The world is always evil, but as age gives way to age, the spirit of the age chooses different evils to emphasize. Today’s preachers of the Church must bring the Word to bear on today’s evils.
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The hymns of the Lutheran Church teach us how to be martyrs for Christ. Martyrs are witnesses. The most extreme form of witness is shedding our blood to seal our testimony to Christ, but before a Christian can do that, he must (usually) learn to be a faithful witness in smaller things.
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Our aim with all sinners, including those struggling with depression and suicidal thoughts, is to point them to the hope we have in Christ, and the encouragement that He never leaves us as we fight the good fight of faith – a fight we should never give up.
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During the decades when we heard little of this from Lutheran pulpits, there were still voices crying in the wilderness. Gottesdienst’s “Sabre of Boldness” award brought to the memory of at least some of the LCMS clergy roster that Scripture bids us to “quit us like men” and “take up the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God.” But the call to war issued by Scripture was rare indeed in our churches, except in our hymns, where departed saints from the Church triumphant bore witness to us.
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Let’s start here: how much of the Scriptures are in verse (and not only vers-es)? Leaf through any bible which nicely formats it so it is easy to tell prose from poetry, and there is (to the poetry-averse) an astonishing amount. Like, a lot. And, while I’d like to pretend it doesn’t matter, you get the nagging feeling that it might.
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Merry Christmas! We have seen quite a bit of talk from Dr. Mayes and Dr. Koontz on the applications of Holy Scripture. Here is how the Elector, or Ernestine Bible of 1641 teaches us to apply Luke 2.
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To be sure, the Creator and creature are different, but – especially at this time of year! – we can rejoice in the fact that we shouldn’t draw such a sharp distinction between God and man that the rest of the Scriptures are at odds with a crude understanding of that bare statement.
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Below are recordings of the three presentations that I gave at St. Paul Lutheran Church, Union Grove, Wisconsin on The Greatness of Difficulty.
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In this week’s Thinking Out Loud (Trinity Sunday), I had asked Fr. Petersen why John 3 had been the appointed Gospel for The Feast of the Most Holy Trinity. Not having readily available by memory this history of this feast, we embarked upon some sanctified speculation. An astute listener e-mailed me with the following from Fred Lindemann, in volume three of his The Sermon and the Propers:
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The purpose of this essay is to strive for the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace, so that we might together humbly accept the Word of God on this matter, submit to it, and encourage each other to apply it to our congregations and synod, speaking the truth in love, lest the devil divide us by seducing us from the clear word of God.
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When you see an “Out of Order” sign posted, you know that something doesn’t work. It’s broken. It could be that it simply needs a new part or component, and supplying it puts things back into working order. It could be that it needs to be filled with something—fuel or lubricant for an engine or product for a vending machine—and supplying that which is lacking puts it back into working order. In this way, out of order indicates a static and inactive thing. It’s broken, so it just sits there, until someone does something to fix it.
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