Letters from Jeremiah

The Leading Cause of Death in America

2009-04-28T05:22:00.000-07:00

Newsletter Article for April 2005

The government and the popular media would like you to believe that more people die of heart disease each year than any other cause, but that is not quite true. According to the National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) in 2002 (the latest data available) 696,947 people died of heart disease and 557,271 people died of cancer. These were the reported leading causes of death in 2002, but in their annual reports the NCHS and the Center for Disease Control (CDC) omit the greatest killer of Americans. In 2002 there were an estimated 1,300,000 people killed by abortion in the United States. This is more than died of heart disease and cancer combined! That makes abortion, far and away, the leading cause of death in America, but because of politics, it is officially unacknowledged.

The failure of the government to accurately report this fact means that few people realize the true magnitude of the problem. Although the information is available, you really have to work to find it, and few people do, so most Americans remain ignorant about the magnitude of the tragedy. The Alan Guttmacher Institute (AGI) calculates that since 1973, when the U.S. Supreme Court first illegally legislated nationwide permissive abortion laws, there have been at least 44,000,000 abortion deaths in the United States through 2004. The AGI also believes that these numbers are low by as much as 2,000,000 due to abortion providers underreporting their true numbers.

These numbers are truly frightening. Although the number of people killed each year in abortions has gone down slightly since about 1990, the 1,300,000 Americans killed each year are more than were killed in the Revolutionary War, the Civil War, World War I, World War II, the Korean War, the Vietnam War, the two recent Iraq wars, and the war in Afghanistan combined (1,111,000)!

This is one issue in which Christians should be the strongest voices in opposition to this senseless slaughter, and among those supporting anti-abortion activities Christians certainly are well represented, and Christians aren’t the only ones working to stop the slaughter, but compared to the magnitude of the problem their voices seem to be as yet small and drowned out by a belligerent force viciously supporting the murder of millions of innocent babies each year. Christians should be united in this cause because God’s Word is very clear. God’s Command says, “You shall not murder.” In several other places such as Deut. 18:10-13 and Leviticus 18:21 God further clarifies this by forbidding and condemning parents from murdering their children. In Jeremiah 7:31 God condemns His people for killing their children because it was “something I did not command, nor did it enter my mind.” Although the ancient people did this to children who were already born there is no doubt that God’s response was and is the same. In Deut. 18 God forbids the ritual murder of children, calls it “detestable”, and reminds them that it is because of these “detestable practices” of the Canaanites that God was going to drive them out of the land in order to give the land to the Israelites (who would presumably not do such practices.)

Now some godless abortion apologist would likely point out that in not one of the 44,000,000 (or 46,000,000) abortions performed in the U.S. in the past 32 years has anyone called on Molech. This much is true, as far as it goes, but it ignores the real reasons behind the ancient pagan practice of infanticide. The reason why the ancient pagans killed their children was because they wanted their god to bless them and make them prosper and if this detestable practice meant one less mouth to feed then so much the better (until the real God got fed up with this and sent conquering enemies to slaughter the whole lot of them). People today have abortions for much the same reason. They want to prosper, and what they imagine prosperity to be is being able to commit adulteries and fornication and not have to deal with the responsibilities of the results of such activities (i.e. children).

You can ignore ALL of the popular arguments in favor of abortion. They are all grotesque, detestable lies. According to National Right to Life, a survey of women seeking abortions indicated that only 7% of women cited typical “hard cases” (rape, incest, or some health concern with either the baby or the mother) as the primary reason they were seeking abortion. That means 93% of abortions (about 41,000,000 in the past 32 years) were the completely “detestable” actions committed for the convenience of the mother and/or the father (not that the other 7% are not also detestable to God). Although the statistics also show that the death rate for women who have abortions has gone down since 1973, it is still immoral to slaughter 1,300,000 innocent babies to save 200 lives.

Bernard Nathanson is a former abortion doctor who helped sell legal abortion to the nation in the early 1970’s. He came to realize what a horror this really was and in an eye-opening and chilling article entitled “How Lying Marketers Sold Roe vs. Wade to America” he tells how abortion advocates lied (and still lie) to influence public opinion. He says,

We persuaded the media that the cause of permissive abortion was a liberal, enlightened, sophisticated one, knowing that if a true poll were taken, we would be soundly defeated, we simply fabricated the results of fictional polls. We announced to the media that we had taken polls and that 60 percent of Americans were in favor of permissive abortion. This is the tactic of the self-fulfilling lie. Few people care to be in the minority. We aroused enough sympathy to sell our program of permissive abortion by fabricating the number of illegal abortions done annually in the U.S. The actual figure was approaching 100,000, but the figure we gave to the media repeatedly was 1 million.

Repeating the big lie often enough convinces the public. The number of women dying from illegal abortions was around 200-250 annually. The figure we constantly fed to the media was 10,000.

Another myth we fed to the public through the media was that legalizing abortion would only mean that the abortions taking place illegally would then be done legally. In fact, of course, abortion is now being used as a primary method of birth control in the U.S. and the annual number of abortions has increased by 1,500 percent since legalization.

The lying continues, as shown by the government’s refusal to accurately report the number of abortions and their reticence to include these figures in reports such as the ones which list the leading causes of death among Americans. It makes one wonder about the politicians who are so outspoken in support for this murderous “choice”. Apparently they are pandering to the wicked desires of their constituents who wish to engage in any of a number of wicked lifestyles without any fear of retribution or responsibility for their actions. It is telling that former President Clinton disingenuously said that abortion ought to be “safe, legal, and rare”. If something is so admittedly immoral that it ought to be “rare”, then the best way to make it rare is for it to be made illegal, no matter how “safe” it may be. It is certainly not “safe” for the 1,300,000 babies who are viciously murdered every year.

Black Christian Americans ought to be especially vocal in their opposition to this outrageous massacre. The largest abortion provider in the world is Planned Parenthood, which was founded by the racist eugenicist Margaret Sanger, who promoted the idea that non-white races were inferior. The fruit of this ideology is seen in the fact that according to the CDC, 36% of all women who obtained abortions in 2001 were black. This is far out of proportion with the fact that black people only comprise around 13% of the general population. The CDC also reports that “The abortion ratio for black women (491 per 1,000 live births) was 3.0 times the ratio for white women (165 per 1,000).” That ratio is astoundingly sad! It means that nearly for every two children who are born to black mothers one other baby is killed by abortion! There should be protests in the street until this wickedness is ended, but instead, black Americans have been overwhelmingly supportive of the major political party which advocates this massacre. Where you find such inconsistencies you are surely to find sin at the root of it.

Holy Scripture frequently describes sin as “darkness” because sin has a blinding effect on those in its grasp. Christ Jesus has a cure for this blindness. He is the cure for this blindness. Jesus calls on all sinners to repent of their sins and look to Him for forgiveness. In John 3:19-21 Jesus describes the situation in this way, “Light has come into the world, but men loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that his deeds will be exposed. But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what he has done has been done through God.” Christians are the Body of Christ in the world by His grace and we must shed light on such wickedness and sin. The sinners surely are not going to like it, but if we can lead sinners to repentance and also to faith in Jesus then in the end it is much better than burning in hell for eternity. Some may object that not all who practice or seek abortions will burn in hell, but only those who repent of this sin (and all others) and look to Christ for forgiveness will escape the torment of hell.

It really isn’t enough for Christians to say that, “Well, I would never commit adultery or fornication or kill my baby. I don’t want to impose my beliefs on others.” Remember that in the Old Testament when Israel had such ideas God punished the whole nation. And besides, God wants ALL people to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth (1 Timothy 2:4). The truth is that abortion in America has gone beyond mass murder, and even beyond genocide. It is fortunate for us that God is “slow to anger” (Num. 14:18) because “If you, O Lord, kept a record of sins, O Lord, who could stand? But with you there is forgiveness, therefore you are feared.” (Psalm 130:3-4) God will certainly forgive those who repent of any evil thing, but although God is slow to anger, when his wrath is kindled it is fearsome. Those who wish to remain in their sins are certainly still subject to God’s anger and punishment. If we, as Christians “love one another” as Jesus loves us then we ought to vehemently condemn sins such as abortion as the wicked things that they are so that the sinners may repent and find forgiveness in Jesus. God is a forgiving God who sent His own Son to be our savior. Jesus willingly sacrificing His life that we might be spared God’s eternal wrath. We can also show the world that through the grace of God even the fruits of adultery (children) can be a tremendous blessing from God to people who love Him.

A Squirrel in the House

2009-04-28T05:11:00.000-07:00

Newsletter article for March 2005

There once was a group of tenants who rented a house. One day a squirrel got into the house and began to make a mess. The squirrel chewed holes in the tenants belongings, knocked over the furnishings, and made a great mess in the house. The tenants complained to the landlord and he sent a housekeeper to clean up the mess and deal with the situation.

When the housekeeper arrived at the house he saw what the problem was right away. He quickly began planning to get rid of the squirrel and clean up the mess in the house. But when he told the tenants what he was going to do they strongly objected. They thought the squirrel was “cute” and they had really grown attached to it and didn’t want to get rid of the squirrel, despite the damage it was doing in the house. The housekeeper had never before heard such nonsense and tried to reason with the tenants, but they wouldn’t let him remove the squirrel so that he could clean up the house. The housekeeper was determined to clean up the house because he worked for the landlord and not the tenants, but so as not to upset the tenants too much too quickly he resolved to move slowly.

The housekeeper thought he would first try to clean up a little bit of the mess the squirrel had made so that the tenants would see how good it was to live in a clean house, and then he would also explain to them all the good benefits of squirrel removal so that they would appreciate when the squirrel was gone. This was the plan, but it didn’t go quite as he had hoped. Whenever the housekeeper tried to clean up the mess the squirrel had made, or repair the damage it had done the tenants objected. They had grown so attached to the squirrel over time that they had gotten so used to the squirrel’s destruction that they couldn’t bear to live without it, and they wouldn’t let the housekeeper lift one finger to do the work that he had been sent to accomplish.

The housekeeper tried to show the tenants that keeping a wild animal in the house was self-destructive, and it violated the terms of their lease, but they dismissed the words of the housekeeper by calling him such things as “insensitive” and “uncaring.” Some of the tenants might have listened to the housekeeper, but the other tenants told them that the real problem was the housekeeper, and that all their problems would go away if the housekeeper left. So the housekeeper found little support among the tenants.

Most of the time the tenants listened politely to what the housekeeper told them about all the benefits of letting him remove the squirrel and cleaning up the landlord’s house where they lived, but they didn’t believe a word of it, and they wouldn’t let the housekeeper do his work.

As time went by some of the tenants did grow weary of living in a house which was increasingly being torn to bits by the squirrel and its progeny. The squirrel had made a nest and there was a whole family of squirrels just destroying the landlord’s house and despoiling the tenants’ belongings. A few tenants decided to move out, and a little later, a few more tenants moved out. The housekeeper couldn’t blame them for leaving. He would have left himself except that the landlord had given him a job to do and he wanted to see the job accomplished. He also wanted the tenants to see the wisdom of getting rid of the squirrel so that even if they moved somewhere else they would not bring such destruction to another of the landlord’s houses.

When the tenants saw that people were moving out they began to get upset and again blamed the housekeeper. The housekeeper thought that this was just more of their nonsensical rationalizations, but there was a bit of truth to their complaints. The housekeeper had not done his job and people were leaving. It’s not that people wouldn’t have left if he had done the job in opposition to the tenants, but he had tried to accommodate the irrational and self-destructive desires of these tenants, and in doing this he hadn’t done his job.

The housekeeper began to do what he had been sent to do. He found all the squirrel nests in the house and removed them and all squirrels that he was able to find. Then he started to clean up and repair the damage done by the rodents. The tenants had a fit! They complained about what the housekeeper was doing. They told how other tenants in other houses lived in similar squirrel squalor, as if that would excuse their own misdeeds. Then they proceeded to call the housekeeper all kinds of nasty names. They tried to turn all of the other tenants against the housekeeper and the landlord by telling lies about him. When they saw they couldn’t intimidate him from doing his job they began to conspire secretly how they could sneak more squirrels into the house without the housekeeper or the landlord knowing about it.

When the situation had gotten so bad that the house was beyond repair the tenants still tenaciously kept at their destructive ways. They complained that they had hit rock bottom, but they didn’t believe they were really at rock bottom because they still felt that everything would be better if only the housekeeper wasn’t there to clean up the mess that they had allowed to grow, and they still tried to get the housekeeper kicked out of the landlord’s house. A squirrel is not a person, but they loved that squirrel and its destruction more than they loved the housekeeper or the landlord.

What do you think the landlord will do to those wicked tenants? (See Matt. 21:33-44)

The Christian and Culture

2009-04-28T05:00:00.000-07:00

Newsletter article for February 2005

by Rev. Paul Wolff

It has become something of a commonplace for Christians in our culture to believe that in order to win converts we must be sensitive to the culture of the people we are witnessing to, instead of seeking to replace the godless worldly culture with a true worship of God. This would only be true if the process of winning converts would only involve trying to please people. Holy Scripture rejects this view. Saint Paul writes to the Galatians, “Am I now trying to win the approval of men, or of God? Or am I trying to please men? If I were still trying to please men, I would not be a servant of Christ.” (Gal. 1:10) If we seek to accommodate earthly culture in order to please people then we have made the people and their culture into false gods, which God condemns.

In the Old Testament God did not give the Israelite people the specific task of evangelism or making converts. God’s people were to give witness and testimony about God’s gracious kindness through their history and the blessings of life. There’s actually more directions from God about totally destroying the pagan idolaters who were inhabiting the land which God reserved for His people, Israel, than about converting other peoples. They weren’t told to destroy all pagan idolaters, just the ones living where God wanted His people to live. For those foreigners who saw God’s gracious dealing with Israel and wished to be a part of God’s people, God gave guidelines as to how this was to be done. In many cases foreigners were welcomed into the family of God, but they had to submit completely to God’s laws, including circumcision and the ceremonial and religious laws, and they had to completely forsake their previous way of life including all worship of other gods and even foreign dietary practices which conflicted with God’s Law.

In Deuteronomy 7:3 God forbade intermarriage with pagans because God knew that these spouses would tend to turn the people away from God, rather than vice versa. The Israelite people were a people holy to God and He wanted them to remain in His love (see John 15:9-10) and that is why He warned them not to accommodate the cultures of other people.

In Deuteronomy 7:7-11 God explains that He did not choose Israel because they were more numerous or more powerful than the other nations. The Israelite nation was small and weak in comparison with many of their neighbors. Actually when God chose them as His people there were only two of them: Abraham and Sarah; and they were already rather old at the time. This fact is also a good answer to those who question the validity of Scripture by saying, “What makes you think Christianity is the only true religion?” as if to say that “might makes right” or because two thirds of the world denies God this means that four billion to two billion – you lose. Four billion people can be wrong if they deny God’s Word.

One person who is faithful to God’s Word can stand against any number of those who deny God even if the odds are six billion people to one person. Jesus says, “If you hold to my teaching, you really are my disciples. Then you will know the truth and the truth shall set you free.” Notice that Jesus doesn’t make any concessions to cultural considerations, unless you count faithfulness to His Word as a cultural consideration, but that would be God’s culture, rather than earthly culture. When God chose Israel as His people He looked after them and gave them prime land to live on, and He defeated their more powerful enemies, and protected them as long as they were obedient to Him and kept His law.

When the Israelites took over the land of Canaan God told them to destroy all cultural artifacts which went along with the false worship practices of the pagans. God’s people were instructed by God not to have respect for the cultures of the pagans. These cultural artifacts were not some quaint reminder of the olden days without any deeper meaning, they were an ongoing threat to the true faith and a stumbling block which would lead people to forsake God if not destroyed. When Israel did as God asked He was pleased and blessed them and gave them victory and protection. When Israel disobeyed God and saved some of these foreign cultural artifacts, God was angry and He punished the people for their rebellion.

When God gave the Israelites the Ten Commandments (Exodus 20 & Deut. 5) He specifically stated in the preamble to the First Commandment that the authority of these commands comes from the fact that the one who spoke them is “the Lord your God who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery.” This would be true and valid even for foreigners even if it were not specifically historically true for those who came from other nations originally. It would be true spiritually when the foreigners abandoned their cultures and were adopted by God and made a part of His people through His eternal covenant.

Even in the New Testament where Christ sends His Apostles to go to the “ends of the earth” to make disciples, and the ceremonial rules of the Old Testament have been fulfilled and completed in Christ himself, God’s people are not to make concessions to culture. Jesus commissions His disciples to “make disciples of all nations, baptizing them … and teaching them….” Jesus commands His people to use the means of grace so that the Holy Spirit would change the worldly cultures into a Christian culture.

Peter writes, “once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God.” (1 Peter 2:10) Christianity has its own culture which supersedes all worldly cultures. Paul also writes to the Galatians, “There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.” Thus the cultural identities which we formerly had no longer apply to the Christian.

Should we be worried that we might offend people’s cultures? No, we should fear God rather than men. Are we going to offend? Evangelism always includes calling sinners to repentance. How can that not offend someone? St. Paul recognizes this reality when he writes to the Corinthian Church that the message of the crucified Christ is “a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles.” (1 Cor. 1:23) Does this fact stop him from offending such people? Not at all. Only ten verses later in his letter Paul writes, “For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and him crucified.”

Hermeneutics

2009-04-28T04:46:00.000-07:00

Newsletter article for December 2004

“There is no God.”

“I am a god.”

“God is tempting me.”

“Jesus be cursed.”

This may seem like a foolish question, but which of these phrases comes from the Bible? The quick and easy answer is that they all are found in the Bible, but the true answer is that in this form they are all taken out of context. Here are these same verses in their proper context:

“The fool says in his heart, ‘There is no God.’” (Psalm 14:1)
“Will you then say, ‘I am a god,’ in the presence of those who kill you? You will be but a man, not a god, in the hands of those who slay you.” (Ezekiel 28:9)
“When tempted, no one should say, ‘God is tempting me.’ For God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does he tempt anyone; but each one is tempted when, by his own evil desire, he is dragged away and enticed. Then, after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, gives birth to death. Don’t be deceived, my dear brothers.” (James 1:13-16)
“No one who is speaking by the Spirit of God says, ‘Jesus be cursed,’ and no one can say, ‘Jesus is Lord,’ except by the Holy Spirit.” (I Corinthians 12:3)

Hermeneutics is the study of the interpretation of texts such as the Holy Scriptures. As I have demonstrated above the proper interpretation is essential if a person is going to properly understand what the Bible has to teach. Otherwise if we have a false method of interpreting the Bible we can even make God’s Word say what we want it to say, despite what it really says.

Jesus calls the devil the “father of lies” (John 8:44) but even the devil lies in a sneaky way so that he makes his deadly lies seem attractive and true. When the devil was tempting Jesus (see Luke 4 or Matt. 4) he quoted Psalm 91:11-12 which reads, “He will command his angels concerning you to guard you carefully; they will lift you up in their hands, so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.” What the devil was trying to do was to get Jesus to commit suicide by jumping off of a tall building. His wicked reasoning went like this: “If God promised to protect you then you can’t be hurt, so make him prove it by jumping.” Jesus was not convinced by this fallacious argument. First of all, Jesus believed the teaching from Psalm 91 so he didn’t need to prove that God would save him. He already knew it by faith. Also, Jesus knew better than to say, “Well, if the Bible says it then it must be true.” Jesus knew the Bible better than that. He answered the devil by quoting another Bible verse which says “Do not put the Lord your God to the test.” (Deut. 6:16) This demonstrates the hermeneutical principle which states, “Let Scripture interpret Scripture.” All scripture is true because it is God’s Word (2 Tim. 3:16) so just because one passage is accepted as true it doesn’t mean that you can reject another.

We saw this type of false hermeneutic at St. Timothy earlier this year when an unknown and still-unrepentant person made reference to Exodus 32:18 in a newsletter article which gave the false argument that because God wants us to sing then all singing must be God-pleasing. Well, anyone who is familiar with the story of Exodus 32 knows that God was not pleased with this singing, and He was so angry over their false praise that he was ready to destroy all the people of Israel (see v. 10) and start over with Moses. So just because singing is one way to properly praise God, it doesn’t mean that all singing properly praises God.

I have also heard someone try to tell me this year that because Scripture says to “Sing for joy to the Lord” (Ps. 95) it is all right to commit the idolatry of self-worship. Well, not exactly in those words, but that was the obvious intent of the argument in the same way that Satan also tried to tempt Jesus to disobey God by his misuse of Psalm 91. I was not swayed by this misuse of God’s Word, but I am extremely concerned that some people around here are misusing God’s Word in just such a way, and that other people are possibly being misled by such lies.

Hermeneutics by themselves are not pro-Christian or anti-Christian. They are tools which may help Christians understand God’s Word so that through it they may believe in Jesus and receive His salvation. A proper interpretation of God’s Word shows us Christ as our savior. An improper interpretation shows us something else which cannot save us. It is the great strength of Lutheran theology that we have the proper tools to understand the Scriptures “which are able to make you wise unto salvation” (2 Tim. 3:15), but even the best theology and the best teaching will do no good if we don’t use them, or don’t believe the truth of God’s Word. “Don’t be deceived, my dear brothers.” (James 1:16)

The Fruits of Pietism

2009-04-28T04:36:00.000-07:00

Newsletter article for November 2004

Pietism is an anti-Christian ideology which completely turns upside down the role of piety in Christian life. Proper Christian piety is what we do to practice and live out our faith. Pietism makes piety primary and faith secondary (actually pietism tries to turn faith itself into a good work, contrary to Eph. 2:8-9). Pietism makes works its goal rather than faith. Those who understand Lutheran doctrine, or the Biblical teachings on faith and good works, will understand that pietism emphasizes the Law over the Gospel.

Although pietists claim to be fervent Christians, and claim to do everything in the name of Christ, pietism is truly anti-Christian because it steals away the true comfort Christians have in the all-sufficient work of Christ and replaces it with an emphasis on personal acts or feelings to provide a false sense of satisfaction. There may be some temporary sense of comfort in pietistic acts, but that only works as long as we can keep it going. The problem with basing our faith on feelings is the same problem with illicit drugs. A first time drug user will feel an incredible “high” with a relatively small amount of the drug, but each subsequent experience requires more of the drug to feel good, and the user will find himself or herself dismayed that the original good feelings cannot be reproduced. When true healing comes it feels a lot like suffering and pain and death rather than anything approaching peace and comfort. So it is that pietists become “addicted” to good works which aren’t really good works in the Biblical sense because pietists intend to serve their own feelings rather than serving their neighbor in a truly God–pleasing way.

Pietists do not see Holy Scripture as the sole source and authority of doctrine and the Christian life. Personal experiences or feelings are valued more. Pietists are more likely to believe the false teaching that God speaks to them personally apart from the Holy Scriptures. This all too easily plays into the hands of the devil, who is eager to substitute his lies for the truth of God’s word. Remember that the devil got Eve to doubt God’s word by saying, “Did God really say…?” Pietists may encourage Bible study, but since personal feelings are valued more than the truth – individual interpretations easily lead to false teachings, false belief, and heresy. Even Bible studies led by a trained pastor will be seen as an exercise in finding consensus rather than an exercise in learning the truth of God’s word.

Because pietism is based upon subjective feelings, pietists will rationalize sin as long as they feel they are doing something which is pleasing to God. It won’t matter to a pietist that a particular sin is condemned by God in Holy Scripture because as long as it feels right the feelings matter more to them than an objective command, even if it comes from God. So the pietist will be very bold in his or her sins.

In the Bible there is perhaps no greater example of a pietist rationalizing his sin than King David. There have been few people (if any) who have had so much trust in God to put their lives on the line as much as David, and fewer people who have received so much earthly blessings as a result of such faith. But when David committed adultery with Uriah’s wife and then when the cover-up failed had Uriah murdered, it must have seemed to David that despite the unbelievable wickedness of those sins they were the right things to do because they felt like the right things to do at the time. It made David feel good to spend intimate time with Bathsheba, and then it felt good to have her husband killed because at least that was better (in David’s eyes) than publicly admitting the betrayal and being stoned to death for committing this crime. However, even the faithful David’s feelings betrayed him. He forgot for a few brief, but tragic, moments that he was a sinner and that his feelings were corrupted by sin. He realized this later when he repented and he confessed in Psalm 51 that he was “sinful from the time my mother conceived me.”

There is no lasting comfort in pietism. If we trust in our feelings we will sooner or later be betrayed by them also. Our feelings are inherently selfish, and if we place ourselves above all things then there will be no room in our lives for God and His word. There is true comfort in God’s word. Even if we find ourselves suffering like for doing good, like the addict who has forsaken the feel-good drugs, we can be assured of God’s forgiveness and salvation.

God’s word is a sure thing because it shows us what Jesus has done for us, and not what we need to do. Jesus told the Pharisees, “You diligently study the Scriptures because you think that by them you possess eternal life. These are the Scriptures that testify about me, yet you refuse to come to me to have life.” (John 5:39-40) The Scriptures do deliver eternal life because they show us Jesus. “Whoever believes in [Jesus] will have eternal life.” (John 3:16) Christ’s life and death and resurrection is the source of all our comfort, and the motivation for all our good works, because He did this all for our sakes so that we can be comforted by our salvation no matter whether we feel good about ourselves or not.

Feeling Good can Kill You!

2009-04-28T04:26:00.000-07:00

Newsletter article for August 2004

There is a war going on. Actually, there seem to be several wars going on all at the same time. The war that I would like to consider here has been labeled the “Culture War”. This war is being fought between Christianity and Culture. It is not a new battle. It has been fought since the beginning. Holy Scripture describes it as the “great tribulation” (Revelation 7:14).

Although the Culture War is being fought for the hearts and minds of all Christians, it is parents who are engaged in the most important battles. I say that this is the most important because in the culture wars it is the children who are most vulnerable, and it is also vitally important that our children stay on the Christian side of this war, rather than being recruited for the other side.

Why is this called a “war”? Saint Peter describes it in this way, “Dear friends, I urge you, as aliens and strangers in the world, to abstain from sinful desires, which war against your soul.” (1 Peter 2:11) Scripture frequently describes antagonism between the world and faithful followers of God. The “world” are those who follow their sinful desires against God’s commands. Christians are those who, though they are also sinners, by the grace of God live by faith in Jesus and by His grace they do what God commands. The war is what happens when the world tries to turn Christians against God through temptation to sin.

Make no mistake, this really is a war. The worldly side in this culture war would like you to believe that it is something completely different, that is, something which is really harmless and benign, when in fact if the battle is lost it is very deadly. Saint Paul describes it in this way, “The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world.…We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.” (1 Cor. 10:4-5)

The battles in this war can be most clearly seen in temptations to such sins as sexual immorality and the pleasures of illicit drugs. The world tempts us with such things by trying to get us to believe that such things are good for us because they make us feel good. There is a bit of truth to that, but as they say, “a half truth is a whole lie.” It is true that there is probably nothing that is more pleasurable than drugs such as heroin or cocaine, but the lie in this is shown by the fact that it is a one-time “high,” you can never feel that good again. After the initial pleasure then the person is hooked and driven by a powerful desire to feel that way again, but such a thing can never be attained, and as the person seeks to feel good he or she is destroying their body.

Another front in this culture war is fought concerning sexual sins. God has given us sexuality as a blessing for married couples so that they may “be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth” (see Gen. 9:7). Jesus taught that the Holy Scriptures show us that God intended marriage to be as long as they both shall live (see Matt. 19:4-6), but the world says, “if is feels good, then what harm can it do?” The harm that these sins can do is seen in the betrayal of marital vows, or the betrayal of the physical intimacy between lovers, and also in sexually transmitted diseases, in broken families, and fatherless children and orphans.

In a way, these are relatively easy battles for Christian parents to fight. We can easily show our children that if you take drugs then you might wreck your health or die. We can easily show our children that if you commit adultery then your life will be changed in any of a number of ways, none of them worth the momentary pleasure of the sin. Our children may not listen to us, and still may fall into the temptations of these sins, but the consequences of these temptations are easily seen and can be easily taught. The real tough battles in the culture war are the spiritual battles. These are the temptations to sin against the First Commandment (“You shall have no other gods.”)

The difficulty with fighting spiritual battles is that the bad consequences are not seen. Unlike the physical consequences of other sins, the result of losing the spiritual battles cannot be seen by anyone in this life. No one knows what hellish things that others experience, so when people lose the spiritual battles it is hard to point that out to our children and say, “See, if you turn against God in this way then this will happen to you, too.” The worldly culture tempts us to sin against the first commandment in much the same way as it tempts us to sin against the other commandments. We are told, “Try it, you’ll like it. It feels good, and it won’t hurt you one little bit.” In a way, it can be very fun to follow false gods, but again there is a terrible price to pay in the end.

Parents have a difficult job in fighting the war between Christianity and culture. The best weapon we have is God’s Word. As we teach and live according to God’s Word, then we arm our children to fight and become victorious in the culture wars. One simple, useful, practical way to help our children is to use the word, “no.” If we learn to say “no” to our children at the right time then we can teach them to learn some self control to deny themselves some of the pleasures of life. This is important because if we are comfortable denying ourselves some worldly pleasures then we can be comfortable denying ourselves the destructive pleasures of sin. There are many ways that feeling good can kill you, but if we train ourselves and our children to say “no” to the pleasures of the flesh then with the help of God, through faith in Jesus Christ, we can be victorious in the culture war against Christianity.

Reconciliation

2009-04-28T04:16:00.000-07:00

Newsletter article for June 2004

Reconciliation is a word which has weighed heavy on my mind lately. Perhaps it has been on your mind, too. It means to become friends again. Obviously this assumes that something has happened between friends which has broken their friendship or even in an extreme case has made them enemies. The opposite of reconciliation is estrangement or alienation. The ultimate cause of estrangement is sin, and because we are all sinners estrangement is not all that strange to us. Since estrangement is familiar to us then reconciliation also ought to be familiar to us, but people’s sinful pride gets in the way of that far too often.

In my consideration of the word “reconciliation” I did what I often do, I went to the Holy Scriptures to see how God uses this word. This is a good habit to get into. I learned this from a good friend. Jesus himself had the habit of going to the Holy Scriptures to deal with events in His life. He did it to teach. He did it to answer questions (both honest questions, and evil ones intended to entrap him). He did it to withstand temptation. He did it when He was dying, and He did it after he was resurrected from the dead. Jesus was familiar with the Bible because He was familiar with God. If we wish to be a member of God’s family then we also ought to be familiar with the Bible.

When you use your concordance (or computer Bible word search) it is important to keep in mind a few simple rules of Bible interpretation. Jesus was a very good interpreter of the Bible. He was the best, and although this also is one way in which no one can fully measure up to Jesus, it is not hard to properly interpret the Bible. The people who make it hard are the ones who don’t believe God’s word. It is actually quite simple. Proper Bible interpretation all comes down to the answer to this simple question: “What does the Bible say?” It really is that easy. The hard part comes when, in our sinfulness, we don’t like what the Bible says and we try to make it say what we want it to say instead of what it really says. We saw that a couple months ago in an unauthorized article in this newsletter which quoted Bible verses about praise, but did it in a way which ignored the context of the verses and really said something opposite to what the those passages really teach about the true praise of God. The rules of Bible interpretation are simple, but they are absolutely important.

I found nine occurrences of the word “reconcile” in its various forms in the NIV Bible. Several of the passages (Matt. 5:23-24; Luke 12:58-59; Acts 7:26; and 1 Cor. 7:11) encourage or command people to become friends again with each other. As I said above, this is to be expected in a sinful world in which our pride is a great sin. There are many other Bible passages which show reconciliation and how it should be handled such as Matt. 18:15-17 and Genesis 45:4-7, but for this essay I am simply focusing on the passages which use a form of the word “reconcile.” The passages which are most helpful to us estranged sinners are the other passages which describe our reconciliation with God. You may find these in your Bible at: Romans 5:10-11; Rom. 11:15; 2 Corinthians 5:16-21; Ephesians 2:14-18; and Colossians 1:15-23. You may not think that the verses which tell us how we are reconciled with God would be more valuable to us in reconciling with one another, but that would be wrong. God’s ways are not the same as the world’s ways, and Christians especially need to be reconciled with God before we are reconciled with one another.

We are all estranged from God because of our sinfulness. Remember how Adam and Eve were kicked out of God’s garden paradise after they sinned against God’s command (Genesis 3). The estrangement of sin is severe, and there is nothing we can do about it. Romans 5:10-11 reminds us that our sin makes us God’s enemies, but we are reconciled to God through the death of His Son, Jesus. It is Jesus who has made us friends again with God. He has endured the punishment for our sins so God is no longer angry over them, and he has also forgiven us for causing him to suffer. The effect of Christ’s reconciliation is that we can have access to God’s heavenly paradise where we shall live in peace and happiness forever.

Because of Christ’s reconciliation, St. Paul told the believers in Corinth (2 Cor. 5:16-21) that we now regard no one from a worldly point of view. If Christ went to the cross and the grave in order to make us friends again with God the Father, then our estrangements here on earth are petty and small by comparison. They may not seem small, but we may quickly learn from experience that things aren’t always what they seem. If we look at our estrangements from God’s point of view they all are small and easily overcome. The key is forgiveness. Here again we learn forgiveness from Jesus. We learn in the Parable of the Unmerciful Servant (Matt. 18:21-35) that Jesus has forgiven us so much, that if we treasure His forgiveness then it is relatively easy to forgive the little things which keep us apart.

Reconciliation is easy for Christians because Jesus enables us to do it all the time. Reconciliation is impossible for unbelievers because they reject the forgiveness of their sins through Jesus Christ, and so therefore they reject the forgiveness of one another. Christians rely on God’s forgiveness every day of their lives so reconciliation is quite familiar. I pray that God would lead all sinners at St. Timothy to repentance so that they may joyfully receive Christ’s forgiveness, and having received this treasure they may also share that forgiveness and reconciliation with one another. I include myself in this, but it would be a tragedy for me to be the only one to repent. I repent of my sins daily, but I am not here to be the only one who receives Christ’s forgiveness and reconciliation. I am here to lead Christ’s sheep to the green pastures of His paradise. Christ has taught me that the way to paradise comes only through faith in His forgiveness and reconciliation. Read the Scripture passages which I have referenced above. May Christ lead you to repentance of all your sins, and receive the blessings of His forgiveness and reconciliation.

Unity

2009-04-28T04:08:00.000-07:00

Newsletter article for May 2004

“How good and pleasant it is when brothers live together in unity!” (Psalm 133:1)

It is no big secret that there is a decided lack of unity at St. Timothy Lutheran Church. This certainly cannot please God, who wishes unity among His people just as He has unity in Himself as Father, Son and Holy Spirit. The blessings of unity are obvious. Peace and harmony among God’s people is certainly “good and pleasant” as David writes in the Psalm. The curses of disunity are also obvious. Anger, distrust, accusations and similar things are very unsettling and difficult to deal with. Everyone can agree that unity is better than disunity, but then we must ask, “What is the basis for this unity?”

The Formula of Concord was written around 1580 during a time of disunity in the church. It sought to explain what ought to be the basis for unity in the church. The Formula goes on at length discussing several issues about which there had been disagreements, but a simple summary about what brings about true unity in the church is found in Article X where it says that there should be unity among Christians “as long as there is mutual agreement in doctrine and in all its articles as well as in the right use of the holy sacraments.” The true unity in the Christian church is found in agreement with the teachings of Holy Scripture, no less, and no more.

This should first make perfect sense to us because Holy Scripture is God’s Word, and if we cannot agree about the truth of God’s Word, then either one or both of the parties in the dispute have put themselves in opposition to God. There can never be peace when people set themselves against God, even when there is agreement to disagree about the truth of God’s Word.

It would seem a simple thing to base unity on agreement about the doctrinal teachings of God’s Word, and it would be, but for the interference of sin. Because all people are sinners we don’t want to believe what God tells us. We would rather seek to justify ourselves rather than admit that we are wrong and submit to our Lord’s instruction. This is why Jesus prayed to God the Father, “May [those who believe in me] be brought to complete unity to let the world know that You sent me and have loved them even as You have loved me.” (John 17:23) Jesus knew that believers are sinners and need God to bring them to “complete unity.” Christ’s purpose for this unity is so that unbelievers would know that Jesus has been sent by God to bring forgiveness and salvation to them so that they would trust in Him and be saved.

St. Paul encouraged the church in Ephesus when He wrote, “Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace. There is one body and one Spirit– just as you were called to one hope when you were called– one Lord, one faith, one baptism; one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.” (Eph. 4:3-6) Here again, the basis for our unity is in the true teachings of God’s Word. Scripture teaches that there is only one Lord, and there is only one saving faith in that Lord, and one Holy Baptism where that Lord makes us His own people because God is Lord of all. To deny the Lord’s means of grace is to deny Him, and to deny Him is to cause disunity and discord, and, given what Jesus said above, lead people away from their Savior toward their condemnation.

Fortunately Jesus has taken steps to prevent this. He has provided us with shepherds to keep us on the path that leads to eternal life. St. Paul again says, “It was [Christ] who gave some to be apostles, some to be prophets, some to be evangelists, and some to be pastors and teachers, to prepare God’s people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ.” (Eph. 4:11-13) Here again, the unity comes through the “one faith” in Jesus Christ, and “the knowledge of the Son of God”. This “knowledge” refers to the correct teaching of Scriptural doctrine. This is one of the main reasons why the Lutheran Church insists on an educated clergy. Pastors need to remain faithful to God’s Word so that they can keep Christ’s sheep headed in the proper direction. The “rod and staff” of the shepherd is a comfort in Psalm 23 because the shepherd leads us “through the valley of the shadow of death” in safety as we follow Christ to salvation.

May God bless the Pastor of our congregation to show us the true path to salvation as God gives us in Holy Scripture, and may God bless the congregation to hear with the ears of little children (Matt. 18:3) so that they may dwell in unity in Christ’s Kingdom.

The Passion of Christ

2009-04-28T03:51:00.000-07:00

Newsletter article for April 2004

Christ’s “Passion” refers to His suffering. The work of Christ has long been identified with His suffering because that is what the Holy Scriptures tell is the work of Christ. Isaiah 53:5 tells us that “He was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed.” If you have seen the new movie “The Passion of the Christ” you will note that this Scripture verse opens the movie and gives the necessary context in which to view it.

There are many ways to wrongly consider the Christ’s passion. Even before the new movie was released some Jewish groups were complaining that it would incite people to punish the Jews for their role in the death of Christ. This has happened in history, and it is absolutely a wrong interpretation of the sufferings of Christ to single out the Jews (or anyone else) as the ones who brought about some great injustice. It is equally wrong for those same Jews (and all others) to view the passion of Christ without believing that they were responsible for the death of Christ, and being responsible for Christ’s suffering and death also receive the benefits of that death.

Isaiah made it clear long ago that the Christ was to suffer and die for our sinfulness and through that punishment we would receive forgiveness and eternal life. Pressure from Jewish groups moved Mel Gibson to remove from the subtitles the quote from Matthew 27:25 where the crowd tells Pilate, “Let his blood be on us and on our children.” That is an ironic statement because although the crowd meant it as a self-curse, it is a blessing which all of God’s people can apply to themselves as John writes in 1 John 1:7 “The blood of Jesus, [God’s] son, purifies us from all sin.”

Although Martin Luther never saw Mel Gibson’s movie (or any other movie, for that matter), he did write a short essay in 1519 entitled, “A Meditation on Christ’s Passion”. In this essay Luther notes, “They contemplate Christ’s passion aright who view it with a terror-stricken heart and a despairing conscience. This terror must be felt as you witness the stern wrath and the unchanging earnestness with which God looks upon sin and sinners, so much so that he was unwilling to release sinners even for his only and dearest Son without his payment of the severest penalty for them.”

If we take Isaiah’s prophesy seriously (and we should) then we understand that Jesus suffered so much because of our sins. Because we love Jesus we ought to be horrified that our sinfulness and the disobedience of our sin caused our beloved Savior to suffer. If you can watch the scene in the movie where the soldiers are taking such pleasure and enjoyment in beating Jesus into a bloody pulp and not understand that it is you who is doing that every time you take some guilty pleasure in some sin, then you are also not correctly considering Christ’s passion. The movie shows this pretty well how the devil was taking pleasure in the murderous hatred of the soldiers. Satan tempts us all to sin by making sin seem fun even though the least of our sins caused Jesus immense pain.

Christians know, however, that the “terror” and “despair” in our hearts that we must feel for our guilt and sin is not an end in themselves. That would also be a wrong way to view the sufferings of Christ. Judas is the example which shows us that it is not enough to simply be sorry that we have done wrong. Faith trusts that although we are terribly guilty in the death of Jesus, He loves us and will forgive all the sins of those who trust in Him for salvation. Our sorrow over our guilt should cause us to fervently repent of all our sins, and look to Jesus to forgive us for all the pain we caused Him. Luther explained this wonderfully when he wrote:

You cast your sins from yourself and onto Christ when you firmly believe that his wounds and sufferings are your sins, to be borne and paid for by him, as we read in Isaiah 53 [:6], “The Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.” St. Peter says, “in his body has he borne our sins on the wood of the cross” [I Pet. 2:24]. St. Paul says, “God has made him a sinner for us, so that through him we would be made just” [2 Cor. 5:21]. You must stake everything on these and similar verses. The more your conscience torments you, the more tenaciously must you cling to them. If you do not do that, but presume to still your conscience with your contrition and penance, you will never obtain peace of mind, but will have to despair in the end. If we allow sin to remain in our conscience and try to deal with it there, or if we look at sin in our heart, it will be much too strong for us and will live on forever. But if we behold it resting on Christ and [see it] overcome by his resurrection, and then boldly believe this, even it is dead and nullified. Sin cannot remain on Christ, since it is swallowed up by his resurrection. Now you see no wounds, no pain in him, and no sign of sin. Thus St. Paul declares that “Christ died for our sin and rose for our justification” [Rom. 4:25]. That is to say, in his suffering Christ makes our sin known and thus destroys it, but through his resurrection he justifies us and delivers us from all sin, if we believe this.

Any Christian who views a reenactment of the passion of Christ will have to feel ambivalent (i.e. have mixed feelings) about it. On the one hand we are sad that we caused Jesus to suffer and die because of the guilt of our sins, but on the other hand, we are glad that Jesus endured the pain and death so that he could rescue us from an eternity of such suffering.

Another thing to remember if you go to view the movie is that what you are seeing is not the crucifixion of Jesus. It is a movie with actors and fake blood. This ought to be obvious to everyone who goes, but these days you can never be too careful. You are not necessarily closer to Jesus if you view this reenactment of His death. Many people have seen the movie, and still do not believe in Jesus, and are still on their way to damnation. Many other people, who have never seen the movie still repent of their sins and trust in Christ and receive forgiveness and eternal life. Remember the words Jesus told Thomas, “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.”

(All Luther quotes from Vol. 42 of Luther’s works, p. 7-13. Philadelphia: Fortress Press; translation by Martin Bertram.)

Do Not Tell Anyone

2009-04-17T09:08:00.000-07:00

Newsletter article for March 2004

Jesus “warned His disciples not to tell anyone that He was the Christ.” (Matthew 16:20) This seems a strange admonition, especially to us who live in an age where mission statements are quite a persistent fad. (The newsletter in which this article was originally published contained the congregation’s flawed mission statement.) Mission statements can be useful to give businesses a sense of purpose and direction, but it does tend to emphasize the wrong thing where the church is concerned. If we are to be a true church of Jesus Christ then we need to truly understand the teachings of Jesus in the many passages which He forbids evangelism.

In a quick search of the Scriptures I found about ten Bible verses where Jesus tells people not to tell anyone about Him. A few of these cases are easily understandable, but most deserve a little more study. In Mark 3:12 Jesus warned the demons not to tell who He was. This is very understandable because to the demons Jesus is only their judge and tormentor. There is no salvation for the demons, and though they brought their suffering and torment on themselves Jesus doesn’t want their witness to be what leads people to Him. Jesus doesn’t want to threaten people in order to draw them to Him. It is true that God is the one who judges and condemns the unbelievers, but God is primarily a God of mercy and love and He draws people to Himself through love and forgiveness. No one is going to be saved through coercion or force, but through faith in the forgiveness we receive through Jesus Christ. So the demons are silenced.

But why, then, does Jesus treat His disciples like the demons in Matt. 16? Peter had just confessed that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the Living God, and Jesus had told him that this confession came from God the Father Himself! Why then does Jesus treat Peter and the rest of the disciples no better than demons? The answer comes in what follows in Matt. 16. Jesus goes on to describe what it means that He is the Christ. The Christ is the one who must suffer and die at the hands of sinners. Peter, full of love for his friend, and having just witnessed the power of Jesus in the feeding of the four thousand people, said, “This shall never happen to you.” Upon hearing this Jesus comes right out and calls Peter “Satan” because these are the words of Satan. Only the devil and His followers don’t want Jesus to suffer and die on the cross. Those who love Jesus are actually relying on it. The suffering and death of Jesus is our only hope for salvation. If Jesus had listened to Peter (and to Satan when he said the same thing in Matt. 4:8-9) then there would be no salvation for any of us and the devil would have succeeded in destroying all whom God loves.

This passage helps us to understand why Jesus would tell His disciples not to tell anyone who He is. He forbids them from telling this because they have a false idea of who He is. They know that Jesus is the Christ, but they refuse recognize a “weak” Christ who permits himself to suffer and die at the hands of sinners. Because His innocent suffering and death is the very purpose for His being here, Jesus forbids them from telling others so that they are not led astray by some false impression of Jesus. Jesus sends them out only when the disciples have finished their training, have seen Him dead on the cross, seen Him alive after His resurrection, AND then on Pentecost received the Holy Spirit who Jesus said will “teach you all things and remind you of everything I have said to you” (John 14:26). Only then does Jesus send them out on the mission.

In the other cases where Jesus tells folks not to say anything it is usually because they exhibit a more subtle denial of Jesus. Some people say that when Jesus told people not to tell anyone about Him that He really wanted people to tell about Him. We can easily dismiss that as being false because that would make Jesus a manipulative liar. Although people then (and now) did frequently disregard His word and tell anyway, Jesus didn’t really want them to tell. Although Jesus was (and is) very generous in using His power to heal, He doesn’t want people to see Him only as a healer or miracle worker. Whether Jesus heals you or not is, in the end, irrelevant to your salvation. No one is in heaven today because Jesus is a miracle worker. Every person in heaven today is there because Jesus saved them from their sins through His obedient, innocent suffering and death.

People need to know what Jesus has done for their salvation, and that is exactly why God has provided pastors and teachers and evangelists. Without someone to tell us the good news of our forgiveness and salvation in Christ we would not be saved (Romans 10). God does equip and send these people throughout the world so that people everywhere can hear the message and be saved through faith. St. Paul tells us in Ephesians 4, “It was [Christ] who gave some to be apostles, some to be prophets, some to be evangelists, and some to be pastors and teachers” so that the body of Christ could be built up and God’s people prepared for doing His good works. Not all people are called to be pastors, teachers, or evangelists. Paul notes in I Corinthians 12:29 that not all people have these God-given callings. Scripture is very clear that not everyone is a minister, despite what you may have heard elsewhere. Peter encourages his readers (I Peter 3:15) to “Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have,” but he was writing to Christians who were being persecuted for their belief in Christ. The gift of Martyrdom is another gift that God does not give to everyone, but only to those whom He equips for that task also.

Although the task of evangelism is not something that God gives to all Christians, there is one “task” that God does give to all His people. Jesus says in John 6:29, “The work of God is this: to believe in the one He has sent.” This is not a work as we understand works. Saving faith is a gift of God (Eph. 2:8-9). It isn’t miracles which save us. It isn’t good works that save us, except for the works that Jesus did on our behalf in His life and death. All Christians believe that Jesus is our only savior from the punishment for our sin, as Jesus tells us, “Whoever believes in [God’s Son] is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because he has not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son.” (John 3:18)

Are you upset that your pastor has treated you like the devil? If he did this because you had a false impression about Jesus and His work or ministry then take heart and understand that Jesus did the same thing to the disciples whom He loved. The pastor should understand that, like Peter, not all of God’s children have a proper understanding of what Jesus is all about, and, like Peter, it sometimes takes some harsh words to teach God’s people. It took him a while, but Peter repented and allowed Jesus to teach him. Peter became a great Apostle and missionary because Jesus prepared him for the mission and didn’t allow him to go until he was properly equipped for the mission. “The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few” not just because there is so much unbelief in the world (though that is a major cause), but also because there must be the proper training involved, and not all Christians are called by God for this service. Whatever your role in the body of Christ trust in Christ and in His forgiveness and salvation. That is all that really matters. That is who Christ is.

Doing the Right Thing is Not Enough

2009-04-17T08:38:00.000-07:00

Newsletter article for February 2004

Saul was the first King of Israel, but he was also the last one of his family to be a king. If you recall the Bible story God became displeased with Saul and chose the boy David to succeed Saul as King of Israel. Do you remember what Saul did to displease God? If we think we are pleasing God by what we are doing then we ought to consider King Saul and try to avoid the trap that he fell into.

There are actually a couple of events in I Samuel 13-15 that are significant, but it is the first one I want to recall here. What Saul did which led God to look for the next king outside of Saul’s sons, was to offer a burnt offering to God. Now, if you know anything about Old Testament history and worship practices this doesn’t seem such a bad thing at all. It doesn’t seem like Saul was worshipping a false God. People made burnt offerings to God all the time. Many of these were actually required by law and the Bible records many more rebukes for those who did not make an offering to God, than for those who did, but Saul is one exception.

The situation was that the Philistines were gathering to attack the Israelites and Saul and the soldiers of Israel were looking to get some encouragement and strength from God through His prophet, Samuel. Samuel told Saul to meet him in seven days time at Gilgal where Samuel would offer sacrifices to God and ask the Lord to give them success against their enemies. On the seventh day Samuel was nowhere to be found and the soldiers began to lose heart and to scatter off to someplace safe before the Philistines attacked. When Saul saw his men leaving he thought that he needed to do something to keep the men together so he offered the sacrifice himself and did not wait any longer for Samuel. But just when Saul had finished making the offering Samuel arrived and was greatly displeased with Saul’s impatience. He proclaimed that because he did not keep God’s command his kingdom would not endure and God would seek a man after His own heart to lead His people.

This may seem to us to be a little harsh, but as in all the things God does it is completely appropriate. There are a couple things wrong with Saul’s actions. First, although it was a good thing for Saul to prepare to make a sacrificial offering to God, it was inappropriate for him to actually make the sacrifice. This was the role of the priest, or in this case, the prophet, Samuel. In and of itself, this probably would not have brought down such a severe rebuke from God, but the second incident in I Samuel 15 shows that the first simply revealed a greater lack of faith in God. Although Saul seemed to be making an offering to God, he really wasn’t. God’s instructions through the prophet Samuel told him to wait, and Saul did not. With his men leaving Saul decided that he couldn’t wait for God to give the men encouragement, so he did it himself. This was idolatry. Saul put himself in the place of God.

It wasn’t Saul’s actions which were so wicked (although he certainly disobeyed God), but his lack of faith in God made his sin inexcusable. Compare this with the worst sins of David, Saul’s successor. David committed adultery with the wife of one of his best soldiers. He tried to cover up the sin, and when that failed he had the woman’s husband murdered. This was nearly as great a rejection of God as Saul’s sin, and a much greater sin against others (Uriah and Bathsheba), yet David didn’t lose faith in God. There were some tragic and lingering consequences to David’s sins, but he was forgiven. There were twenty-one of David’s descendants who ruled as king from Solomon to Zedekiah, but Saul’s family died out with his great-grandchildren, and few of them enjoyed a long life.

I am sure that to many people this seems a bit backward. To our earthly eyes the sins of adultery and murder are virtually unforgivable, while the sins of impatience and improper worship seem relatively inconsequential, but then we often place our own concerns above God’s concerns. Such is the way of all sinful flesh. God looks at things a little differently. First of all the sins against God (first table of the commandments) are much worse than our sins against others (second table) for the simple fact that God is GOD, and everyone else is not. But God also can see into people’s hearts. God knows who has faith in Him and who hates Him. For those who have faith (like David) God can forgive the worst sins (adultery, lies, conspiracy, murder, misuse of authority, etc.), but for those who do not have faith (like Saul) even the seemingly good things he does (worshipping God, having compassion on an enemy, etc.) are unforgivable.

Judas also did a good work in the garden of Gethsemane when he kissed Jesus. Psalm 2 tells us, “Kiss the son, lest he be angry and you be destroyed in your way.” Kissing is a sign of affection, and how can that be wrong when we show affection to our Lord? But Judas did not kiss Jesus to show affection, instead he used it as a sign to Jesus’ enemies so they could come and arrest him. What should have been a good work Judas turned into an opportunity for the enemies of Jesus to grab him so they could kill him. Judas lacked faith in Jesus, and so despite any good that he had done, he despaired of his life and took a shortcut to destruction despite the fact that his salvation was so near.

There are those who would tell you that if your worship is not full of feeling you should work harder to make it so, but this was Saul’s wrong solution to the problem. It is the wrong solution because the fact that you make yourself feel happy or excited about something doesn’t make it God-pleasing. Saul and his soldiers were quite satisfied with his solution to restore morale to the soldiers, but God was angry about it. You can do all sorts of things to make yourself feel good about your sins, but this is only a temporary distraction and not a proper way to deal with sin. People do it all the time. The devil encourages it, because as long as people feel good about their sins without truly repenting, they are lost and belong to him. God doesn’t necessarily want you to feel good, and He never wants you to feel good about sin. God wants you to recognize your sin, come to true (i.e. painful) repentance, and be saved.

You cannot measure your faith by your good works. If you could then Saul might have been a more righteous person than David. But God looks at us according to our faith in Him. Jesus Himself was praised as the Son of David for more than just the fact that David was His ancestor. Jesus came to rescue us from the sinful self-centeredness which makes all our good deeds tainted by wickedness. Only Jesus can sanctify us and make us holy. Only Jesus can give us hope and peace and satisfaction, and none of this comes from ourselves. If our happiness, peace, hope, or general good feelings come from within us then they cannot save us, and like King Saul they will likely turn us against God and lead us to our destruction.

Chaos in Christendom

2009-04-17T08:22:00.000-07:00

Newsletter article for December 2003

It has been said that chaos begets chaos. Forgive me for not knowing the source of that saying, but it is often true. When all the structures that keep our lives in order have vanished then our sinful nature sees an opportunity to exert itself and unless one possesses a good amount of self control then we only add to the chaos. Lutheran doctrine teaches that the first use of the Law is that our sinful nature is kept in check by the threat of punishment. We don’t wish to be punished, so we don’t do what is wrong. This is obviously not the same as doing right, but it keeps things relatively safe and orderly in a world where few people even care to obey God. An example of this self-perpetuating chaos is when those who enforce the law are rendered incapable, such as during times of war or other great disaster. The ongoing quagmire in Iraq is an example of this. Chaos can also erupt during power outages, and I think we can all be thankful to God that during this summer’s massive blackout that there were relatively few instances of looting and thievery. There were some reported examples of these, but compared to the scale of the blackout it could have been much worse.

I bring this up only as a general example of how lawlessness brings about more lawlessness and chaos. There seems to be a growing chaos in the church. Now when I say the “church” I mean what used to be called “Christendom” or the visible church on earth. Among the True Church, that is all the believers in Christ throughout the world, things are as good as they always have been because the believers in Christ live by faith, and not by sight, and we know that Christ is Lord of all and has everything in control, even when everything seems to be spinning out of control.

Yet, it is still disturbing to read reports of apostasy and growing division within Christian denominations. The hearts of Christians throughout the world must hurt for our brothers and sisters who are affected by public denials of the clear teaching of Holy Scripture. We have been hearing a lot lately about a growing rift in the Episcopal Church over Sixth Commandment (marriage and sexuality) issues. These reports hit close to home for Lutherans for at least two reasons. First, the news reports say that if there is a denominational split then it would be the biggest since the LCMS lost about 100,000 members in the early 1970s. And second, regardless of what happens among the Episcopal Churches, it would seem that the LCMS is threatening to soon follow.

It is true that the issues are quite different on the surface, but underneath the root causes are the same. Actually all division and false teachings and chaos in the church has a similar cause, and that is the sinfulness and unbelief of some who call themselves “Christians,” but we can go further than that to note that underlying a lot of controversy in Christian churches worldwide is a lack of trust in, and obedience to, God’s Word. Among the Episcopal leaders who approved the appointment of a bishop who is an avowed practicing homosexual, they could only have done this if they denied the clear teaching of God that such things are “detestable.” Now this wouldn’t concern us too much unless chaos begets chaos. When unbelievers and heretics see others getting away with such sins then they are emboldened and then try to do something similar where they can.

“God tempts no one to sin, but we pray in the Lord’s Prayer that God would guard and keep us so that the devil, the world, and our sinful nature may not deceive us or mislead us into false belief, despair, and other great shame and vice. Although we are attacked by these things, we pray that we may finally overcome them and win the victory.” In this way, Martin Luther explains the sixth petition of the Lord’s Prayer in his Small Catechism. The thing about temptation is that it is most effective when you don’t realize it is happening to you. Temptation to sin is always dangerous, and we all have our weaknesses where we sometimes fall into sin even when we know we shouldn’t, but we are most vulnerable when we don’t realize that what we are doing is a sin.

The devil can be sneaky. St. Peter compares him to a lion prowling around seeking for someone to devour. If you don’t know the lion is there then you are easy prey. That is why in my catechism and membership classes I devote quite a bit of time to teaching the ten commandments. In tempting us, Satan tries to get us to believe that sin is somehow desirable. If he can get us to think that committing a sin is somehow a “good” thing to our eyes then he has won, and we have lost. If we want to sin then the devil doesn’t have to do anything to get us to sin, which he can’t do anyway because God has mercifully limited his powers, but because of our sinful nature we are only too ready to cooperate to our own downfall. The phrase, “the devil made me do it” is just a cop-out and is completely untrue. All the devil can do is lie to you. If you believe him it is your own fault. Our trouble with temptation is that we all too often believe the lies of Satan and fall into temptation and sin.

We are not without defense against temptation, however. God has given us a powerful weapon against sin and temptation and the devil. That weapon is the Holy Scriptures. The power of the Holy Bible to work against Satan is the power of God because the Bible is God’s Word. Since the Bible is God’s Word the more we know the Bible the more we know God, and the more we know and love God the better we can recognize and resist the work of the devil because Satan is always opposed to God even when he pretends not to be.

The trouble nowadays is that most people don’t know or don’t believe in the Scriptures and because of this they have no chance against the temptations of Satan. This is even a problem in the church. This is no more clearly illustrated than in the recent controversy in the Episcopal Church where they have ignored the clear teachings of Holy Scripture and have elevated an openly homosexual priest to a position of leadership as bishop in the church. In this controversy there is no shortage of faithful Christian Episcopals (and others) who have given a true Christian witness to the sinfulness of this action, and yet the Episcopal church has proceeded. Their justification of this disgrace is in the interest of diversity and a kind of “love” which is foreign to God and His holy Word, but which is right at home with the devil.

One local Episcopal priest wrote a column for the Detroit Free Press recently in which he wrote that this situation was an “embarrassment.” But it was very strange that what embarrassed him was not the fact that his Church had abandoned even the pretense of obedience to God and His good will for us, but instead, he was embarrassed by the faithful Christians who objected to the appointing of this bishop. In the column which was a little shorter than this essay this man denied the authority of God’s Word because it was several thousands of years old; implied that the Old Testament laws were not God’s Word, but the ancient bias of “a priestly cult”; and called St. Paul a “homophobic … mid-First Century AD Pharisaic Jew-turned-militant-Christian” who presumed to “dictate the very will and law of an unseen God.” He also called the Bible a “bin for discarded concepts and notions” and finally he denied that God created the universe in seven days as He said He did.

This is of course an extreme example, but this shows where temptation can lead when it is unchecked by God’s Word and the repentance that comes from the proper preaching of God’s Word. The only way that such an obvious sin can be so vigorously defended by otherwise good people who call themselves “Christian” is if they deny the authority of God in the Bible. If the Bible is not God’s Word then it is probably outdated and unreliable and can be replaced by something else. In the case of the Episcopal Church the Word of God is apparently replaced by something of Satan’s devising. That is the only way that good “Christian” people could defend something that God calls “detestable” and which goes against all Biblical teaching on marriage and sexuality.

Of course my purpose is not to bash the Episcopals. There are plenty of faithful Christian Episcopals. Many of them seem to be in Africa, but wherever they may be (God bless them and give them strength) they are not afraid to speak the truth even though they are condemned by the American liberals as backward and foolish. Such is the lot in life for faithful Christians in an age where sin is seen as a good thing and what is truly good is despised. No, my purpose here is to illustrate the dangers of temptation.

The Lutheran Church–Missouri Synod is not yet in danger of following in the footsteps of the Episcopal Church, but with the events of the past couple years we have started to head in that direction. Remember that it begins with a denial of God’s Word as a living and valid authority. When God’s Word doesn’t have authority then God doesn’t have authority in our lives, and we replace His rule with something else. Usually we place ourselves in that place first, doing what is right in our own eyes, but in doing so we open the door to Satan to do what he wants in our lives. Satan doesn’t come to good Christian people and tell them to commit all kinds of disgusting sins such as homosexuality. No one would fall for that. Instead he starts off small and works his way to greater and greater sins until we are far off of the path of God’s righteousness that we can’t remember any longer what it is like to truly be obedient to God. That is the real tragedy of the Episcopal situation. Many of their new bishop’s defenders truly believe that they are doing something that is pleasing to God even though God calls it “detestable.” In our own Church we are alarmed by this year’s resolution of the charges against the Atlantic District President in which the Dispute Resolution Panel ignored the clear teachings of the Scriptures which determined that President Benke was guilty. Instead, they somehow exonerated him by a faulty interpretation of some lesser man-made rules which really should have had no authority in the case. If this is allowed to stand then our own Denomination will fall down the slippery slope toward an end which only God can see. God’s Word gives us our only hope for salvation and rescue from sin and its consequences. Pray that God will keep us faithful and standing firm against the temptations which seek to destroy us.

Martin Luther

2009-04-17T08:16:00.000-07:00

Newsletter article for October 2003

By the time this newsletter reaches your home you should be able to go to your local movie theater and see the latest movie which depicts the life of the great reformer, Martin Luther. The movie is simply titled, “Luther”. With every new look at the life of Martin Luther we Lutherans have the opportunity to reacquaint ourselves with what it means to be Lutheran. However, this does not come without dangers. Not every depiction of the life and teachings of Martin Luther is good and beneficial. Some depictions of Luther’s teachings or the significance of his work are distorted and others simply contain flat-out lies. An example of this was a recent PBS television documentary on Luther. This documentary, while doing a pretty good job of accurately presenting the factual information of Luther’s life, didn’t have a clue about the true significance of Martin Luther. But then of all the scholars who were interviewed in that documentary, none of them were Lutheran, and all of them had some other agenda which led them to misunderstand or purposely distort the meaning of the Reformation.

I would encourage all who read this article to go and see the movie “Luther,” but I would also hope that you would go with open eyes. I have heard good reviews from Lutherans who have previewed the movie, so I am hopeful that it will be an honest look at both the man and his teachings, and I am looking forward to seeing it myself. However, recent events in the church (worldwide) have reminded me of the validity of the doctrine of original sin and have left me wary of trusting in the unquestioned goodness of all that calls itself Lutheran or even Christian. Further examination is always required, but I am always hopeful, and I am eager to be impressed.

It should come as no surprise that there is now a renewed interest in Martin Luther. At the end of the millennium several historians came up with lists of the most influential people in the second millennium since Christ, and Martin Luther was at or near the top in all of these lists. It is also probably true that each list put Luther at the top for different reasons, which begs the question, “What is Luther all about?”

In the past year I have come across a little book which gives the best explanation of what it means to be a Lutheran in modern society. The book is Here We Stand by Hermann Sasse (pronounced SAH-say). There has been a growing rediscovery of Hermann Sasse lately because the issues with which the LCMS is currently struggling are the very same sorts of things that Sasse had to deal with in Germany in the early 20^th century. I myself have been astonished by the current relevance of essays that Sasse wrote some 70 years ago. I suppose I should not have been astonished because it was nearly 3,000 years ago that King Solomon wrote that “There is nothing new under the sun.”

Strangely enough, as we try to understand what it means to be Lutheran we should first of all keep one thing in mind: to be Lutheran has ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to do with Martin Luther. The best possible Lutheran cares not one little bit about Martin Luther. Luther himself was not interested in Martin Luther, but rather he was interested in Jesus Christ. Of course as a Christian we cannot ignore Luther because there have been only a precious few people since Biblical times who have taught the truth of the Bible so purely and clearly as he did. To be a Lutheran is all about what the Bible teaches about Jesus Christ, and not at all about who Martin Luther was. However, there are those who seek to undermine the teachings of Luther, and because they cannot find fault with his theology (because he taught the truth of God’s Word) they instead attack or undermine the man.

In Here We Stand, Sasse notes that there are at least three ways in which the Lutheran Reformation is misunderstood, or misrepresented. The first is that Luther is depicted as a great “Hero of the Reformation” who led his followers to a new age of Renaissance. This is a false depiction for several reasons. At the time of the Reformation Luther was, and remained, a pastor, Biblical scholar, and teacher. Sasse notes that early in the history of the reformation Luther “slipped into the background,” and his role after 1530 was “not nearly as important as that which Calvin played to the close of his life.” Luther also never wanted his followers to be known by his name. He preferred the name, “Evangelical” but eventually that term came to apply to others, and the term “Lutheran” stuck. What is more, of the eight confessional documents which make up the Book of Concord, which is what really defines what it means to be Lutheran, only three of them were even written by Martin Luther (the Small and Large catechisms, and the Smalcald Articles), and the Formula of Concord was written some fifteen years after Luther’s death.

The second way the Lutheran Reformation is misrepresented is what Sasse calls the “culture-historical interpretation of the Reformation.” This describes the impact that the reformation had on Western society, and claims that the main importance of Luther is that he began to release the human potential of Europeans from the oppression of the Medieval way of thinking. This is still a popular view in some circles, but anyone with even a limited knowledge of Luther knows that this is way off base. If this were true then Luther would have encouraged the peasants in their revolt rather than vehemently denouncing them. (The peasant revolt is reportedly depicted in the movie, and is one of the main reasons that the movie received a PG-13 rating.) This is the point of view of the PBS documentary which was released this summer. This suggested that Luther began something, but it was incomplete, and left to others to finish. Or to use a sports metaphor, Luther, it is implied, picked up the ball, but others ran with it, and so Luther is seen as incomplete and obsolete. In reality, Luther was not concerned about the advancement of human civilization, instead he was concerned about the salvation of man and taught what the Bible teaches about the complete moral depravity of sinful man which everyone must recognize before they can receive the salvation which only Jesus can give.

The third way the Reformation is misrepresented is that it is seen as essentially a German nationalistic event. There is a grain of truth to this because there was the beginning of a unification of Germany behind Luther. His translation of the Scriptures into German not only was the focus of shared German pride, but it literally created a unified, common German language out of several differing dialects. But again, Luther was not interested in what it meant to be German. He was only interested in what it meant to be a Christian. Lutheran teachings are not culture bound, but universal because God’s Word is universal.

The true meaning of the Reformation is that it is an event in the history of the Christian church. It is all about doctrine, and not about the man. To be Lutheran is to trust that the Holy Scriptures are God’s Word which is the only thing which shows us how we may be saved from our sins.

I hope you will keep this in mind as you go to see the new movie. This is how a movie about Luther should be judged: Is it more about Luther, or more about Christ? Do you come away with more of an admiration of Luther, or is your Christian faith strengthened? It is again strange to say it, but it is true, if the movie is too much about Luther then it doesn’t fairly represent the man. He relentlessly pointed people to Christ for their hope and salvation, and any accurate representation of Luther will do the same. I pray that this is true, and if so then I also pray that this movie also becomes wildly popular in our society.

The Modern Prodigal Son and the Loving Father

2009-04-17T08:12:00.000-07:00

Newsletter article for September 2003

Imagine if the only Bible verse the prodigal son knew or believed was Romans 12:15 where it says, “Rejoice with those who rejoice.” One day the son told his father that he was going out with his friends, and the father said, “Just be home before midnight.” The next day when the father woke up his son still wasn’t home. When the boy finally rolled in at noon with a big smile on his face he embraced his father and said, “Father, don’t be mad. You are going to be happy for me because I am happy. I had the time of my life last night. I spent the night with my friends drinking beer and smoking marijuana and we spent all our money on prostitutes. I have never had as much fun in my whole life and I want you to be happy as I am happy.”

What do you think the father would say to this prodigal son? If he truly loves his son he would never say, “Well, as long as you are happy then go and do as you please.” If he truly loves his son he would rather say, “How can I be happy for you? I told you to come home before midnight so that you wouldn’t get hurt destroying your body with alcohol and drugs, and so that you wouldn’t get infected with syphilis and AIDS and die a horrible prolonged death. Not only did you NOT do the one thing that I told you to do, you did everything I didn’t want you to do. You are grounded forever.”

Obviously the story of the prodigal son that Jesus told in Luke 15 didn’t end this way. In Jesus’ story the young man recognized his sin, repented, and came crawling back humbled to his father to beg for mercy. In return, the father welcomed him back joyfully as his son. In my modern version above, there is no redemption because there is no repentance. Without repentance the sinner will continue to willfully disobey what is good and proper and safe until he destroys himself and those around him also.

This illustrates one of the tasks that we have in our lives as Christians. Our obedience to God is not limited to simply how we live our own lives. We can’t be like Lot living in Sodom (see Genesis 19) thinking that all is well because we are obedient. We sometimes need to be like Jeremiah in Jerusalem (see Jeremiah 19) calling the sinners to repentance. We are to be witnesses to the world in all that we do, but that doesn’t always mean giving a cheerful message of the good news of the Gospel. Consider the prodigal son in my illustration above. If you came to him with a message of God’s love, forgiveness, and eternal salvation he would not pay any attention to you. Concerning love – he would say that it isn’t worth the trouble, and besides he gets more enjoyment out of a bottle of wine anyway. Concerning forgiveness – the prodigal would say that he doesn’t need it because in his mind he isn’t doing anything wrong. Concerning heaven – he would say he doesn’t need heaven because he already has as much fun as he can handle. Before this lawless person can enjoy the benefits of the Gospel he needs to know and understand the law.

Fortunately for him (and for us) God doesn’t immediately “ground us forever.” That remains an option, and He would be well within His rights and power to do so, but God is patient with us. God calls sinners to repent, and He usually gives them a little time to come around and see things His way. That is what we are here for. We are to help sinners to see the error of their ways so that they can appreciate and accept the wonderful message of the Gospel. Once the sinner sees the consequences of his sins then he may be ready to receive forgiveness, and we should always be ready to forgive even the worst sinners.

We live in a world which is increasingly like the prodigal son that I described at the opening of this essay. Our society is increasingly more tolerant of sin and depravity and much less tolerant of righteousness and God’s Law. This makes the task of the Christian much less popular. We will find ourselves tested in our faith much more often. This is not a comfortable place to be, but it is where God wants His faithful people to be for the sake of the heathen. God has given us His Word to prepare us and strengthen us so that we can be where we need to be to lead others to their salvation, but we need to be careful that we do not fall into the temptations which enslave the world.

Lutheran Church Growth

2009-04-17T08:07:00.000-07:00

by Carl F. W. Walther (The first president of what later became the Lutheran Church - Missouri Synod) The following is from Walther’s 1883 address at the dedication of the new Concordia Seminary building in St. Louis. The full text occurs in Concordia Journal, July 1989 (Vol. 15:3), pp. 222-230.

Newsletter article for August 2003

When our synod, the German Evangelical Lutheran Synod of Missouri, Ohio , and Other States, thirty-six years ago met for the first time in the God-blessed city of Chicago , it was a small, despised little band of only twelve poor congregations. The church which in this country still called itself Evangelical - Lutheran lay in utter ruin. The teaching of our church was unknown territory for it. The small number of preachers who still knew something about it and wanted to stick to it were considered people with limited mental capacities, and the hope was that they would soon die out. The Lutheran Confessions were hardly known even by name anymore, and they were considered documents of earlier unenlightened times, now long obsolete. Instead of Luther’s doctrine in this church that called itself Lutheran, the teaching of Zwingli and obvious rationalism was in vogue, coupled with fanatic methods of conversion. Hardly a single preacher had an orderly call into office according to God’s Word; almost all of them were engaged only for one or a few years. Immortal souls were entrusted to unprepared, immature men on a trial basis, while Christian parochial schools were abolished and Lutheran youth were in typically heathen fashion entrusted to an irreligious state. In short, the so-called Lutheran Church of our country was dead at that time, the laughingstock of all the sects, who, like hungry nightingales, came for the funeral.

When our synod at that time came forward with the watchword then unheard of: Gottes Wort und Luthers Lehr vergehet nun und nimmermehr [“God’s Word and Luther’s doctrine pure will now and evermore endure”], it was not only the anti- Christian papacy, not only the united - evangelical community of mixed religions, not only the fanatic sects, but above all the local so-called Lutheran church that would lead to Rome, and with great certainty they predicted an early, inglorious extinction for us, an outlandish growth and un-American intrusion.

And it is true, our prospects were really very dreary. To want to transplant the Old Lutheran church, which submitted to every letter of the Word of God, to this land of untamed love for liberty seemed in real fact to be a completely hopeless, worse than foolish undertaking. But far from letting itself be made to falter, our synod did not ask: What must we do to become large and numerous? But it only asked: What must we do to be found faithful before the Lord of the church? Our synod knew that success was not in its hands. Success is therefore left to God.

And what happened? The very evil plans of our enemies did not materialize for them. When the congregations saw that the preachers of our synod did not preach a new doctrine but proclaimed nothing but what they, the congregations, had learned from Luther’s Small Catechism; when the congregations saw that the preachers of our synod brought them the greatest message that a preacher can provide, namely the certainty of the grace of God and their salvation; when the congregations saw that the preachers of our synod were not trying to lord it over them in popish fashion but on the contrary first tried to get them to understand their wonderful Christian freedom and their holy congregational rights; when the congregations saw that the preachers of our synod did not seek their own temporal advantages but were interested only in immortal souls; when the congregations saw that the preachers of our synod prefer to suffer hunger and anxiety, prefer to suffer shame, persecution, and exile rather than to depart from “God’s Word and Luther’s doctrine” even in one letter; behold, then one congregation after another joined our synodical union. The mustard seed took root, shot up joyfully, and gradually assumed the stature of a mighty tree, under the shady boughs of which the birds of the air live. The Old Lutheranism, scoffed at because of its original diminutive stature, yes, even laughed to scorn, gradually, among the hot battles in America , became a power so that finally everyone who wanted to be really Lutheran had to get used to the idea of agreeing with the doctrine of our synod. The old treasured books of our church, in the forefront its confessional writings and the works of Luther, were dusted off, carried from house to house, and enthusiastically read and studied by our people. Like a prairie fire that true Lutheran faith and Lutheran life and conduct not only again spread irresistible across the land, but God also granted us unity of faith and a joyfulness of faith together with an intimate brotherly love, so that the days of Luther seemed to have come back among us. Wherever a little Lutheran church grew up like a fruit tree, even on a lonely prairie, there immediately also a little Lutheran schoolhouse grew up like a young shoot. The old pure songs, full of the power of faith and excitement of love, as they were sung by our fathers, resounded again with their charming old tunes. In short, the true Lutheran Church, for which dirges had already been sung all over the world, revived here of all places, came up out of the grave, and in more than a thousand places in our great union of states planted the victory banner of the pure Gospel. For years already the Macedonian call “Come over to help us” sounds in our ears from all directions. An ever increasing stream of Lutheran immigrants, also those of our German language, is flooding over our land and settling here, so that almost week after week new congregations are founded which to a large extent apply to us for teachers in church and school. And not only within our new fatherland, but even from the land of our forefathers, yes, even from the remotest countries of the earth that well-known call for help comes over to us and profoundly moves our hearts.

Everywhere doors are opened to us for entrance with the joyful news of the free grace of God in Christ for all sinners. Even though hundreds of workers have already been sent out into the great harvest from our institutions, the requests for such workers have on that account not become fewer in time but rather steadily more numerous, so that finally, with saddened hearts we have no longer been about to satisfy most of these requests. And so it finally also came about in this institutional building, that the present number of students, though insufficient, could no longer find room. A larger (Seminary) building became a matter of unavoidable necessity.

Was Jesus Unloving?

2009-03-29T14:52:00.000-07:00

Newsletter arrticle for July 2003

Once when Jesus was teaching about himself as the bread of life his followers found it hard to understand and accept this teaching. In fact, they said, “This is a hard teaching. Who can accept it?” Now you might expect that Jesus then sat down and explained to them the meaning of His Words, perhaps He could have taught them about the real presence in the Lord’s Supper (although at this point He had yet to institute this Sacrament.) This is not what Jesus did. Instead Jesus gave them more things that they could not accept. He said, “Does this offend you? What if you see the Son of Man ascend to where he was before! The Spirit gives life; the flesh counts for nothing. The words I have spoken to you are Spirit and they are life. Yet there are some of you who do not believe….This is why I told you that no one can come to me unless the Father has enabled him.” Upon hearing this many of His “disciples” turned away and no longer followed Him. Was this the loving thing to do? (See John 6:60-66)

Another time a man came up to Jesus as He was walking along the road, and the man said to Jesus, “I will follow you wherever you go.” Now you might think that this is just the kind of highly motivated person that Jesus wanted to be a disciple. You might expect Jesus to say to him, “Come on along, I have plenty of work for you. The harvest is plentiful and the workers are few.” But that is not what Jesus said to him. Jesus said, “Foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head.” So instead of telling of all the great work that needs to be done, and telling of all the glory that comes with being a follower of Jesus, He discourages the man and tells of the hardships of being a disciple.

In the same passage of Scripture (Luke 9:57-62) Jesus Himself gives an invitation to someone else saying, “Follow me.” The man responded, “Lord, first let me go and bury my father.” Obviously this man was distraught and in mourning for his father who recently passed away. Since even then it had long been the custom in Israel to bury the dead the same day they died this task should not have taken long. But Jesus replied, “Let the dead bury their own dead, but you go and proclaim the kingdom of God.” Does this seem a little insensitive and callous to you? Didn’t Jesus understand what this man was going through?

Again in that same passage of Scripture another man said to Jesus, I will follow you, Lord; but first let me go back and say good-by to my family.” This seems like a reasonable request, doesn’t it. He wants to serve Jesus, and he doesn’t want his family to worry about where he is and what he is doing. But once again Jesus rebukes him saying, “No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for service in the kingdom of God.” Doesn’t this seem harsh? Even if this man was unfit for service in the kingdom of God, couldn’t Jesus have trained him or otherwise made him fit?

What about the Pharisees? These were the leaders of the Israelites, and they were all fine, upstanding people who were well respected. They did hate Jesus and conspire to kill him, but didn’t Jesus teach us to “Love your enemies?” Then why does Jesus berate them in an extended vitriolic tirade (Matthew 23), calling them such names as hypocrites (at least six times by my account), blind guides (twice), blind fools, blind men, blind Pharisees, whitewashed tombs, snakes, vipers, and He implies that they are murderers of God’s prophets. Doesn’t Jesus practice what He preached? When Jesus spoke to Satan (Matt. 4) He used more respectful words that weren’t so harsh.

Another time the Pharisees simply asked Jesus to give them a miraculous sign, presumably so that they could believe in Him and know that He truly is from God. Instead of giving them the proof they required, Jesus condemned them saying, “A wicked and adulterous generation asks for a miraculous sign! But none will be given it except the sign of the prophet Jonah. For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of a huge fish, so the Son of Man will be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. The men of Nineveh will stand up at the judgment with this generation and condemn it ; for they repented at the preaching of Jonah, and now one greater than Jonah is here.” As Jesus was teaching this (Matt. 12) Jesus’ mother and brothers were outside the house, and they wanted to speak to Jesus. When He was told about this He said, “Who is my mother, and who are my brothers?” Then Jesus pointed to His disciples and said, “Here are my mother and my brothers. For whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother.” Did Jesus renounce his relationship with His family? Was He that uncaring and unloving that He preferred His friends over His family?

Obviously Jesus was neither unloving, nor unnecessarily discouraging, nor insensitive, nor callous, nor harsh, nor hateful, nor uncaring, nor a bad son and brother. The reason why Jesus acted the way He did in each of these situations is that He knew how to properly apply God’s Law and God’s Gospel in every situation. In all the situations above, Jesus was dealing with unbelievers or the self-righteous, or with people who otherwise were unwilling to die to sin and live for Christ (see Romans 6:11-14).

The reason why Jesus spoke more kindly to Satan was that there is and was no hope for him to be saved. The devil is already suffering the punishment for his sins, but when Jesus spoke in Matt. 23 there was still hope for the Pharisees if only they would have recognized their sin and repented, so Jesus got to the point where strong words of rebuke were called for, and He did not hold back because He loved them and wanted them to be saved.

In the other situations the people who wanted to follow Jesus also wanted to hold on to some worldly things, and Jesus saw the need to teach them the First Commandment, that to be a disciple of God is to love Him with all your heart, and all your soul, and all your strength. If you love God you cannot also love the world. Remember the words of 1 John 2:15-16, “Do not love the world or anything in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For everything in the world–the cravings of sinful man, the lust of his eyes and the boasting of what he has and does–comes not from the Father but from the world.”

In all these situations Jesus DID show love, but remember that Jesus is not a Gospel reductionist (see this article). Jesus knows that the best thing for all people is that they repent and turn to Him for forgiveness. If someone refuses to repent then they need to be condemned by the Law until they come to Jesus. For Jesus and His disciples there is no shame in bringing rebuke or punishment on the unrepentant. Christ’s salvation is forever, but for the repentant sinner pain and shame last only a little while, and if a little pain leads people to Jesus, then it is worth it. Only the enemies of Jesus would hesitate to bring harsh words of condemnation to those who follow Jesus half-heartedly. Only the devil and his followers would call someone unloving who did and said what Jesus did in the situations described above. Let us not be turned aside from the path of our salvation, but let us follow Jesus in truth and purity.

Generic Christianity?

2009-03-29T14:37:00.000-07:00

Newsletter article for June 2003

“Am I now trying to win the approval of men, or of God? Or am I trying to please men? If I were still trying to please men, I would not be a servant of Christ.” (Galatians 1:10)

There is a tendency in America to reduce the Christian faith to a “generic Christianity.” I am not sure if this originates within the church. It may come from our ignorant and illiterate society’s desire to fit everything into simplified categories that are easy to understand, and easier to ignore, but I have seen this idea beginning to make its way into churches and into the minds of Christians. (Actually I can’t see into the minds of others, but I can recognize this when it comes out of their mouths.) This tendency may also come from an overwhelming desire to avoid conflict so it avoids issues that may cause conflict or division, and reduces the Christian faith to some simplified, lowest common denominator. Jesus Himself didn’t do this. He recognized the divisive nature of His message when He said in Matthew 10:34, “Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword”

This simplification of the Gospel message is not something that Christians ought to be doing. The message of the Gospel can be simplified for children and others into a message that can be as simple as “Jesus loves you” we ought not stop there as if that were sufficient. Although this simple message is the most important truth of the Gospel (and is enough to bring eternal salvation), there is much more to the Christian faith than just that. Just as babies grow from only needing a diet of milk to a gradually more complex and varied diet, so Christians need to grow from this simple message of the Gospel to a more detailed and mature understanding of God’s Word. We can’t remain “baby Christians” for an extended period of time any more than we can live our whole lives on a diet of only milk. We must either grow or die. The trouble with a simplified, generic Christianity is that something important is lost in the transition.

What is lost in generic Christianity is the specific details which make Jesus real to us, and show us that He is the true source of life and salvation for all who believe in Him. If Jesus is generalized or simplified to the point of abstraction then to our minds He becomes just that, abstract, and with abstraction He then becomes unreal to us. I think in some cases this is the intended effect. When, for example, feminists attempt to de-masculinize the Bible they are making God’s Word into something generic, and then (and only then) is it possible to dismiss it as something irrelevant and out of date. The same thing happens when fundamentalists attempt to determine which parts of the Bible are important, and which are not, or even when well intentioned evangelists try to cater to special interests in order to try to make the Bible less offensive to certain people. But even though God’s Word may offend some, God still intends us to preach and teach it in all its truth and purity, because that is the best way to bring salvation to those who do not yet have it.

Jesus is a specific man, an Israelite, a descendent of King David of the tribe of Judah (a Jew). He was born sometime around 4 B.C. (even though this seems to make no sense it results from some kind of addition error when the Gregorian calendar was first developed) in Bethlehem. Jesus is the only begotten son of God, and the firstborn son of a woman named Mary. After fleeing to Egypt to escape the murderous insanity of King Herod, His family settled in Nazareth, where Jesus grew up and lived a mostly unremarkable life. At around age thirty Jesus called twelve disciples to follow Him and He began a three year ministry during which He demonstrated His divine power through teaching and miracles. Although Jesus demonstrated great power and an ability to do whatever He wanted, He allowed Himself to be arrested, charged with false accusations, and condemned to die by crucifixion. He died and was buried, and on the third day after His death He rose to life again. After forty days He ascended into heaven where He rules over all creation at the right hand of God the Father. All this was done for us and for our salvation. We know all this (and much more details of Jesus’ life and mission) only from the Holy Scriptures which, from Genesis through Revelation, is the true Word of God.

The specific details of the life and mission of Jesus are offensive to sinful human beings like us. In Galatians 5:11, St. Paul complains that if he is preaching anything other than the truth of God’s Word then “the offense of the cross has been abolished.” The specificity of God’s Word, though it may offend us from time to time, should really be a comfort to us. The details of our own lives are of great concern to each of us. It ought to be a tremendous comfort to know that our Lord and Savior, Jesus, also had to deal with the same specifics in His life. Hebrews 4:15 shows us that our Savior can sympathize with the details of our lives because He was “tempted in every way just as we are – yet was without sin.” His sinlessness, although foreign to us, is what qualifies Jesus (and no one else) to save us from the consequences of the guilt of our own sin.

Therefore we should avoid this generic Christianity. But the only way we can avoid it is if we are well taught in the truth of God’s Word and in the specifics of Holy Scripture. We all need to be in Church to worship every week, and those of us who are confirmed ought to receive the Lord’s Supper frequently. We all need to study the Bible frequently, at least once a week, although every day would be much better. As we do this Jesus will become a more important part of our lives and we will appreciate Him for who He is. Jesus is our one and only Lord and Savior. There is no one else like Him.

Rejecting the Survival Instinct

2009-03-29T14:30:00.000-07:00

Newsletter article for May 2003

Behavioral philosophers (Psychologists and sociologists call themselves scientists, but human behavior is so complex and inscrutable that their work is nothing more than philosophical speculation) describe something which they call “survival instinct”. This is a subconscious drive to preserve one’s own life when faced with life-threatening danger. In some situations this instinct is a gift from God. Many people’s lives have been spared from dangerous situations when they acted on this instinct while their rational minds were paralyzed by fear. However, in God’s kingdom here on earth (i.e. among Christians) this natural instinct must often be overcome in order to remain God’s people and survive in His kingdom.

Proverbs 14:12 tells us that “There is a way that seems right to a man, but in the end it leads to death.” The way that seems right to us is that we ought to do everything we can to save ourselves both for this life, and in the life to come. However Jesus taught that “whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will find it.” (Matthew 16:25) This goes against all of our natural survival instincts, and yet, Christians know that Jesus loves us and He would never tell us to do anything that isn’t in our best interests, so we accept this as true, and we struggle to understand this paradox and live our lives according to it. So then we need to know, “What does this mean?”

It doesn’t mean that we ought to try and hurt ourselves. Instead Jesus means that we ought to put our lives into God’s hands in all things, and instead of trying to save ourselves we ought to be obedient to God in all things, even if it causes us pain or costs us our lives. In doing this we must rely and trust in God to rescue us from all dangers of body and soul. One of my favorite examples of this in the Old Testament is David. Several times in his life, David acted in a way which was sublimely faithful to God, but from a human perspective was suicidal. The first incident happened when David was only a teenager or a young man. David risked his life in a one-on-one battle with the giant Philistine warrior, Goliath. David trusted that God would give him the victory over the blaspheming pagan, and that is exactly what happened. (1 Samuel 17) Later David allowed King Saul to escape his sword twice even though Saul had sworn to kill David, but David refused to kill the man God had chosen to be king. (1 Samuel 24 & 26) David did this even though Saul had turned against God, and God had already chosen David to replace Saul as the next king.

Other Old Testament examples of risking one’s life in order to save it are shown in the lives of Daniel and his friends, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. Each of these four men remained faithful to God in violation of the King’s decree, and would have been executed except for the miraculous power of God who rescued Daniel from the hungry lions (Daniel 6), and Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego from the blast-furnace (Daniel 3).

In the New Testament we see faithful believers going even further. Stephen continued to witness to the Lordship of Jesus even while he was being stoned to death, and other Apostles and believers were persecuted and killed for their faithfulness to Jesus.

What is wrong with instinct? Since we are by nature sinful, our natural instincts are basically selfish. Selfishness means that we are more concerned with pleasing ourselves than pleasing God. God doesn’t want us to be selfish because he knows that selfishness will lead us to despise Him and we will be lost forever. Instead God wants us to “Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding.” (Prov. 3:5) Gideon is a great example of this (Judges 6-8). When God called him to raise an army to defend God’s people against the attacks of the Midianites he started with an army of over 30,000 soldiers. God told Gideon that he had too many soldiers because when they won the victory they would think that it came by their own strength and power, and they would again forget about God (which is why God allowed the Midianites to harass them in the first place). When Gideon’s army was down to only 300 soldiers God was satisfied that it was small enough that they would know that the victory was won by the power of God, and not by their own strength.

If we save our life by losing it then does this mean that we shouldn’t care for others? Not at all! God commands us to “Love your neighbor as yourself.” (Lev. 19:18; Matt. 19:19; Matt. 22:39; Mark 12:31& 33; Luke 10:27; Rom. 13:9; Gal. 5:14; James 2:8) However, this command is described as the Second greatest commandment. The First is that we ought to “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength.” (Deut. 6:5, 10:12, 11:13, 13:3, 30:6; Joshua 22:5; Matt. 22:37; Mark 12:30; Luke 10:27) This means that while we do care for the needs of others, we don’t do it above and beyond the will and commands of God. If we try to love our neighbor, but in the process disobey God, then not only are we not loving God, but we really aren’t loving our neighbor either. We can’t despise God and still love our neighbor at the same time.

So what does this mean for the church? Well, in times of trial and testing, as we are presently experiencing, it means that we don’t necessarily take the obvious or easy path. If our problem seems to be a lack of money then we don’t solve the problem by seeking to get more money. God is in control of His church. If God thinks that we are trusting too much in money He can invent ways to relieve us of that problem, and no matter how much we may try to keep up with the bills, it won’t be enough until we learn the lesson that God wants us to learn. In God’s tests the only correct solution is to die to yourself and life for God. This means that we may have to do things which we “know” won’t work. The ways which “seem right” to us, are often wrong in God’s eyes.

If we want to grow the Church then we “know” that if we stand firm on teaching the true Christian doctrine of the Lutheran Church we will drive people away. However, Jesus said, “If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” (John 8:31-32) The Lutheran Church has a marvelous treasure in its doctrine and teaching. It is nothing less than the treasure of heaven itself. If we are to call ourselves by the name “Lutheran” then we should learn exactly what that is all about and know and make use of the great riches which have been entrusted to us. This calls for great faith because it means trusting in God’s Word and Sacraments to work miracles when we would rather trust in ourselves and the way that “seems right” to us. God is faithful (1 Cor. 1:9) and His word will accomplish great miracles that we can’t understand how (Isa. 55:11). Through His Word, God has kept His church alive through all kinds of trials and tribulations for many thousands of years, and He will continue to do so to the end.

The Real American Idol (Part 2)

2009-03-29T13:58:00.000-07:00

Newsletter article for April 2003

In last month’s newsletter article I noted that the selfishness of Americans has reached idolatrous proportions. Since in His First Commandment (“You shall have no other gods.”) God condemns all idol worship and idolatrous practices this is a very serious offense against God. However, the offense is multiplied when such idolatry reaches into the church where God’s people gather around the common ground of God’s Word and His holy Sacraments.

Americans have turned their “Liberty” into a selfish desire for making their own personal choices about nearly everything, including things for which no real choice exists (especially life and death issues, which God alone controls). Consider how God would feel if His people would want to make decisions about things for which He has already graciously given them. Would Jacob, for example, choose not to accept a flock of sheep and goats simply because they were spotted and speckled (see Genesis 30), or would Jacob rather give thanks to God for giving him wealth despite the wicked greed of his father-in-law, Laban? If Jacob had chosen to reject God’s gift then what else would God do but say, “then you shall starve to death because you have rejected what I have given you.” Or what if Jacob had made a big deal out of accepting God’s gift, even then wouldn’t he still have made God angry by making it seem like he was blessed with riches because he had made some kind of right choice, rather than being blessed simply because it was God’s good pleasure to bless him? Either way he would have been insulting God.

In the above example God blessed Jacob despite the fact that Jacob had used trickery and deceit to steal the blessing and birthright from his brother Esau. The choices Jacob made were selfish and sinful and although God blessed him and gave him wealth and a large family, it wasn’t because Jacob was so good, it was because God is so forgiving and good.

The only “choice” which plays a significant role in the life of the Christian is the choice that God made to save us from our sins. God’s choice is the only one that matters, and because of that all people can be saved because Jesus died to pay the price for all the sinful choices that we make. True Christians know that it is an insult to Jesus and the sacrifice that He made for us to say that “I am saved because I chose Jesus as my savior.” That person is likely be wrong on both counts. Jesus accomplished everything that needed to be done to bring us salvation, and for us to take even the smallest credit is stealing that praise and glory from Jesus.

The appeal is often made to “free will” as proof of our cooperation with Jesus in our salvation. However, this denies the fact of original sin which means that we are all born sinful (see Ps. 51:5). The Holy Bible clearly states that because of our sinfulness that we cannot contribute anything to our own salvation, and our own will is completely corrupted by sin. Even the great evangelist, St. Paul, struggled greatly with his sinful nature and recognized the corruption of his will. He says in Romans 7:15-20, “What I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do…. I know that nothing good live in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do good, but I cannot carry it out. For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it.” It was not St. Paul’s choice to serve Christ, in fact it was Paul’s choice to persecute the church and imprison and kill Christians, but God chose him anyway despite this.

God works the same way in our lives, too. Whether we are converted at our Baptism when we are still infants, or whether we are converted as adults after hearing God’s Word and believing and then being Baptized, God gets all the credit in both cases. The choices that we make are connected to our “free will”, but whenever we exercise that will we are doing so in opposition to God, as the Scripture says, “everything that does not come from faith is sin.” (Rom. 14:23) Faith is all about submission to God and to His will, and about the subordination and subjugation of our own sinful will. Faith has nothing to do with making “right choices.” Even Jesus would not have chosen to die on the cross if He had done what He wanted to do, as He said in Luke 22:42, “Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me; yet not my will, but yours be done.” Since Jesus subjected His own will to God the Father’s will even though His human will was perfect and sinless, then we ought not claim that our “free will” or our choice means anything because our will is always tainted by sin. Instead we ought to thank and praise God for His good and gracious will through which He provides forgiveness and salvation for us.

The Real American Idol

2009-03-29T13:53:00.000-07:00

Newsletter article for March 2003

A few years ago the Detroit Free Press newspaper changed the name of its Sunday editorial section from “Opinion” to “Choices”. The content of the section did not change, only the name. Logically and linguistically this makes no sense because editorials are completely different from choices. There are no real choices given in this newly named section, only editorials and opinions. The change in the name was made to reflect the growing desire for people to feel like they are in charge and can make a choice about what is going on in the world, even when there are no choices to be made.

Now, this may seem like a trivial little thing, and sometimes it does to me, too. I still think it is silly every time I open up the Sunday newspaper. Often the editorial section is the only part of the Sunday paper that I read, (besides the comics) and I find it a little unsettling how the heading in no way describes its content. So what is the big deal about choices?

I believe that Americans are so selfish that the Free Press editors feel they have to play silly word games to get people to give their attention to the editorial section. The word games are not the cause of the problem, merely a symptom of a much greater, and more serious, problem in society. It is a generalization to say that Americans are selfish to the point of idolatry, but I believe that even in this short essay that I can give enough evidence to say that this is generally true.

The real American idol is selfishness, and it shows itself in a number of ways. First, with regard to the “choices” mentioned above, Americans demand choices about everything. From the multitude of channels available on cable television to access and content of the Internet, we must have the sense that we are in control and are making the choice about what we do, or where we go, or how we spend our money or time. Americans even demand choices where no real choices exist. This desire for “choice” gives people the idea (or the illusion) that they are in control and can do whatever they want to do, so in a way we convince ourselves that we are little gods.

The most horrific example of this idolatrous self-interest is the American lust for the pleasures of sexual relations without the associated responsibilities of marriage and parenthood. At best this selfishness results in loneliness and lovelessness which comes from not being committed to one person in a lifelong marriage. At worst this self-worship causes parents to murder their own children in the name of “choice.” This “choice” is really a false choice. If “choice” enters into the situation anywhere it comes very early when the man and woman choose to engage in activity which results in the conception of a child. After the conception has taken place there is no real choice. That child is completely dependent on his or her mother for life for at least nine months, and any “choice” which results in the death of the child is a false choice because God has given the parents the responsibility to care for the child.

The history of legalized abortion in America is itself an example of the selfish idolatry that I am describing in this essay. According to our Constitution, only the Congress can pass laws, but abortion became legalized nationwide by an act of the Supreme Court which, in effect, simply decreed that mothers have the right to murder their children. Although the Constitution makes no mention of a “right” to abortion, the Supreme court invented one that can only be overturned by another ruling of the Supreme Court, or by a specific Constitutional amendment denying such a “right.” But the American idol will not permit either to happen because that would force Americans to be responsible for their actions.

If selfish “choice” is a god to many Americans then that would also explain the rising popularity and acceptance of such perversions as homosexuality. This is another false choice. There are precious few things more obvious to all self-aware people that God made men and women for each other, but we see that as the Bible tells us, sinful people will always choose to rebel against God’s good design despite any number of horrible consequences. This horrible sin is only made more attractive when so-called “Christian” denominations refuse to call homosexuality a sin as the Bible does, and thus they encourage people to rebel against God’s plan in this way. Selfish “choice” is an extremely short-sighted god in that as long as the person doesn’t see an immediate bad consequence he or she can easily convince themselves that there are no consequences.

You may ask why I am addressing this issue in the Church newsletter? The answer is that although as Christians we are citizens of God’s Kingdom first, and citizens of our nation second, we cannot help but be affected and influenced by what goes on around us. If all the world (or what may seem to our eyes to be the whole world) is saying that they are free and that it is a good thing to make yourself into your own god so that you can do any thing you want to do, then it is only natural that after a few dozen times of hearing this we get tired of fighting it, and after a few hundred times we may begin to believe it. It may start out with simple envy of people who don’t feel constrained by God’s laws, but that envy can grow into doubt and unbelief, and unbelief is just a short step to idolatry. As Christians we need to remain faithful to God’s Word above all things. Even when it seems wrong or unfair or restrictive, we need to trust that God still knows what is best. Only when we are faithful to God and learn what His will is from the Holy Bible then we can recognize the false choices that the world gives us and we can avoid falling into the trap of self-worship or some other idolatry.

This self worship idol is particularly attractive because our sinful nature secretly desires to be a god. That is how the first sin came about, and we are no different in that respect from Adam and Eve. Don’t be misled by false choices which go against God’s laws and His Word. The world may ridicule Christians for their obedience to God and His good laws. The world may say that we are unnecessarily enslaved by our “blind” obedience to God, but they don’t understand that because of the forgiveness and salvation that God has won for us in Christ Jesus we willingly obey whatever God says because we know that whatever “freedom” we may lose by ignoring those false “choices” we will gain vastly greater freedom and greater rewards in heaven.

Gospel Reductionism

2009-03-29T13:49:00.000-07:00

Newsletter article for February 2003

When is the Gospel a bad thing? This ought to be a trick question, but more and more the Gospel is being used to rationalize all kinds of things which God describes as sin in His Word. In this article I wish to teach you a new phrase which I think faithful Lutheran Christians will (regretfully) soon be hearing more often. The term is “Gospel Reductionism” and in learning what it means you will learn that the answer to the question above is that the Gospel is a bad thing only when it is misused.

The term “Gospel Reductionism” refers to a method of Biblical interpretation which ignores God’s Law and places the sole authority in the Gospel for theology and practice. I believe that this idea is peculiar to Lutheranism because only Lutheran theology has made such a sharp distinction between the Biblical doctrines of Law and Gospel. Lutherans have long known that in Christian preaching and teaching the Gospel must predominate, because although God’s Law and Gospel work together for our salvation, only the Gospel really can save us. The trouble with Gospel Reductionism is that it goes a step or two further, and is in reality a new teaching.

Now, when I say it is a new teaching I don’t mean that it is “new and improved.” In theology “new” is ALWAYS a bad thing. Any “new” teaching is false teaching because it is man-made, and not from God. The Holy Scriptures warn God’s people about the false teachings of men (see Mark 7:6-7) and it warns that the time will come when people will not put up with good, sound doctrine, but instead will gather around them teachers who will tell them only what they want to hear (2 Timothy 4:3-5). There is something about Gospel Reductionism which is attractive to many pastors, teachers and lay-people in the LCMS. I believe that I myself may have been influenced by it in ways I am only beginning to understand. As I write this I have been studying this for about a month, and I know it is not Biblical, and therefore wrong, but I caught myself giving a reductionistic answer in a recent Sunday Bible study, and I had to correct myself when I realized what I was doing.

The trouble with Gospel Reductionism is that it makes the Gospel the only authoritative part of Scripture. This wouldn’t be so bad except that God gave us His Word as both Law and Gospel. Both teachings are authoritative as God’s Word, but the reductionists dismiss the Law as something useless, or even harmful. What is more, the reductionists also broaden their definition of the Gospel to include anything which might possibly be construed as beneficial — even things the Bible says is harmful and sinful. The proponents of Gospel Reductionism claim that they are faithful to God and to the Gospel, but in truth they are faithful to neither. God gave us both Law and Gospel so that we might be saved, and if we ignore either one of those teachings then we disobey God and are in danger of being eternally lost.

There is a tension between Law and Gospel which must be maintained always in our teachings. If we lost the Gospel then we would either despair of salvation because God’s Law accuses and condemns our sin, or we would become complacent and self-righteous thinking that we could gain salvation by obeying the Law in some minimal way. On the other hand, if we don’t acknowledge the authority of the Law then we won’t see a need for a savior and so Jesus becomes meaningless to us and we will grow to despise Him.

You can identify Gospel Reductionists these days because they are the ones complaining most often about “legalism” in the Synod. True “Legalism” is a valid danger and concern, and we ought to avoid it. Legalism is the result of a kind of “Law Reductionism” where the Gospel is dismissed as authoritative in place of the Law. However the Gospel Reductionists cry “legalism” about any application of the Law, including many good God-given ways of disciplining sinners and calling them to repentance. This is actually quite clever (in a Satanic sort of way) if you can get away with it. If you don’t acknowledge God’s Law (or even a part of it) then you can do whatever you want to do and nobody can say anything contrary because that would be considered legalistic or irrelevant. The trouble with this is that although you might be able to get away with this for a little while, you won’t get very far trying to convince God about the benefits of this, and everyone will have to answer to God some day.

Lutherans have a great blessing in our traditional doctrine of the dynamic working of God’s Law and Gospel. If we would ever truly put our trust in God’s Word and use it the way He intended then there would be no stopping the Lutheran Church, though many would try. Many well-intentioned people have been led astray by this “Gospel Reductionism.” People have been complacent in their sins because they do not acknowledge the Law of God and His Word which calls on them to repent. God’s Law is a good thing, but although no one likes to be reminded of sin, it is a necessary part of the Christian life. Only in using the Law properly can we truly appreciate the salvation we have in Jesus.

God’s Gifts in the Life of His Church

2009-03-29T13:39:00.000-07:00

Newsletter article for December 2002

Jesus said, “Surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.” (Matthew 28:20) God has also said, “Never will I leave you, never will I forsake you.” (Hebrews 13:5) These words are a wonderful source of comfort and consolation from a God who loves us and cares for us, and watches over us, but in addition to these words God has given us something more substantial upon which we base our faith. God has given us the “Means of Grace” to give us His presence, and also to prove to us that He is here with us when we need Him. The Means of Grace are the ways that God delivers to us His good gifts of salvation. The Means of Grace are God’s Word, and the sacraments of Holy Baptism and the Lord’s Supper.

Although the Means of Grace are the ways that God makes Himself and His Gospel tangible and real to us, each of the Means works in a different way, and each one has a special place in the life of the Church (i.e. God’s people). It is important for us as a Church to understand how the Means of Grace work among us so that we can gain the full blessings which Christ wants for His church. For example, if we use the Lord’s Supper the same way we use the Holy Scriptures, then we may miss out on some of the extraordinary blessings of this sacrament.

In my personal studies recently I have been working my way through a book of essays by the 20^th century Lutheran theologian and historian, Hermann Sasse. Pastor Sasse spent much of his ministry dealing with the unionistic Lutheran Church in Germany (and elsewhere), and I have found that his essays from the 1930’s are surprisingly relevant now. The unfaithful desire for unity without full agreement in the Gospel and all of its articles, which has afflicted American Lutheranism for years, is now beginning to infect the Missouri Synod as well. American Lutherans have not done well to learn from history in this case, but as history repeats itself, our Synod (and we, as faithful Christians) can remain faithful to God and show the world the true blessings of God’s Church, and not some man-made unity based on lies.

Dr. Sasse recognized that in the Union church in Germany the use of the Means of Grace suffered. In his 1938 essay “Church and the Lord’s Supper” he noted how the Means of Grace work to build Christ’s church. He begins by telling how God’s Word works in the church. “Because the Word of God is given to the whole world, it resounds throughout the world, which is why the Christian service of the Word has been a public event open also to non-Christians, as a matter of principle, since time immemorial.”* This shows that God’s Word is a Means of Grace which is to be shared with everyone. The “whole world” is to know about Jesus through the Word, but the other Means of Grace don’t work the same way.

The next of the Means of Grace is Holy Baptism. Dr. Sasse says this about this Sacrament: “Baptism stands at the borderline of church and world, acting either by itself or in combination with the closely associated rite of confirmation to disclose to people the inner space of the church, which is forever hidden from the gaze and understanding of the world.” Since Baptism makes a person a child of God, and a member of Christ’s church it has a special place in the life of the church. Through Baptism we are given new citizenship, so to speak, as it says in Philippians 3:20, “our citizenship is in heaven.” Also, the grace of God is nowhere more clearly shown than in the practice of infant Baptism. Infant Baptism clearly recognizes the original sin which afflicts every person, and also shows God’s Grace in that an infant can do nothing to bring this blessing upon himself or herself, neither to ask God for forgiveness and salvation, nor to earn it through good works. But whether it is infant or adult Baptism, God brings us into His kingdom through this means.

Finally, the Lord’s Supper, has a still different role in building up the church of Christ on earth. Sasse notes: “As the sacrament proper to the church, the [Lord’s] Supper is, therefore, as a matter of principle, not a public event. Thus the most ancient church celebrated it behind closed doors (Rev. 3:20)…. Although it is celebrated in a particular place at a particular time with earthly elements, the Supper does not belong to this world but always remains an intrusive alien element within it. Even for this reason, the church needs the Supper.” We dare not treat the Lord’s Supper as we do God’s Word or vice versa, although they are both His means of delivering His grace to us. We ought to share the Word of God with all people, but Scripture itself (1 Corinthians 11:29) warns us not to give the Lord’s Supper to just anyone, only those faithful Christians who can recognize it for what it really is, the true body and blood of Jesus.

Since the Lord’s Supper brings the body and blood of Jesus to all those who partake the Sacrament it truly brings the metaphor to life that the church is the “body of Christ.” Since Jesus comes to His people in this real, physical way, the Lord’s Supper is very important for the life of the church. Dr. Sasse observes, “Whenever the Lord’s Supper has been permitted to decay, the boundary lines between the church and the world have universally disappeared and the church has been absorbed into the world. The Supper is thus the Sacrament in which the church’s ‘foreignness from the world,’ and hence her essence as the church of God, finds visible expression.” He is talking about both the doctrine and the practice of the Lord’s Supper. Where these decay the church decays and is no longer separate from the world. This is always a great tragedy, and when we see it happening we should work hard to prevent it by remaining faithful to Christ’s words and His sacraments.

Although Jesus ascended into heaven some 1,970 years ago to rule with the Father over all creation, He hasn’t left us. Jesus is still with us, and working among us through these three gifts, His Word, Baptism, and the Lord’s Supper. These are precious gifts, and we should treasure them, and we should faithfully make use of them whenever we can so that God’s people are strengthened, and His will is done here on earth.

* The quotes from Hermann Sasse come from “Church and Lord’s Supper”, quoted in The Lonely Way, p. 378-380, CPH 2001.

The Morality of War

2009-03-29T13:34:00.000-07:00

Newsletter article for November 2002

With the past year’s military action in Afghanistan, and the talk lately of a potential war in Iraq (again) I believe that it is good to take a look at the Bible’s views on war and military action. This is not necessarily an easy task. The Bible is somewhat ambivalent about war, in much the same way that it is ambivalent about such things as divorce and slavery. The Holy Scriptures clearly frown on both divorce and slavery, but they also accept them and deal with them as an ongoing reality because people are sinful. The same is true with war, except for the fact that unlike divorce and slavery, God actually told His people to go to war on occasion, although with some very strict and oftentimes bizarre rules of engagement.

Because of this ambivalence about war you can sometimes find both “hawks” and “doves” quoting the scriptures to support their position, which just confuses the issue. However, there is one passage that I find most illuminating to help understand this issue. You may find it in Joshua 5:13-6:7. There are few books of the Bible which contain more battles than Joshua, and here in the account of the fall of Jericho you will not find a more bizarre battle tactic, but God does most of the actual killing (which is proper).

In this passage Joshua is preparing for battle when he meets a man with a drawn sword who claims to be the “Commander of the army of the Lord,” From what follows this is apparently God Himself in human form. Joshua asks the man if he is “for us or for our enemies” and He replies “neither.” Now I find this rather puzzling and somewhat strange. The “Commander of the army of the Lord” proceeds to give instructions to Joshua for how the Israelites will go and attack Jericho in a siege which must result in the death of all the people of Jericho except for the former prostitute Rahab and her family (because she protected the Israelite spies when they were in the city.) Since God clearly wants Israel to destroy Jericho you might expect that he would be for Israel and against Jericho, but He instead says that He is for “neither.”

How can God not be against the people that he is going to kill in just a few days? We can find the answer in Scripture. Romans 3:23 says “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” We are all sinners in God’s eyes. There is no one who is better than anyone else because we are all sinners. No one is saved because they are more worthy than anyone else, because no one is worthy of salvation. However we also read in Acts 10:34-35 that “God does not show favoritism but accepts men from every nation who fear him and do what is right.” In the book of Joshua God did not favor Israel because they were better than the Canaanites, instead God had promised the land to Abraham’s descendants because God had chosen Abraham as the ancestor of the Messiah (Christ) who would come to save all sinners from their sin. The Israelites were far from perfect. Many times they showed themselves to be no better than the Canaanite people they were fighting, but God was able to lead Israel to repentance, while the Canaanite people stubbornly rejected God’s calls to repentance. That is why God gave Israel the Canaanite land and destroyed the former inhabitants.

So what does all this mean for today? There are some very profound lessons here which are ignored at our peril. All war happens as a result of sin. God doesn’t want nations (or others) to go to war for the sake of conquest or cruelty. But since God has sanctioned war in Biblical times we see that there are occasions when even the Christian may get involved in war.

Romans 13 says that God gives the authorities “the sword” to enforce laws and keep the peace. From this we can say that war may be waged in defense against an unprovoked attack, and also for the sake of upholding justice and peace. This is shown most recently in the fight against Osama Bin Laden and his terrorist network in Afghanistan. They made an unprovoked attack on our nation, and we fought back to discourage terrorism and to bring peace to the world. In the process we (hopefully) laid the groundwork for a more stable, peaceful government in Afghanistan. The fight against Germany and Japan in World War II was also a just war which brought justice and punishment to those nations which sought to expand their empire by force.

Let us therefore first of all pray for peace, that there may be no need for our countrymen to fight and die in a war. Next let us citizens hold our nationally elected representatives accountable and only pursue war for the sake of justice and peace. Finally let us take advantage of the peace that is here and spread the message of the Gospel both in our country and in others so that more people may come to believe in Jesus and be saved. If we do this then God will certainly continue to bless our nation and give us the peace which we treasure so much.

The Origin of the Lutheran Church - Missouri Synod

2009-03-29T11:30:00.000-07:00

Newsletter article for October 2002

In Germany in the mid-Nineteenth century there arose what could be called a “confessional movement” in the Lutheran Church. These people believed that the Historical Lutheran confessions of faith (collectively known as the Book of Concord) are a true explanation of God’s Word (The Holy Bible). It is sad (but accurate) to say that this movement arose, because the only way it could have arisen is that some time in the three centuries since the days of Martin Luther the faithfulness to God’s Word had receded, even in the very land that Luther began the reformation of the Church.

The problem was that the Reformed (Calvinist) churches had made large inroads into the Church in Germany, and in some instances they won the hearts and minds of the German people. In other instances the Reformed church won the heart and mind of the rulers, and that was all that was necessary. In the German province of Prussia, King Friedrich Wilhelm III decreed a union between the Lutheran and Reformed churches of Prussia, despite the fact that Prussia was overwhelmingly Lutheran. The resulting church was more Reformed, and less Lutheran, and faithful Lutherans had to struggle to keep their Churches free from the false teachings of Calvin.

In the 1830’s a pastor named Martin Stephan began to attract a following in Saxony. Pastor Stephan was a faithful Lutheran whose sermons were very faithful to Holy Scripture. He was very outspoken against the humanistic ideals of the age which undermined the authority of God’s Word, and he was a very effective leader. In 1838 he organized a group of several hundred faithful Lutherans (including several pastors) who believed that the only way they could openly worship God faithfully was to emigrate to America. They sold all they had and left their homes to set sail for America in five ships, the Amalia, the Copernicus, the Johann Georg, the Republik, and the Olbers. Tragically, the Amalia was lost at sea along with her 57 passengers, but 600 people arrived in Missouri in early 1839 on the remaining four ships.

Not long after they arrived it was discovered that Pastor Stephan had committed adultery with two young women and he was banished from their communities, taken across the Mississippi in a rowboat, and told never to set foot in Missouri again. The community was in quite a bit of turmoil wondering if they had sinned by following Stephan to America, and they wondered if they could be considered a Church now that their “Bishop” had proved unworthy and unfaithful. A young pastor named Carl Ferdinand Wilhelm Walther diligently searched the Bible, the Book of Concord, and the writings of Martin Luther and determined that the misbehavior of their bishop did not invalidate their position in the church, because the church is not determined by people and their actions, but by Christ Himself, and His Word. Where Christ is, and where His Word is preached in truth and purity, there is the church. Rev. C.F.W. Walther soon became their spiritual leader and he became the first president of what would later become the Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod.

The Lutherans in Missouri wanted to ensure the purity of their doctrine so they decided to conduct their worship and teaching in German. There were two reasons for this. First they saw that nearly all of the Lutherans who had settled in America previously had compromised their doctrine and were no longer teaching the pure Word of God, and were no longer faithful to the Book of Concord. The Previous American Lutherans had become “Americanized” rather than remaining “Lutheran” and the Missouri group attributed this to the use of the English language. The English reformation begun by King Henry VIII had followed a more Calvinist theology so the prevailing English expressions of the Christian faith (i.e. hymns and liturgical forms) reflected a theology which did not live up to the strict standards of the orthodox Lutheran teachings. On the other hand, by 1840 the Lutheran Church in Germany had already spent 300 years of teaching the Gospel and defining the terms (in German) and defending the faith against false teaching. Although this did not prevent enforced unionism in Prussia, nor did it prevent humanism from affecting others in Germany, they felt confident that holding to the German language would help keep their group from compromising the faith.

This desire for the purity of doctrine through the use of the German language was believed to be of the utmost importance. The desire was so strong that for nearly the first one hundred years of our Church’s existence German was the official language of worship and theological instruction from the Seminaries on down to the elementary schools. It took World War I (and American distrust of German speaking folk) to get the LCMS to begin to change to English on a large scale, and by the time of World War II the LCMS had mostly become an English speaking church. This reluctance to embrace English wasn’t just stereotypical German hard-headedness, but this was a recognition of the importance of the pure and proper teaching of God’s Word, and faithfulness to God.

In some ways we have come full circle. Fortunately Martin Stephan’s indiscretions were not a pattern of things to come. There have been other Lutheran pastors who have fallen into the sin of adultery, but these are usually dealt with properly, and it is not a pattern in our Church. The Church still must constantly be on guard against false teaching. This is not new. It has been true for each of the 150 years that the LCMS has been in existence, and even longer than that. The church has always had to be on guard against false teaching even since Adam and Eve lived in the Garden of Eden. There is never a time nor a reason to be complacent about false teaching. The devil still prowls around like a roaring lion seeking for someone to devour. If he can get people to put their faith in themselves or in anything other than Christ then he will do so. The Gospel is of the utmost importance because it shows us Jesus Christ, and when we see Jesus for who He is, then we will believe and be saved. Christ is our life and our salvation, and there is none other. Let us hold fast to the truth, and pray that the church does the same.

Why Doctrine Matters

2009-03-29T11:22:00.000-07:00

Newsletter article for September 2002

“Be careful to obey all these regulations I am giving you, so that it may always go well with you and your children after you, because you will be doing what is good and right in the eyes of the Lord your God.” Deuteronomy 12:28

God is not a fundamentalist. There are not a set of fundamental teachings which God values over any other. God’s teachings are ALL important, and God required the Israelites of the Old Testament to obey all of His laws, even the ceremonial laws. For the selfish person who thinks that he is the center of the universe, this may sound harsh and uncompromising, but God had a good reason for His uncompromising stance. As He said above, if we keep God’s regulations as He wants us to then things will always go well with us and with our children. God’s purpose in giving us His Word is so that things will always go well with us. God isn’t being mean or nasty (He isn’t capable of being mean), instead God tells us this for our benefit because He loves us.

God knows what is best for us. He created us, after all, and God wants what is best for us. God knows that if we follow His plan, as He created us to do, then things will work according to His plan and we will be happy. God also is the only one who can save us when we sin against His commands, and that is also why He wants us to love and worship Him above all else.

“I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting the one who called you by the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel — which is really no gospel at all. Evidently some people are throwing you into confusion and are trying to pervert the gospel of Christ. But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach a gospel other than the one we preached to you, let him be eternally condemned! As we have already said, so now I say again: If anybody is preaching to you a gospel other than what you accepted, let him be eternally condemned!” Galatians 1:6-9

These are some very strong words from St. Paul. Here he proclaims eternal damnation to anyone to teaches a gospel other than what he preached to the church in Galatia. This would again seem the height of arrogance, except that what Paul taught the Galatians was the Word of God. Paul wasn’t teaching something that he invented, or some new educational theory. He was preaching the Gospel of Christ as Jesus had told him to preach. The false teachers in Galatia were perverting the Gospel and were evidently leading people away from Jesus. That is why Paul declared that anyone who preaches a different Gospel would be damned, because there is no salvation except that which comes from Jesus.

“Dear friends, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world. This is how you can recognize the Spirit of God: Every spirit that acknowledges that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, but every spirit that does not acknowledge Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the antichrist, which you have heard is coming and even now is already in the world.” 1 John 4:1-3

Not every teaching that claims to be from God actually does come from God. This is why John gives this warning, but he also tells us how to test the doctrine to know that it has come from God. Those who speak God’s word truthfully must acknowledge Jesus as Lord and God. Similarly, no messenger from God would deny God’s Word either, even in the smallest degree.

“For the time will come when men will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear. They will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths.” 1 Timothy 4:3-4

These verses do much to describe the situation in our world today. Even in the Christian Church, there are a seeming multitude of denominations and each one teaches something different. This certainly cannot please Christ because each different denomination gives credibility to some false teaching which can lead people away from the truth, and lead them to put their faith in something which cannot save them. Only Jesus can save us from our sins.

“Jesus said, ‘If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.’" John
8:31-32

Walking the Middle Road

2009-03-29T11:16:00.000-07:00

Newsletter article for June 2002

Many are the times in life when Christians must walk the middle road. This is the road where to step to the right or to the left would lead them into forbidden territories which lead to temptation, sin, and destruction. You would think that such a middle road should be the easy road to travel, but often it is the most difficult because as the Christian walks the middle road there are those on the right and on the left who try to tempt, and tug, and pull you over to their side. They want to pull you into the muck and mire in which they wallow.

There is a debate currently going on in the Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod about where this path is located, and how do we walk down the correct path, without being dragged down to one side or the other. The debate is not whether or not to walk the middle road on this issue, but the debate is about just what actions and public witness define the middle road.

These are the dangers which lie on either side of this middle road. To walk to the one side means to give in to the world and become more like the world. To do this we must deny God’s Word and say that anything the world does is all right, despite what God has commanded. God condemns this in James 4:4 which says, “Don’t you know that friendship with the world is hatred toward God? Anyone who chooses to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God” When the Bible talks of the world in this way it means everything which comes from and follows our sinful nature rather than God’s commands. Instead of indulging our sinful nature we ought to fight against it and do what is godly and right.

To walk to the other side means to withdraw from the world and try to have nothing to do with worldly things. Jesus himself shows that this is not what he wants in John 17:15 where he says, “My prayer is not that you [God the Father] take them [His disciples] out of the world but that You protect them from the evil one.” Jesus wants us to be engaged with the world and be witnesses to the truth about His love and salvation. Jesus doesn’t want us to withdraw from the world and isolate ourselves, instead he wants us to influence the world to do good and to show them that He is the only way to salvation. Jesus also says in Matthew 10:32-33, “Whoever acknowledges me before men, I will also acknowledge him before my Father in heaven. But whoever disowns me before men, I will disown him before my Father in heaven.”

It is true that Christians should not always walk the middle road. Sometimes God asks us to stand firm and take a strong stand on one side or another. For example, It is the greatest insult to God to even give a hint that there may be some other god who is worthy of praise, or that there may be some other way to heaven. God says, “You shall have no other gods.” (Exodus 20:3) Jesus also tells us that there is no other way to be saved except through faith in Him. Jesus said, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.” (John 14:6) Holy Scripture also tells us that “Salvation is found in no one else [besides Jesus Christ], for there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved.” There is no room for compromise with these truths, and although the world may not like it, we Christians must stand firmly and confess these truths, no matter what the consequences. This is both for our personal benefit, as well as for the benefit of those who hear these truths and believe them and put their faith in Jesus. Jesus says in Mark 16:16 “Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned.” There is no middle road here for the faithful Christian.

Please keep our Synod in your prayers that God may grant wisdom to bring an end to any controversy, and prevent schism. Pray that God would keep all our pastors and Synodical officials faithful to Jesus and His Word above all else, and keep His church united in the one true faith. Please pray that God would strengthen the LCMS that we would actively engage the world and boldly and effectively testify to the saving power of Jesus Christ as the true and real solution to all our troubles, all our fears, all our sin, all our sorrows, and all our pain.

Worthy of Salvation

2009-03-29T11:13:00.000-07:00

Newsletter article for April 2002

Who is worthy of Salvation?

There once was a king who had a very special daughter. She was his only child and the king loved her very much. When the girl reached maturity the king was determined to find a husband for her who would love her with his whole heart and would be a good and wise ruler over the kingdom. The king issued a decree that he was looking for a man who would be the most worthy to be the king’s son-in-law and heir.

This news was greeted with great joy and hope and anticipation. The princess was very beautiful and kind, and her father was extremely wealthy and powerful. Whoever was chosen to marry the princess would not only get the most desirable woman in the kingdom, but would also inherit the richest kingdom in the world.

The king was very protective of his daughter and would only settle for the best for her. In order to ensure that he would find the most worthy prince to be his heir the king had a magic sword called the Sword of Truth. If anyone told a lie in the presence of this sword it would immediately kill him. This way the king would be sure that the man who married his daughter would be most worthy of her.

After a time the king held court in the great hall in order to interview all of the potential suitors for his daughter. The first man to stand before him was the son of a very wealthy nobleman. He was handsome and charming and well-liked by all who knew him. As he stood before the king he was sweating a little as the king asked him, “What makes you worthy to marry my daughter, the princess?” The young man hesitated and then said, “I love your daughter and I only want what is best for the kingdom.” Apparently none of this was true because before he drew his next breath the sword of truth flew out of the hands of the king and impaled the man right through his heart.

The next young man chose his words very carefully. “I choose your daughter to be my wife,” he told the king.

The king was furious. “Don’t make fun of me!”

“I’m not.” The man replied. “I believe I am worthy because I choose your daughter to be my wife.”

Despite his foolish words he was telling the truth because the sword of truth made no move in his direction. However the king was indignant. “You must think I am a fool, and I would be if I considered you worthy simply because you chose my daughter. Open your eyes! Every man in the kingdom would choose my daughter if they could. Look behind you, many of them are here now! She is the most desirable woman in the world because of her beauty, her wealth, her power, and her loving heart.” At this the king sent the man home until he would come to his senses.

The next suitor came and with a humble and sincere bow he declared to the king, “I would give your daughter everything I have.”

The king was beginning to get tired of this nonsense, so he laughed. “Do you have any idea who I am? I am the ruler of the richest kingdom in the world. I could buy you and sell you hundreds of times. Do you consider my daughter some sort of beggar who can be bought for a pittance?” With these words the king sent the man to prison until he would repent of his arrogance.

And so it continued for quite some time. The finest men in the kingdom all came and made their claim as to why they were worthy to wed the king’s daughter, but each plea was rejected by the king. In addition many came who were not nearly the finest men in all the kingdom, trying to trick their way to winning the greatest prize in the kingdom. These were either slain by the Sword of Truth, or imprisoned or banished by the king.

Finally, a man came before the king dressed as a common laborer. He didn’t appear to be wealthy, nor of noble birth or heritage. The king looked down on this poor man and asked in a stern voice, “Do you think you are worthy to be my son-in-law and heir?”

The poor man trembled. “Have mercy on me, lord. Forgive my simple clothing, but it is the best that I have. I am not a rich man. I do not intend to insult your majesty or your lovely daughter by my appearance here. It is true that I am not worthy of such a fine woman as your daughter. I cannot give her the fine things that she deserves. My language isn’t as refined as that of a nobleman, and I suppose I appear to you to be vulgar. There is absolutely no reason why you should give me your daughter to be my wife, and I would completely understand if you quickly send me on my way. I can only say that if you choose me by your grace and kindness then I would love your daughter and treasure her and make her know that she is the most valuable thing in the world to me, because she is.

The king looked at this humble man. He had hardly looked up at the king the whole time he was in the great hall. Then the king spoke. “You are right to say that you are not worthy of my daughter. And of all the noble men who have come seeking my daughter’s hand, you are the first to admit that you are not worthy, but they were not worthy either. You were wise to appeal to my grace and kindness because it is by reason of my good grace that I accept your petition to marry my daughter. You are not worthy of my daughter, but I will make you worthy. You will be a good husband to my daughter, a good son-in-law to me, and a good ruler of my kingdom when the time comes. I will see to it myself.”

And this is how it happened that the poor man became the king’s heir. It wasn’t because he was worthy, but because of the king’s kindness and grace.

Stand Up for Jesus

2009-03-29T11:07:00.000-07:00

Newsletter article for February 2002

Jesus said, “I tell you, whoever acknowledges me before men, the Son of Man will also acknowledge him before the angels of God. But he who disowns me before men will be disowned before the angels of God.” (Luke 12:8-9)

It is in times of crisis that it is important to stand up and be counted for what you truly believe in. Unfortunately there more than enough crises to go around. There are always several international crises to choose from, although they don’t always impact us directly. There are national, state, and local problems which often affect us negatively. There are family problems, work problems, social problems, and even personal problems which cause us concern and possibly worry.

Jesus tells us several times in Matthew 6, “Do not worry.” God, our Father, provides us with all we need, so we are always well taken care of, and we don’t need to worry about anything. This lack of worry, however, only comes from a strong faith that trusts that God will take care of us and provide for all our needs. This faith also helps us to accept the fact that although God always provides for our needs, He may not always provide for our wants and desires.

St. Timothy has had to deal with several situations lately which might be cause for worry. With the public school system moving toward a chaotic-like state, it has decreased our school enrollment the past couple years. Our congregation has supported the school (as it should), but our current resources are quite limited. Our financial troubles have forced us to determine what is most important for us to be doing, and cutting back on things that, while still important, are not vital to the operation of the Church and School. We have been forced to examine our priorities, but isn’t that just like human nature — people don’t change their priorities until they have no other choice (and sometimes, not even then).

Well, we are human, but with all our troubles we can take comfort in a couple of things. First, we are still God’s people, and Jesus tells us “Do not worry” and “Trust in Me.” As long as we listen to Jesus and put Him first in what we do, then He will bless us. Along the way we may have to learn some hard lessons, but in the end we will be better for them. We have learned, for example, that Christian churches probably ought not to get involved in raffles, but instead should focus on the Bible verse at the top of this page and concentrate on proclaiming Christ as Lord.

Second, it may sound strange, but we can take comfort in our financial troubles. It is not a pleasure by any means to struggle to pay bills, or to lay-off staff, but we can be thankful to God that our troubles are only financial. There are troubles that are much worse. Despite our troubles we still belong to God. We have pulled together to prayerfully resolve our problems, while at the same time we have remembered that Christ wants us to confess Him alone as Lord, and that to everyone who does this, He will also claim as His children. This is a wonderful blessing. There are many churches which are much better off than us financially, but are beset by troubles which are much more difficult to overcome. Our troubles are not small, but in many ways they have drawn us closer together, and made us rely more on God for help and direction. It is my prayer that we will work even harder to remain faithful to Christ and do the work of God’s people, which is, above all, to share the Gospel with those who don’t know Christ, and make disciples through baptizing and teaching God’s Word.

The Will of God is always best and shall be done forever;
And they who trust in Him are blest, He will forsake them never.
He helps indeed in time of need, He chastens with forbearing;
They who depend on God, their friend, shall not be left despairing.
“The Will of God is Always Best” The Lutheran Hymnal #517

The True Story of a Terrorist Turned Christian

2009-03-05T19:31:00.000-08:00

Newsletter article for November 2001

Since the unbelievable attacks on the United States on September 11 many people have been struggling with their emotions about this incredibly evil turn of events. The Bible has much to say about the presence of evil in the world, about its cause, consequences and (thankfully) its solution. The following story is completely true, and shows us how to view the situation in a completely Christian way.

There once was a man named lWav' . He was born in the Middle-East and grew up in a privileged family. He was well educated and well respected among his peers. Even as a young man, lWav' quickly moved up the social ladder. He was kind of a zealot, but he lived in a place and time where zealotry was appreciated and rewarded. He had studied religion (of sorts) and was convinced he was right, and he didn’t care who suffered because of it.

lWav' grew up learning about a god who only made commands, demands, and requirements of his people, but this god had no mercy. The way that lWav' learned about his god made him impossible to please, but lWav' tried to please him, and so lWav' wanted to be like his god—merciless, demanding, and unyielding.

In the course of practicing his religion, lWav' took the job of making sure all of his countrymen were diligent in their obedience to their god. He was ruthless in carrying out this task. He particularly focused on Christian people, who he saw as a threat to the worshipping of his god. lWav' attacked civilians, including men, women, and children, and put them in prison and he even had some of them killed for their disobedience to the laws of worship. lWav' did not even respect national boundaries. He pursued his victims across borders into different countries. lWav' was a nasty, evil man who only brought fear, terror, and destruction, wherever he went, and left hatred and death in his wake. You would think that God (the real God) would have been extremely angry at lWav' and many people would ask the question, “Why didn’t God kill lWav' ?” That is a good question, but the answer is even better. God didn’t kill him because God had a better plan.

We know lWav' today as Saul of Tarsus, but he is also known as Saint Paul. Now you might complain that nothing I have said so far would qualify this man as a saint, and you would be correct. Up to this point, Saul was an evil terrorist who was working against God and His plan to spread the Gospel and bring salvation to the world. You might think that it would take a miracle to change a terrorist into a saint, and you would be absolutely correct, but God specializes in miracles, and that is exactly what happened.

Saul was on his way to Damascus, Syria to terrorize the Christians living there. As he traveled Jesus met him on the road and knocked him to the ground, and temporarily blinded him to get his attention. Jesus asked him, “Saul, why are you persecuting me?” Saul replied, “I don’t even know who you are.” Jesus responded, “I know. That’s the problem. I am Jesus of Nazareth, who you are persecuting.” Jesus told Saul to go to Damascus and wait there and he would be told what to do. Now Saul was frightened. He had thought he was serving God by bringing terror to Christians, but now he began to realize just how horribly wrong he was. He believed he only deserved to die because of his vicious, hateful, evil crimes, and he was correct. However Jesus didn’t kill him.

After a few days to let Saul think about what he had done, He sent Ananias to Saul to teach him about Jesus. Ananias wasn’t too happy about the mission. He had heard about the evil things that Saul had done to Christians, and he was afraid. God told him to go anyway, and because Ananias trusted in Jesus he went to Saul, even though he was afraid he was going to suffer because of it.

The first thing Ananias did was to say to Saul, “Brother Saul, receive your sight.” Immediately something like scales fell from Saul’s eyes, and he could see again. Then he told Saul about Jesus. He told Saul that God is not only a God of rules and laws and fierce power and judgment, but God is a God of mercy, love, and forgiveness. Jesus is both God and man, and he shows us how much God loves us. Because of our sins, we all terrorized the Son of God to the point that He was unfairly murdered, but instead of paying us back in the same way, Jesus still loves us and forgives us and wants us to love him back. Saul was amazed by this message. He had never known that God was so kind and loving, but he knew it was true because he had met Jesus, and despite his vicious crimes, he was still alive. From that moment on, Saul dedicated his life to serving Jesus, and the change was nothing short of miraculous.

Instead of persecuting others, Saul was persecuted. Instead of imprisoning others, Saul was imprisoned. Instead of beating and torturing others, Saul was beaten, whipped, abused, and even had rocks thrown at him in an attempt to kill him. Yet through all this, Saul remained faithful to Christ and continued to preach and teach about Christ’s love and did not return the hatred with hatred. Saul endured much suffering to bring the good news of salvation to many people. He preached about the love of Jesus to everyone who would hear him, and also to some who would not listen.

Saul had learned about the true God and it changed his life in every way. God was a God of love and mercy and forgiveness, and Saul wanted to be just like God. God had spared his miserable life when he did not deserve to be saved, and Saul wanted everyone else to know how wonderful God is, but whereas early in his life when Saul didn’t care who suffered in the practice of his religion, after Saul knew Jesus it was Saul who endured suffering, and because of his witness and testimony many people also came to know the love of Jesus and were saved.

Jesus tells us to “Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.” (Matthew 5:44) Why and how should we do this? The life of St. Paul shows us exactly why and how. Jesus changed Paul’s life and because of it many more people learned about Jesus and were saved. God wants all people to be saved and there is no one who is so bad that Jesus cannot forgive them. The life of Paul shows that. If God can forgive a terrorist, then He can forgive anyone, especially you and me. Pray for your enemies, that God would show them the truth, and they would know His love, change their hateful ways, and be saved.

For further information on St. Paul’s life read the following: Acts 7:54-8:1, Acts 9:1-31, Acts 22:1-21, Galatians 1:11-24, First Timothy 1:12-17, Second Corinthians 11:22-33. Second Corinthians 12:1-10.

Moral Issues

2009-03-05T19:27:00.000-08:00

Newsletter article for September 2001

There has been much discussion this past summer about morality and what is life all about, specifically the morality of certain medical research. President Bush did much to bring this issue to prominence with his nationally televised speech about new rules for embryo and stem-cell research.

Issues of morality and moral discussions are often equated with religion, but very often these moral discussions have little, or nothing, to do with religion, faith, or God. The trouble with this is that whenever a discussion on morality excludes God, it is inherently immoral. Morality and ethics deal with what is right and what is wrong. Since the ultimate authority on right and wrong is God, you can’t talk about what is ethical or moral without talking about what God says is right or wrong.

God’s authority to determine right and wrong is undisputed in all cases (except by people who wish to deny the truth). God created and is still in control of everything that exists, and He is Holy, so God can do no wrong.

The main issue being debated and discussed recently deals with the Fifth Commandment where God tells us, “You shall not murder.” This commandment tells us that God values human life and forbids us from treating life with contempt. In most cases this is pretty clear cut, but not all cases are easy to determine what is good, right and proper to do. We all know that it is wrong to kill innocent people, and it is right to try to save the life of innocent people. The difficulty comes when these two truths conflict and people cannot agree on what is murder and who is a person.

I cannot say whether or not what President Bush did was ethical or right. I probably would have done things differently, but I am not President (yet). I do believe that he did the best he could to prevent the murder of innocent people (embryos) while trying to further the research which may (or may not) extend the lives of people with serious diseases, although sometimes doing your best is not the same as doing what is right.

Holy Scripture is quite clear that human life begins at conception. In Psalm 51:5 David says, “Surely I was sinful at birth, sinful from the time my mother conceived me.” Here David was not just using hyperbole, or exaggeration, to express his guilt over his sins, he was using a truth about life to express the extent of human sinfulness. Also the time when John worshipped Jesus before they both were born (Luke 1:44) shows that a person’s individuality begins long before birth. Science, too, teaches this because it is at conception that a person becomes a distinct individual, and genetically unique. Although some scientists ignore this fact, that doesn’t mean much in this debate because science and morality are very different disciplines and scientists are generally not known for their depth of thinking on ethics or morality.

It is good that our nation is having this discussion about ethics and what is the right way to deal with life issues. As Christians we should make the most of this opportunity to tell others about what God says about such things. We should join in the discussion whenever we can, not to argue, but to witness God’s love, and share God’s Word. We can use this as an opportunity to share our faith and tell people how great and wonderful our God is, while encouraging others to respect the life that God gives and try to be a nation of people who live and work by high moral and ethical standards in all we do. We should want to do this because it pleases God and He surely will bless us if we do what is right by Him.

Lessons Amidst Tragedy

2009-03-05T19:23:00.000-08:00

Newsletter article for June 2001

I’m sure by now most of you who get this newsletter have heard about the accident where a car crashed through and destroyed our fifth and sixth grade classroom on the day before Easter. I have been thinking about what I can learn from this incident, and what we as a congregation and school community can, or perhaps should, learn from this.

If you saw the aftermath from the accident, or if you have seen the photographs of the wreckage you know that this kind of incident is extremely unsettling. Possible reactions to this include anger that someone would lose control of a car and cause so much damage. Another possible reaction is fear. Could such an accident happen in broad daylight when children are in the classroom? Such reactions are quite disturbing. Is there something we can we learn from this tragedy without being overcome with anger or fear?

The day after the accident was Easter Sunday, and I reworked the Easter sermon to try to put it into perspective. In a message which kind of had the theme, “What could have been … but wasn’t” I noted that viewing the damage which was at the time still very much in evidence, it was easy to imagine what could have been. However, that way of thinking isn’t always constructive (except when planning to rebuild with more protection for our precious children). Especially on Easter Sunday a better way of viewing this is to focus on what didn’t happen. No children had been in that room for two days, so none of our students were even close to being injured, and they remain safe and secure to this day. Even the driver of the car was spared, which must be considered a miracle (especially if you saw the damage).

We can view the death of Jesus in the same way. The crucifixion of our Lord was a great tragedy, but think about what could have been. It should have been each one of us paying the price for our sins for the rest of eternity, but because of Jesus, that won’t happen. All who trust in Jesus will never be punished for their sins, but will look forward to a resurrection and eternal life just as Christ himself enjoys today.

Another lesson from this accident focuses on the driver of the car which crashed into our building. I would like to meet this man and give him a message. This may not be the same message as you would give to the man, especially if your children were students in the destroyed classroom, but I have a potentially life-changing message to give. I would tell the man who survived this accident that it is truly a pleasure to be able to meet him. Given the force of the impact no one should be able to meet him ever again. God must have something great planned for him to have spared his life after coming so close to death. I hope he appreciates it. Of course this message comes with a warning: Whether this crash was truly an accident, or whether it was an inevitable consequence of foolish actions, this should be a clear warning to avoid being in a similar situation again. The next time someone will surely die. But God is a merciful God, slow to anger and abounding in love. God often gives people second chances, and for that we should praise our savior, Jesus Christ.

Christ’s death and resurrection are the best signs of God giving us second chances. None of us should take them for granted. Not all of us have had near-death experiences, nor should we tempt fate by requiring such things to make us trust in God and give Him the credit and praise He deserves. What can someone say who survived such an accident except that “God has graciously spared my life, and I will praise Him for as long as I live, and even forever, should He give me the chance. And I know He will, because of Jesus.” To say anything else is to invite disaster. God is a patient God, but His patience is not infinite. I would like this fortunate man to know that God has great things in store for his life, and I pray that he appreciates that and takes advantage of this opportunity. It doesn’t matter whether this accident was out of his control, or self inflicted, this man can still give a powerful testimony of God’s gracious love, and God seems committed to giving this man at least one more chance to accomplish great things through Jesus Christ.

For the rest of us, we too, ought not to take for granted the second chance we have in Christ. Without Christ none of us would have any hope whatsoever of enjoying the bliss of God’s paradise. But because of what Christ has done for us, He gives us the whole world for free, forever. We all should act as if we have been miraculously spared certain death, because we have. We all were under a death sentence from God because of our sin, but Jesus spared us by dying in our place. God has great things planned for your life too, so put your trust in Jesus and give God all the credit and praise, and humbly serve Him in all you do.

The Latest Gossip

2009-03-05T19:19:00.001-08:00

Newsletter article for May 2001

Have you heard the latest about you-know-who? The attraction of gossip is that it seems to give a person some measure of power or control over someone else. It is difficult to resist the urge to spread some information about a person which puts them down in some way, because if someone else is lowered then it seems as if you are being raised by comparison. Even if you are on the receiving end of gossip it is a strong temptation because no one wants to be left out of the information loop.

Much gossip is justified because it gives the appearance of truth, but whether or not it is true, it may still be gossip. Gossip should be thought of as any kind of talk which is unflattering to someone else. The Golden Rule is in effect here. If you wouldn’t want someone talking about you in a particular manner, then you ought not speak of others in that same way. The eighth commandment says, “You shall not give false testimony against your neighbor.” God wants us to respect the good name and reputation of other people, just as we ought to respect God’s name and reputation. The danger of gossip is that, whether true or false, it causes people to think less of the subject of your gossip.

God’s word calls gossip a betrayal. “A gossip betrays a confidence, but a trustworthy man keeps a secret.” (Proverbs 11:13) So here we see that although I said above that gossip seems to raise the status of those who spread it in comparison to others, in reality those who gossip show themselves to be untrustworthy. Who would confide in a person who is likely to spread your secrets to others in such a destructive way? “A perverse man stirs up dissension, and a gossip separates close friends.” (Prov. 16:28) If someone who gossips is not trustworthy, then that harms friendships. We need to have friends we can trust, not those who will speak against us behind our back.

No matter how someone may justify spreading gossip, those who look for opportunities to put others down are simply troublemakers. Proverbs 26:20 says, “Without wood a fire goes out; without gossip a quarrel dies down.” There is always something exciting about a quarrel, or an argument, or a dispute between people. I suppose that explains why television shows like the Jerry Springer show have a measure of popularity. The problem is that such excitement appeals only to our lower (sinful) nature. Such behavior is completely unacceptable for God’s people.

In his Small Catechism, Martin Luther explains the Eighth Commandment in this way: “We should fear and love God so that we do not tell lies about our neighbor, betray him, slander him, or hurt his reputation, but defend him, speak well of him, and explain everything in the kindest way.” This is how God wants us to behave in regard for other people’s good name. If we only speak well of others we show ourselves as people of good character, trustworthy, and a good friend. St. Paul writes in I Thessalonians 5:11, 13, 15 “Therefore encourage one another and build each other up, just as in fact you are doing…. Live in peace with each other…. Always try to be kind to each other and to everyone else.” If you want people to speak well of you, then begin by only speaking well of others. Put the best construction on everything. Give people the benefit of the doubt. Instead of telling of people’s faults and shortcomings, speak of their good points, their strengths, their likable qualities.

There are many Biblical examples of people who obeyed the Eighth Commandment in this way. Jonathan defended David to his Father, King Saul, even though Jonathan knew that he would not succeed his father as king because God favored David (I Samuel 19). The people of Capernaum spoke well of the Roman centurion in Luke 7. Jesus defended the actions of the woman who poured perfume on him (Mark 14) when some criticized her actions. Let us all work hard to avoid gossip. Let us speak well of others, that they may speak well of us, and let the Gospel of Christ shine through in our lives in every way.

Who Will Take the Son?

2009-03-05T19:12:00.000-08:00

Author Unknown

(The first part of this story was forwarded to me in an e-mail message, and I enjoyed it so much that I wanted to share it with all who get this newsletter. The second part of this story is a brief theological commentary on the story.)

Newsletter Article for April 2001

A wealthy man and his son loved to collect rare works of art. They had everything in their collection, from Picasso to Rafael.

They would often sit together and admire the great works of art.

When the Vietnam conflict broke out, the son went to war. He was very courageous and died in battle while rescuing another soldier. The father was notified and grieved deeply for his only son.

About a month later, just before Christmas, there was a knock at the door. A young man stood at the door with a large package in his hands. He said, “Sir, you don’t know me, but I am the soldier for whom your son gave his life. He saved many lives that day, and he was carrying me to safety when a bullet struck him in the heart and he died instantly. He often talked about you, and your love for art.” The young man held out his package. “I know this isn’t much. I’m not really a great artist, but I think your son would have wanted you to have this.”

The father opened the package. It was a portrait of his son, painted by the young man. He stared in awe at the way the soldier had captured the personality of his son in the painting. The father was so drawn to the eyes that his own eyes welled up with tears.

He thanked the young man and offered to pay for the picture. “Oh, no sir, I could never repay what your son did for me. It’s a gift.”

The father hung the portrait over his mantle. Every time visitors came to his home he took them to see the portrait of his son before he showed them any of the other great works he had collected.

The man died a few months later. There was to be a great auction of his paintings.

Many influential people gathered, excited over seeing the great paintings and having an opportunity to purchase one for their collection. On the platform sat the painting of the son.

The auctioneer pounded his gavel. “We will start the bidding with this picture of the son. Who will bid for this picture?”

There was silence, then a voice in the back of the room shouted, “We want to see the famous paintings. Skip this one.”

But the auctioneer persisted, “Will someone bid for this painting? Who will start the bidding? $100, $200?”

Another voice shouted angrily, “We didn’t come to see this painting. We came to see the Van Goghs, the Rembrandts. Get on with the real bids!”

But still the auctioneer continued, “The son! The son! Who’ll take the son?”

Finally, a voice came from the very back of the room. It was the longtime gardener of the man and his son. “I’ll give $10 for the painting.” Being a poor man, it was all he could afford.

“We have $10, who will bid $20?”

“Give it to him for $10. Let’s see the masters.”

“$10 is the bid, won’t someone bid $20?” The crowd was becoming angry. They didn’t want the picture of the son. They wanted the more worthy investments for their collections. The auctioneer pounded the gavel.

“Going once, twice, SOLD for $10!”

A man sitting on the second row shouted, “Now let’s get on with the collection!”

The auctioneer laid down his gavel, “I’m sorry, the auction is over.”

“What about the paintings?”

“I am sorry. When I was called to conduct this auction, I was told of a secret stipulation in the will. I was not allowed to reveal that stipulation until this time. Only the painting of the son would be auctioned. Whoever bought that painting would inherit the entire estate, including the paintings. The man who took the son gets everything!”

God gave his son 2,000 years ago to die on a cruel cross. Much like the auctioneer, His message today is, “The son, the son, who’ll take the son?” Because you see, whoever takes the Son gets everything.

***********************************

Theological Analysis

by Rev. Paul Wolff

There is much to like in the story above. It is an uplifting story, and it has many things to remind us of Jesus, but as with all parables and analogies, it has its limits. So to better appreciate this wonderful story I would like to take this opportunity to mention a few things that I find useful, and note a couple of things where care and discernment must be used, just as in reading the Bible.

Among the many good points in this story is the main theme that “Whoever has the Son has everything.” This reminds me of the story of Mary and her sister Martha (Luke 10:38-42) where Jesus speaks of the “one thing needful” which is to let Jesus serve us because that is much more important than our serving Jesus. Jesus is the “One thing needed” so whoever has Jesus has everything he or she needs.

Another good image in this story is the riches that come with the painting of the son reminds us of the riches of heaven which God has promised to give us through Jesus.

I also like the part of the story where the son had given his life to save someone else. This reminds us of the sacrifice that Jesus made for us when He died on the cross to save us all from the punishment for our sins.

The reaction of the participants in the auction, and their contempt for the painting of the son reminds us that the world does not care for Jesus, but is only concerned about their own riches and welfare. This brings to mind the passage from John 1:10-13 which describes Jesus in this way, “He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him. He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him. Yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God—children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God.”

The purchase of the painting by the poor gardener is tricky, but it brings to mind the beatitudes in Matthew 5:3, “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” This also reminds us that when Jesus preached and taught it was the poor and despised “sinners” who most eagerly responded to His teachings of forgiveness and trust in God for salvation.

But as with all parables it has its limits to its meaning. I suppose that someone could read this story and conceivably think that because the gardener bought the painting that there must be something that we must do to obtain the riches that God has promised. To think that one must make the first move to God goes against what God says in Ephesians 2:8-9, “For it is by grace that you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—not by works so that no one can boast.” It will be to that person’s eternal regret who meets Jesus on judgment day and says something to the effect of, “Yo, dude, let me in, I paid my dues, now show me the money.” (see Luke 13:22-30) Jesus is not very likely to respond favorably to that person, especially since Jesus had to suffer and die to pay the price for our salvation. There is nothing left for us to pay, and Jesus gives it to us for free, as a gift.

It is also a little difficult that the gardener who worked for this rich man was so poor that he could only afford $10 for the painting. That may suggest to some that God doesn’t properly reward his people (until the end), or it may lead some to justify the underpayment of church workers. This would be a wrong interpretation of Scripture because I Tim. 5:18 says, “The worker deserves his wages” so we ought to do all we can to pay our pastor and teachers a generous wage. On the other hand, the poverty of the gardener could remind us that God never said that His people would be guaranteed wealth and prosperity in this life, only “daily bread.” Nevertheless, God’s daily bread is generous and sufficient for all our needs, and even more, and God will reward us.

I hope that you continue to find blessings in this story, and will use it to remind yourself to treasure Christ, because “where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” (Lk. 12:34)

Lenten Blessings to You from God

2009-03-05T19:07:00.000-08:00

Newsletter article for March 2001

“All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.” (2 Timothy 3:16-17)

Lent is a time where some Christians fast or give up something cherished (usually a food) in order to grow in their Spiritual life. Others may use this time as a convenient time to go on a diet and lose some excess weight. The temptation in either case is to rely on the strength of our own willpower and determination to see us through the tough times to the end. If we succumb to the temptation it is obviously sinful because if we succeed in our fast then we will take the credit for ourselves, rather than praising God for His grace and strength.

If we truly wish to grow Spiritually then we may wish to heed the message of 2 Tim. 3:16 (above). God does want us to train ourselves in righteousness and good works, but the tool He has given us to use is not our own strength of will, but Holy Scripture. The Holy Scriptures are not primarily a rule book, above all they tell us about how God has saved us from our sins through the obedient life and innocent death of Jesus Christ. However, the Holy Bible does also teach us the things that God wants us to do in our lives (summarized by the Ten Commandments). Scripture also rebukes us or reprimands us when we disobey God’s commands, and it corrects our erring ways. Then Scripture can also train us in righteousness by illuminating the right path that God wishes us to walk (Psalm 119:105).

It is enough for our salvation to hear God’s word and believe it. Jesus said, “Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved.” (Mark 16:16) But God also wants our lives to be filled with His blessings, and free from the consequences of sin. Our lives will never be completely free from sin, but God wants to fill our lives with His love so that we may be a blessing to others and also lead them to eternal salvation in Christ. One day when someone tried to exalt His mother for having given birth to Him, Jesus replied, “Blessed rather are those who hear the word of God and obey it.” (Luke 11:28)

Since God’s Word is so important for not only bringing us eternal salvation in Christ, but also for guiding our actions along a God-pleasing path, then perhaps it would be beneficial to you this Lenten season to devote some time each day to studying God’s Word. The potential benefits are much greater than if you just relied on self-determination to go without a cherished food item. However, if you also wish to have a fast this Lent, then perhaps you will also be strengthened in this task through God’s Word, and the work of the Holy Spirit through His Word. Then when you are finished you will almost certainly be strengthened in your faith and you will give greater praise and glory to God.

As you study God’s Word here is something from the Formula of Concord (Article XI § 12) which may be good to keep in mind: “All Scripture, inspired by God should minister not to security and impenitence but ‘to reproof, correction, and improvement.’ Furthermore, everything in the Word of God is written down for us, not for the purpose of thereby driving us to despair but in order that ‘by steadfastness, by the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope.’ From this it is beyond all doubt that the true understanding or the right use of the teaching of God’s eternal foreknowledge will in no way cause or support either impenitence or despair. So, too, Scripture presents this doctrine in no other way than to direct us thereby to the Word, to admonish us to repent, to urge us to godliness, to strengthen our faith and to assure us of our salvation.”

May God bless your Lenten devotions.

The Promise of the Rainbow

2009-03-05T19:01:00.000-08:00

Newsletter article for August 2000

In these late summer days if you go outside after a rainstorm there is a chance that you will see a rainbow in the sky. I believe that the rainbow is truly one of the wonders of God’s creation. I believe that with their brilliant spectrum of colors, rainbows are some of the most beautiful things on earth, and I still take as much delight in seeing a rainbow as I did when I was a child.

Rainbows are special, even if you discount the myth of finding a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. I discovered the truth about this myth once during a plane trip to California. We were flying over the clouds and the sun was overhead and I looked down on the clouds and saw a complete rainbow. It wasn’t shaped like a bow, it was a complete, perfect circle. So if anyone hopes to find a pot of gold they will always be disappointed, because rainbows don’t have an end.

It is funny that I never thought about the origin of the word “rainbow” until I began to learn Hebrew. In the course of my studies I was reading the story of Noah and the aftermath of the great flood in Genesis 9:12-17 and I came across the Hebrew word qesheth. When I found the word in the lexicon it described a bow, which is a weapon that hunters or warriors use with arrows. Until this point I had never associated a rainbow with a weapon, but I could see how it made sense. The rainbow is curved just like a warrior’s bow, and since it comes after the rain, there you have a simple and ancient history of the origin of the term.

If you think about it, this helps us to understand the significance of the promise that God attached to the rainbow in Genesis 9. You may wish to read Genesis 6-9 if you are unfamiliar with the details of the story of the great flood. God, Himself, was acting as the great, righteous warrior in sending the flood to kill all His wicked enemies. The bow would be a symbol of God’s mighty vengeance on His enemies. God showed his wrath when He destroyed all the people on earth, but God also showed the power of His mercy when he saved Noah, his family, and the pairs of animals in the ark. But because God is primarily a merciful God, who prefers salvation and forgiveness to destruction, He used the rainbow as a sign of His promise never to destroy all life on earth as He did in the days of Noah. Destruction is always a last resort with God, only undertaken after all else has failed.

God tells us in Genesis 9:13, “I have set my bow in the clouds, and it will be the sign of the covenant between me and the earth.” The symbolism there is that God is hanging up his weapon in a place for all to see, so that all who see it will know that God is not our enemy. An unarmed God is a reassuring symbol for sinful people whom God wants to love Him. God’s pacific nature is shown in Isaiah’s prophesy (Isa. 42:3) where he prophesies about Jesus, “A bruised reed he will not break, and a smoldering wick he will not snuff out.” Jesus himself reinforces this peaceful, forgiving attitude when He says in John 3:17, “For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through Him.”

Look for rainbows this month, and if you see one remember God’s promise to Noah. Remember that God is a merciful and loving God, and the rainbow is a sign that God loves us.

The Scandal of the Cross

2009-03-05T18:53:00.000-08:00

Newsletter article for February 2000

© 2000 Rev. Paul A. Wolff

1 Corinthians 1:20-31 (NIV)
Where is the wise man? Where is the scholar? Where is the philosopher of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not know him, God was pleased through the foolishness of what was preached to save those who believe. Jews demand miraculous signs and Greeks look for wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified: a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, but to those whom God has called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. For the foolishness of God is wiser than man’s wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than man’s strength. Brothers, think of what you were when you were called. Not many of you were wise by human standards; not many were influential; not many were of noble birth. But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. He chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things—and the things that are not—to nullify the things that are, so that no one may boast before him. It is because of him that you are in Christ Jesus, who has become for us wisdom from God—that is, our righteousness, holiness and redemption. Therefore, as it is written: “Let him who boasts boast in the Lord.”

Haven't we had enough scandals lately? Surely if this is a true scandal, then it can't be very good, but what is so scandalous about the cross? These are probably the kinds of reactions you might have when you hear of the "scandal of the cross," but this is a true teaching from Holy Scripture which is given for our benefit. It is, however, a hard teaching, and as the Scripture passage above shows it is not appreciated by everyone.

Simply put, the "scandal of the cross" is that as Christians we put our faith in a man who was killed as a common criminal before he seemingly accomplished anything great in his life. We call ourselves "Christians" to honor Jesus as the Christ (the chosen one of God) even though the man himself seemed to be defeated, disgraced, disinherited, and worst of all, dead.

To those who don't believe in Jesus this sounds ridiculous (scandalous, even). They say, "Who would put their faith in such a disgraced savior, except children and fools?" Because of our sinful nature, if we had a choice, we would prefer a God who is more of a show-off. We want a God who not only is all-powerful, but who isn't hesitant to demonstrate his great power and maybe who will sweep us off of our feet and carry us with him to victory over our enemies. Or we want a God who will empower us to overcome our enemies and prove that we are on the right side, and they (poor chaps) are on the wrong side.

This is the seduction of those religions which promote the false messages such as "name it and claim it." Who can resist the allure of the idea that God is a "too rich by half" candyman who only gives out his goodies to those who ally themselves with him? Many times it is not enough for us to be on the winning team, but we must teach our enemies a lesson. Many people are willing to let God get a little of the glory as long as we get our share, too. These messages are very popular with many people (even some Christians) because we respond to what we want to hear, but that's not how God works.

The truth is scandalous. The truth is that there are no good people who deserve God's rich blessings. The truth is that each one of us deserves to be hanging on the cross instead of Jesus. It's scandalous. Who wants to hear that? No one, I'm sure. This is not a very uplifting message. This is not inspiring, nor is it empowering, nor is it self gratifying. And rather than dig a little deeper for the good part of the message, most turn away and go somewhere else to hear a less scandalous message, where someone will tell them "what their itching ears want to hear." (2 Timothy 4:3)

The scandal of the cross really is good news, for those who listen and believe. We are certainly unworthy of God's blessings, and His forgiveness, and the riches of heaven (or even the blessings this life for that matter), but remember that it is Jesus who hung on that cross. It wasn't me, and it wasn't you, and it won't be you or me in the future either. Jesus took our place when he hung on the cross, so that you or I won't have to suffer for our sins.

The further scandal is that not only the good, righteous, upstanding citizens get to enjoy the eternal blessings of paradise, but also the poor, the sinners, the criminals, and everyone who acknowledges their sin and trusts in Jesus to forgive them. In fact, only those who are sorry for their sins and trust in Jesus will receive the paradise promised by Jesus. But while the word "only" sounds restrictive, it isn't. It takes no effort to believe in Jesus, and everyone can do it. It is certainly a lot easier than hanging on a cross for eternity, and that's no scandal. It is because of God's grace that He provides this salvation to everyone, no matter how good or bad they are.

Jesus paid the price for our sins, and thank God that He did because none of us could afford the price. Our sins belong to Him now so if we love Him and trust in Him He will take them away to where they can't hurt us. It's scandalous to have to admit your guilt and sin, but there's no scandal in being forgiven. There is nothing to be ashamed of in being an adopted child of God.

What does 2000 Mean?

2009-03-05T12:15:00.000-08:00

Newsletter article for December 1999

Well, here we are only one month away from the new millennium, or are we 13 months away? What is a millennium anyway, and what is so special about this one (if anything)? Is 2000 going to be the end? Should I be afraid? If so, then what exactly should I be afraid of? If not, then what's all the fuss about?

Like the paragraph above, much of the discussion about the new millennium and/or Y2K leaves a person with more questions than answers, and more to fear than to have our fears relieved. At the risk of making this debate more confusing I will try to give a brief explanation of this millennium business that will help us approach the year two thousand with eagerness, rather than with fear.

First let's consider the number 2000. Remember that next year is properly called 2000 A.D. which means: The year of our Lord, 2000. Next year is the 2000th year since the birth of our Lord, Jesus Christ. Few today know and fewer care that A.D. stands for Anno Domini, Latin for "the year of our Lord."

You may also have heard that 2000 is not really the first year of the new millennium but the last year of the second millennium. The argument goes that since there never was a year zero that 2001 is the first year of the third millennium. This is a reasonable argument, based on mathematics and the way we count whole numbers, beginning with one, rather than zero. But since 2000 counts the years since Christ's birth I now believe that we should count it differently. Think of your own birthday. You celebrate your first birthday after you have completed your first year of life. There is a "year zero" in your life. Therefore since we are counting the years since Christ's birth, December 25, 2000 will be His 2,000th birthday, and the beginning of the third millennium.

One concern people have is that when some people hear talk about the "end of the millennium" their brains mysteriously turn off after the first word of that phrase, and they only hear that this is the "end." This makes people anxious because they are not properly prepared for Christ to return, so they are afraid.

Jesus may return in 2000. He told St. John in Revelation 22:20, "I am coming soon." Jesus could return at any time, whether it is 1999, or 2000, or 2999, or 10999. The 1,000 years which Revelation 20 speaks about is symbolic of a long period of time. If it were a literal 1,000 years then Jesus would have returned in 1033, which was 1,000 years after He ascended to heaven. Since we are still waiting for His return in 1999 then Revelation 20 speaks symbolically of many, many years, because we know that God doesn't lie.

Jesus will return on the very day when God the Father determines it is the right time. He will not come back too soon, or too late. How will we know when Christ will return? We won't know in advance, because Jesus says, "No one knows about that day or hour, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father." (Matthew 24:36) But when that day comes we will not mistake it for anything else. Jesus says, "For as lightning that comes from the east is visible even in the west, so will be the coming of the Son of Man." So everyone on earth and under the earth and on the sea and under the sea will all see Jesus returning at the same time. "For the trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed." (1 Corinthians 15:52)

Is this reason for fear? Yes and no. Yes, we have good reason to be afraid of the coming of Christ in His glory because He comes to judge all people. We all should fear this because we are sinners and have fallen short of God's standard of obedience (Romans 3:23). If Jesus wanted He could condemn every person who ever lived to an eternity of punishment for their sins. So yes, we have good reason to be afraid. But no, as Christians we have an even better reason to look forward to the final judgment with eager anticipation. Jesus told Nicodemus in John 3:17 & 16 "God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him." For "Whoever believes in [Jesus] shall not perish, but have eternal life." So we don't have to be afraid of the final judgment because Jesus promises to save everyone who trusts in Him as their savior from sin and death.

No matter what happens in the coming year, or in the coming 1,000 years we should not be like the unbelievers who are afraid of Christ's judgment. We love Christ because He has promised us that He has saved us from all our sin and He will not punish us for any of our sins. We don't have to worry that we will get caught on the wrong side when Jesus separates His faithful people from the unbelievers (Matthew 25). Jesus endured terrible suffering and death to make sure that we won't ever have to suffer for our sins. Since He Himself is the judge, He will personally make sure that none of His faithful people will be sent to punishment.

So we look forward to the last day when Jesus will fulfill all His promises to us, and bring us to eternal joy and happiness. Don't be dragged down by a sinful world that is fearful of the coming judgment, but trust in Christ Jesus to forgive all your sins so that you may eagerly look forward to meeting Jesus face to face, and eagerly receive His gracious judgment. All who love Jesus should pray that Jesus returns quickly to take us to the wonderful place which He has prepared for us. Meanwhile we should share the message of salvation with our family, friends, neighbors, and even with our enemies, so that they, too, may not fear the end, but may also know the forgiveness and salvation which comes to all who believe in Jesus Christ.

Why Can't I Have Cancer, Too?

2009-03-05T12:12:00.000-08:00

Newsletter article for November 1999

I read an interview this October in Bicycling Magazine featuring the winner of the Tour de France bicycle race, Lance Armstrong. You probably have heard of him. He is the Texan who two years ago was fighting for his life with testicular cancer which had spread to his lungs and to his brain. At the time the doctors thought they were being optimistic when they told him he had a twenty percent chance of surviving. Well, he not only survived the cancer, but he came back to win the toughest bicycle racing series in the world, and perhaps the most difficult athletic achievement in sports. Not only did he win the race, but he dominated the 2,400 mile race which was also the fastest Tour de France in history. Lance is an inspiration to all who are fighting cancer, and many others.

Lance was asked by the interviewer a question about his feelings about his cancer, and how it affected his life. He gave the astonishing reply that he owes his life to cancer, and that if he had a choice he would go through it all again. Now, perhaps like me, you are thinking, "He has got to be crazy." But, you know what? Lance Armstrong is not crazy. He simply learned how to put things in the proper perspective in his life.

This summer during the Tour de France I heard another interview with Lance Armstrong where he explained that very soon after he was diagnosed with cancer he accepted the reality of the cancer. He saw that there was a very good chance that he would not live very much longer, and if he did survive, he would lose everything that he had to pay his medical bills. He also accepted the fact that he would very likely never be able to return to the sport of cycling which he loved and had been very successful in competition. He knew that whether he lived or died he would lose everything, and he accepted it. In accepting that he would lose everything he had, everything he had worked for, and everything he was, he gained something much more valuable.

You know Lance Armstrong is someone special when you are reading an interview and you find yourself envying someone who was on the brink of death from cancer, which is still a vicious killer. As I was reading I thought to myself, "Why can’t I have cancer, too?"

Now I am not saying that I am dissatisfied with my life. I am quite happy with my life, and I thank God for perfect health. But I find that I usually take life for granted. In fact, I have a better record in Bicycling races than Lance Armstrong. I won the only bicycle race I was ever involved in. It was only a one mile sprint around Elizabeth Park in Trenton and I beat my best friend, and a guy we met who challenged us to a race. It’s a far cry from the Tour de France, and although I enjoyed the victory, I don’t believe that I would wish to go to the brink of death just to win the greatest Bicycle race in the world.

It wasn’t cancer which made Lance Armstrong into a great bicycling racer (although the 20 lbs. he lost during chemotherapy probably helped him in the mountain climbing stages), but dealing with cancer helped Lance appreciate the victory more. When the full extent of his cancer was known he could hardly have expected to be alive this year, much less the winner of the Tour de France, and a hero to bicyclists and cancer victims worldwide. When Lance accepted that because of cancer he would lose everything he had, everything he has now is a gift from God. If God had let the cancer have its way Lance wouldn’t be married, he wouldn’t be a new father, and he wouldn’t be alive, much less a worldwide hero as the winner of the Tour de France. All that he has accomplished since his cancer is a gift from God.

St. Paul had a similar attitude when he wrote to the Church in Philippi. In Philippians 3:7-9 St. Paul writes, "But whatever was to my profit I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. What is more, I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ—the righteousness that comes from God and is by faith."

St. Paul’s situation was a little different from Lance Armstrong’s, although his attitude is similar. Paul had been persecuting Christians because he believed that they were against God. When Jesus met him on the road to Damascus and told him otherwise, Paul immediately began to follow Jesus and soon became one of the greatest apostles. Before he became a Christian, Paul was headed down a path which was headed toward destruction because he was opposing Christ. So it is no wonder that after he found salvation in Christ he considered all his previous accomplishments to be not only worthless, but harmful.

In his life before knowing Christ, St. Paul was on the fast track to success. He had accomplished great things in his life, and he was making a name for himself. But when Paul met Jesus on the way to Damascus he quickly gave up all his former accomplishments, and all the glory that he was gaining for himself, and he began to serve Christ. The gifts that Christ gives his followers are so much greater than what the world has to offer that St. Paul calls all his former accomplishments "rubbish."

St. Paul shares Lance Armstrong’s sentiments when he writes in Phil. 3:10-11, "I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, and so, somehow, to attain to the resurrection from the dead." St. Paul is eager to share in suffering as a follower of Christ because he knows that the riches that Christ gives are worth any kind of suffering. This is the same sentiment of the apostles in Acts 5:41 where they left the court "rejoicing because they had been counted worthy of suffering disgrace for the Name [of Jesus]."

No matter how good you are at whatever you do, you cannot overcome death. No one can. Only Jesus Christ can overcome death, and through faith in Jesus we share in both His death and resurrection. This is a gift from Jesus. It is very similar to the gift that Lance Armstrong received. Lance thought he was going to die, but not only did he live, but his strength was returned and he went on to win the greatest bicycle race in the world, and all the glory and honor that goes with that accomplishment. By all rights Lance should be dead by now, instead he is a worldwide hero. But then, by all rights we should be dead by now because of our sins, but Jesus Christ has rescued us from sin and death and has promised us salvation, glory, and honor. It is a precious gift.

I believe that it is the realization of this gift which makes Lance Armstrong say, "I owe my life to cancer." If he had won the Tour de France before he got cancer he would have taken pride in himself and would have put his priorities in the wrong place. Now he can appreciate the victory and all that life has to offer for what it is, a wonderful gift from God. My dear friends in Christ let us learn a lesson from Lance Armstrong. Let’s remember that all that we have is a gift from God: our possessions, career, family, even life itself are all gifts from God. If we accomplish anything it is by God’s grace. May this cause all of us to give thanks to God every day for His loving kindness, especially for the gift of His Son, Jesus Christ. For through His death we died, and through His resurrection we live both now and forever. Praise God! Amen.

The Evolution Debate Continues

2009-03-05T11:59:00.000-08:00

but The Truth of God's Word Will Prevail

Newsletter article for October 1999

Perhaps you have heard about the Kansas State Board of Education ruling which decreed that Kansas schools are not required to teach the theory of evolution. Although Kansas schools may certainly continue to teach evolution, it is no longer required, and this ruling is seen as a great victory for Christians and others who believe God's word when He told us, "In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth."

I don't know about all the deliberations which led to this conclusion, but this continues the debate which began in earnest with the 1859 publication of The Origin of Species by Charles Darwin. The idea that all advanced forms of life evolved from simple forms is based on the false premise that there is no God, and that there is no such things as miracles. Darwinism promotes the arrogant humanistic idea that everything that happens has a natural cause and humans can learn about the causes of everything.

Obviously, the theory of evolution is a matter of faith (or lack of it, as the case may be). All the evidence suggests that the creation is the work of an Omniscient God with a plan for His creation. David noted in Psalm 19:1, "The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands." God's wisdom is seen in His creation. Even the fossil record supports the Biblical account because it suggests that in the past there was a much greater diversity of life on earth, but because the sin of man has corrupted God's handiwork, there is an ever declining diversity of life on earth. People have often observed species going extinct, but no one has ever observed one species evolving into another.

Darwin's followers also needed to explain the existence of everything once they convinced themselves that there was no God, so they came up with the ridiculous idea of the "Big Bang." I must confess that the proponents of this theory are much smarter than me, in fact they are too clever by half. They can look directly at the obvious, and then they convince themselves that it doesn't even exist. Well, I'm not nearly that "smart". For this blessing I will thank God for eternity.

To say that the universe was created in a single big explosion is about as believable as saying that when Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols blew up the Federal Building in Oklahoma City a few years ago they escaped when the rented Ryder truck filled with explosives blew up and then reassembled itself into a Ferrari 550 Maranello sports car, which they then drove away. There is a well-known scientific phenomenon called "entropy" which says that objects tend toward a state of disorder and chaos, rather than an orderly state. Explosions are like this, as are most things, but the Darwinists deny this.

Christians are Called "Ignorant"

For Christians, perhaps the most upsetting aspect of the news story about the Kansas Board of Education decision is the comments that the Darwinists have made about those who believe in God's eyewitness account of creation, rather than in their nonsense theory. Although the evolutionists claim to have descended from apes, they suggest that Christians who believe in God aren't too far removed from the dumb animals. Despite all evidence to the contrary, Darwinists vehemently maintain that only smart people believe in evolution and deny the existence of God, and only idiots believe in God.

As someone who takes great pride in the intellectual gifts God has given me, and my accomplishments in using those gifts, I feel hurt by such insinuations even when they aren't true. However I take comfort in the words of St. Paul who warned the young pastor, Timothy, "The time will come when men will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear. They will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths. But you, keep your head in all situations, endure hardship, do the work of an evangelist, discharge all the duties of your ministry." (2 Timothy 4:3-5)

Evolution tells people "what their itching ears want to hear" because it puts them in the place of God, and it promotes idolatrous arrogance. Our sinful nature resents God and His authority over us, and it wants to have control over God. This is why many people are taken in by theories such as evolution, and the big bang even though they defy common sense. They would rather live their lives thinking that they are above God and suffer the eternal consequences, rather than humbly submit to God now and trust that His wisdom and salvation will prove true in the end.

Jesus said, "Blessed are you when men hate you, when they exclude you and insult you and reject your name as evil, because of the Son of Man." (Luke 6:22) I don't know about you, but such blessings I would rather do without. But Jesus wants us to remain true to His Word, no matter what the consequences. Jesus wants us to stand up and tell the truth, even if no one believes what we say. In the end, when Jesus returns, He will let everyone know that what we said was true, as long as we remain true to His Word. And besides, when we tell others the truth of God's Word, someone may hear it, believe it, and be saved through it! Jesus "wants all people to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth." (1 Timothy 2:4) Jesus also said, "All men will hate you because of me, but he who stands firm to the end will be saved." (Matthew 10:22)

Implications for Witnessing

You probably will not be all that successful in your witness if you call Darwinists stupid, although I have done as much above. This might preclude handing a copy of this article to your favorite neighborhood Darwinist and saying, "See there, you are wrong, wrong, wrong!" There may sometimes be wisdom in calling a spade a spade, but perhaps a better approach would be to avoid rancor and confrontation, and simply speak about the wisdom of trusting God's Word, rather than speaking about the foolishness of denying God. This accentuates the positive and gives the person a good reason to trust in God, rather than putting the person on the defensive. For without God there is only death, but through Christ there is forgiveness, life, and salvation.

What's So Bad about Gambling?

2009-03-05T11:51:00.000-08:00

Newsletter Article for September 1999

© 1999 Rev. Paul A. Wolff

Q: What is so bad about gambling anyway?

A: Some people might say that the problem with gambling is that it is too easy to become a compulsive gambler, or to become addicted to gambling. I'm not convinced by that argument, and I suspect that few people are. That might keep some people out of the casinos, but not the people who are most at risk to becoming addicted to gambling.

If someone is really overtaken with the excitement of gambling they will find ways to justify their behavior and will never admit to being out of control until it is far too late. Besides, this argument is like saying that alcohol is bad because some people become alcoholics. However, most people are able to drink in moderation and never get to the point of being intoxicated. Likewise, some people have enough self control that they can gamble their money without getting into financial trouble, so if this were the only argument against gambling it is not very convincing.

Also, there are different forms of gambling, and each has its own special problems. Lotteries are bad because the promise of a large payout blinds people to the fact that the odds of winning are next to impossible. State run lotteries are particularly immoral because they lure people who can least afford to throw away their money, it is, in effect, a tax on the poorest people who are too ignorant to understand just what it means that the odds of winning are three million to one. Casino gambling has better odds, but the casinos are designed to make losing your money fun so while you are having the time of your life you don't realize you have lost the farm until it is too late.

Q: You didn't answer the question. So what is so bad about gambling?

A: Gambling is a sin against the Seventh Commandment, "You shall not steal."

Q: I don't believe you. How can gambling be stealing if people willingly put their money up for the bet?

A: No one gambles their money with the intention of losing their money. People only risk their money in order to lure others to throw their money into the pot so they can take other people's money. Since stealing means to take something that doesn't belong to you, then gambling is stealing. If you remove the possibility of taking someone else's money then gambling loses its appeal real fast.

Q: But the other gamblers willingly let you take their money, so that can't be stealing.

A: No one willingly lets you take their money in a casino. Players may consent to the rules of the game, but they only do this because they tell themselves that they will win it back later. If people really wanted to give away their money they wouldn't play a silly game and risk taking other people's money if they accidentally won the game.

Q: What about people who can afford to lose? What can be wrong about rich people gambling their money?

A: It is still wrong for rich people to gamble because in doing so they raise the stakes in the game and their money lures others to risk their money in trying to win the jackpot. So it is still wrong to gamble if you can afford it because it tempts others to risk their money, and they may not be as able to afford losing their money.

Q: Where does the Bible condemn gambling?

A: I have already mentioned the Seventh Commandment, "You shall not steal" above. Jesus says in Luke 12:15, "Watch out! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; a man's life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions." Jesus was responding to a dispute over inheritance, but his response applies to gambling as well. The main motivation to gamble for money is greed, otherwise if it were just for the thrill of the game people would be content to play for worthless colored plastic chips which they would return freely at the end of the game.

Also Ephesians 4:28 says, "He who has been stealing must steal no longer, but must work, doing something useful with his own hands, that he may have something to share with those in need." Gambling is not a productive way to earn money. A Christian ought to get his/her money the old fashioned way, earn it.

Q: Are there any exceptions?

A: Possibly. The LCMS Commission on Theology and Church Relations (CTCR) came out with a report on gambling in 1996 and it stopped short of declaring that all gambling is a sin. It may be possible to get together with friends for a friendly game of poker without causing or taking offense, but one must be careful, the line is often finely drawn and it is easy to cross it.

Q: Why are you writing this article?

A: My purpose is not to give you ammunition to go and attack friends or family members who gamble. I don't wish to be self righteous, nor do I wish to make anyone else self righteous. That attitude usually causes hard feelings, and unless the topic is very carefully applied it will likely push people away from Christ, instead of bringing them back into the fellowship of Christ. You may be able to gamble with a pure heart, and not steal. I cannot look into your heart and know what your motivations are, that is only between you and God. Only don't fool yourself, you may be wrong.

Instead I wish to help you grow in understanding of God's laws concerning your possessions, and how to manage them in a God-pleasing way. We pray in the Lord's Prayer, "Give us this day our daily bread." We pray this because we recognize that God provides us with all that we need, and we should be satisfied with that. To take God's blessings and selfishly risk them in pursuit of easy riches shows a lack of faith that God will provide you with what you need, or it shows contempt for the good things which God has already provided you.

Q: Is there anything good about casino gambling?

A: I suppose it depends on how you look at it. The early news reports on the opening of the Casinos told about all these suburban Detroiters coming and spending their money in the casinos. Anything that reverses the decades old trend of cash flow out of the City of Detroit to the suburbs can't be all bad, but only if a sufficient amount of money is used to help poor folks out of their poverty. But even if this is done (and I doubt that it will) that doesn't justify stealing. The end does not justify the means, so even if some good is done that doesn't justify stealing.

The Meaning of “Is”

2009-03-05T11:43:00.000-08:00

Newsletter Article for August 1999

One of the most bizarre bits of information to come out of the investigation and impeachment of President Clinton was a sound bite of him trying to avoid admitting his sexual relationship with a young woman who was not his wife. He said the following on August 17, 1998 to the grand jury investigating the Jones' harassment case. What Mr. Clinton said was, “That depends on what the meaning of 'is' is.”

As soon as this statement became public Mr. Clinton was (and continues to be) harshly derided for this transparent effort to avoid giving a straight answer to a direct, although poorly worded, question. He was asked, “Is there a relationship?” instead of “Was there a relationship?” Taking advantage of this small mistake, Mr. Clinton focused on the tense of the verb, saying that “is” doesn't mean “was” or “will be.” The verb “to be” is one of the most basic verbs in the English language, or any other language for that matter. To quibble over the meaning of “is” is to be completely ignorant, or desperate, or malicious.

This is not the first time in history that the meaning of “is” has been called into question. A long, long time before our scoundrel President tried to weasel his way out of admitting his sordid affair with a young intern some prominent theologians in the sixteenth century debated the meaning of Jesus' words about the Lord's Supper, “This is my body”. The meaning of “is” which was at issue then compares two equivalent things, or states that one thing is exactly the same as another, or that two things are, in fact, the same thing. This incident is particularly meaningful for Lutherans so I would like take this opportunity to review this historical debate.

The focus of the dispute in 1529 was the Lord's Supper. Specifically, it was the question of the real, physical, bodily presence of Jesus in the bread and wine of the Sacrament. Ulrich Zwingli was a Swiss reformer who could not accept the miraculous nature of the sacrament. Since it is naturally impossible for a body to be physically present in two or more places at once, Zwingli claimed that when Jesus said, “This is my body” He really meant, “This represents my body.” By saying that “is” means “symbolizes” or “represents” Zwingli was saying that the physical body of Jesus is not present in the bread and wine of the Lord's Supper even though Jesus says it is.

Martin Luther, the German reformer, maintained that the words of Jesus are clear and unambiguous. When Jesus said, “This is my body” and “This is my blood” that is exactly what He was giving His disciples in the bread and wine. Luther claimed that Jesus wasn't speaking figuratively or metaphorically, but literally.

Luther didn't try to explain how Jesus could give His body and blood in bread and wine to His disciples, instead Luther simply trusted that because Jesus is both God and man, He has the power to do whatever He says. If Jesus says that the bread is His body and the wine is His blood, then it must be just as He says it is. The words of Jesus are clear about what He was then giving to His disciples, and what He now gives to all who receive the Sacrament to this very day. Even if a billion Christians around the world receive the Lord's Supper each Sunday each receives the body and blood of Jesus for the forgiveness of their sins and the strengthening of their faith.

To try to explain away miracles such as the real, bodily presence of Jesus in the Sacrament is to cast doubt on Jesus, on His power, on His person, and ultimately, it casts doubt on Christ's ability to save us from our sins. After all, if Jesus cannot personally give each communicant His body and blood to eat and drink in the Lord's Supper, as He says He does, then we cannot be sure that He can reach us with His forgiveness, as He also says He does.

If we claim that Jesus isn't really present in the Sacrament, how do we suppose that Jesus will recognize each of us when He returns to judge us? Jesus says in John 10:14, “I know my sheep, and my sheep know me” and we should trust that he is telling the truth there, too, but in the Lord's Supper we have His promise made more sure because He personally gives us His body and blood. We are in Christ because He makes us part of His body as 1 Corinthians 12:27 states, “Now you are the body of Christ, and each one of you is a part of it.” So when Christ returns, He will know His people because He is a part of them, and they are a part of His body.

It is truly a mystery how Jesus can give His true body and blood to each person in the world who receives the Sacrament. Fortunately for us Jesus doesn't ask that we understand it, or be able to explain it, He simply asks us to believe it. And although Jesus doesn't tell us how He does this, He does tell us why. Jesus' body and blood is “for you” (1 Corinthians 11:24 and Luke 22:19-20) and “for the forgiveness of sins.” (Matthew 26:28)

You don't have to be a scholar to understand what “is” means. We all use it every day. I have used a form of the verb “to be” in each paragraph of this essay, and I didn't even try to do this, it came naturally. People's inability to believe God's word doesn't come from a lack of understanding of the grammar of Scripture. Instead unbelief comes from a lack of faith in God and in His power to save us. We may not always understand why God does what He does, but we should trust that God loves us all, and that everything He does, He does because of His love so that we will be saved from our sins and receive eternal life through Jesus Christ our savior.

P.S. I found it interesting when looking up the definition for “be” in my dictionary among several examples of the usage of this verb and its cognates there were two examples from Holy Scripture: “God is love” 1 John 4:16 ; and “Christ is risen from the dead” 1 Corinthians 15:20.

The Theology of Star Wars

2009-03-05T11:33:00.000-08:00

Newsletter Article for June 1999

I suspect that the hottest movie in theaters this summer is very likely to be the new sequel in the Star Wars series, “The Phantom Menace”. As I write this I have seen only a few seconds worth of scenes which might be included in the movie. As you read this I am probably waiting for the price of admission to come down from exorbitant to merely expensive.

Obviously I cannot comment directly on this new film or give a review, but I do wish to comment on the theology underlying the three Star Wars movies previously released. As Christians we can certainly enjoy a good secular story, and be awed by the amazing technical effects which are more and more common in films. However, we ought to be aware of false teachings about God which are presented in such films. (See 1 Peter 5:8-9)

The false teachings in Lucas’ films are subtle. Because the main story-line is about good versus evil, and because the films do not feature the mindless, graphic violence, and promiscuous or deviant sexual behavior common to so many films in theaters these days, we may not notice a little idolatry and other false teachings about God which are part of the film’s message. Some people swallow these false teachings whole, not even realizing they were on the dinner plate.

The most basic false teaching in the Star Wars movies is that there is no God. Nowhere in these movies is God given credit for creating, sustaining, nor saving the universe and the people who live here. If God is mentioned at all, it is likely His name is taken in vain in a moment of frustration or exasperation.

In the place of God in Star Wars is this mysterious “force” which no one seems to know anything about except a few ancient religious zealots, whom no one believes. Besides presenting a gross idolatry which denies the existence of God, this also presents gnosticism which says that salvation (or enlightenment) only comes through special knowledge of god given only to a few special people. The true God doesn’t simply offer salvation to only a few people who are deemed “worthy,” instead God offers salvation freely to all who believe in Jesus as the savior from their sins.

The idea of a non-personal “force” which guides our actions can be very attractive, especially as it is presented in the Star Wars movies. It plays upon our deepest sinful desires to be gods ourselves. Just like Adam and Eve disobeyed God because they wanted to be “more like God” so our own sinful nature is susceptible to temptations which promise godlike power. After all, who has not wished that he or she could fly, or read someone’s mind, or move objects with just a thought, or exact retribution on an enemy simply by thinking about it. It may seem fun to think about such possibilities, but such powers belong to God alone. To wish for these things, or to claim to have such powers is a sin against the first commandment.

You may still ask what could possibly be so bad about a movie which promotes good over evil? There certainly is nothing wrong to favor good over evil, but the question is how do you determine what is good? Since the true God is holy, He defines what is good and what is evil. If someone denies the existence of God, or puts God out of the picture, or replaces Him with a god which does not know the difference between good and evil, then that person has no way of recognizing what is good and what is evil. We are sinful and prone to evil behavior, so we must rely on God to direct us to what is truly good.

I don’t believe any perpetrator of any evil act in the history of the world has ever gone out with the intention of doing evil or being evil. Instead everyone who has ever done an evil act has justified it to himself or herself by being convinced that what they are doing is actually good, or at least a necessary evil to reach a goal which is perceived as good, right, and just. This is true for every insult, every murder, every theft, every rape, every war, every genocide, every holocaust, and every evil in all of history, great and small.

Christianity also concerns itself with the fight of good over evil, but remember how the fight over evil was won. It wasn’t won by conquering the “bad guys” by force of arms, or force of will. Jesus won the fight over evil by submitting to God the Father’s punishment for the sins of everyone else but Himself (for He had no sins of his own to punish). By allowing Himself to be conquered by the consequences of our sin, Jesus overcame sin and won salvation for all who believe in Him. There really is such a thing as absolute truth, and God Himself is absolute, and He punishes sin. However, God is merciful and He Himself rescues from punishment all who look to Jesus as their savior from sin.

Another important false teaching of the Star Wars movies concerns how people obtain salvation. Although the movies do seem to allow the existence of a personal soul in each person, they have not yet elaborated about how that soul is saved, or avoids hell (or its rough equivalent). However, it seems that the soul’s salvation is tied into its relation to the “force” of the movie. If one’s soul is connected to the “good” side of the “force” then that seems to suggest salvation. if one’s soul is connected to the “dark” side of the “force” then that seems to relate to servitude to evil, punishment, sorrow, pain, and other things we properly associate with hell.

The trouble with Star Wars is that whether you associate with the good side or the dark side is purely your decision. Make a bad choice and end up like Darth Vader, make a good choice and, well, who knows? Either way salvation is determined by what you do. There is no room there for Jesus Christ. There is no atonement for sin unless you can do it yourself, but who knows if anyone can do it? From the Christian perspective even the good side of the force is evil because it denies God, and his love, compassion and forgiveness and concentrates on one’s own works to attain salvation. Holy Scripture clearly tells us that the only way to be saved is to believe in Jesus Christ. We cannot win salvation on our own, or in cooperation with Jesus.

If you go to see the movie I hope you enjoy it. It should be very entertaining. but be on guard when you go. Don’t fall for the false ideas about God, sin, and salvation. Christ calls for His people to respond to evil with love, just as He did, and not with hatred or violence (physical, mystical, or otherwise).

Sooner or later everyone is going to be talking about this movie, so try to use this as an opportunity to talk to others about Jesus, and our real hope for salvation through Him. Our God and savior is not an impersonal, mysterious force, but He is a kind and loving person who suffered, died, and rose to life again so that we can be saved from our sinfulness.

For further study see: Genesis 2; Isaiah 40:12-31; Job 38-41; Romans 3.

Job 28:28 “The fear of the Lord-that is wisdom, and to shun evil is understanding.”

What is a “Sabaoth”?

2009-03-05T11:27:00.000-08:00

Newsletter Article for May 1999

One of the best things about having e-mail is that I can subscribe to various mailing lists. One of my favorites is called “A.Word.A.Day”. As the name suggests, it sends out a new word every day along with its definition, a guide to pronunciation (as needed), a sentence or small paragraph with an example of the word’s usage, and a quote for the day which usually has nothing to do with the word for the day. I find that this is an interesting and fun way to increase my vocabulary, or learn the origin or other trivia about words. Sometimes the words have a particular significance such as the certain Friday where the word of the day was “triskaidekaphobia” (you can look that up yourself).

I mention this only because this month’s article describes my word for the month. When we follow the Holy Communion liturgy in the Lutheran Hymnal we sing praise to God in the Sanctus and call Him “Lord God of Sabaoth”. The word “sabaoth” (Sab-ay-OTH) is also in a few of the hymns, but how many of us understand what it means? My favorite dictionary does not contain “sabaoth” but it does have “triskaidekaphobia”.

I suspect most people think that the word in the Sanctus is “Sabbath”. After all, God is the Lord of the Sabbath. He is the one who gave the Third Commandment: Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy. However the words “Sabbath” and “sabaoth” are completely different despite sounding similar in English. Sabaoth is a Hebrew word which means “hosts” or “armies.” It is frequently used in the Old Testament to describe God as the “Lord of Hosts” (or “LORD Almighty” in the NIV translation).

The translation of sabaoth as “hosts” doesn’t really help us understand what this means. Usually we think of a host as someone who invites you to a party, and who provides lots of good food and drink, and doesn’t that sound like a lot of fun! However the “hosts” refer to a large number of people, or angels, and very often it is used to refer to armies. In 1 Samuel 17:45 the phrase “Lord Sabaoth” is paired with “God of the armies of Israel.” When Holy Scripture calls God the “Lord of Hosts” it is referring to His power and authority. God is the Lord over many armies in heaven and on earth.

The phrase “Lord sabaoth” is found throughout the Old Testament, but it is especially common in the prophets such as Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Zechariah. The prophets were sent to call God’s people to repentance. Their messages warned the people about their disobedience to God and called them to trust in God and follow Him. By using the title “Lord of Armies” the prophets wanted to warn the disobedient people that if they didn’t turn from their sinful ways that God had the power and authority to punish them. This is what eventually happened when God used the pagan Babylonians to defeat disobedient Israel and carry off most of the survivors into captivity in Babylon.

However, the fact that God is in charge of armies is not only meant as a threat, but it is also meant to comfort God’s people. One of the reasons why people turn away from God is that they lose faith in God and start to believe that false gods can provide them with more protection or power or influence or security. It should reassure us that God is in charge of armies in heaven and on earth because God protects His people. He loves us and He uses His armies to protect His people from all harm and evil.

We shouldn’t necessarily view God’s power with trepidation. Even the aforementioned Babylonian captivity was only temporary. God watched over His people while they were in captivity and He brought them back to the land He had originally promised to Abraham and his descendants. Then when the Babylonians began to think too highly of themselves and didn’t give glory to God for giving them success and power, He sent an even nastier army to crush them.

We can take comfort in this when we understand that God will take care of punishing our enemies if they need punishing. Meanwhile, God calls us to love one another and trust in Him. He asks us to turn the other cheek if we are offended, and leave the revenge to Him. We certainly don’t want to be on the wrong side of God’s wrath, but we can take great comfort in the fact that He is the Lord of Sabaoth and all God’s armies serve Him for the good of us all.

Manipulation, Lies, and Forgiveness

2009-03-05T11:22:00.000-08:00

Newsletter Article for April 1999

This past January, during the midst of the impeachment of President Clinton, I was channel surfing on the TV when I ran across an interview with inspirational speaker/author/guru Tony Robbins. He was being interviewed because of his role in advising the President regarding the scandal and impeachment. I didn’t realize until later the significance of a motivational guru advising a public figure trying to escape the consequences of his actions, so I watched the show with some interest. Robbins is not a Democrat, so his work with Clinton surely came from his general desire to help people succeed at things (which is what led him to his tremendous success) and from his belief that people are basically good.

I remembered that several years ago I had bought Robbins’ book Unlimited Power at a used book store for six dollars. Although I still resent paying ten times what the book was worth (though half the cover price) I picked it up and started to read it. Robbins’ writing style is nearly as engaging and charming as he appears on TV or in his infomercials. The basic idea of his success formula is to use a special technique to convince yourself that you are confident and competent at whatever area of life you want to excel, and then act on it. Robbins focuses on business types (because that is where the money is) but anyone can use his technique for any purpose.

I can’t remember why I bought Robbins’ book but I can tell you why I never read it through. I resent folks who try to motivate me when I don’t wish to be motivated. Perhaps I am too sensitive but to my mind that is manipulation and I resent being manipulated.

Robbins’ technique gets you to convince yourself that you are confident when you would rather be scared, self assured when you don’t know what you are talking about, and driven to succeed no matter what the endeavor. Everyone can agree that this technique would be very useful when you have prepared to make a presentation related to your job, but are simply nervous about presenting it before a potentially critical crowd. However, this technique is fundamentally flawed, and that is where it is dangerous. The flaw is that the basis for your confidence, determination, and drive, is a lie. I can hear the objections already, “what harm is there in telling yourself that you are bold and courageous when your knees are knocking, or convincing yourself that you love coconut when it makes you want to retch?”

The trouble is that by telling yourself a lie in order to accomplish a desired goal you are really training yourself to accept lying as an acceptable method of getting ahead. The more comfortable you are with lying (even if it is only to yourself at first) the more likely you are to make a habit of lying. Before you think that I have misunderstood Tony Robbins’ technique, I should tell you that chapter five of his book is called “The Seven Lies of Success”. But instead of a warning against the pitfalls of a “Success at any Cost” kind of approach, these “Seven Lies” are actually a fundamental basis for Robbins’ motivation technique. He admits that they are “lies” but he says that is not necessarily a bad thing.

Now I don’t intend to bad-mouth Tony Robbins. I can believe that he is a well-intentioned individual, and he truly wishes to help people succeed, and he probably views his tremendous wealth and celebrity as confirmation that he is doing just that. Like I said above, he must believe that people are basically good, and if that is true then honest people can use his technique to great advantage without too much damage.

However, what happens when dishonest, manipulative, sinful people use this technique? A person who is predisposed to lying already could use this technique to convince himself or herself that lying is not bad at all and he or she could become a much more confident, successful liar. Even worse, a person who feels guilt over his sin could use this technique to convince himself or herself that he or she hasn’t really done anything wrong and doesn’t need to confess any sins to God or look to Jesus (or anyone else for that matter) for forgiveness. Then that person not only continues in sin, but also does not receive forgiveness.

If people were basically good then this might not be a bad technique, but all people are sinners. God condemns lying in the eighth commandment (“You shall not give false testimony.”) and to encourage lying is to weaken our ability to distinguish between truth and lies. Perhaps you can tell where I am going with this so I won’t belabor the point, but what does it mean that a motivational guru was advising a man defending himself against charges of harassing one woman, and lying under oath to conceal an affair with another? I can’t help thinking that the nation has been manipulated by someone who told a lie (or two) with such confidence and self assurance that he convinced many influential people that it was true, and got away with something he ought not to have gotten away with.

Obviously I am a strong believer in forgiveness. I confess my sins every day and trust in Christ’s mercy to forgive all my sins. Every worship service I announce the full forgiveness of sins to everyone who confesses to Christ Jesus. Although God has given His church the authority to forgive sins freely, he also gives the church the responsibility to withhold forgiveness where there is no repentance so that the sinner may turn to Christ for forgiveness. That is why Jesus says in John 20:23, “If you forgive anyone his sins they are forgiven, if you do not forgive them they are not forgiven.” Christ doesn’t want us to be capricious or vindictive in our application of forgiveness, but to give it freely to all who look to Christ for forgiveness, and to withhold it where it is not wanted or appreciated.

We ought to beware of manipulation and lies, and be honest in all things, with ourselves and with others. Most of all we need to be honest with God. We might be able to hide our sins from ourselves by any number of questionable techniques, but we can hide nothing from God. But He still loves us and forgives all our sins, so we should honestly confess all our sins to God and trust in Him for forgiveness, strength, and motivation.

Confession and Absolution

2009-03-05T11:19:00.000-08:00

Newsletter article for March 1999

The Church season of Lent which we are now observing is a special season which prepares our hearts and minds for the celebration of Easter. We do this by looking into our own hearts and recognizing our sinfulness. We cannot properly celebrate Easter until we recognize that Good Friday and Easter are for us. The death of Jesus makes no sense until you realize that Jesus didn’t belong up there on the cross. It should be you and me up on our own crosses suffering for our own sins. The resurrection of Jesus also makes no sense unless we believe that just as Jesus died so that His death takes the place of our death, in the same way His resurrection to life proves that He will also give us the victory over death so that we may live forever.

Six weeks of thinking about sin probably doesn’t fit anyone’s definition of a good time. Some may say that the season of Lent is too long. They are missing the point. We should look into our hearts every day and confess our sins to God every day, or even more frequently if we are struggling with a particular temptation. Although it is hard to admit our sins, even when we talk to God in private, it is a great blessing to be able to confess our sins to God.

God is a gracious God. He wants us to admit our sinfulness and confess our sins to Him. He knows our sins better than even we know ourselves. He knows all the sins that we have forgotten about, or that we were not aware that we were doing wrong. There is no hiding from God the fact that we are guilty, and deserving of punishment. But God doesn’t tell us to confess so that he can punish us. He tells us to confess our sins so that He can forgive us.

Absolution (or forgiveness) is an even greater blessing from God than confession. It seems easy enough in our worship to confess our sins and hear the words from the pastor that God forgives our sins. Perhaps it is too easy, because if we overlook all that it took for God to be able to tell the pastor that he can pronounce the words of forgiveness, we might possibly think that God simply overlooks our guilt and doesn’t care if we sin against Him. However, Holy Scripture tells us that God is a righteous and just God and He hates sin. He cannot let even one little sin go unpunished.

This would be extremely bad news for all of us except that God also loves us and wants to save us from our sins. That is why He sent His only begotten Son, Jesus, to be born as one of us and take our place on the cross. The suffering and torture that Jesus endured for our sins is indescribable, but His love for each one of us is even more awesome. It is only because Jesus loved us enough to suffer and die to take the punishment for our sins that He has given us the authority to forgive one another’s sins.

May God bless you during this Lenten season as you prepare your heart for the celebration of Christ’s victory over sin. May the Holy Spirit give you the courage to admit your sinfulness before God. May the Holy Spirit give you the faith to trust in Jesus to rescue you completely from your sins. And may Christ

Jesus, our Lord, strengthen you with the assurance of salvation every time you hear His words, “Your sins are forgiven.”

Truth Suffers

2009-03-05T11:15:00.000-08:00

Newsletter article for February 1999

As of this month (February 1999) I am for the first time eligible to become President of the United States. This is a milestone which is somewhat more dubious than it ought to be. This hasn’t always been the case. It used to be that the pinnacle of achievement that parents could wish for their young children would be that they would grow up to become the President of the United States. Now I suspect that very few parents would wish that for their children. This is partly due to the indignities committed by President Clinton, but also partly the indignities imposed upon the President from outside, such as the lack of privacy and the viciousness of the media.

I don’t intend to take sides in this article. I know that there are strong feelings on both sides of the issue of the impeachment of the President, and there is much to be desired from both Democrats and Republicans. Instead I wish to note that what has suffered the most in our nation has been the Truth.

From time to time a character in the comic strip “B.C.” will stand up on a pedestal engraved with the word “TRUTH” and speak some great truth which is meant to inspire or to guide the listeners’ thoughts and actions. The idea of putting truth on a pedestal means that we should respect the truth and look up, admire, and listen to those who speak it. Proverbs 23:23 says much the same thing, “Buy the truth, and do not sell it.” We should value the truth so much that we would pay a price to find it, but we should not be persuaded to tell lies, even if we think we will be rewarded if we do so.

The trouble with our society is that we do not put truth on a pedestal, nor do we value the truth enough to buy it. If the truth is inconvenient or expensive it is so much easier to settle for the bargain half-truth, or even for the cut rate lie, and many people take this “easier” path.

“There is a way that seems right to a man, but in the end it leads to death.” Proverbs 14:12

“All a man’s ways seem innocent to him, but motives are weighed by the Lord.” Prov. 16:2

Jesus said, “[The devil] was a murderer from the beginning, not holding to the truth, for there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies.” John 8:44

How do We Recognize False Teaching?

2009-03-05T11:11:00.000-08:00

Newsletter Article for February 1999

As of October 31 it has been 481 years since Martin Luther initiated the Reformation by posting his 95 theses which outlined false teaching in the Church. However, instead of reforming the church, he was (wrongly) declared a heretic and kicked out of the Church. Ever since then all who agree with Luther’s interpretation of Holy Scripture have made it a priority to keep their doctrines or teachings true to Scripture, and have sought to refute all false doctrines.

Unfortunately for us we live in an age where false teaching is not only tolerated, but in many cases false teaching is seen as a point of pride. This is something that affects people who call themselves “Christians” and even those who call themselves “Lutheran”. But how do we determine what is true and what is false, especially in an age where the only thing which is not tolerated is the truth?

Luther knew how to determine true or false teaching. Being the Biblical scholar that he was he knew passages of Scripture such as 1 John 4:1-3 “Dear Friends, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world. This is how you can recognize the Spirit of God: Every spirit that acknowledges that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, but every spirit that does not acknowledge Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the anti-christ, which you have heard is coming and even now is already in the world.”

All Christians ought to measure what they hear against Scripture. This is how we keep from being led away from Christ. In order to do that we all need to know what Scripture says. This is why Bible study is so important. In the early 1970’s the LCMS faced the problem of false teaching at our St. Louis Seminary. The problem was so widespread that when the teachers walked off campus only 5 professors and about 40 students remained out of about 40 professors and 800 students. It was because the laypeople in the Church knew their Bibles well enough that they exposed the false teaching and kept the false teachers from doing any more harm.

Some false teaching is easy to identify. Anything which clearly goes against the ten commandments is false teaching, such as idolatry, blasphemy, contempt for the Lord’s day, disobedience of authority, murder, adultery, theft, lying, and coveting. God would never condone such sins and it is easy to recognize some of these. However, there are other teachings which are more subtle.

Recently in Georgia there was a woman who claimed that the Virgin Mary spoke to her and gave her a message. According to news reports over 100,000 people came to her farm to hear the message. At first glance it is hard to tell whether this is true or not. She gave a message which seemed to encourage the hearers to seek God and truly love him. There’s nothing wrong with that. However according to the news reports “many souls accompanied Mary in her vision. She said that the souls were in purgatory but were being released into heaven in honor of Mary.” This is where we can say for certain that this is false teaching.

Revelation 5:13 “Then I heard every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth and on the sea, and all that is in them, singing: ‘To him who sits on the throne and to the Lamb be praise and honor and glory and power, for ever and ever!’ ”

Galatians 1:8 “But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach a gospel other than the one we preached to you, let him be eternally condemned.” These are pretty strong words, but St. Paul is stressing the importance of the truth. The truth of Jesus rescues us and sets us free, but lies lead us away and condemn us.

Why Is It So Hard to Do What is Right?

2009-03-05T06:06:00.000-08:00

Newsletter Article for December 1998

“I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do.” (Romans 7:15)

It is always a struggle to do what is right. It is rarely easy. Perhaps that is why an act of kindness from a stranger is so special and noteworthy, not only because of the kindness itself, but also for what has been overcome or sacrificed to get to that point. If you have studied Luther’s Small Catechism you ought to remember that we have three major powers working against us which make it hard for us to obey God and do what is right. These three powers are the devil, the world, and our sinful flesh.

Our first obstacle is our own sinful nature. Even without any outside help, we are drawn to disobey God. This is our sinful Pride. Our sinful nature leads us to believe that we can do no wrong, and we believe that as long as we do what is right in our own eyes we don’t have to do right in the eyes of others. However, Jesus gave us the golden rule which says that we should love our neighbor as we love ourselves. We are not the ones to determine the rightness of our own actions, but instead God and others ought to determine if we do right by them.

The second obstacle to doing right which we face is the world. Because the world is full of sinful people they want to justify their own sinful actions and bring us down to their level. After all, if we are just as bad as everyone else, then we have no right to condemn anyone else. This is the “everybody is doing it” argument which we all know all too well. The trouble with this is that it leads us into an ever deepening spiral of sin and depravity until we destroy ourselves.

This is clearly shown in the struggle for peace in the Middle East between the Israelis and the Palestinians. Soon after a recent peace agreement was reached between the two sides there was a terrorist bombing which was meant to re-ignite the hatred and destroy the peace process. I can’t even remember which side bombed the other, but it doesn’t matter because there are groups on both sides which would rather see both nations obliterated rather than swallow their own pride and live in peace and prosperity with their closest neighbors. Those who don’t want peace must have a death wish, and they will likely get what they want. Those who want peace are afraid for their lives because their own people think little of their lives and will try to murder them. This is an example of how the world makes it hard to do what is right, even when it is clearly in our own best interests to do so.

Behind both of these obstacles is a third obstacle, the devil. The devil is the original enemy of God, and he wants to do everything he can to destroy God’s will, and hurt God’s people. The devil is a powerful enemy, but there are limits to his influence over us. God keeps the devil on a short leash so that he cannot destroy us against our will. Remember that even in the book of Job, the devil couldn’t torment Job without God’s approval, and even then God limited his power. But the devil is a tough opponent, and he knows that we are all sinful by nature. Even though Christians have been reborn as holy children of God, the devil works on our sinful flesh to try to get us to do evil, and kill the new life within us from God.

Any of these three obstacles would be enough to keep us from doing what is right, but with all three working together it is impossible. Fortunately for us we are not alone in our struggle. “The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the devil’s work.” (1 John 3:8) Christ has overcome the devil so we should trust in Jesus to give us the strength to resist the devil’s temptations to sin. Jesus also told us, “I have overcome the world.” (John 16:33) We don’t have to fear the evil intentions of the world, because Christ has rescued us from all that the could do to us. Jesus also rescues us from our greatest obstacle, our own sinful flesh, “For as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive.” (1 Corinthians 15:22) Even though our sinful flesh must die because it is corrupted by sin, we have Christ’s guarantee that He will raise us to life and glorify our bodies so that they are perfect, without sin.

Why is it so hard to do right? Because we are trying to do it on our own, apart from Christ. Let us submit our will to Christ and let Him guide our actions, so that by His grace, we will continue to do good and give Him all the praise and glory.

I Was Glad When They Said To Me, Let Us Go Into The House of the Lord

2009-03-05T06:01:00.000-08:00

Newsletter Article for November 1998

“Let us not give up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but let us encourage one another—and all the more as you see the Day approaching.” (Hebrews 10:25)

I suppose it should give us some comfort to know that the early Christian Church in the first century had some of the same troubles as we do now. Although the way we live now is vastly different, people are unchanged. The same exhortations that we read in the New Testament also apply to us.

At one point or another we all need to be encouraged, prodded, cajoled, or dragged kicking and screaming into Sunday worship. Actually I would prefer to forego much of the kicking and screaming, but it would give those in attendance something to talk about. (“You’ll never believe what happened in Church on Sunday.... You should have been there!”)

The writer of the book of Hebrews is talking about what a great honor it is that God invites us to come near to Him and come into His house. This was almost unheard of among the Hebrew people in the Old Testament because only the priests could go into the holy place of the temple, and only the high priest could go into the most holy place on one day a year. At the death of Jesus God’s house was opened up to all the faithful. When Jesus died God was no longer our enemy. He was instead our salvation, and He welcomes us with open arms into His house.

Habits can be a good thing when we make doing good a habit. But habits can be bad when we do harmful things without even thinking about it. Bad habits are hard to break precisely because we don’t think about what we are doing. If we are in the habit of attending worship on Sunday then we are regularly reminded of God’s care and concern for us every day of our lives. If we are not in the habit of worshipping regularly then we have to rely on our (sometimes faulty) memory. The longer we stay away from God’s house, the worse off we are, but we forget why.

But let us encourage one another to attend worship. God’s people are like a family. A large family. A family of millions and billions of people both here on earth and also in heaven. However, we need that encouragement because sometimes we forget that those sinners we see in the pews and in the pulpit are people whom God loves, just as He loves the sinner we see in the mirror every day.

Our time is short on earth, but that is no reason to skip Church on Sunday. Instead that is the very reason why we should come to Church. We should be eager to come to God’s house and learn more about Him. When Jesus returns on the last day we want to be eager to see Him and be near Him. We don’t want Jesus to be a stranger to us when He comes back. It would be so embarrassing if we have to ask the guy next to us who that is coming from heaven on the clouds. Worse than that, we don’t want Jesus to say “I don’t know you” because if He says that then that would be the last time we ever see Him.

Let’s all recommit ourselves to worshipping God every Sunday. That way, we will get a head start on some of the joys we will share in heaven. See you in God’s house.

Friends and Murderers

2009-03-05T05:53:00.000-08:00

Newsletter Article for October 1998

Imagine what it would be like if we lived in a society where the government allowed doctors to kill their patients in certain circumstances. In this society life would not be valued for its own sake, nor would it be valued as a precious gift of God (which it is). Instead, the value of life would be measured in far less scrupulous ways. For example, the value of life would be measured by the ability of the person to appreciate the good things in life. In this way someone who is chronically ill, or suffering, or in a coma would be considered as having a less valuable life than someone who is healthy. The value of life could also be measured in purely economic terms. For example, the life of the owner of a factory which provides jobs for 100 people is viewed as more valuable than a thief who steals from people. In this society everyone's life is cheapened simply by the fact that in some way a price tag has been placed on their life.

Obviously I am not necessarily talking about a potential future in which Michigan voters approve the proposal this November which would allow doctors to kill their patients under certain conditions. It is obvious that I am talking about history. Doctors in Germany in the late 1930's and early 1940's had the kind of authority which we are considering giving to doctors in Michigan in the late 1990's. They began by killing only those people whose lives were "not worth living" in their view; the mentally ill and those with incurable diseases. They soon expanded this to the chronically ill, then to those who were not able to hold a useful job, and finally to those of Jewish descent because they wrongly believed that the Jews were not a productive part of German society. So obviously I am not talking about the future, I'm talking about the past, or am I?

I admit there are vast differences between Michigan today, and Nazi Germany 60 years ago. But we should not stop from learning from history simply because of the differences. A rattlesnake is much different from a tiger, but that doesn't mean that its bite is any less deadly. Those who forget history are condemned to repeat it. That means that we should be wary not to fall into the same traps that others have fallen into.

In the 1930's Germany was struggling to dig themselves out of the depression (as was everyone else) but they had further to go than most because they suffered severe economic punishments for their role in the first World War. Times were hard, and it was easy to be resentful of people such as the severely mentally ill, the disabled, and those who were dying. Viewed in the cold, barbaric terms of economics, those people were a drain on the economy. It seemed a waste of resources to spend money to care for people who could never contribute, or give back to society. It was not enough that caring for such people was an expression of basic human compassion and dignity, nor was it enough to care for such people out of Christian love and concern. And that is why when these people starting dying mysteriously no one objected or complained.

The German government was sly enough to know that they could not announce a public policy of killing people whose lives were deemed "worthless", they knew that the people would clearly object to that. Instead they instituted a secret policy while still being able to publicly deny involvement in murder. Now, I must say that I am not suggesting a government conspiracy in our day to murder sick or depressed old women, that is not the point of comparison. The point of similarity is the society's attitude which accepts that someone's life is worthless and doesn't scream in outrage when poor helpless people are convinced that their life is without hope and then murdered. The fact that the Oakland County prosecutor doesn't pursue all cases where the coroner rules death by homicide doesn't necessarily indicate a conspiracy, but it does raise some very disturbing questions.

As the Germans expanded their program of killing "worthless" people they still did not admit to what they were doing, but they did take steps to minimize the backlash or public outcry against the program. They came out with a propaganda film in 1941 called "I Accuse". This film appealed to emotion rather than reason as it made the case in favor of doctor assisted death. It depicted a doctor who gives his wife an overdose to end her suffering from a debilitating disease. With this kind of image of doctor assisted suicide in the people's minds, the government was free to expand its program of killing which ultimately included the extermination of millions of Jewish people (among others).

Now I am not saying that we are on the brink of a holocaust, at least not yet. But perhaps the Nazi holocaust against the Jews wouldn't have happened if people had spoken up for those who couldn't speak for themselves. If the German people had protested that it was wrong to kill innocent people then they wouldn't have given their lives to keep the murderous Nazis in power. This may be where we stand today.

If we allow doctors to kill their patients in a few instances then what is to keep them from killing others? When we get comfortable with a certain minimum level of killing then we will be able to justify more and more instances. Don't believe me? It is already happening. For years we have allowed doctors to murder unborn babies and we justify the killing by refusing to admit that the baby is a person, despite the fact that each baby is genetically unique. I am sure that there are abortion doctors who have killed far more people than Jack Kevorkian, and we are numbed to the horror of this. Perhaps we don't believe that there is anything that we can do. However, when a vote comes up like Proposal B on November 3 we can make our voice heard, and we can stand up for what is right.

I have heard the arguments in favor of doctor assisted death, and I am not unsympathetic, but there are many more compelling arguments against this practice, especially for the Christian. It is God who gives life, and it is God who takes life away. Genesis 2:7 tells us that "the Lord God ... breathed into [Adam's] nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being." Those who say that they have the right to choose the time and manner of their death are just as guilty of idolatry as those who say there is no God because neither recognize God's control over their lives.

However we should not think for a moment that God wants to make us suffer. Instead as Christians, we should recognize all that God has done to save us from suffering. Galatians 2:20 tells us, "I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I life in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. "

Philippians 1:23-25 "I desire to depart and be with Christ, which is better by far; but it is more necessary for you that I remain in the body. Convinced of this, I know that I will remain, and I will continue with all of you for your progress and joy in the faith."

Constructing Your Life Around Jesus Christ

2009-03-05T05:44:00.000-08:00

Newsletter Article for August 1998

(Since Construction is scheduled to take place at St. Timothy at about the time you will be receiving this newsletter, I thought I would share the following story I wrote about 7 years ago under somewhat similar circumstances. This story is not even a little bit about poor building maintenance, except superficially. It is about our spiritual life, and growth in our faith in Jesus, our savior.)

There once was a house not very far from here. It could be yours, or even mine. When it was new it was the owner’s pride and joy. It may have lacked a certain amount of character, it may have lacked many of the luxuries that one might wish for, but it was well built and functional, and to its owner it represented independence, freedom, and success.

It was a dream come true, but along with the trappings of success come responsibilities. It ought to be unavoidable, but somewhere down the line the owner of this house began to neglect his responsibilities. It started off small, and it didn’t seem too bad until it rained, and the house began to leak. The owner was terrified about this and he pleaded with God to save his house. He swore up and down that he would fix the leaks and maintain the house properly so that it would never leak again. But then it stopped raining and the owner saw that his house did not fall over immediately and he reasoned that a couple small leaks wouldn’t hurt because “this house was built to last forever.” Besides, as long as the sun shone there were no leaks, and so he quickly forgot about them, and he forgot about his promises to properly maintain his house.

As time went by and the owner of the house did nothing to stop the leaks, more and more water leaked into the house and began to weaken the wooden beams which supported it. The damage didn’t happen all at once, but over time what was once good, strong wooden beams rotted away to dust. Even then, the house remained standing and did not fall over, but it stood without any support, and it was extremely vulnerable. One good strong breeze could have come and flattened that house and crushed its occupants.

Then one day a carpenter stopped by to see his friend, the owner of the house. As the friends talked inside the house, the carpenter began to notice that not everything was well with the house. As he began to poke around and ask questions he realized that this house was in serious trouble, and if something wasn’t done soon, the whole thing would collapse and his friend would die.

The carpenter convinced his friend of the urgency of the situation and he quickly went about repairing the house. First he tore out all the rotten support beams, and replaced them with new ones, then he covered them and sealed them tight so that the rain could not come in and rot them away. The carpenter fixed that house so that it was as good as new, and he even paid for the repairs out of his own pocket. The carpenter didn’t do this because he had to. He wasn’t responsible for the decay of the house, his friend had brought this on himself. He did it because his friend was in danger and needed help, and he was the only one who could help.

The homeowner was so grateful to the carpenter for saving his life and fixing his house, that he asked how he could repay him for all he had done. The carpenter smiled and said that there was no need to repay him, and that such a thing was impossible, anyway. But if he wanted to show his gratitude he should go and help save and restore other people’s houses in the name of God, our Heavenly Carpenter, and Savior.

* * * * * * *

If you stop by the Church in the first few weeks of August you will likely be reminded that no building lasts forever. At some point in the future our Church will be torn down and replaced. Hopefully our current repairs will help delay that event, and will halt any deterioration around the edges. But just as buildings need regular maintenance and repairs, so do our souls.

Our souls need to be taken care of just as our bodies do, and just as our houses and apartments do, and just as our Church does. You could not survive a week without food and water, and even if you could, you wouldn’t want to try it. Your house needs to be cleaned regularly, and every now and then it requires a fresh coat of paint or other work to keep it sturdy and strong. Our souls need regular maintenance too in order that they remain healthy and strong.

It is not wind and rain which attack our souls to weaken their supports and rot them out from the inside. It is sin which weakens our souls and undermines their foundations, and if nothing is done to protect the soul, it dies. Sin enters our lives through even the smallest cracks which we have left uncovered, and once it gets in it begins to eat away at our support and foundation, which is our faith in our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

The sinister part of this process is that it doesn't happen overnight. Instead, it is often a gradual process where sin weakens your defenses then works to slowly rot away the strong support which you have as you trust in Jesus. If you take sin lightly and don't recognize it for the danger it is then you may not realize until it is too late that you are not being supported by anything. The house may still be standing, but it may have no means of support. Then when the storms of life hit, it all comes crashing down. These storms may come in the form of a personal tragedy, the illness or death of a loved one, or even your own imminent or impending death. If your faith is dead at this point it is almost (but not completely) too late to rebuild a faith that can save you.

The point of this story is that we cannot build a faith that can survive the storms which constantly batter against us. The good news is that we don't have to. Jesus can and does do it all, and not by virtue of the fact that he was the stepson of a carpenter, but by virtue of the fact that he is the Son of God, and he rescued us from sin through his suffering and death on the cross. His love is pure and strong, and can support us through even the fiercest storms. Our salvation is 100% sure as long as we trust in Jesus, but we still must struggle against temptation and against sin.

Spirituality

2009-03-04T08:30:00.000-08:00

Newsletter article for June 1998

Spirituality is becoming all the rage these days. Earlier in this century many people believed that we were entering into a new age where technology would answer all the mysteries of the universe which were previously unknown, believed by faith, or explained by religion. The trouble with this is that technology has its limits, not the least of which is that it has no soul. As a guiding path for one’s life, technology and science are cold, heartless, and empty. Technology brought us the devastation of World Wars I & II, nuclear bombs, the cold war, and countless other atrocities. Yes, technology also took man to the moon, but despite great romantic visions of life away from the earth, space is no place to be. To live in space you have to carry around all the food, water, and air that you will need for as long as you plan on remaining alive.

Technology has brought us many benefits and prosperity, but its limits are well documented. As we grow increasingly frustrated by the “modern” influence of technology, we are moving toward another age (currently identified as “post-modern”). One of the marks of this age is an increased interest in the spiritual aspects of life.

This would at first glance seem to be a good thing. Anything which leads people to God is a good thing. But, sinful human nature, being what it is (i.e. sinful) doesn’t look for God. It does everything it can to avoid God. It looks for spiritual answers everywhere except where the Holy Spirit really is.

In order for us Christians to avoid godless spirituality, we need to know what godly spirituality is all about. Christians have an advantage over non-Christians when it comes to understanding spirituality. Since God is the one who created us body, soul, and spirit, He is the one who can help us understand the mysteries of our spiritual lives. The Holy Scriptures do not define what spirituality is (after all, the Bible is not a dictionary.) However, whenever it speaks of spiritual things it is always in relation to the Holy Spirit. In his first letter to the Corinthians, St. Paul explains why it is impossible for people to understand spirituality without the Holy Spirit, “This is what we speak, not in words taught us by human wisdom but in words taught by the (Holy) Spirit, expressing spiritual truths in spiritual words. The man without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned.” (1 Corinthians 2:13-14)

In reference to John 3:6, “That which is born of the Spirit is spirit” Martin Luther wrote: “But what is spiritual birth? It means that I am born again as a new being by Baptism and the Holy Spirit and that I believe in Christ…. Thus the spiritual birth is brought about by the Word of God, Baptism, and faith. Even now, while we sojourn on this earth, we are already in this birth if we believe…. This birth is invisible and intangible; it is only believed.” Luther emphasizes that the physical life is temporary and will die, but our spiritual life, since it is from God, is eternal and will never die. Therefore our spiritual life is our life of faith given to us by the Holy Spirit through Baptism.

Luther summarizes our need for this spiritual life by explaining, “Physical birth entails physical things … it concerns physical life and no more. But if you want salvation, you need different parents, who will bring you to heaven. This Christ does. By means of Baptism and the Word of God He places you and your Christianity into the lap of our dear mother, the Christian Church. This He accomplished through His suffering and death that by virtue of His death and blood we might live eternally.”

In a magazine article, sociologist William Martin explained “One of the most attractive flaws of the New Age is its extraordinary emphasis on self absorption. Devotees often refer to unconditional love for all humanity, but rarely do they mention an obligation to demonstrate it to actual neighbors.” Contrast this with John 15:13, “Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends” and 1 John 4:10, “This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.”

The latest issue of Concordia Theological Quarterly quotes author Charles Colson who writes, “Recently a neighbor told me how excited she was about her church. When I tried to point out diplomatically that the group was a cult, believing in neither the resurrection nor the deity of Christ, she seemed unconcerned. ‘Oh, but the services are so wonderful,’ she said. ‘I always feel so good after I’ve been there!’ Such misguided euphoria has always been rampant among those seeking spiritual strokes rather than a source of truth. But what about the church itself, that body of people ‘called out’ to embody God’s truth? Most of the participants in Robert Bellah’s study saw the church as a means to achieve personal goals. Bellah notes a similar tendency in many evangelical circles to thin the biblical lnaguage of sin and redemption to an idea of Jesus as the friend who helps us find happiness and self-fulfillment. These ‘feel gooders’ of modern faith are reflecting the same radical individualism we discussed in earlier chapters.... The new barbarians have invaded not only the parlor and politics but the pews of America as well.”

The Church is a Hospital to Heal Sin Sick Souls

2009-03-04T08:22:00.000-08:00

Newsletter article for May 1998

After further thought about last month’s article on crime, and discussions with people about it, I believe I made certain assumptions in the article which if you didn’t catch them would give you the wrong idea. Crime is not the problem. Crime is only a symptom of the problem.

Sin is the real problem. Sin is the cause of all crime. Sin is the cause of broken relationships and broken families. Sin is the cause of racism. Sin is what makes people distrust one another. Sin causes envy and obsessive jealousy which destroys people. If we want to get rid of the symptoms of crime, violence, and hatred, we need to address the cause, not just the symptoms.

In last month’s article I in no way meant to suggest that there are somehow two or more societies within American society. Nor did I intend to suggest that black society is somehow responsible for all the problems of crime. There is no such thing as a white society in our country which is removed from, and unaffected by, a separate black society. My assumption is that we are all in this together. What hurts (or helps) one part of our one society, hurts (or helps) all the other parts. White people cannot say, “It’s a black problem, it doesn’t affect me.” Black people cannot say, “It’s a white problem, it doesn’t affect me.” If there is a relaxed attitude about crime and violence in America, it certainly didn’t originate among the African American segments of society, but as the newspaper article I cited pointed out — the black segments of our society are suffering a disproportionate amount of the tragic consequences. My point is that this hurts us all.

The trouble with sin is that it is an incurable disease, and we are all infected. Sin is not limited to any national borders, or racial differences, or gender differences. Sin is much worse than AIDS or cancer, or any other disease, because the mortality rate is 100%. Every day of our lives is a battle against sin. The question is, how can we fight against sin?

Sin cannot be overcome by attacking the symptoms. We cannot become less sinful by sinning less. It sounds like a paradox, but only if we think of sin as only something we do, and not something that infects us. A person with AIDS cannot be cured by simply avoiding sickness. Even if we somehow could stop sinning (an impossible task) the disease would remain.

The danger with treating only the symptoms of sin is that if you are even a little bit successful in keeping yourself away from committing sins, you might convince yourself that you had overcome the disease. This is called “self righteousness.” If you convince yourself that you are healed from sin, or at least that you do not need the cure, then you won’t look for the cure, or you will reject it when it comes.

The only cure for sin is Jesus. He is the only way that we have any hope of surviving this disease called sin. Jesus cured our disease when He died on the cross. Unfortunately, we must wait to see the full benefits of the cure. The good news is that the cure (Jesus) gives us life that lasts forever. The bad news is that we must still struggle against sin and its consequences as long as we live. However, even this bad news is tempered by the fact that we are not alone in this struggle. Even in this life, Christ himself gives us the power to love one another and do the good works that God wants us to do.

The Church plays a strong role in helping us overcome the problems that sin causes. If sin is our disease then the Church is the hospital where we go for treatment. The “medicine” which God gives us for healing are called the “means of grace.” They are God’s Word, and the sacraments. Church is where we hear the good news about Jesus, and where our faith in Jesus is strengthened through personal contact with Him in the sacraments. Just like in the Old Testament where the people who were bitten by the snakes had to look up to the bronze snake on the pole in order to be healed, so we need to look to Jesus for the healing of our sin-sick souls. The focus of our worship at St. Timothy is always on what Jesus has done to save us. When we meet together to worship Jesus we are strengthened for our battle against sin. Those who do not attend worship regularly are at a disadvantage.

Where can a person find strength in Christ, if not at Church? Some may say that they can worship Jesus just as well at home or at the golf course, but do they? That’s like me saying that my car can get over 30 miles per gallon. It can, but I’ve only done it once in two years. If I drive on the assumption that I am currently getting 30 mpg then I will soon run out of gas.

My friends, if we wish to get rid of the problems which plague our society, then we must treat the cause, not the symptoms. Although we all contribute to the problem of sin in the world, Christ’s cure is much more powerful than all our diseases. Christ has rescued us from the deadly infection of sin. We should not be content to stand by and watch others be consumed by this disease when we know the cure, but we need to keep ourselves strong through faith in Christ. If you do not make it a habit to strengthen your faith through regular worship and prayer, then you are depriving yourself of a strong weapon to help you survive your battle against sin. We should also encourage one another to attend worship regularly so that we can help build them up too, as St. Paul gave encouragement to the church in Rome, “May the God who gives endurance and encouragement give you a spirit of unity among yourselves as you follow Christ Jesus, so that with one heart and mouth you may glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.” (Romans 15:5-6)

Since Sin is a spiritual problem and a spiritual disease, next month I intend to discuss what it means to have a spiritual life, and what Christian Spirituality is about.

Throw Open the Jail Doors

2009-03-04T08:08:00.000-08:00

Newsletter article for April 1998

Well, not quite yet. If nothing changes in our society, then it would be tragic to throw open the jail doors and free the prisoners. Our country has the largest population of imprisoned convicts in the developed world, and I have no doubt that virtually all of them deserve to be where they are, and many more besides. However, this is a tremendous waste and cannot continue. Something must change. I read an article in the paper about a study which projected that if current trends continue by ’10 over 50% of black men ages 18 to 39 will live in jail.

Although the article was a little vague on the exact details of what this means (you can thank either the newspaper joint operating agreement for shoddy journalism, or the subject of this article—perhaps someone currently living in jail would have made a better journalist), this is an astonishing claim, which, even if it means that 50% of young black men will be imprisoned at some point in their lives (and not all at once), and even if it never comes true, the fact that this is the direction in which we may be headed is already a tragedy.

Why is there so much crime in the United States? There are probably many reasons, but the main reason is that we allow it. This may sound simplistic, and although it is simple, that doesn’t mean it cannot fully explain the current situation. We (as a society, not necessarily individually) allow a large amount of crime in this country, otherwise it wouldn’t occur. This much is simple. The complexity comes in determining why we allow so much crime and violence.

The “Village”

There is an African proverb which says that it takes a village to raise a child. This is roughly the secular equivalent to John 13:34 where Jesus says, “As I have loved you, so must you love one another.” Parents are primarily responsible for the discipline and education of their children, however, parents cannot look after their children 24 hours a day. This does not mean that the child is unaccountable to anyone during time spent away from parents. Due to our sinful nature a child left to himself or herself will fall into temptation and sin. Jesus tells us in Matthew 15:19, “Out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false testimony, (and) slander.” The enforcement of the law is used to curb these sins when they come out of the heart and into the open. The prevalence of these sins and the breakdown of the family are all signs that the “village” is not doing its job.

You don’t have to be old to remember a time when society was like a “village”. Although there were huge divisions in society because of racism fifty years ago, within those divisions people looked out for one another. It was safe to walk down your street day or night, and you could leave your doors unlocked without reasonable fear that some godless person would come to swipe your belongings or take your life. People looked out for one another. They felt safe, and for the most part they were safe (though there always was and there always will be crime).

Some might accuse me of wanting to return to the past, but that is not the case. You can never return to the past, besides there is much about the past that we don’t want to repeat. I am talking about the future. Just because we can learn from the past doesn’t mean we have to repeat the mistakes of the past. God gave His people the Law so that they would know how to treat one another properly. But so many people in our society have forgotten about God, or have turned away from Him that much the same thing can be said about America that God told Jonah about Nineveh, “Nineveh has more than a hundred and twenty thousand people who cannot tell their right hand from their left.”

America’s Split Personality

America has something of a split personality. It is at the same time the most Christian nation on earth, and also one of the most pagan . Because of all the Christians praying for God’s blessings on our nation, God has made us the most prosperous nation on earth. But because of all the non-Christians who despise God and His laws we suffer from violence, crime, and a multitude of “natural” disasters.

For a long time I was puzzled as to why we won such an overwhelming victory in the Gulf War when our society has so much injustice. Yes, the victory was incomplete, but it was overwhelming. But I believe that the answer can be found in the parable of the Wheat and the Weeds (Tares) in Matthew 13. The farmer tells his workers not to pull up the weeds because they might destroy the wheat in the process. This shows that God has mercy on all people for the sake of the faithful. I see the war as a fight between good and evil. Not that we are always good and Iraq is evil, but we were right in fighting to stop an aggressive lawbreaker. The victory in the war might tell us that God will help us win victory over evil in our society, even though we cannot eliminate evil. If we stand up for what is right here at home then we can live at peace in our homes. Only then can we empty many of our prisons and put the people to constructive work, knowing that we will not tolerate godless behavior.

Jesus has Opened the Jail

Isaiah gave this prophesy about Jesus, “The Lord has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners.” Now, we know that the prison that it refers to is the prison of hell, and that we are the captives who have been freed from prison. Since we are enjoying the earthly benefits of obedience to God we should not keep it to ourselves, but we should share the blessings with other people.

Jesus said, “You are the light of the world. A city on a hill cannot be hidden.” Since we have been rescued and redeemed by Christ, we are no longer like the folks in Nineveh who don’t know their right hand from their left. Instead we are “the light of the world.” The light leads people out of darkness. In our actions and in our words we should live as witnesses to the truth of God’s word.

In practice this means not letting the lawbreakers rule by fear and intimidation. We should stand up for what is right. St. Paul said, “I am not ashamed of the Gospel, for it is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes.” May God’s people always look to Him for strength and protection in everything.

What is Lent all About?

2009-03-04T07:58:00.000-08:00

Newsletter article for March 1998

We are now in the church season of Lent until Easter. I’m sure that each of us observes Lent to a different degree, from not at all, to religiously keeping a fast of one sort or another. Whether or not you observe Lent I think that we all could be well served by learning (or reviewing) what Lent is all about, and some of the reasons for what we do to observe this church season.

All you Biblical scholars may notice that nowhere in the Scriptures is Lent mentioned. Nor are any of the seasons of the church calendar mentioned. The observance of Lent is considered Adiaphora. Adiaphora are practices which are neither commanded nor forbidden by God. This means that the faithful Christian can, with clear conscience, either observe Lent, or not. However, Lent has been celebrated in the Christian Church for over 1,500 years. Even Martin Luther, the great reformer, did not abolish the observance of this season, but he did clean up the practice to return the focus to Christ, where it should be in all we do in the church.

Let me begin at the end. Easter marks the end of Lent. It also is the reason for Lent, just as the death and resurrection of Jesus is the reason why we put our faith in Him as our savior. Lent is meant to be a time of preparation. For the six weeks of Lent we prepare for the Easter celebration.

The Lenten season is also a time of contrition (sorrow over sins), repentance (asking God for mercy and forgiveness), and contemplation of our sinfulness. Now, six weeks of thinking about sin may seem to some to be a very depressing exercise, that is kind of the point, isn’t it? What I mean is that the best way we can appreciate just how absolutely tremendously fabulously awesome, wonderful, and amazing Easter is for us, is if we first realize just how much we had to gain from Christ’s death and resurrection. We do this in Lent by focusing on our own unworthiness.

The season of Lent does not portray a flattering portrait of human beings, even Christian people. Instead it portrays a painfully accurate portrait of our guilt and sin. Only when we realize just how much it cost Jesus to rescue billions and billions of disobedient sinners, then we can appreciate the vastness of His infinite love, and with thankful hearts sing His praises on Easter morning.

One of the ancient traditions of Lent is the tradition of fasting. This tradition is most often associated with the Roman Catholic Church because in the past the Pope commanded that all Christians must observe Lenten fasts. This practice is not so common in the Lutheran Church because this is one of the reforms that Martin Luther brought to the church. Based on Romans 14, which speaks about eating (or not eating) certain kinds of food, and the book of Galatians, which speaks against burdening Christians with additional laws and practices, Luther showed that it is wrong to add requirements about different practices in the church. The Ten Commandments still stand and we must obey them, but beyond that, we cannot command Christians to do what God did not command, nor can we forbid Christians from doing what God has not forbidden.

The result of this is that while Luther abolished the requirement of fasting during Lent, he did not condemn the practice altogether. He also spoke about how fasting can be good training in self discipline and self control. When I listen to people talking about fasting for Lent, I think sometimes they think they must give up things which are bad for them anyway, like smoking, overeating, over-drinking, and things like that. While I agree that it is good to stop doing things which harm our health and bodies, that isn’t the purpose of a fast. If we are sinning or hurting ourselves we should stop that for good, not just for the six weeks of Lent. A fast should be a temporary thing where we give up something which we like, but only for a limited time. This is a good exercise because as we deny ourselves something we like (but which doesn’t harm us) we are training ourselves to control our actions. Then after our fast is over, we may be stronger, and better able to stop doing the things which hurt ourselves, or are sinful.

If we do give up something we like, such as meat, or chocolate, or sweets, or alcohol, we may find that it is a struggle to hold to our fast. When we are struggling with the temptation to break our fast, we can also appreciate just what an accomplishment it was for Jesus to go His whole life without sinning even once. In times of weakness and temptation we can also learn to turn to God in prayer, and ask Him to give us the strength we need to resist temptation and do what is right.

We should also remember what Jesus said about fasting in Matthew 6:16-18. Jesus says that fasting should be a private thing, between you and God. You shouldn’t make a show of your fasting in order to elicit sympathy from your friends, or to get their admiration for your strength of will. Instead keep it secret, and humbly accept whatever reward God sees fit to give you (if any).

It is most important to remember whether we fast for Lent, or don’t fast, neither practice makes us better in God’s sight. We are still sinners, whether we can successfully keep a fast, or not. We still need Jesus to forgive us our sins every day. We still must keep our eyes focused on the cross of Jesus, for that is our only hope for salvation. We still trust in the victory of Easter, because that is where Christ has proven His love, and has shown us that He has rescued us from sin and death.

When you come and worship here at St. Timothy this Lent, you may hear quite a bit about sin and guilt. The purpose is not to depress you, or make you feel bad, although it may do that momentarily. The purpose is to help you understand just how much God loves you, and just what a wonderful thing we celebrate on Easter.

May Christ bless you this Lenten season.

“Freedom” Gone Amok

2009-03-04T07:54:00.000-08:00

Newsletter article for February 1998

One of the most widely used arguments in the drive for so-called “assisted suicide” is that every person ought to have the right to choose the time and manner of his or her death. This is also the most compelling argument. There is no truth to it, and it is extremely dangerous for reasons which I will explain below, but it is compelling nonetheless.

FREEDOM

This argument is especially compelling in our country because of our history, and because of how much we value freedom. If there were a secular god in our nation then his name would be “freedom” and his followers would include a vast majority of the population. However, the concept of freedom has developed over the years so that it is no longer the same thing that our nation’s forefathers fought for in the Revolutionary War. This is not all bad, because now all citizens are free, and not just those of non-African descent.

On the other hand, some of the new freedoms are not so beneficial. An irresponsible freedom to own guns contributes to tens of thousands of deaths every year. When conflict arises between a supposed personal freedom, and the greater good of society, it seems that the courts are more and more likely to grant more personal freedom, even at the expense of order in society. This is one of the dangers of allowing “assisted suicide”, and although there is no specific laws which outlaw it now (other than the laws against murder) the ability of Mr. Kevorkian to continue his murder spree (at least for the time being) is a de facto approval of the practice.

UNCOMMON COMMON SENSE

The reasons for not allowing suicide are so obvious that the question should never arise. However, common sense is not as common as it should be these days. Even from a secular point of view people are more valuable alive than dead. Even the way we care for people who are chronically and terminally ill reflects how well we value all life. This is to say that if we mistreat, devalue, and discard people at the end of their life, then we will not value people in the prime of their lives either. This may not happen immediately, but just as night follows day it will happen.

THE CHRISTIAN VIEW OF LIFE

This should be enough to quickly dismiss the idea of assisted suicide, but as Christians, we have more, and better reasons. We know that our lives are a gift from God, and that we have no right to decide when or how to end it. Genesis 2:7 tells us “The Lord God formed the man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being.” Just as we trust in God to determine the course of our lives, so we trust in God to determine the time and manner of our death, and then to rescue us out of the jaws of death.

Job tells us that “In his hand is the life of every creature and the breath of all mankind.” (12:10) Since God has given us life, and retains the ultimate control over life and death, then it is the ultimate in arrogance and idolatry to say we have the right to choose the time and manner of our own death. This temptation to take the power of God for ourselves is the same temptation to which Adam and Eve succumbed, thereby bringing sin and death to all people until the end of time.

The devil knows that life is sacred to God, and that is why he tries to destroy it. God is called “the Living God” after all, both because He is alive, and also because He gives us life. In Matthew 4 we read where the devil tempted Jesus to commit suicide by jumping off the top of the temple. The devil even misquoted scripture to try to trick Jesus into thinking that it was right to do so. Jesus was not fooled and answered, “It is also written: ‘Do not put the Lord your God to the test.’”

In Philippians chapter one it sounds as if St. Paul is contemplating suicide when he says: “To live is Christ and to die is gain. If I am to go on living in the body, this will mean fruitful labor for me. Yet what shall I choose? I do not know! I am torn between the two: I desire to depart and be with Christ, which is better by far; but is is more necessary for you that I remain in the body.” St. Paul is not thinking of killing himself. Instead, he is trying to understand God’s will for his life and ministry. He is simply trying to understand the signs, such as the fact that he is imprisoned and possibly facing death (though not at his own hand), and the fact that he believes that God still has work for him to do. In the end he submits to God’s apparent will that he continue to go on living and serving others in the church. Note that Paul doesn’t do this out of selfish motives, since it would be better for him to live in heaven with Christ, but he submits to more imprisonment and suffering so that more people may hear the Gospel of Jesus and be saved. This is a lesson which we should all take to heart.

Witnessing Your Faith

2009-03-04T07:47:00.000-08:00

Newsletter article for September 1997

A witness in a court of law is someone who tells what he knows, or what he has seen. In the book of Acts the witnesses were the Apostles who had witnessed Jesus’ teaching, miracles, death, and resurrection. Because of what they had seen and believed about Jesus, the Apostles went out and told all who would listen about Jesus.

You are a witness whether you know it or not, and whether you want to or not. You show what you believe by what you say, and also by what you do. For example, Chicken Little believed that the sky was falling, so he went around telling everyone that the sky was falling. His actions were a direct result of what he believed to be true, despite the fact that he was wrong, and who knows what he was trying to accomplish except put people in a panic (never a good idea).

Your actions also show what you believe. It has been said, “actions speak louder than words.” If you believe that Jesus loves you and has forgiven you of all your sins (because He does, and has) then you will act differently than someone who is unsure of God’s love, or thinks that God hates him, and feels guilty over sin. This difference in action is similar to the difference between someone who has just won the sweepstakes, and someone who just received their eviction notice on the same day as they were fired from their job.

The language you use also is a witness to what you believe. Obviously, if you only talk about Jesus all day long that will be a witness (although it might say that you need to get out more and find some other interests). But your words are still a witness, even when you aren’t specifically talking about Jesus. If you are mean to people, and put them down, and talk about people behind their back then that is a witness to what you believe. It isn’t a good witness. Such actions say that a person really doesn’t believe that God loves them or forgives them, otherwise they would be more loving and forgiving themselves. So if you are kind to people even when they are not kind to you, that is a wonderful witness to your Christian faith, even if you do not bring up the name of Jesus until later.

You may notice that I have already alluded to both good and bad types of witnessing. Whether it is through words or deeds, your witness merely betrays the state of your heart. This is why as Christians we need to put our faith into action. If we, who are forgiven, do not forgive, who will believe us when we say that Jesus forgives us our sins? Likewise, if we, who are loved by God, do not love, who will believe us when we tell others that God loves them?

Much of our witnessing occurs unconsciously. That is, we don’t often consider how people will respond when we treat them kindly, we just do it out of habit. This is not a bad thing, but such unconscious witnessing has its limits. People might know that we act the way we do because we are Christians, but then again, they might not. Sometimes we need to consciously and deliberately tell people about Jesus. (Here is where people start to feel nervous, and begin to think of excuses of why “I can’t do that.”) It can be a frightening thing to witness your faith. Despite the fact that the Gospel is “Good News” it isn’t always received as such. However, there are some things you can do to overcome the paralyzing fear which would prevent you from verbally telling someone about your faith in Jesus.

The first step to reduce your anxiety is to know what you are talking about. Who is Jesus? What has He done for you? This is where the article (“How to Read the Bible”) in last month’s Newsletter really pays off. The only way you are able to know for sure who Jesus is and what He has done for you is to study and learn the Bible. Now we see that there are two advantages to this: your faith is strengthened, and now you are able to share your faith with others so that they can know Jesus, too! When you learn that you are a Christian because Jesus died to save you from your sins, you can begin to tell others. Even children can do this.

Once you know a little about what you are talking about, you can begin to look for opportunities to witness your faith to people. Not every moment is a good opportunity to talk about Jesus. We still need to get our jobs done at work, and that too can be a witness for Christ, and an opportunity to talk about Jesus. When others see that you are a hard worker, and dedicated to doing quality work, then you can give credit to Christ, who gives you strength, rather than taking credit yourself.

It takes practice to gain some measure of comfort and confidence in talking to others about Jesus. At first, you will very likely feel uncomfortable, but just remember Jesus’ words to His disciples in Matthew 10:19-20 “Do not worry about what to say or how to say it. At that time you will be given what to say, for it will not be you speaking, but the Spirit of your Father speaking through you.” When you are familiar with Scripture, and know just what God has done for you, it will become easier to apply the Bible stories to life so that your witness will not be awkward at all, but will come very naturally, because Scripture is God’s word, so when you tell people about Jesus it is God talking to them, and not you alone.

In our Sunday Morning Bible studies this Autumn we will be learning more about how to witness our faith. We will study the Biblical foundations of what we believe, and we will learn how to speak to others about Jesus in a very natural way. This will be a good series for every Christian at St. Timothy, even if you have no intentions of evangelizing, because it will help you to strengthen your faith by learning what you believe and why you believe it. I will not ask anyone to put this into practice at any specific time or place, but I cannot promise that the Holy Spirit will not. If He does ask you to be a witness, then it is much easier (and maybe effective) if you have prepared for it.

God’s blessings to you always through Christ Jesus our Lord.

How to Read the Bible

2009-03-04T07:37:00.000-08:00

Newsletter article for August 1997

Regular Bible study, or just plain reading Holy Scripture is an important part of the life of any Christian. Here are some steps which I hope can give you some guidance and encouragement to help you grow spiritually in your study of Scripture.

Begin with Prayer

Since you intend to “Listen” to God’s Word, by reading the Bible, it only makes sense that you would speak to Him first. One helpful prayer might ask God to help you understand what you read, and that through your study your faith may be strengthened.

Read the Bible.

I apologize for stating what should be obvious, but many times we overlook what is obvious. In order to grow in our faith, and grow in our knowledge of Scripture we need to read the Bible. Books and articles about the Bible can help us in our study and understanding, but only after we have read the Bible in the first place, and have accumulated a list of questions about things we didn’t understand, or issues which need further explanation. Other devotional material and books about the Bible should never replace studying the Bible itself, but may be used along with regular Bible study to aid in our understanding.

Use a Version that You can Understand.

It is important to remember that the Holy Bible is a translation of languages which are foreign to us. The Old Testament was written in Hebrew, and the New Testament was written in Greek, and even the best translation can be hard to understand when it talks about things which are foreign to us. The King James Version (KJV) has been the standard English translation of the Bible for hundreds of years. It is very faithful to the Hebrew and Greek texts. It is also very poetic and beautiful to read. The trouble with the KJV is that it was presented to King James I of England in 1611. The English language has changed somewhat during the past 386 years. It hasn’t changed so much that we can’t understand the KJV (or other contemporary English works, such as William Shakespeare’s works), but the language has changed enough to make it a struggle to understand the KJV.

I believe that many people who find it difficult to understand the Bible will be less likely to spend time studying it. This is not to say that struggling to understand the Bible is bad. Actually, any study of Holy Scripture will involve some struggling to understand what the text is talking about, no matter what translation you use. However, my goal is to encourage you to read the Bible more, and if one translation is a barrier to Bible study, then you are better off using a different translation.

The New International Version (NIV) is the version we use in Worship at St. Timothy. It is relatively easy to read, and is a reasonably accurate translation. However there are a number of other translations which are fine also, (including one called the New King James Version).

I would caution against using versions such as the Living Bible, the New World Bible, and any version which is “Gender Neutral”. These are not really translations of any known ancient Biblical manuscripts, but are paraphrases of English translations. These may be acceptable for some personal devotions, but for serious study I would avoid them. Since they are not translations they are not always faithful to the original text, and the authors may have their own agenda which in some instances contradicts what the Holy Spirit gave the Biblical writers to write.

Listen to the Bible on Tape.

You can purchase the Bible on cassette tape. This way you can listen to it in your car on your way to and from work, or at home when you are washing the dishes, or doing housework. The Bible on tape is particularly helpful if you have trouble reading (if you know someone like this you may have to tell them about this article), or have vision problems.

The Bible is about Jesus.

This may also seem to be obvious, but it is important. It was this point (and all of its implications) which led Martin Luther to begin the Reformation in 1517. The whole Bible (including the Old Testament) points to Jesus Christ as our only savior from sin. This is what the Bible is about, nothing more, nothing less. This is important because how you approach Scripture affects how you understand it. The only way the Bible makes any sense is if you see it as being about Jesus Christ and what He has done to save you and me from our sins.

If you were to view the Bible as just a book of rules to show you how to live a decent life, then some passages make no sense: “Whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles at just one point is guilty of breaking all of it.” (James 2:10) and “The wages of sin is death.” (Romans 6:23) More importantly if you view the Bible this way, Jesus’ death makes no sense because he kept the Law perfectly and didn’t deserve to die.

There are Two Main Teachings in the Bible.

This point is related to the previous point. In order to understand what the Bible is teaching us we need to know that there are only two main teachings in the Bible. Every passage in Scripture falls into one of these two categories (although some passages are harder to distinguish than others). Those teachings are Law and Gospel. The Law tells us what we ought to do and not do, shows us that we haven’t done what we ought to do, and condemns us for being sinners. Now, this sounds as if the law were a terrible thing, and if the Bible were just a book of laws, then we would have no hope. But the Law is part of God’s Word, and it is good and useful because it shows us that we need a savior. This leads us to the Gospel. The Gospel tells us what God has done to save us from the condemnation of our sins. The Gospel is about Jesus Christ, alone. The Gospel shows us that the only way we can be saved from our sin is by God’s grace through Jesus’ death and resurrection. The Gospel also tells us that God offers this salvation to all people for free. We don’t have to do anything to earn it (that would be Law). Both Law and Gospel are found throughout the Old and New Testaments, sometimes within the same verse (see Romans 6:23). We need both the Law and the Gospel, and they work together to bring us the salvation of Christ. As we read the Bible, we should distinguish between Law and Gospel, and not confuse them.

Ask Questions, then Seek the Answer.

As you read the Bible you are bound to find some passages which you don’t understand, or which seem to contradict another passage in scripture, or which contradicts something you thought Scripture said. This is unavoidable, and it can be somewhat troubling for a new Christian, or for someone who isn’t used to studying Scripture. The first thing to do when this happens is to pray. Ask God to help you understand His Word. Then see if you can find another passage in Scripture which answers or explains your question. A helpful tool for interpreting the Bible is the maxim: “Let Scripture interpret Scripture”. The Bible is God’s Word, and he wants us to know him and understand what He has done for our Salvation, although he does make us struggle to understand from time to time.

It is also helpful to use other Christians as resources. Ask someone else if they can answer your question. Other Christians may have struggled over that question before, and found an explanation or answer. Also, don’t be discouraged if you go to the pastor first, and he can’t answer the question. He doesn’t know everything (even if he has spent many years in the ministry), and some questions just can’t be answered by anyone.

Make Bible Study a Habit.

There are good habits, and there are bad habits. Habitual Bible study is a good habit, unless you use it as an excuse to neglect your family obligations, or your own personal care. Regular Bible study is a hard habit to get into because the devil tries very hard to keep you away from it. Satan works hard to give you distractions, and to make other time-consuming activities seem more important, so that you don’t feel as if you have time for Bible study. It is hard work to resist these temptations and to make time for Bible study, but the rewards are a greater understanding and appreciation for God’s love, and for all that Jesus has done to save you.

May God bless you and help you grow through your study of Holy Scripture.

Religious Freedom is a Threat to Christianity

2009-03-04T07:31:00.000-08:00

Newsletter article for May 1997

Early in April an article in the newspaper attracted my interest. The headline read: “Religious freedom kills Christianity among Japanese.” The article told about the history of Christianity in Japan. Saint Francis Xavier brought Christianity to Japan in 1549 and the message flourished. By 1600 there were at least 300,000 Christians in Japan. Shortly afterward, Japanese general Hideyoshi banned Christianity and began a fierce repression. Until the 1850’s it was widely believed that the Christian faith had died in Japan, but then a French Priest found a group of Japanese Christians. There were as many as 50,000 people who were secretly Christian. Generations of Japanese people were “Hidden Christians” and had kept the faith alive from the 16th century to the 19th century despite persecution.

However, the present day descendants of those “Hidden Christians” say that although their ancestors were able to remain faithful through centuries of active antagonism and persecution, there is a new threat which is turning the next generation away from Christ. That threat is religious freedom.

It may be difficult for us to see religious freedom as a threat to Christianity. Many of our predecessors in this country came here to escape persecution so that they could worship God freely and openly. The Christian church has had its ups and downs in the past two centuries, but for most of the 20th century Christianity has been overwhelmingly popular in America. However, we face the same threat that the Japanese Christians face.

It seems ironic that a faith that could last hundreds of years of persecution might not survive religious freedom and tolerance, but that is often how it works. The country in Asia where Christianity is growing the fastest is China and Christianity is still banned in China. History tells us that during the persecution of Christians in the first few centuries after Christ, the church grew exponentially. Much of the growth of the early church did not occur despite the persecution. The church grew because of the persecution! Or rather, the church grew because of what the martyrs believed in (i.e. Jesus Christ).

It worked something like this: because the martyrs were willing to suffer and die for their faith in Jesus that showed other people that there was something special about Jesus Christ that made people willing (and even eager) to die for his name. When these observers tried to find out what was so special about Jesus, they heard about God’s grace and love for all people, the forgiveness of sins, and eternal life through Jesus. Thus many people were converted and the church grew throughout the time of persecution.

There are no lukewarm Christians during times of persecution. If Jesus doesn’t mean that much to you, or if you are not absolutely sure of the resurrection from the dead, then you are not going to risk your life proclaiming your faith. However, if you are convinced of your salvation, and agree with St. Paul that “the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us” (Romans 8:18) then no threat of punishment, or even death, will cause you to lose your faith. Also by your witness, others will see the truth of Jesus and will be converted.

The word “martyr” comes from a Greek word meaning “witness”. When the martyrs were killed for their faith in Christ, they were acting as witnesses. A witness testifies about what he or she has seen, or knows. A Christian testifies that Jesus loves us at all times, and that he saved us from our sin so that we will have eternal life.

So what does religious freedom have to do with this? We usually see religious freedom as a guarantee that we can worship Christ without harassment. However, even in our society we can see signs that such freedom isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. Any anti-Christian preacher, or false prophet can start his own “religion” and he is free to lead as many people to their destruction as he is able. And he has the full protection of the law up to the point where he breaks the law in any way. This was tragically shown by the recent “Heaven’s Gate” cult earlier this year. The leader of that cult could tell as many lies that his evil mind could imagine, but he was protected by the law until he started murdering his followers.

But it isn’t only cults that threaten people’s faith, it’s also our secular society. With the religious freedom that we have we are bombarded on many sides by pressures to take our Christian faith for granted. The outward freedoms that we enjoy cleverly conceal the fact that there is a real battle going on. Satan didn’t go on vacation just because we are able to freely worship Christ. Instead, Satan uses more subtle means to make us complacent in our faith, as he tries to lead us away from Jesus. We can see that Satan is at work when, after the mass suicide in San Deigo left 39 people dead, there are still people thinking that there may have been some truth in what that cult was teaching. We saw these people on the television news shows.

There are countless ways that we are tempted to turn away from Jesus. If we let it, our job might pressure us to take over the time we would otherwise devote to worshipping God. Our hobbies or special interests could also interfere with Sunday worship. Even our family could lead us away from Christ. And over all of this is the temptation to deal with people in a selfish way, rather than in a loving way that Christ has called us to do. St. Paul encourages us in Philippians 2:3 to “Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves.”

So what is the meaning of all this? If the real key to church growth is persecution, then should we pray for persecution, or actively seek it out? No, even in the early church those who ran forward and offered themselves for martyrdom were called “spontaneous martyrs” and were considered to be false martyrs. Martyrdom was considered to be a special gift that God granted to certain people under extreme circumstances. No Christian wants to die, because this life is a gift from God, and we should not take it lightly. However, this life isn’t all there is, and there are more important things than life. Our faith in Jesus is more important than life because we know that the life that we have in Jesus is eternal, so that even if we lose our life for Jesus’ sake we know that we really haven’t lost anything because Christ Jesus will give us so much more in the life to come.

Don’t take your faith for granted. There are people suffering every day for their faith, and you never know when it will happen to you. No matter what happens in your life, you don’t want to be caught unprepared. But don’t be afraid about what might happen to you in your life. God is watching over you and will take care of you. “Consider how the lilies grow. They do not labor or spin. Yet I tell you, not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today, and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, how much more will he clothe you, O you of little faith! ... Do not be afraid, little flock, for your Father has been pleased to give you the kingdom.” (Luke 12:27-28, 32)

An Examination of 1 Peter 3:15

2009-03-04T07:22:00.000-08:00

Newsletter article for April 1997
© 1997 by Rev. Paul A. Wolff

“In your hearts set apart Christ as Lord. Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect.” (1 Peter 3:15)

This passage from St. Peter is from a section of his letter where he speaks about suffering for doing good. In this one small verse Peter states at least four things which define the Christian life.

1. In your heart set apart Christ as Lord.

This is simply another way of stating “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.” Only Christians can do this, because this presumes faith in Jesus as your savior. It is important that this comes first. Christ is first in the lives of Christians. He is more important than our job. He is more important than our house or car, or all our possessions. Christ is even more important than our husband or wife, or even our children. What this means is that we should not let any of these things get in the way of our faith in Jesus, no matter how much we love these other things.

When we love Christ above all else, then we will also know how to properly deal with the other things in our life which are important. For example, when you trust that Jesus loves you so much that he died to save you, then you also realize that Jesus loves your enemy, too. That changes the way you might deal with an enemy. No longer do you deal with an enemy out of anger, but out of love; and you seek reconciliation, rather than revenge.

2. Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone....

Here Peter encourages us to be witnesses. A good witness tells what he knows. Therefore as Christians we should study Holy Scripture diligently to learn all that we can about Jesus Christ, and all that he has done for us. It is easy to become a Christian—because Jesus has done all the work. Even small children and infants can have faith, because faith is the gift of the Holy Spirit which He gives to us through Holy Baptism. We could go through life with that simple, “baby” faith and still be saved. However, that is unsatisfying, dangerous, and it doesn’t properly prepare us to answer those who question us about our faith. As we grow in our lives we should also grow in our faith. As we encounter new situations day by day in our lives we also discover new ways in which God gives us his love and mercy. To all you past, present, and even future students this may sound tedious that our learning about Jesus is never ending, but it is not at all tedious. It is pure joy to find yourself somewhere where you have never been, and to find that Christ has not abandoned you, but he is with you always, even to the end.

We should look for opportunities to show kindness to people (especially our enemies). We should also look for opportunities to witness our faith. This doesn’t happen overnight, and each one of us can do it in our own way. But look for the opportunities. If you hesitate and miss an opportunity, then take some time and reflect on the situation and imagine how you would witness your faith if you could do it over again. That way, when you are in that situation again, you will be prepared, and you may lead the person to eternal salvation.

3. The reason for the hope that you have.

We usually think of “hope” as something which may never happen but we wish will happen. However, when the Holy Bible speaks of “hope” it usually is speaking about a sure thing. The “hope” that we have is really the assurance that Jesus loves us, has forgiven our sins, and will give us eternal life in Heaven—just as He promised. This assurance changes our outlook on life. I know that “I can do everything through [Christ] who gives me strength.” (Philippians 4:13) This confidence is visible to others, especially in times of great trouble, such as at the death of a loved one, or in times of danger and uncertainty. This hope is also shown when we show love and respect to our enemies. We can do this because we trust that Jesus has shown us much love and mercy when we did not deserve it either.

4. Do this with gentleness and respect.

The manner in which we witness our Christian faith is at least as important as the message itself. There is little room for a “Do as I say, not as I do” kind of attitude. Of course there is forgiveness in Christ for our sins, but as far as witnessing our Christian faith is concerned, actions speak louder than words. If we act selfishly or in an uncaring manner, then the message we send is that Christians are no different than the pagans, or in some cases may be worse. We don’t want people to turn away from their Savior, simply because we were acting foolish and forgetting #1 above. Instead, when we act with kindness and respect that, in itself, is a witness to your Christian faith. By acting in this way you may make friends with someone you might not otherwise (such as an enemy) and it may lead you to an opportunity to actually tell someone about Jesus, or to invite them to Church or Bible Study.

Witnessing your faith need not be difficult. It could be as simple as showing kindness to those around you. It could also include telling someone why you trust in Jesus as your savior. These activities are not optional, but they are at the very heart of the Christian's life. Be prepared. In order to help you in this task we offer weekly Bible study here at St. Timothy. Please come to Bible study on Sundays at 11:00 am. Or watch the Newsletter and Bulletin announcements for midweek Bible Studies such as LifeLight.

May our Lord Jesus strengthen you in faith, and in hope so that you will be prepared to answer anyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope you have.

In Christ,

Pastor Wolff

Witnessing - One Person at a Time

2009-02-27T20:17:00.000-08:00

Newsletter article for February 1997

The new year is already one month old. I wonder how many resolutions have been kept. I don’t make New Year resolutions myself. It’s not that I’m perfect and don’t need some self improvement (far from it), but I recognize the futility of the exercise.

Nevertheless, I do have some goals for the year. It is my wish that this congregation would grow in their Christian faith through worship and Bible study. It is also my goal that the members of this congregation will also grow in their willingness and ability to witness their faith in Jesus Christ.

I learned a good lesson about witnessing during my time at Concordia Seminary. It is true that I took Evangelism and Missions classes, but the event which I am describing occurred after classes. I was the editor of the campus newspaper, and it was my job to report on what was happening on the campus. The Seminary campus can sometimes be a busy place, and October 10, 1993 was just such a night. There were baseball playoffs on TV, a piano recital in the auditorium, and a lecture on missions to Muslims in a conference room.

I wanted to get someone to report on the lecture because I thought it would be an interesting and useful topic for future pastors. However, everyone was busy that evening, and no one who I asked was willing to report on this lecture, but because the editor wanted the story, the task fell to him to do himself. I didn’t want to do it because I had already assigned myself two other articles for the following issue, and because I wanted to do other homework that evening.

There were only five people at the lecture. The lecturer was Dr. Luther Meinzen, a retired missionary to India. Also in attendance was Dr. Meinzen’s father (who at the time was 95 years old, and still had an iron grip when he shook my hand). Professor Harley Kopitske and his wife were also there, along with one seminary student (me).

Dr. Meinzen’s presentation wouldn’t have taken place if the student hadn’t been there. The Kopitske’s didn’t need to know about foreign missions because they spent many years as missionaries in New Guinea. Rev. Meinzen (the elder) didn’t need to hear the lecture because he began his mission work in 1920 in India and was a missionary there for 37 years (his son followed in his footsteps). But because one student showed up, Dr. Meinzen (the younger) was glad to spend an hour talking about missions to Muslims.

In witnessing to Muslims, it is important to emphasize the caring aspect of your Christian faith. Take the time to get to know the people you are dealing with so that you can be an effective witness. Muslim people are just as diverse as Christian people, so it pays to find out where they are coming from. It is somewhat ironic that those who are less indoctrinated in Islamic theology are usually the most rigid and uncompromising. Those who are more educated are often more open minded and willing to listen to what you have to say. It is also important for you to be willing to listen to what they have to say.

Dr. Meinzen suggested that argumentation is not the way to witness the Christian faith. You should show an openness to find out what they believe in. It is important to remember that in general, Muslims are very righteous people. Since there is no separation between Church and State in Islam, the Islamic rules of conduct are strictly enforced in many countries. Dr. Meinzen said, “People compare the best in Christianity with the worst in Islam, but that’s not the approach of Christ. ‘Do unto others as you would have them do to you’ is the law of love.” Christ didn’t stereotype people, or prejudge them, but he talked with all kinds of people, ate dinner at their houses, and took care of their needs through healings and the like.

“There’s a Tamil proverb,” says Dr. Meinzen: “You can’t dry the tears of your baby without getting your hands wet.” That is also how good witnessing works, where you get so close to a person that you get your own hands wet when the person is sorrowful. Isn’t that what Jesus did? He got so close to us that he became one of us when he was born of Mary in Bethlehem. Jesus ate with sinners, and tax collectors, and he died on a cross to take away our tears forever.

At the lecture, Dr. Meinzen gave an example of this hospitable kind of witnessing. A few years ago the campus pastor of Kent State University invited a Muslim doctor to speak to his Bible class about Islam. The pastor instructed the class to be polite and to listen to what he had to say, and not argue or put him down for his beliefs. A short time later the doctor invited the pastor to the Islamic Student association on campus to tell them about Christianity. This was an unexpected, but welcome opportunity to share the Gospel with Muslim people from several nations.

That is how missions work, and in some ways witnessing your faith is like Dr. Meinzen’s presentation, best when done on a one to one basis. You may be reluctant at first, but it can be very rewarding.