physicians who took everything and healed nothing. So she comes to steal a cure from the fringe of Jesus' garment, certain God's mercy runs out like everything else has. But His power goes out from Him and nothing is subtracted: she came to take a cure and leaves a daughter. There is always more where that came from.

by Christopher Gillespie Jun 7, 2026 · Edited

Jeremiah: Chapter 2 — Bible Study, June 7, 2026

"For My people have committed two evils: they have forsaken Me, the fountain of living waters, and hewn themselves cisterns — broken cisterns that can hold no water." (Jer. 2:13)

by Christopher Gillespie Jun 7, 2026 · Edited

"The poor one has a name. Lazarus. God is my help." Trinity 1 2026

You have what Lazarus had. You have a name, given in the water. You have the promise — eternal life on account of the promise, not on account of your merits. You have Moses and the Prophets and the One they promised, who is here, on this altar, in your mouth and in your body.

by Christopher Gillespie Jun 5, 2026 · Edited

Banned Books 442: Giertz — A Shepherd's Letter

Riley and Gillespie sit with Bo Giertz and read his open letter to the churches. Crisis, liberal theology, the resurrection as the center of preaching, and the church's endurance through every age.

by Christopher Gillespie Jun 4, 2026 · Edited

"The age to come arriving in this age, located, given out" Wednesday of Holy Trinity 2026

You went into that water still carrying the old premise — still asking what resurrection could possibly mean, still uncertain whether the age to come is anything more than this age with the dying removed. And you came out having been given something you did not generate, extra nos, outside yourself, from the One whose Name was spoken over you.

by Christopher Gillespie May 22, 2026 · Edited

Teaching Evangelical Repentance to Children

Your kid bullied another kid. You said, “Tell him you’re sorry.” You taught him penance, not repentance. Penance trusts the child’s willpower. Repentance kills the old child and raises a new one. New blog: how parents and teachers preach the Gospel in real time.

by Christopher Gillespie May 24, 2026 · Edited

“The Spirit gives you the peace Christ bought” Pentecost 2026

He who scattered at Babel gathers here at Pentecost. He who divided the tongues there of evil, now unites them here for good. The same Spirit. The same fire. At Babel, God came down and scattered. At Pentecost, God came down to gather, and He gathered by preaching. Not by making the nations speak one language. By making the one Gospel spoken in every language. Every tongue heard the same thing: the Spirit gives you the peace Christ bought.

by Christopher Gillespie May 21, 2026 · Edited

“Be of good cheer, I have overcome the world!” Friday of Exaudi (observed) 2026

Take heart. He did not say try harder. He did not say believe more. He did not say feel something. He said take heart. Be of good cheer. Because — and this is the only because that holds — “I have overcome the world” (John 16:33). He has done it. It stands done. It will be done tomorrow morning, and the morning after that, and the morning your believing finally collapses entirely. The I that holds you is not yours.

by Christopher Gillespie May 31, 2026

“You are the teacher of Israel, and yet you do not understand this?” Holy Trinity 2026

You look, and you live. You do not first understand, and then live. The teacher came carrying everything he knew and was handed two things he could do nothing with: a birth he could not perform and a cross he could only behold. And even the looking is not the last small work left to his credit — the eyes that turn to the lifted Son are opened by the same Spirit who blows where He wills, the birth of water and the Spirit, not of the will of the flesh, not of any man’s deciding. It is given the whole way down.

by Christopher Gillespie May 14, 2026

"Your flesh and blood is at the right hand of the Almighty" Ascension (observed) 2026

The angels asked: Why do you stand gazing? He is not up there, away, unreachable. He fills all things. He is here — in His word, in His sacrament — as surely as He was on the mountain before the cloud came. The cloud did not remove Him. It revealed Him. As the One who sits at the right hand of the Father. As the One who, in that human nature, fills all things. As your Brother, enthroned.

by Christopher Gillespie May 11, 2026

“The Father Himself loves you… pray!” Rogate 2026

Prayer in the name of Jesus is not a formula appended to a petition. It is a location. To pray in His name is to come to the Father as one who is in the Son — wrapped in the Son, carrying the Son’s own standing before the Father. You are not the poor man at the gate any longer. You are not approaching from outside, hoping to have moved Him. You are praying from inside the love the Father has for the Son. That is where the font placed you. That is where you stand.

by Christopher Gillespie May 7, 2026

"Christ went where you could not go" Friday of Cantate (observed) 2026

The new commandment is a finished love. Christ made it on a cross. He gives it to you here in water and word and bread and wine. It is yours. The commandment and the gift are one. Faith and love are baked together like one loaf. Christ holds the one, and you hold the other, and there is no separating them. Christ went where you could not go, so that you could love as you have been loved.

by Christopher Gillespie May 5, 2026

"Draw from the well of His salvation, Jesus." Cantate 2026

This is the advantage. Not God near in the way you wanted. Better than that. The Spirit who convicts — your sin named and buried, Christ’s righteousness declared and given, the ruler’s judgment executed and delivered — doing his work here, in this service, for you.

by Christopher Gillespie Apr 27, 2026

"Come receive what Chronos cannot touch!" Jubilate 2026

Two kinds of time run through this Gospel. Chronos, which counts every loss and draws its conclusions. And kairos, which speaks the word of the risen Christ into the middle of those losses and names them for what they are: labor pains, not graves.

by Christopher Gillespie Apr 23, 2026

“The friends of the Bridegroom cannot mourn as long as He is with them” Friday of Misericordias 2026

The Bridegroom gives you new wineskins. He gave them to you at the font, where He drowned the old garment and clothed you in His own. The robe you wear before God is His obedience, His death, His resurrection. He does not repair what you bring. He replaces it. This is the grace that cannot be patched onto anything — it must be received whole, given whole, or it is lost.

by Christopher Gillespie Apr 19, 2026

"The Shepherd stayed when it cost Him His life" Misericordias Domini 2026

The hireling runs. That is the only fact Jesus gives you about him. He sees the wolf coming, and he runs. The sheep scatter, the wolf takes what it wants, and the hireling is already down the road. Jesus does not tell you the hireling's reasons. He does not need to. The man ran. That is his whole character, stated in a single act. Set that figure next to the Good Shepherd, and you have the entirety of the Gospel for this Sunday: He stayed.

by Christopher Gillespie Apr 16, 2026

“Fear and joy together. That is the life of faith.” Friday of Quasimodo Geneti (observed) 2026

You want joy without the terror of standing before the God who raises the dead. Or you settle for dread with no hope of mercy. The women leave the tomb with both, and Matthew does not apologize. He tells you: this is what the resurrection does. It gives you fear and joy together, because the One you meet at the empty tomb is both Judge and Savior, both Holy God and your Brother.