Holy Week message from LCMS President
Posted on March 23rd, 2013
Categories: Theology
Tagged: Holy Week, Lent, Matthew Harrison, Suffering
Posts from the “Theology” Category
Holy Week letter
Posted on March 23rd, 2013
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ JESUS, This Sunday we enter into that week called Holy. It is unlike any other week in the Christian year. Throughout the rest of the year time is compressed. We fly from creation through the long centuries of Old Testament history to the birth of Jesus to the end of time. In Holy Week, everything slows down. We move step by step through that fateful week in Jeruslaem in _Anno Domini_ 33. We hold aloft fronds of palms and shout with the crowd “Hosanna!” as Jesus rides into Jerusalem. We sit with Him in the Upper Room as He washes the disciples’ feet. We follow Him to Gethsemane, to the sham trial before Annas, then Caiaphas, then to…
Categories: Theology
Tagged: Holy Week, Immanuel Lutheran Church
Jacob bears the sins of his sons
Posted on March 21st, 2013
When Jacob confronts his sons after their slaughter of the Shechemites (in response to the defiling of Dinah), the sons are unrepentant. This too, Luther observes, is part of the trial of the godly: bearing with the sins of others. Hear how the sons reply to their father, the high and mighty rascals! They do not acknowledge their sin; they are not sorry for the unjust slaughter and violence but defend it. It is as though they meant to say: “We have acted justly by killing the Shechemites because their atrocious sins deserve severe punishments.” Accordingly, they amplify the rape of Dinah in a dramatic manner, even though Shechem wished to have her as his wife and not as a harlot. Nor do they…
Categories: Theology
Can a person believe and yet despair?
Posted on March 20th, 2013
After the slaughter of Shechem, Hamor, and the Hivites (when Shechem had defiled Dinah, Genesis 34), Jacob is filled with sorrow at the sins of his sons. Luther comments on this faith which struggles with despair in his Lectures on Genesis (AE 6): The holy man Jacob is again wrestling with a very great trial of the spirit and faith which is nearly extinguished. The flax is smoking, and the reed is bruised and nearly broken (cf. Is. 42:3). For they are not words of faith but simply Words of the murmuring flesh and struggling faith, and weak faith at that. He has almost lost those glorious promises: “I will surely bless you, etc.” Those suns and stars of the Word and promises were…
Categories: Theology
How to decide what Bible software you need
Posted on March 15th, 2013
A seminary student recently asked me about Bible software. He indicated that his seminary is pressuring him to get Logos, since it’s the only company Concordia Publishing House will work with. This is for him, posted here for you to listen in and/or argue with me. I first had the precursor to Logos, the Libronix system, when I bought Luther’s Works. I later bought an expensive package with BibleWorks, which was a great program on PC. But I kept being enticed by Logos because of the dream of having Lutheran resources available electronically. I eventually bought a package. At this point, I think I had purchased expensive resources like BDB (Hebrew Lexicon) and BDAG (Greek Lexicon) each three times: paper copy, BibleWorks, and Logos.…
Categories: Theology
Tagged: Accordance, Apple, Bible software, Concordia Publishing House, Logos, Seminary
Kieschnick on the Papacy
Posted on March 15th, 2013
LCMS President Emeritus Gerald Kieschnick recently commented on newly-elected Pope Francis and the papacy in general. Writing in his blog/email newsletter Perspectives, Kieschnick said two things of particular interest. The first deals with the date of Easter: During my days in office I had hoped to be able to visit with the pope, primarily to enlist his assistance in persuading the Christian Church to establish a fixed Sunday of the year for Easter, the first Sunday in April. Alas, that hope will not be fulfilled, unless what Dr. Paul Maier writes in his historical novel Constantine Codex actually becomes fact. Check it out. Given the very long-standing controversy over the date of Easter, that President Kieschnick would have such a hope is very surprising. The second…
Categories: Theology
[Sermo Dei] Laetare, the Fourth Sunday in Lent: Exodus 16:2-21
Posted on March 13th, 2013
I was a teenager when my grandparents sold their farm west of the Twin Cities and moved to a house in Litchfield, a town of about 6,000 people. The most particular memory I have of helping them move was the fascination at all the scraps of tinfoil my grandmother had saved, and more twist-ties than anyone could possibly need. She was a saver, which is what living through the Great Depression as a young woman will do to you. Listen again to the end of today’s first reading: “Moses said to them, ‘Let no one leave any of it over till the morning.’ But they did not listen to Moses. Some left part of it till the morning, and it bred worms and stank.” …
Tagged: Fear of death, Laetare - Lent 4, Manna
When we are plunged into disasters
Posted on March 1st, 2013
Luther’s consolation when things are tough, especially in the church: When we are plunged into disasters and troubles and covered by darkness, things on account of which we cannot be sure that we are the church or pleasing to God, let us learn to take hold of the Word and let sink and fall what falls, and let us not be moved by the fall and defection of others. But let us reflect that we are in a dark place, with the lamp of the Word shining before us. “For he who believes and is baptized will be saved” ( Mark 16:16). For that light is the only one which the sun and human reason do not see; but it shines in the heart.…
Categories: Theology
When things at your church are bad
Posted on February 28th, 2013
When things at your church are bad, and you are tempted to despair, consider these words of Luther: For if you carefully consider the state of our church, we seem to have nothing but the pure Word and the sacraments, and we have an infinite number of adversaries—princes, nobles, citizens, domestics, and pupils, and finally our own flesh which we carry about with us. For this is our glory, to be vexed and laughed at even by those from our own midst, by those in our own household. Those are our lids, on account of which we judge that God by no means wants to recognize and regard us as His own. For nothing becomes the church less than this picture, When I saw…
Categories: Theology
How to conquer God
Posted on February 27th, 2013
God is conquered in this way as soon as He has surrendered Himself to us, so to say, and revealed Himself in His Word, promise, and Baptism. It remains that you should conquer those things which want to take this God away from you, namely, through the truth of the promises and faith. Or, if He pretends that He is unfriendly and angry with you inasmuch as He does not want to hear you and help you, then say: “Lord God, You have promised this in Your Word. Therefore You will not change Your promise. I have been baptized: I have been absolved.” If you persistently urge and press on in this way, He will be conquered and say: “Let it be done unto…
Categories: Theology