Thoughts

Gifts from Home

2012-01-26T12:30:00.002-07:00

As long as God has been good to His people, they have given thanks to Him. In the days when the earth was young and harvest was done, Cain and Abel brought their offerings of thanks to god. god had been good to them and blessed their work in the field and with the flock. From God's hand they had thankfully received many good things; therefore, they chose the best, and with sacrificial use of fire gave it back to God. It was all from Him; it all belonged to Him. Abel's sacrifice was with glad and faithful gratitude and God was pleased.

So on down through the patriarchs, God;s men made their sacrifices of thanksgiving. the response of god's people to His gifts is thankfulness. Each day for each person has its gifts, and from each person, therefore, thanks are owed to god each day. Now thankfulness to God is something we cannot do well by ourselves in isolation. Right thanking means right using, and right using means sharing.

In boarding school, when a lad receives a parcel of cakes and good things from his mother, he is surely a contemptible fellow if he hides the parcel in his locker and only sneaks to it secretly to eat all the good things by himself. We take it as natural that he will yell for roommates and they will devour the parcel with exclamations such as "What a lucky fellow you are!" and "What a colossal cook your other must be." Happy times those parcels from home with the hearty sharing and the fun and thanks of one's starving friends. That is the sort of fun God wants us to have with all the parcels He sens us from home. Only He sends so many and sends them so regularly that we get so used to them that we we do not recognize them as from Him, share them, and so do not have full joy in them and do not truly thank Him.

--Norman Nagel, Selected Sermons, p. 318. Harvest Festival. Deuteronomy 16:13-15

I like the image of the parcel from home--the joy of it, the reminder of home, the sharing of the goodies.

When gathering preach.

2012-01-24T22:21:00.001-07:00

One of my favorite Luther quotes:

Now in order to correct these abuses, know first of all that a Christian congregation should never gather together without the preaching of God’s Word and prayer, no matter how briefly, as Psalm 102 says, “When the kings and the people assemble to serve the Lord, they shall declare the name and the praise of God.” And Paul in 1. Corinthians 14 [:26-31] says that when they come together, there should be prophesying, teaching, and admonition. Therefore, when God’s Word is not preached, one had better neither sing nor read, or even come together.

(Luther’s Works, American Edition, Vol. 53. Liturgy and Hymns, p. 11.)

Luther wrote this because there were so many abuses, the worst among them the saying of masses without even anyone present to receive the supper, etc.

The most important always is the word, the hearing of the gospel and the praise of God. We cannot do without it. Just reading and reciting prayers is not sufficient either. When we gather there must be a word, a living word.

It's 30 below.

2012-01-17T14:24:00.001-07:00

Alright. We finished looking over the last chapters of Just's "Heaven on Earth", which moved me to sit by the window and sing a hymn.

Most likely the text is copyrighted because it is newer song, so I won't tell you. Under the left side it has a beautiful psalm verse, 85: 11 and 12 (...that goodness and faithfulness meet each other, and justice and peace kiss each other, that righteousness grow upon the earth and justice look down from heaven.) On the other side on the bottom, we have a saying by Martin Buber: "Wir koennen nur mit Gott reden, wenn wir unsere Arme um die Wet legen." -- "We can only speak with God, when we put our arms around the world." The sayings complement the song which is a prayer for freedom, peace and joy, even in the little things and every day. "Gib' uns Frieden jeden Tag."

But now we are headed out of doors.

"Fasten everything!" say the ladies in my town choir. No loose jackets, gloves or boots. Every button closed and every snap attached. You walk 15 seconds without your gloves, your hands are frozen, so it seems or is. One isn't too sure how frozen is frozen when something is frozen.

God's gifts are for real.

2012-01-17T13:00:00.000-07:00

I'm rereading parts of Arthur Just's "Heaven on Earth. The Gifts of Christ in the Divine Service."

For the abolitionists [of the historic liturgy], that gospel is tinged with a strong sense of works-righteousness, and it infects much of Protestantism today, particularly with the individual focus on "me and Jesus" and the decision theology that runs rampant through its songs and sermon. Among the Rationalists, there are restorationist tendencies in which the liturgy becomes an object of devotion, turning this rite that bears the salutatory means of grace into an idol to be worshiped. The liturgy becomes a good work, the platform for presenting the propositional truths of the faith. This ultimately undermines the incarnation and destroys the Church's sacramental life." p. 262

We need to always stress that in Divine Service actual gifts are delivered to us. It is proclamation but it is also "pro-me", for me and handed over to me right then and there. Actual fact. Not metaphor.

Each one unique

2012-01-14T16:28:00.003-07:00

Norman Nagel:

The Lord loves a banquet. He is happiest when His people are gathered at the table with Him. The Lord delights in giving out good things--ordinary, everyday things, and things far beyond the ordinary. It has always been that way. When He created the world, God was so pleased with it that He couldn't keep it for Himself and simply had to share it with some who would delight in it with Him. And there is always more--more than we could ever imagine. The solar system is quite a lot, more than enough, we would likely say. Then the Lord flings out the galaxies and nebulae and more beyond that. No two of anything the same, and on one tiny particular speck He puts water. "And God said, Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life, and fowl that may fly above the earth in the open firmament of heaven" (Genesis 1:20).

Half a dozen different birds would surely be enough, perhaps a dozen kinds of fish. But no, we have some of the craziest looking fish. Some from deep down in the darkest depths of the sea we have only recently got pictures of. Only the Lord knew they were there all this time, but now we have cameras that can take pictures of them and we can wonder at them. "Why on earth did God make something like that?"

Why on earth did the Lord make something like you? There is only on like you--ever has been, ever will be. the Lord multiplies His delight. He doesn't have the same delight in any hundred of the same. He has a different delight in each unique one of us, and He invites us into delighting with Him in each one.

The Foolishness of God / final installment

2012-01-14T12:17:00.000-07:00

Becker, pp. 215-222

Quote (all the bolding is mine):

Antirationalism in the Lutheran Doctrine of Law and Gospel.

As the last exhibit in the catalog of Lutheran antirationalisms, we turn now to an apparent contradiction which is both one of the most difficult and one of the simplest of all. It is the distinction between law and gospel. All the previous discussion is but a concrete demonstration of this fundamental distinction. Luther held that a theologian worthy of the name must know how to divide the word of truth, that is, he must understand the basic difference between these two doctrines. The chief founder of the Lutheran Church--Missouri Synod, C.F.W. Walther, in 1884 and 1885 delivered a series of thirty-nine evening lectures to his students at Concordia Seminary, St. Louis, on this subject.

...The doctrine of law and gospel is, to Lutheran theology, one of the greatest and most basic paradoxes of Christianity. Lutheranism stresses the paradoxical nature of the Christian faith, particularly as it is exemplified by the distinction between law and gospel. Because of this some have tried to draw a parallel between the doctrines of orthodox Lutheranism and Kierkegaardian neo-orthodoxy. The similarity between them is more apparent than real. And it is just here, in the matter of law and gospel, that conservative Lutheranism finds the greatest void in the Danish pessimist. It is strange, in a way, that Kierkegaard, who delighted in paradox, never discovered or understood very clearly the basic paradox of the Christian religion. J.T. Mueller has well said that Kierkegaard " never came to a clear knowledge of the basic difference between Law and Gospel, but consistently mingled Law and Gospel. Ultimately, Kierkegaard's entire teaching was law. Christianity to him was not essentially trust in Christ and the blessed rejoicing which flows from reliance on Christ, but asceticism, self-imposed suffering, work righteousness.

Dr. Walther, at the very beginning of his Law and Gospel, told his students:

"Comparing Holy Scripture with other writings we observe that no book is apparently so full of contradictions as the Bible, and that not only in minor points, but in the principal matter, in the doctrine how we may come to God and be saved."

Law
1. The law is written in the heart of man, and is therefore known by nature (Romans 2:15).

Gospel
1. The gospel is a mystery unknown to man by nature (1 Corinthians 2:7 ff; Romans 16:25).

Law
2. The law demands perfect obedience from men (Genesis 17:1; Matthew 5:48).

Gospel
2. The gospel makes no demands but only offers the grace of God to men (Ephesians 2:8,9).

Law
3. The law promises salvation and life to those who obey all its demands. (Luke 10:28).

Gospel
3. The gospel promises salvation to those who have broken the law (Acts 16:31).

Law
4. The law says that the doers of the law shall be justified (Romans 2:13).

Gospel
4. The gospel says that those who have not kept the law shall be justified without the deeds of the law (Romans 3:28).

Law
5. The law says that God will not forgive sin nor acquit the sinner (Joshua 24:19; Nahum 1:3).

Gospel
5. The gospel says that God has acquitted all men, that he has forgiven the sins of the world (Romans 5:18; 2 Corinthians 5:19).

Law
6. The law says that every sinner is to be cursed (Galatians 3:10).

Gospel
6. The gospel says that all the families of the earth are blessed in Christ (Genesis 22:18; Galatians 3:16).

7. Law
The law says that God hates sinners (Psalm 5:5; 11:5; Hosea 9:15).

7. Gospel
The gospel says that God loves all men (John 3:16).

... [several more examples are cited].

It must be borne in mind that both doctrines are solidly based on the inspired Word of God. Both are therefore true, and we must say that they are eternally true. If either of these doctrines were to become untrue, God would be a liar. Even Jesus said that he had not come to destroy the law. And St. Paul said that we establish the law by the preaching of grace, although it would appear that the law somehow becomes void in the gospel.

... The most common resolution of the difficulty is one which destroys both law and gospel, so that neither any longer says what it originally said. There are those, for example, who say that since Christ came God no longer demands complete obedience from men, but that he is satisfied if we do the best that we can. This is a watering down of the demands of God until they fall midway between his demands in the law, which call for perfection, and his demands in the gospel, which call for nothing. But this is no longer the word of God.

There are others who make the promises of the gospel conditional. They will say that God is only willing to forgive us provided we have the proper attitude, that God will be gracious to us if we repent, or if we believe, or if we are contrite, or if we are willing to amend our sinful lives. Bainton says, "That if bothered Luther," and it bothers an orthodox Lutheran to this day because it is so easily understood as indicating a cause on account of which God forgives us or a condition that man must fulfill before he can be forgiven. There are "if's" in the law, but no in the gospel. This sort of methodology in preaching and teaching is called, in Lutheran theology, a mixing of law an gospel.

... Both law and gospel must be allowed to stand without modification, in spite of all their apparent contradictions. Yet, Dr. Walther is perfectly correct when he says in his Law and Gospel "There are no contradictions in Scripture." What looks like a contradiction to reason the believer accepts in childlike faith as perfectly harmonious divine truth.

Take a few of the seemingly contradictory statements of law and gospel to the foot of the cross in faith, and there see how perfectly they are joined. God threatens to punish every sinner. This he did through the vicarious atonement which his son made on the cross. When Christ died as a sinner, he bore our sins. We died with him. Therefore God now forgives us in him. The law also demands perfect obedience from man.
But this perfect obedience has been rendered vicariously through him who said that he had come to fulfill the law, to fulfill all righteousness. Christ's obedience is the obedience of all men, as Adam's sin is the sin of all men. Thus he met the demands of the law, and we are justified as doers of the law through what he has done. Likewise, God threatens to curse the sinners, but Jesus was made a curse for us. Therefore we are blessed in him.

Without the doctrine of vicarious atonement there can be no reconciliation of law and gospel, and without faith in the vicarious atonement men will never arrive at a solution to the paradox of law and gospel. This, however, is not a rational solution devised to satisfy reason. The vicarious atonement itself is an offense to reason. To the natural reason of man, which even the believer will carry with him to the grave, the biblical message is foolishness (1 Corinthians 2:14). In God's great revelation of his name to Moses at Mount Sinai he revealed himself as the God who forgives all sin and the God who punishes all sin (Exodus 34:6,7). He is both a God of infinite justice and revenge and a God of infinite love and mercy. To human reason this will always be an insoluble conundrum--one that can only be solved by making either God's love and grace or his justice and righteousness less than infinite. [Bolding mine]

But for the Christian believer God has at the cross of Christ found a way to demonstrate both his perfect avenging justice and his perfect forgiving grace. The "Foolishness of God" thus shows itself to be "wiser than men" (1 Corinthians 1:21-25). And once a man has accepted that "foolishness" as divine wisdom because a new way of thinking has been created in him by the creative working of the Holy Ghost, that which looked like gross nonsense now appears to be the greatest wisdom, and what appeared to be an impossible contradiction is accepted as divine truth.

There is yet another perspective from which to view this matter. Man was created for heaven, and by his sin he damned himself to hell. Now he needs the law to show him his wretched state, and he needs the gospel to show him the way out of his impossible situation. He needs the law to destroy his pride in his own character, achievements, and works. He needs the gospel to overcome the despair which follows when he finds that he stands naked and alone before God. He needs the law to destroy his faith in himself. He needs the gospel to build his faith in God. What appears impossible to fit together on paper fits perfectly in the human heart.

We see, then, how this paradox is resolved in utmost simplicity for the believer. And we have the certain hope that the light of glory will finally illuminate and resolve many of the other paradoxes of the Christian faith. Whatever still remains a mystery, we shall happily contemplate with the holy angels (1 Peter 1:12).

End of Quote

From The Foolishness of God by Siegbert Becker (c) 1982 Northwestern Publishing House (www.nph.net). All rights reserved. Reprinted with permission.

_______________________

My own comments:

Regarding Kierkegaard and neo-orthodoxy, I must admit pretty much complete ignorance. I am curious as to how he and others handle "paradox" differently.

C.F.W Walther's landmark "The Proper Distinction Between Law and Gospel" has been reissued very recently. It is some of the most valuable reading someone could invest time and money in. It can be purchased from CPH here. There are other resources on the subject.

Single cell

2012-01-12T14:30:00.003-07:00

One of my favorite clips on the "evolution" of the first single cell. Only a minute and a half long.

Missions: Africa in Crisis

2012-01-10T15:36:00.002-07:00

A magazine fell into my hands the other day, which I found very honest and compelling. It is issued by Mission Frontiers, http://www.wmausa.org/page.aspx?id=616682 , and this was the November-December issue titled:

Africa in Crisis: Finding Hope in the Midst of Tragedy.

Six different hard-hitting articles articulate many deeply troubling problems and also highlight different ideas and potential solutions.

This is the introduction to the first article:

Somewhere in the world, in the last week of October, a baby was born who tipped the human population over the 7 billion mark. Statistically there is a high probability this baby is an African. Statistics also tell us this African baby will need to fight for survival, facing the highest child-mortality rates in the world. Such is the irony of Africa: the most likely place, and at the same time the most dangerous place, for a young person to grow up.
By the end of the century, Africa will climb from its current population of 1 billion people to over 3.6 billion, an increase from 15% of the world's population to 30%. while the rest of the world's population is slowing down, Africa's is accelerating. this rapid growth combined with Africa's current development state ha produced a human tragedy on the scale almost impossible to comprehend.
In the last thirty years, over 100 million Africans have died from wars, famine, malnutrition and preventable diseases. this ongoing tragedy is compounded by the reality that most of those dying are people who bear the name of Christ. Even more unthinkable is the fact that such tragedy has occurred at the height of christian power, wealth and influence in the world. But here also is another part of the irony that is Africa. Though billions in aid has been sent from the West, the aid itself is now seen as part of the systemic problem that keeps Africa from moving forward.

In relation to how aid is administered, an article explores "Orphan Care". For example, the approach to helping orphans must shift from the idea of establishing orphanages to helping elderly relatives to look after the orphans, as they desire to do. Grandmothers need decent housing and other support. This way families are kept intact, which is essential for the future well-being of the affected individuals, and also their own future skills in raising a family.

There exists a resource which explores the way aid to Africa undermines its own peoples' well-being. It is called: "When Charity Destroys Dignity: Overcoming Unhealthy Dependency in the Christian Movement." It can be obtained in book, audio or video format. I have not read it, but judging by the author's article in the magazine I'm holding, I expect it to be quite important.

For Gary

2012-01-08T22:37:00.003-07:00

"Now rest beneath night's shadow" for Gary:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d56a2TAiLbk&feature=youtu.be

Salvation by Alice Cooper

2012-01-07T19:39:00.000-07:00

I am often happy about what God can do with the most outlandish ones of us. Every talent can be used in its own unique and natural setting. We also need to accept this in each other.

Foolishness of God / cont.

2012-01-06T11:36:00.004-07:00

Becker pp. 208-214.

Antirationalism in the Lutheran Doctrine of Preservation.
The doctrine of preservation in the faith, as it is taught in the Lutheran church, confronts us with another apparent contradiction. This doctrine too illustrates very clearly how Lutheran theology differs from that of Rome, on the one hand, and that of Geneva, on the other, in the matter of dealing with seeming contradictions. The very terminology employed is significant. What Calvinism calls the perseverance of the saints, a term which lays stress on the activity of the believer, Lutheranism calls preservation of faith, a term which lays emphasis on the work of God.
The Scriptures present us with two sets of passages in this doctrine, which reason finds difficult to harmonize. In the following columns we have arranged them in juxtaposition to show how they stand in sharp contrast to each other.

Column 1: Statements of Scripture in which God promises to preserve us in the faith:
"God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear." (I Corinthians 10:13)
Column 2: Statements of Scripture which warn us against falling from the faith.
"So, if you think you are standing firm, be careful that you don't fall!" (I Corinthians 10:12)

[Similarly, Becker now lines up John 10:28 against Luke 8:13, John 10:29 against I Timothy 1:19, 2 Tim 1:12 against 1 Corinthians 9:27, Philippians 1:6 against Hebrews 6:4-6, Philippians 2:13 against Philippians 2:12, 1 Corinthians 1:8 against Romans 11:20-22]

The promises in the first column are promises of God. All the promises of God are to be believed. Not to believe them would be to call God a liar. The believing child of God reading these promises, should be convinced that he will never fall away, that God will not suffer him to be tempted above that he is able, that no man shall ever pluck him out of his Savior's hand, that no creature shall be able to separate him from the Father's love, that the Spirit of God will complete the work which he has begun in him.
But on the other hand, the warnings in the second column are warnings of God. All the warnings of God are to be observed with care, God does not jest. His words should be taken at their face value. And the believing child of God who takes these warning seriously will be sure that he is in constant danger of falling away from the faith, that he may be a cast-away, that he may make shipwreck of the faith, for he is not one whit better than Hymenaeus and Alexander, he is not stronger than Peter, he is no less subject to temptation than David, he is now wiser than Solomon, he is no less attracted by the world than Demas. So he lives in fear and trembling.
It is clear we are here dealing with a rational difficulty. Calvinism looks at the first column and draws from it the doctrine of the perseverance of the saints. "Once a believer, always a believer," says the Calvinist. The passages in the second column are either ignored or else they are interpreted in such a way that they are made to agree with the axiom, "Once converted, always converted." A Lutheran finds difficulty in seeing how one can thus interpret the words of Jesus regarding those who "for a while believe and in time of temptation fall away." But in pursuing its course, it must be said, Calvinism remains true to the law of contradiction. It holds that as long as there is a real possibility of falling away, there can be no complete and perfect assurance of perseverance.
The Roman Church, on the other hand, characterizes all certainty of salvation as proud presumption. When the passages in the first column are held before them, they respond that some men may have a special revelation from God. Only they can be sure of their salvation. But the ordinary Christian has no such assurance, and he can have no such assurance. "Let him that thinketh he standeth," they say, "take heed lest he fall." We must live in fear and trembling all our lives and hope that we may be able to overcome. Only if we look at the warnings of God, will we be inclined to avoid carelessness and indifference in our Christian living. Romanism holds that if men are not kept in fear, they will be led into carnal security and will fall away.
... One answer that Lutheranism gives is that the contradictory heart of man needs a contradictory doctrine. The heart of man, desperately wicked still even in the converted Christian, is inclined to become proud. Like Peter, it is inclined to say, "Though all should be offended because of you, yet I will never be offended." (Mat. 26:33). Like an immature teenager, it response to the expressed concern over its salvation with "Don't worry, mother, I can take care of myself." To convince man that he cannot take care of himself, to make him realize that by himself he is lost, that he should never become careless and indifferent in his faith and life, the Lord has given us these serious and earnest warnings which mean exactly what they say and are not to be changed or modified in any way.
But the heart of man is also a timid, quaking heart, which so often needs reassurance. When its feet have slipped into the slough of despond, there is only one way that it can be helped. Man's extremity is God's opportunity. When I am weak, then am I strong. For when I know that I cannot remain faithful, that I cannot persevere, for I am frail and helpless, then the Lord comes with the blessed assurance that no man shall pluck me out of his hand. And so, every day, the Christian, as long as he remembers and believes the promises, will be sure that he will never fall away.

There is no logic that avails here. We must simply hear and believe--believe it when God tells us that we are in danger, believe it when God tells us that we are in no danger.
... Thus the Christian must learn to live in constant tension between these two. When he begins to lean over to the left, toward pride and presumption and confidence in the strength of his faith, and to trust in his own character, then the warnings against apostasy, the Savior's, "Watch and pray, lest ye enter into temptation," pushes him upright once more. But usually man, even the Christian man, whose heart is never fully what it ought to be, begins then to lean over to the right--he becomes afraid and begins to doubt that he will ever make it to the gates of the heavenly city. Once again the Savior comes and stands on the other side to support him and to push him upright once more with his promise, "Do not fear, for I am with you; do not be dismayed, for I am your God" (Isaiah 41:10). And he knows that when his pilgrimage comes to an end, "all the trumpets" will be blowing "for him on the other side."

Two posts on women serving in the church

2012-01-06T10:44:00.000-07:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VzepEydG0Y4&feature=share

http://authenticfrontiergibberish.net/2012/01/05/argue-4-wo/

Discussion on Intelligent Design

2012-01-03T15:05:00.002-07:00

Commented here on Intelligent Design: http://www.internetmonk.com/archive/paul-wallace-says-intelligent-design-is-dead/comment-page-1#comment-620635

The Foolishness of God cont.

2012-01-03T14:27:00.003-07:00

Quite some time ago, we were reading through Becker's "The Foolishness of God". Today, I am looking at what we did not finish. Over Christmas questions have arisen about what "incarnation" means and whether Jesus blood shed on his circumcision day, Jan. 1, also has something to do with our redemption. In this conversation it seems to be unacceptable to someone that this physical way of talking is appropriate.

This brought me back to Becker pp. 198, 199.

When Lutheranism says that God is man and man is God, that God died, that the blood of Jesus is the blood of God, that man, in Christ, is almighty, and that his body partakes of the divine attribute of omnipresence, it goes out of its way to point out that this is not a mere figure of speech, not a mere rhetorical expression, not an epistemological device, but a metaphysical reality. When Lutherans defend the real presence in the sacrament, they are intent upon defending the reality of the communion of the two natures in the person of Christ. It is no accident that the article on the "Lord's Supper" and the article on the "person of Christ" were placed side by side in the Formula of Concord. When Lutheran theology defends the statement that Mary is the mother of God, it is not intent, as Rome is, on heaping honor upon Mary--and it deliberately rejects all the illogical and unwarranted conclusions that
Rome draws from this statement. Lutheran theology defends this truth because of its significance for the doctrine of the person union of the two natures in Christ.
An interesting illustration of the contrast between the Lutheran and the Reformed position is to be found in the hymnody of the church. When Isaac Watts, a Reformed poet, wrote "Alas! And did My Savior bleed," in his Hymns and Spiritual songs in 1707, one of the stanzas read,
"Well might the sun in darkness hide
And shut his glories in
When God, the mighty Maker, died,
For man the creature's sin."
The Lutheran Church has generally permitted this stanza to stand unchanged, but in Protestant hymnals the third line of the stanza often reads, "When Christ, the mighty Maker, died." Although all the Lutheran hymnals I consulted contained this hymn, only two were found which have this revised reading. These two were the hymnals of the former Augustana synod and of the former United Lutheran Church, which since have merged to from the Lutheran Church in America, now generally recognized as the most liberal Lutheran body in America. Most Reformed hymnals do not contain the hymn at all, but out of more than a score that do, only the hymnals of the former German Reformed church and of the former Evangelical church, both of which were strongly influenced by Lutheranism, contain the original wording. The revised wording, in itself, teaches nothing different from the original, but in the light of the Reformed position on the doctrine of the personal union, the change is significant.
Lutheranism itself, and even the most conservative Lutheranism, has not always been able to resist the pressures of reason on this doctrine. When the Synodical conference revised its hymnal in the 1930s, it changed the lines,
O sorrow dread!
Our God is dead!
to read,
O sorrow dread!
God's Son is dead!
in spite of the fact that the original German says,
O grosse Not!
Gott selbst ist tot.
But generally it must be said that Lutheranism has withstood the pressures of reason in this doctrine with at least a measure of success, by the grace of God.

From The Foolishness of God by Siegbert Becker (c) 1982 Northwestern Publishing House (www.nph.net). All rights reserved. Reprinted with permission.

Three Years

2012-01-02T14:01:00.001-07:00

I used to not understand how people do not get over this. It must mean that there is an eternal life, because memories don't work and this present "extinction" does not work either.

"If we find ourselves with a desire that nothing in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that we were made for another world."
― C.S. Lewis

Day of Circumcision and Name of Jesus, Jan. 1st.

2012-01-01T16:25:00.003-07:00

The Collect for the Day of Circumcision and Name of Jesus, Jan. 1st.today is/was:

Lord God,You made Your beloved Son, our Savior, subject to the Law and caused Him to shed His blood on our behalf.Grant us the true circumcision of the Spirit that our hearts may be made pure from all sins;through Jesus Christ, our Lord,who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever.

Gradual
This is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the Lord:I will put my laws into their minds, and write them on their hearts.I will be their God, and they shall be my people. I will remember their sins and their lawless deeds no more.

I posted these because somewhere else we are having a discussion about whether Jesus blood was shed for us also on the day of his circumcision. I stressed that everything Jesus did from the incarnation to the ascension was done on our behalf. We are saved by his life and death, his perfect life also under the law and his shedding of blood, and also that on the day of circumcision.

The Collects for the day are always very beautiful prayers. For those churches who have abandoned them, I think it is a real loss. They might look at bringing them back in.

Brennan Manning on New Year's Eve

2011-12-31T10:29:00.001-07:00

This morning, I watched some clips and a sermon by Brennan Manning, again because of a Facebook recommendation. I found very much that was good in the talk and he moved me. The Facebook friend who mentions him and also listens to him while on the treadmill exercising, says this:

Several times throughout my life, the words of this man have created incredible breakthrough moments in my increasing recognition of God's love for me...and for you. Here's a sample.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j73mYgpxhTY&feature=youtu.be

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pQi_IDV2bgM&feature=youtu.be

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QY7c6XPagmA&feature=related

What strikes me the most is his truly Christ-centered way of speaking. We often speak about being Christ-centered. But there is a difference between speaking about Christ, and about speaking about speaking about Christ. Manning speaks about Christ. Manning gives him to each.

Blessings to all my friends in this season of celebration and love, and thoughts and prayers for the New Year.

Star of Bethlehem, ZDF.

2011-12-29T22:54:00.000-07:00

The star of Bethlehem, Kepler and planetary motion laws. Nicely done by the ZDF, Zweites Deutsches Fernsehen.

Religion vs. Gospel

2011-12-29T09:17:00.002-07:00

While browsing around Facebook this morning I came across the above illustration, as well as the Spurgeon saying below:

He who never seeks the conversion of another is in imminent danger of being damned himself.Charles Spurgeon.

While it would be true that someone who believes in Christ is commanded and motivated to share him with others, the saying is just so harsh and makes everything fall into the Religion side of the chart.

"A More Perfect Heaven" by Sobel / Copernicus and Wittenberg University

2011-12-22T20:32:00.000-07:00

While making teddy bear clothes this evening (oh, I'm giving away that they don't come from Santa's workshop), I was listening to CBC radio's newscast followed by "As It Happens." Posted below find the third section, the last 30 min. It contains two fascinating pieces.

The first one, six minutes in length, discusses the current exhibit in Quebec at the "Museum of Religions of the World" and the use of religious swear words in Quebec. It is a rather ironic, little interview with the curator. The second one, the remaining 24 min., are an interview with the author of a book called "A More Perfect Heaven." The discussion is about Copernicus' life and his revolutionary discoveries. The interesting part, which the author brings out, a Lutheran from Wittenberg University comes to his town (illegally, no Lutherans allowed in this Polish Catholic town) to get Copernicus' work published, which he succeeded doing, though it was mostly ignored until Galileo wrote about it in Italian.

Wikepedia has this about the man from Wittenberg: "Copernicus was still working on De revolutionibus orbium coelestium (even if not certain that he wanted to publish it) when in 1539 Georg Joachim Rheticus, a Wittenberg mathematician, arrived in Frombork. Philipp Melanchthon, a close theological ally of Martin Luther, had arranged for Rheticus to visit several astronomers and study with them. Rheticus became Copernicus' pupil, staying with him for two years and writing a book, Narratio prima (First Account), outlining the essence of Copernicus' theory. In 1542 Rheticus published a treatise on trigonometry by Copernicus (later included in the second book of De revolutionibus)."

http://www.cbc.ca/video/news/audioplayer.html?clipid=2179651307

http://www.amazon.com/More-Perfect-Heaven-Copernicus-Revolutionized/dp/0802717934

Hitchens Who? Funny how real life is.

2011-12-22T11:07:00.001-07:00

We live in the wild west. People drink beer, watch hockey, women scrapbook. Many golf when it is not winter, which is not much of the year. Many have horses...

I am stereotyping. They are dear. But say to one of them: "Christopher Hitchens died." They say: "Who is that?" This is why I can't give up my on-line life, though I often wish I did.

"Es kommt ein Schiff geladen"--Advent hymn with translation into English

2011-12-20T21:41:00.001-07:00

This is an Advent song we sang often. I love all things in minor keys, so this was a favorite; also the imagery and poetic denseness makes it very impressive.

Es kommt ein Schiff, geladen
bis an sein' höchsten Bord,
Trägt Gottes Sohn voll Gnaden,
des Vaters ewigs Wort.

Das Schiff geht still im Triebe,
es trägt ein teure Last;
Das Segel ist die Liebe,
der Heilig Geist der Mast.

Der Anker haft' auf Erden,
da ist das Schiff am Land.
Das Wort tut Fleisch uns werden,
der Sohn ist uns gesandt.

Zu Bethlehem geboren
im Stall ein Kindelein,
Gibt sich für uns verloren;
gelobet muß es sein.

Und wer dies Kind empfangen,
umfassen, kuessen will
muss vorher mit ihm Leiden
gross Pein und Marter viel

Und mit ihm dann auch sterben
und geistlich auferstehn
ewigs Leben zu ererben,
wie an ihm ist geschen.

A ship is driving with a load,
filled to the very top.
It is bearing the Son of God full of grace,
the Father's eternal Word.

The ship moves firmly in its path.
It bears a treasured freight.
Love is the sail.
The Holy Spirit is its mast.

The anchor touches ground.
The ship has arrived on land.
The Word becomes flesh for us.
The Son has been sent for us.

In Bethlehem in the stable
a child is born.
He loses himself for us.
He is to be praised.

Who wants to grasp
this child with joy and kiss him
must also suffer with him
much pain and torture,

and after this, also die,
and rise spiritually with him,
to inherit eternal life,
as happened with him.

This version is lovely, too.

Interesting on new, building-less, sacramental groups

2011-12-20T21:12:00.000-07:00

As conservative groups lose their buildings because of liberal leaderships, interesting things happen.

http://www.cbn.com/cbnnews/us/2011/December/Anglican-Fever-Youth-Flock-to-New-Denomination-/

Athanasius on "The Incarnation of the Word" with introduction by C.S.Lewis

2011-12-20T11:25:00.000-07:00

http://www.spurgeon.org/~phil/history/ath-inc.htm

When I took a particular course in religion at Concordia, the instructor recommended this treatise for further reading. I got around to it eventually, but this was some time ago. It's time to look at it again.

The introduction by C.S. Lewis is worthy reading all on its own, too.

Hitchens makes sense on Abortion and Feminism

2011-12-19T19:19:00.000-07:00

"Atheists have no songs."

2011-12-17T00:04:00.000-07:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wogta8alHiU

This one is by Steve Martin, the comedian.

I came across this tonight on Facebook, the day Christopher Hitchens died. He will be missed. He was often wrong, speaking out bitterly on subjects he was not an expert on, but he had a powerful command of the language and delivered his rants impressively. I am grieving somewhat. We will no longer hear his voice on current concerns, however scathing the commentary often was.

Christians the happiest people in Europe.

2011-12-13T10:34:00.000-07:00

http://www.cathnewsindia.com/2011/12/08/survey-says-christians-are-the-happiest-people-in-europe/

The Most Famous Man in America/ 2

2011-12-12T14:36:00.004-07:00

p. 355 of "The Most Famous Man in America."

"The most important intellectual influence on Beecher in this period was Herbert Spencer, the famed British social thinker who originated the term "survival of the fittest." Spencer had a talent for stitching together ostensibly unrelated facts and phenomena into broad, over-arching structures--Beecher's favorite sort of thinking. He was one of the earliest american fans of Herbert Spencer's "conception of gradual development"--the theory that everything--nature, society, individuals--evolves and, if left alone, progresses. Spenser's all-encompassing, laissez-faire theory of evolution predated Charles Darwin's On the Origin of Species, but in its raw form it was just as shocking to people raised to believe that truth was eternal and identity was fixed.
After the war Beecher was increasingly open about his religious liberalism. In 1867 Ralph Waldo Emerson noted with surprise that "Beecher told me,that he did not hold one of the five points of Calvinism in a way to satisfy his father." By 1870 Beecher was campaigning to drop the concept of hell, or divine punishment, from the official creed of Plymouth church. "Love, with its freedom, has taken the place of authority, and of obedience to it, " he argued. For those who had "ripened" to a "nobler plane," desire was a far more effective motive than fear.
Those worried that such freedom might be sacrilegious, corrupting, or chaotic were reassured by the example of Beecher's own homey common sense. "He was one of those men," as the writer Edward Eggleston noted appreciatively, "who connect the past with the future, and make of themselves a bridge for the passage of multitudes."
Henry was often accosted by strangers, like the young man who sat down by him on a train, asking: "Mr. Beecher! Must I believe every word in the Bible, to be a Christian?" "No!" replied Beecher. "Well--what them?" asked the bewildered boy. "You must believe the truth that is in the Bible."

The boy pondered this for a moment and then asked "Now, about the Incarnation? Why do I need to believe in that?" Beecher quickly sketched his views. "I see, now what about conversion?" they talked until the train reached the station. the young man took his leave, saying, "Mr. Beecher, you have laid my ghosts." "I hope they will never rise again," replied Beecher.

We are getting towards the end of the book. Beecher has been preaching in Plymouth Church in Brooklyn, New York, for a long time, becoming a fixture on the scene, writing columns for the newspaper and influencing politics. He also struck up a friendship with Ralph Waldo Emerson and he said that he absorbed what Emerson wrote, digested it and also preached it in digested form. He was actively involved in some revolts before the time of John Brown. The dilemma with John Brown seems to have sobered Beecher and he spoke more circumspectly after this time. We see, however, here that he has moved away from the strict Calvinism of his father, the gut-wrenching requirements for a genuine conversion, which is more than understandable. But while he has shifted in this way, and has got involved with politics, and so on, and perhaps had several extra-marital affairs as he became famous, we see that he is now going in the direction of abandoning scriptural authority in way that lets him interpret it to his liking, beginning with the discarding of the concept of "hell".

I am not really familiar with Puritan/Calvinist sermons but just judging them by the titles, one could perhaps not even fault Beecher for wanting to speak about love, rather than fire and brimstone. The message of "freedom" resonates with some of the things Luther wrote about freedom in Christ. However, this is a freedom which comes after and even transcends the fear of hell and punishment. My Judge is also my Savior, but he is still Judge.

It seems to me that Beecher made a similar change within the church to Emerson's change outside of it, both revolting against a very doctrinal Puritan Calvinism. This all seems regrettable because it gives "doctrine" a bad name, as if it could not be good, right and wholesome.

With this throwing out of Calvinist doctrine seems to arise not a better grasp of true doctrine, but a liberalism which suits everyone's worldly hopes. For a good stretch of it, I empathize with Beecher, but he seems to go from one extreme to the other missing the right foundation doctrinally in each instance.

From "The Most Famous Man in America" re: slavery and abolition

2011-12-08T12:51:00.001-07:00

Reading the book on Henry Beecher is making me think about issues of conscience, civil disobedience, the temporal government and the extent to which it should be obeyed, and the role of the "church" in matters of justice, even if it wades into politics. We know, of course, Luther's strict and famous distinction between the kingdoms. This must always be held in mind. But this distinction did not prevent him from decrying various societal ills and doing his best to "reform" the church and society.

The "Most Famous Man in America", pp. 246-248.

Some antislavery ministers countered Onesimus's story with opposing Scripture, such as Deuteronomy 23:15, God's injunction to Moses: "Thou shalt not deliver to his master the servant which is escaped from his master to thee." But most of the clergy followed Paul's ambivalent example, preaching obedience to the Fugitive Salve Laws while admonishing the slaveholders to voluntarily reform. For the first time, however, a significant number of ministers went whole hog for slavery...

"Then it was that I flamed," Henry said. the rage he felt toward cowardly businessmen and callous slave owners was dwarfed by his contempt for these clergymen. to the argument that the apostle Paul sanctioned the fugitive Slave laws, Henry responded that he might accept that claim--if slaveholders followed Paul's instructions by receiving their runaway servants as Christians and family members, educating them, encouraging them to marry and own property. Of course, Henry noted, that would essentially spell the end of slavery. In one notable speech Henry hammered home the absurdity of the biblical justification with an imitation of a runaway slave sauntering back into his master's house, "with his broad, black, beaming face," and greeting the shocked whites with a warm, "How d'ye do, my brother? and how d'ye do, my sister?'"
Henry's scriptural and legal arguments were padded with name-calling, motive impugning, and detailed accusations of hypocrisy and immorality but he was careful to make a distinction between sin and sinners, between the "Slave Conspiracy" or the "Slave Power"--that is, the legal system of bondage and its major public defenders--and the average citizens of the South. It was a distinction that would remain central to all of Henry's antislavery arguments, although often lost in the vituperation of his language...
It didn't take long for Henry to draw the fire of the leading mercantile mouthpiece, the conservative Journal of Commerce... Hallock attacked liberal ministers in general, and the Independent and its anonymous "star contributor" [Henry Beecher] in particular, "for prostituting their professions and their pulpits and the Sabbath day to the preaching of Free-Soilism: and other poisonous "Ultraisms." How dare these fanatics use the pulpit--which businessmen paid for--to denounce their patrons and preach politics." The role of the clergy was to lead their congregants to personal piety. Period. Anything outside the church door was beyond their purview.
"Clergymen ought to understand that while they attend to the proper duties of their calling they will be respected, honored, and beloved," Hallock concluded, "but that if they descend to the arena of politics, their black coats will most likely be rolled in the dirt." Any congregation that didn't want the filth of politics in their midst ought to fire the troublemakers, he suggested. After all, what would fix a misguided minister faster than snatching away his "bread and butter?"
For some time now, Henry had been drifting fro theology towards practical moral matters, but the fight with the Journal hardened this move into a manifesto. The Holy Gospel, he averred, is merely medicine for the sick soul. "It has no intrinsic value as a system. its end and value are in its power to stimulate the soul, to develop its faculties, to purify the emotions," he declared. Christianity did not exist for the glory of God, he insisted, but for the pleasure and health of mankind. Nowadays this therapeutic view of religion so thoroughly dominates American culture that it is almost impossible to imagine how shocked people were by Henry's words.
By contrast, Beecher claimed, the Journal of commerce promoted a "Coward's Ethic." Such men wanted a Gospel "that will snatch away their sins while they are asleep; some chloroform gospel." Just what, Henry inquired sarcastically, did the Journal of Commerce consider a suitable topic for discussion in church? After all, her observed, many modern sins were not mentioned in the Bible. Should we not preach against drunkienness or swindling or gambling simply because they were not specifically forbidden in Scripture?
Perhaps the problem was merely a matter of distance? Men like Gerard Hallock gladly gave money to send missionaries to the Far East, Henry noted, yet "a Turkish harem is a cradle of virgin purity" compared with the slave pens of the american south. "Will the Journal tell us how many leagues off a sin must be before it is prudent and safe for courageous ministers to preach against it?"
... Back and forth they went, citing Scripture and secular law, with each paper reprinting the entire debate in special supplements. Nasty as it was, the long clash rendered a great public service, challenging common prejudices, laying out statistics, detailing legal ordinances, examining every aspect of the problem. It also gave a well-needed boost to the struggling Independent. Subscriptions were increasing at double the previous rate, with hundreds of new readers every week.
... Suddenly Henry was a genuine celebrity, whose colorful sayings and doings were being picked up by newspapers across the country. Not everyone agreed with Henry Ward Beecher, and nobody agreed with everything he had to say. But everyone wanted to hear it.

Such men wanted a Gospel "that will snatch away their sins while they are asleep; some chloroform gospel." This is the phrase that is embedding itself in my mind. It reminds me of Pres. Harrison's comment in "Christ have Mercy" regarding the Lord's supper. We can be in danger that while holding the pristine doctrine of the real presence, we fail to see it as the reality among ourselves, that we have been formed into one body, the physical reality of our communal life. Also in baptism, we have been baptized altogether.

But we are also reacting against those who in their zeal for "social justice" have let God's Word go and put the Gospel light of forgiveness of sins under the cover. Still forgiveness of "un-real" sins or forgiveness while you are "asleep", just becomes an idea and irrelevant as such.

Once more: Luther and anti-Semitism

2011-12-08T11:55:00.002-07:00

Just to have this here, and in case it gets deleted or abused, I will paste what I wrote on Naked Pastor about Luther's so-called anti-Semitism. A man who goes anonymously by "Godless Monster" in a discussion about sin and the Ten Commandments, in his infinite fair-mindedness, felt it pertinent to quote all the most vicious sections of Luther on "The Jews and their Lies" to me at great length. (--Great argument to support your line of thinking, Godless Monster!) NP, himself had to weigh in, not with a moderating comment restraining Godless Monster, but to say that he had read the thing in "seminary" of all places. Anyhow, in spirit of thinking that explaining might help, I posted all the below, which received no other comment than "Luther is a turd." Which is fine. Luther is a "turd." He said worse about himself.

Dear NP and dear GM: I will set things aside and make a long answer to this, especially since this comes up often. I could make it short, but please take it as my love and respect for you, that I will try and answer it as thoroughly as I can.

Firstly, we note that we have gone off topic, which was to show that we should look at our own sins, of which our own heart as well as the written down law accuse us, invariably, and that the Christian message is that forgiveness can be had for those. Free for the taking. But now we have wandered again to look at the sins of others.

Secondly, we note that the last commandments are not about making women chattels, but they naturally lead into the Sermon on the Mount, that simply the matter of the heart, such as coveting and scheming are already sins, not just the outward doing. Many a person consoles himself with his justification based on not having murdered anyone, etc. How many times is it said, that people don’t need to go to church because they have not committed any heinous crimes, and that, yet, in the same sentence as saying the people in church are all hypocrites. (Something gives again.)

Thirdly, we note that the moral law which we know about, and which is summarized in the Ten Commandments and which we learn as children and adults from the catechism, has nothing to do with Luther’s so-called anti-Semitism.

Fourthly, as a German by birth and a Lutheran by confession (not that they go together; most Germans are secular, or Roman Catholic and what goes as Lutheran is really a Forced United church with Reformed. Real German Lutherans I have only met among those who emigrated to America a very long time ago) I do feel called to make some kind of defense of what is being alleged here. I do not take it personally, but since I have looked into it, I will try to set things into context, which is only fair.

Fifthly, the document quoted a great length above, is nowhere found in any teachings or confessions or catechisms of the “Lutheran” church. Luther wrote hundreds of books and thousands of sermons and who knows how many pamphlets. He was such a giant in his own time, that he commented or was asked to comment on just about anything. Everything he said at table was written down, the visitors thought it so important it should not be lost. Obviously, not all of it is kosher or confessional. The pamphlet "On the Jews and Their Lies" was written very late under a certain set of stresses and not promulgated much or far, nor included in any important collections. It is a nasty piece of work that would not edify anyone. So sadly, now those who want to denigrate biblical teaching love to drag this out and plaster it all over in detail, as we see displayed here.

Sixthly, regarding the quoting of this: if this is such nasty business, someone tell me why those who oppose historical Christianity and confessional teaching need to spread this far and wide? What is the purpose? To have a smear campaign? To victimize Jews all over again?–Why roll in the mud? If it is so objectionable, why quote it at length, why read it in seminary? Have you nothing better to read and post?

Seventhly, Luther gets dragged in for every single thing people like to imagine. Under the communists he was the leading communist, under the Nazis he was the leading Nazi. Under Naked Pastor, he becomes the first Naked Pastor… We only had him invoked quite recently.

The the substance of the issue:

1. A man who deals with these issues with passion to detail and with incredible depth is an American Reformed Christian, James Swan, on his blog, http://beggarsallreformation.blogspot.com/ He is neither Lutheran nor German. His work has become the debunking of all the ways Luther is abused in current discussions and apologetics of various kinds. He has collated much material on this particular matter here: http://tquid.sharpens.org/luther_Jews.htm

2. For those who want to read some writings of Luther which people of various denominations find valuable, James had in interesting link to a collection available free online, here:http://beggarsallreformation.blogspot.com/2011/11/works-of-martin-luther-with.html

3. The modern Lutheran churches responses to the question are found for example here:http://www.appleofhiseye.org/Questions/FAQs/LCMSOnMartinLuthersantiSemiticstatements/tabid/864/language/en-US/Default.aspx James has further comments on the LCMS statement here:http://beggarsallreformation.blogspot.com/2011/10/lcms-on-martin-luthers-anti-semitic.html

The above is material from people who know what they are talking about. I will use up one more comment box to deal with it from my own reading and understanding.

This has been my own reading:

1. Brecht’s Luther Biography in three volumes is according to James Swan the currently definitive one:http://www.amazon.com/Martin-Luther-1521-1532-Defining-Reformation/dp/0800628144/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1323205420&sr=8-1
It is quite a project and I am about 50% through.

2. “The Jews of Germany, A Historical Portrait” by Ruth Gay. http://www.amazon.com/Jews-Germany-Historical-Portrait/dp/0300060521/ref=sr_1_10?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1323205578&sr=1-10 This was a book I picked up used in an Edmonton Cafe/bookshop. It traced this history of the Jews and various streams of anti-Semitism through the centuries and millennia. It was extremely interesting to see the whole set of issues in their full historical development.

3. This one is a Canadian book, on which I have only got a slow start “The Nazis and the New Religions”http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=the+nazis+and+the+new+religions&x=0&y=0

4. “The Fabricated Luther”, which I have blogged through: http://www.amazon.com/Fabricated-Luther-Refuting-Connections-Modern/dp/0758608551/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1323206000&sr=8-1
There are other books, which connect more or less and these are the blog posts I have made myself on the subject: http://thoughts-brigitte.blogspot.com/search/label/Luther%20and%20the%20Jews

To summarize the main points from my own mind:

1. The Jews had for some time been relegated to living in ghettos, one notable one being the Frankfurt ghetto. They lived in unfair conditions for some time. They were not “emancipated” and were not allowed to live as others were suffering under restrictions of where to live and what kinds of occupations to engage in. This state of affairs also arose because of their own needs of keeping a Jewish butcher, synagogues, springs and pools for ritual bathing, schools, hospitals, having a rabbi, etc. The Holy Roman Emperor even forced them to wear the first sign of exclusion, the yellow circle.

2. Because Jews could not live in the empire like other individuals they seemed to engage in much money lending. Money lenders are never popular and the situation during Reformation times were recently exacerbated by the concessions a Jewish advocate for Jews gained from the Emperor. What Josel of Rosenheim was able to gain was that Jewish lenders were able to extract higher interest rates from their clients than before, with the end result that they could pay more taxes to the Emperor. This worked for everyone involved except for the average, poor Christian peasant, artisan, etc. who was in any kind of debt. As one would imaging this did not endear the Jewish population who became viewed as heartless blood suckers, not unlike the current outrage of the world against Wall street and the clout of financial institutions. More could be said about Jewish influence at the courts of princes, etc. because of their financial savvy. This would make them both needed for advice but also easily despised. So, there is a whole lot of politics involved.

3. During the Reformation many Jews were baptized and became Christians, specifically “Evangelical” Christians (as the Lutherans would call themselves). These baptisms were sometimes viewed with suspicion, as they were thought to be often insincere and done for worldly not spiritual reasons. Luther, therefore, while he befriended and supported Jewish converts himself, also warned other pastors that they carefully examine any potential converts for honest intent.

4. During the Reformation, many intense and thorough debates were held regarding Biblical content, translations, texts, and meaning. Some of these debates were had with Roman Catholics, and some of them were had with Jewish Rabbis. As the learning of the original languages had recently blossomed (as we know Luther translated the entire Bible into German), we know that Luther also had his battles with the Rabbis who did not want to acknowledge scripture passages that were to him clearly Christ-centered and Messianic, such as “the virgin will conceive”, etc. This was a very hot topic for him and his annoyance at intractable Rabbis was significant. So when he speaks against “the Jews”, it is at times simply against rabbinic scholarship, or lack thereof, as he viewed it, as well as malintent leading simple Christian people into confusion and error. Ever Luther was out to protect the "simple".

5. In terms of Jewish conversions to Christianity, we have another huge issue arising: converts are often very zealous for their new religion and not very charitable toward the one they have departed. In the Jewish context they are then viewed as “apostates”. (Thus here on NP our “deconverted” atheists are often the most “anti-Christian” in their speech of all.) So it happened that there was a man, named Anthony Margaritha, a convert from Judaism, who wrote a very scathing book about Jews and their customs. From this book, The Whole Jewish Faith, Together with a Thorough and Truthful Account of All the Regulations, Ceremonies, and Prayers Both for Family and Public Worship, as Observed by the Jews throughout the Year, with excellent and Well-founded arguments against their Faith Luther got many of his opinions of what goes on in Jewish communities. The worst kinds of accusations, including ritual slaughter of Christian children, were included.

6. During Reformation times, expulsions of Jews had become the way to deal with the perennial “Jewish question”. Previously Isabella and Ferdinand of Spain had cruelly expelled all their Jewish citizens in the most heartless way. The Jews were forced to sell all their goods and were not even able to transfer to proceeds into gold to take with them, as gold represented the riches of the country. Most of the families perished at sea and other ways. But still expulsion was seen as the merciful way of dealing with the issues, as opposed to straight annihilation. Extremely sad chapter in history.

To summarize this section, no one here is covered in glory, sad to say. The hysteria over the Jews and their practices was considerable, the rumors abominable, their sincerity questioned, and Luther, though he otherwise often advocated for and pleaded with the Jews to put their trust in their own “cousin”, as he would say, and believe in Jesus Christ, was at one point carried away to write this awful piece. This runs contrary to many other things he said and wrote and to his usual more laissez-faire approach (the Word ran its course while he drank beer). Occasionally, he said things to help the princes with their polictics and this would include the advice on when to use force.

However, there is no one to really try and explain this properly, and I am probably not up to the task. And the Holocaust was such a horror, that any attempts at explaining anything look like misguided in the first place. Still, some Roman Catholics delight to make Luther look like the devil incarnate; I can see why Jewish individuals would not be inclined to be charitable; and atheists often work at making Christians look like the barbarians they occasionally were and are. And yet, as we began, again, as per usual, nobody wants to look at the faults that they bear themselves.

In terms of the Nazis: their use of Luther was manipulative and propagandizing. Their aims had to do with eugenics arising out of a completely different ideology. Eugenics is really an anti-Christian movement. Supposedly, because of Christianity we have coddled the weak and interfered with natural selection, ruining our genetic pool, so we have to get rid of the undesirables, beginning with forced sterilizations. The churches can be faulted for not saying more sooner and more effectively, but they were themselves not anti-Semitic in heart or speech, at least not in a significant way. Some pro-Nazi people were put in place to run things and some people obviously fell in step with them. Dissidents themselves were quickly, easily and systematically dispensed with with along with the infirm and the Jewish population.

When Hitchens, et al. try to pin the Nazi ideology on Christianity they are poorly informed and very irresponsible with history. Nazi ideology arose from completely (COMPLETELY) different quarters. This bears reading up on more.

I’ll quit here. Luther’s business with the Jews does not impact what we confess about Jesus Christ. There is no benefit or point to keep rehashing his stupid pamphlet.

To the contrary: Jesus is a Jew. We believe in a Jew. We have a Jewish God. This is how God communicates.

I am not sure that I should post all this as I am not sure that anybody really wants to know it and I am probably just inviting a bunch of derision, getting accused of defending something indefensible. I am not defending the pamphlet at all. I personally could not, in the past, understand how someone like him could write such a thing. It seemed out of character with everything else. I needed to set it into some kind of context and this is how I did it for myself. I just don’t want anyone to miss the genuine gospel so clearly articulated during the Reformation because of this oft-mounted assault on credibility and reputation.

Current Reading/ Henry Beecher

2011-12-03T19:42:00.001-07:00

In the vein of getting context for Emerson, Hawthorn, Abolition movements and Beecher family, I have this book out from Concordia library on "The Most Famous Man in America", the Pastor Henry Beecher, brother of Harriet Beecher Stowe of "Uncle Tom's Cabin".

http://www.amazon.com/Most-Famous-Man-America-Biography/dp/0385513976/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1322965850&sr=8-1

It is most fascinating and thorough. I feel that I am getting a really good view of what a number of contexts were the first part of the 19th century America, for example the differences in settings between Boston, New York and the frontier in Indiana. It is interesting to note that the religious feeling was quite intense everywhere, but represented mostly by Presbyterian, Methodist and Baptist churches. Henry Beecher's own Calvinism was of a variable sort. He did not like to be pinned down on intricacies of Reformed doctrine. He tended to weasel through doctrinal examinations but was accepted anyhow for his charismatic preaching and engaging rhetoric, deep thinking and empathetic views.

Rex Murphy on what Christians are expected to put up with these days/ What the tolerant must tolerate.

2011-11-26T19:10:00.000-07:00

http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/2011/11/26/rex-murphy-what-the-tolerant-must-tolerate/?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter

Emerson and me

2011-11-20T14:44:00.002-07:00

Lately, I have tried to supplement my education by reading some of the American writers, with whom I have been woefully unfamiliar.

Ralph Waldo Emerson is not my friend, seeing that he had some unorthodox ideas about faith. He did rebel in a way against New England spirituality, and again, I have no exact clue what may have been some issues there. Of course, I have my suspicion that it has something to do with theology which came after Luther and if I got Emerson in my hands, I would simply send him to the Book of Concord... :)

I got this book from the library, which might help me a bit: "Ralph Waldo Emerson A Profile Edited by Carl Bode." The book is both entertaining and heavy at the same time, employing some delicious language. Here is a quote which my husband and I had a good laugh at last night, since we have all made this observation frequently before. Men have this endearing habit of solving all the worlds problems easily when they sit together. It invariably happens especially when there are no women around to interject some inconvenient reality.

Emerson's good sense was so strong that it always seemed to be specially awakened in the company of those who were most in sympathy with his loftiest thinking. Thus, when "the radical philosophers" were gathered one evening at his house, the conversation naturally turned on the various schemes of benevolent people to reform the world. Each person present had a panacea to cure all the distempers of society. For hours the talk ran on, and before bedtime came, all the sin and misery of the world had been apparently expelled from it, and our planet was reformed and transformed into an abode of human angels, and virtue and happiness were the lot of each human being. Emerson listened, but was sparing of speech. Probably he felt, with Lamennais, that if facts did not resist thoughts, the earth would in a short time become uninhabitable. At any rate, he closed the seance with the remark: "A few of us old codgers meet at the fireside on a pleasant evening, and in thought and hope career, balloonlike, over the whole universe of matter and mind, finding no resistance to our theories, because we have, in the sweet delirium of our thinking, none of those obstructive facts which are the practical reformer the moment he takes single forward step; then we go to bed; and the pity of it is we wake up in the morning feeling that we are the same poor old imbeciles we were before!"

My husband is a good man, he smiled right away in recognition.

Reformation Day Sermon

2011-11-18T15:50:00.000-07:00

The latest CPH order

2011-11-14T16:20:00.001-07:00

My newest package of books from CPH arrived last week.

One of the books I ordered was the "My First Hymnal". It is a beautiful book with lovely illustrations. If I had children at the house still, I would use it every day. Absolutely. I am thinking we are on the right track here with this book, but have felt for a long time that we almost, also, need a graded curriculum and accompanying audio CD's.

Luther, the graphic novel is amazing with tons of details but not information overload. I would highly recommend it. Must have, especially at $9.99. http://www.cph.org/p-18390-luther-echoes-of-the-hammer.aspx

I also checked out another size of Lutheran Study Bible to see how I like its type and feel, but now that I use my laptop for many things, I think I might get the e-version for myself.

The Story Bible is a very large book with a huge number of engaging illustrations. Someone I shared it with thought it was similar to a coffee table book. Well, yes, the pictures caught me first, too. But there are also other features such as highlighting related vocabulary, questions about the story and a prayer. Very nice work. Children's Bibles, I have often found in the past, are books that adults who are not well versed in Bible stories can use to familiarize themselves with the many characters and events. So this Bible could work really well for an entire family.

So much for now.

Blogging slow down

2011-11-12T09:58:00.001-07:00

Dear Friends: what happened to this blog? It's been two weeks, or so.

Mostly, after going through Flannery O'Connor's letters, I have been reading some authors I never read before: Nathaniel Hawthorne and Ralph Waldo Emerson. Emerson I don't like as much as Hawthorne, and the whole Isolationist and Transcendental scene is problematic to me, as far as I can know it and understand it, at this point. Still, it seems good to me to know what they were about.

I also did a little bit of translating for James Swan, here. It is always great fun for me to translate some Luther. The original sermon was found here. It might be worth looking at in its entirety some other time. It is a worthwhile treatment regarding faith and love. Basically, faith needs to be exercised in love, or it will be weak and gradually go out altogether. Still, we cannot be saved by our having love but only by trusting in Christ's work.

Today, it snowed for the first time this winter. This was no surprise and we are ready for it, having enjoyed a long and wonderful fall. I pray everyone will stay safe on winter roads and drive carefully according to the conditions.

Also, I've got into the habit of going swimming regularly and am hoping I can keep up the habit when it gets to be really cold and a person neither feels like going out or getting wet.

So much for today. :)

Series with Christopher Hitchens at American Jewish University

2011-10-28T22:01:00.000-06:00

A number of videos I was looking at which related to God and science in one way or another.

2011-10-28T20:11:00.000-06:00

I

I wasted a good part of the day looking at videos such as above. Here are some of the ones I thought were pretty interesting. What I still don't understand is how none of the prominent people say anything about the sheer impossibility of random mutations producing anything like the living world we see. Berlinski is the best to point this out. Most of the videos have other segments as well. I also was surprised at Francis Collins' dismissal of intelligent design as, "what if it's wrong and it is just God of the gaps."

There is another set of videos with Hitchens about eternal questions, which I thought was good but haven't finished viewing. I'll paste after.

Discussions with Atheists

2011-10-27T21:05:00.001-06:00

What have I been up to? I just finished this video on a debate with several atheists, including Richard Dawkins and several theists including William Craig in Mexico. It is almost two hours long.

What I don't understand is how Dawkins keeps getting away with saying that the wonderful process of natural selection could produce the complexities we observe. What is it exactly we are trying to get at in these debates? Was this basically a debate about philosophy, then?

As usual, I find that atheists get quite rude in their language. They cannot content themselves with making their argument. Part of the argument is always that the opposing side is arrogant, condemning, hateful, lazy and stupid. I had myself a little battle here this week, that went somewhat that way. And the language gets ratchet up immediately once you disagree with Dawkins or natural selection.

In the video below there is a speaker Sean Stephenson, a very encouraging man. He also made an extremely cogent comment toward the end of the debate above. He also has a cute aside at Richard Dawkins in this talk below.

Mid-life

2011-10-23T17:25:00.000-06:00

While driving around today, I listened to CBC radio, 740 AM dial, as I usually do in the car when by myself. I enjoyed this episode on mid-life quite a bit. Rarely, does this subject get treated in a thoughtful manner although it is a rather jarring time of life, often Job-like, as the psychiatrist mentions.

The first comment on the website regarding the show asks: "What about women?" It is a good question. The program did not deal with women, at all. But we can't have everything at once. This was a good episode. Perhaps, we can have another on women.

Having Christian faith would, of course, add a completely different dimension to this, yet. I would not want to go through this without prayer and song, faith and faith community.

http://www.cbc.ca/tapestry/episode/2011/10/23/midlife/#socialcomments

Richard Dawkins at Costco

2011-10-20T22:20:00.003-06:00

Never have I paid any money for a book by Richard Dawkins. Once someone lent me one of theirs but I only read several chapters. Somehow he is not very readable; he drones on and on, though some of the information was essentially interesting to me. I think there is a pedantic way of demonstrating that we are all pretty stupid, that somehow puts me to sleep.

Today, I looked a new book by Richard Dawkins at Costco. It pictured a man on the edge of a magnificent canyon, perhaps the Grand Canyon--quite breathtaking. The title is, you have probably seen it, "The Magic of Reality. How we know what's really true." This, in spite of my limited reading of the man, seems to me to be vintage Richard Dawkins. When we see a wonderful waterfall we don't have to fall down and worship a Creator, we can be just as awed at "Reality". It's awesome, even without God, or something like that. We have all heard him go on how stupid it is to believe in God, the spaghetti monster, blabla. People must be cured of their idiotic mindset. The title is so very true to form. Still we should be awestruck by the "magic" of reality. Shouldn't he use a different word from "magic."

I opened the book and read two pages at random. Often this random reading of some sentences indicates the overall quality of the book to me. I generally know if I will like it or not. What I found left me literally laughing out loud in the isle. It took me some time to calm myself. It was tremendous.

So I'll tell you what did I get: "Was there a first human? Well, no, there was no first human that we can say." It is hard to explain says Dawkins but picture this: "Take a photograph of yourself and then put one on top of your father and then on top of that of your grandfather and when you do this at length and your stack is about three miles long, you will have a picture of you ancestor of how ever many eons ago. You can see this picture when you turn the page." Well, of course, we have to turn the page to see our ancestor, the first human, though there is no such thing--it turns out it is a fish!!! Yikes!

Ok, we knew that Richard Dawkins thinks that somehow by some direct line of descend over a long period of time we turned from fishes into humans. Even I can't say how God made fishes or humans, but we are supposed to get from this demonstration (for idiots) that there was no First human being. Somehow, somewhere we became human, just like "a baby imperceptibly turns into a toddler". You can't tell what day it ceased being a baby and what day it began being a toddler.

A FISH TURNING INTO A HUMAN BEING IS LIKE A BABY TURNING INTO A TODDLER! Did I just read this? This is the great famous, so very serious about his atheism, has to lecture the whole world about how stupid they are to believe in God, Richard Dawkins telling me this?

I could not contain myself. You think we are fools but the most humble among us can see the ridiculousness of this. It does not look good. It reads like stand-up comedy to me. But I know you are dead serious. This makes it even more comic.

Thanks for the laugh.

Norman Nagel's podcasts

2011-10-19T13:20:00.000-06:00

http://issuesetc.org/guest/norman-nagel/

Under this heading you get all the podcasts produced at Issues, etc. with Norman Nagel. Totally worth listening over and over, again.

Let's go shopping at CPH

2011-10-18T16:19:00.002-06:00

Flannery's letters

2011-10-18T15:50:00.001-06:00

As I said, after the fiction, I am getting around to the letters of Flannery O'Connor.

Today, I underlined this:

I don't think you should write something as long as a novel around anything that is not of the gravest concern to you and everybody else and for me this is always the conflict between a attraction for the Holy and the disbelief in it that we breathe in with the air of the times. It's hard to believe always but more so in the world we live in now... I can't allow any of my characters, in a novel anyway, to stop in some halfway position. This doubtless comes of a Catholic education and a Catholic sense of history--everything works toward its true end or away from it, everything is ultimately saved or lost. Haze is saved by virtue of having wise blood; it's too wise for him ultimately to deny having wise blood; it's too wise for him ultimately to deny Christ. Wise blood has to be these people's means of grace--they have no sacraments. The religion of the South is a do-it-yourself religion, something which I as a Catholic find painful and touching and grimly comic. It's full of unconscious pride that lands them in all sorts of ridiculous religious predicaments. They have nothing to correct their practical heresies and so they work them out dramatically. If this were merely comic to me, it would be no good, but I accept the same fundamental doctrines of sin and redemption and judgment that they do.
... Haze knows what the choice is and the Misfit knows what the choice is--either throw away everything and follow Him or enjoy yourself by doing some meanness to somebody, and in the end there's no real pleasure in life, not even in meanness. I can fancy a character like the Misfit being redeemable, but a character like Mr. Shiftlet as being unredeemable. (letter to John Hawkes, Sept. 13, 1959)

It is the part about the "half-way" position which grabbed me, but also the "self-made" religion without sacraments.

Love Life Conference 6, Concordia University College of Alberta, Nov. 19, 2011

2011-10-17T14:00:00.006-06:00

Please view info at www.lovelifeedmonton.com

Getting Real About Sexuality from James Schutz on Vimeo.

Flannery, my new friend

2011-10-15T11:46:00.001-06:00

If I've seemed a little distracted from my blog, it is due to travelling but also due to the reading of Flannery O'Connor.

I have finished all her fiction and am working on the "Occasional Prose" and "Letters." Actually, it was Samuel Scoville who has kindly put me onto her, and for a change, my husband and I have been enjoying some American short stories and short novels.

Here is a great blog titled "If Flannery had a blog", with wonderful quotes and stories. This is a great place to start to get an idea of what she is about.

Flannery O'Connor was a Roman Catholic writer with overtly religous themes. She makes you think deeply to figure out what the story, life, and your life is about. She also surprises you with dramatic turns of events, which are often shocking but revealing.

Sam likes to say that Flannery O'Connor showed him that religion can "smart and be smart". He also thought that as Lutheran I might have more in common with her than I would expect, which has turned out to be true. Thanks, Sam.

"Lord Jesus Christ, with us abide."

2011-10-10T21:19:00.001-06:00

Such a wonderful hymn so simply and lovingly sung. "Lord Jesus Christ with us abide." It is contained in the new LSB, Lutheran Service Book, # 585.

Our preacher at the anniversary service this weekend in Medicine Hat referred to it. We enjoyed a special gathering this weekend for a Lutheran congregation's 100th anniversary. I love this hymn, but can't recall that we have ever sung it in a service.

Shelters

2011-10-06T11:19:00.000-06:00

http://www.getreligion.org/2011/10/steve-jobs-apple-founder-dies/

This is the second time in the past month that I have heard about and met people who were drawn to the Hare Krishna's through their shelters during the hippie years.

Catechism Seminar for Pastors and Evangelists in Africa

2011-10-03T20:04:00.001-06:00

See Lutherans in Africa.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7eGjjkE5rkM&feature=mfu_in_order&list=UL

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PFP-wVGlFFk&feature=related

The Gospel is proved by the fact that it has survived in spite of so many enemies.

2011-10-03T09:26:00.001-06:00

Becker, p. 178 and 179.

Luther was convinced that only the Holy Ghost, working through word and sacrament, can bring men to faith and an acceptance of the Christian gospel. Therefore we would expect him to lay little stress on Christian evidences. But the fact is that he does not reject this approach completely. He says, for example, that the Bible is proved to be the Word of God by the fact that while the Egyptians, the Babylonians, the Greeks, the Romans and many others have tried to destroy it, it has nevertheless survived all its enemies.

Luther sees one of the strongest proofs for the truth of the gospel in the very opposition that it engenders. The mark of true and divine promises is that they disagree with reason, and that reason does not want to accept them. There is no more certain sign that something is of God that that it is against reason and above our way of thinking. The gospel is a preaching which offends men--not only men of no consequence, but the holiest, the wisest the most pious and most powerful men on earth. When the fury of the tyrants and the heretics and the scandal of the cross come to an end, it is a certain sign that the pure doctrine of the Word has been lost.

"Paul holds that if it is preached with undisturbed peace, this is a certain sign that it is not the gospel. On the other hand, when the world sees that the preaching of the gospel is followed by great tumults, disturbances, offenses, divisions, etc, it considers this to be a certain sign that the gospel is a heretical and seditious doctrine. Thus God puts on the devil's mask and the devil puts on God's and God wants to be recognized under the mask of the devil and the devil is to be rejected under the mask of God."

Thus it is evident that if our gospel were received peacefully, it would not be the true gospel.

In evaluating these arguments, however, we must note that these evidences are entirely Biblically based and oriented. They are merely variations of the scriptural test of the fulfillment of prophecy (Deuteronomy 18:21 f; I Kings 22:28; Isaiah 41:22f). The Savior had said that his words would not pass away (Matthew 24:35). The fact that the Bible has survived all the concerted attacks of the centuries fulfills this prediction. Moreover, the Bible says that the unconverted man will always consider the gospel to be foolishness (I Corinthians 2:14).

From The Foolishness of God by Siegbert Becker (c) 1982 Northwestern Publishing House (www.nph.net). All rights reserved. Reprinted with permission.

Confession and Absolution

2011-10-02T20:54:00.000-06:00

While we were gone, we visited some friends in another city. My friend is a new Lutheran and deeply appreciative of all that has been given to her in the pure gospel and good theology. It was an incredibly pleasure to meet her in person and talk and worship together, a great gift from God for both of us.

I have found that new Lutherans are such an incredible source of inspiration and joy as they cling to Jesus with all that is in them. My friend will not go one single Sunday without receiving the Lord's Supper. She will not go one single Saturday without going to Confession and Absolution. She wants grace and more grace and all she can receive after decades of starvation.

She invited me to go with her to Private Confession and Absolution, as I had said to her before that this never seems to come up in any sermons with any of my pastors and I'd never been availed myself of the practice, though I have frequently read about it in Luther and how incredibly important the practice was for him.

On occasion, over the years, I have also palpated the words for this in the catechism and in the hymnal and felt that this would be a good thing. At times, pastors in other congregations who are my friends will talk about their own "Father's confessors", and their practice of going to Confession and Absolution. It always moved me deeply to think that these shepherds have this practice for themselves.

So, I was ready and since we had talked about this in generalities before, I had actually hoped that something like this might transpire. In my old age, I am not as easily terrified as when younger, so I looked forward to it, as long as the pastor was ok with it. The pastor asked me some things about my home congregation and my own pastor, and we established some rapport. etc. We followed LSB, p. 292. I cried a little bit, but oh well.

What do I think of it now? I think it is wholesome to spend some time thinking about, talking about, and confessing your own sins, since we much more readily want to rehash everybody else's. It is good to spend some time on the commandments and the penitential psalms. Secondly, it was a blessing to actually have someone who will be dedicated to listening to you. This is really quite a gift. We talk so much, but there is so much hot air and so much inconsequential noise that we don't often get to the bottom of things. And then there is the most important thing, the absolution, this time with your own name in the same sentence as God's.

It's not that I don't know that God forgives, and forgives even me, and I don't have peace as a result of this knowing, but God has given me the gift of a shepherd and a brother who will personally deliver this message to me. This is something special that God also wants me to have. And this is what Jesus sent out the apostles especially for: to forgive sins. (John 20) We keep forgetting this.

I can see that this is also good for the pastor. He will get to know his people this way and be able to preach more appropriately.

Issues, etc. has some interviews on the subject. John Pless of Concordia Seminary, Ft. Wayne, also has posted a related paper titled: "Your pastor is not your therapist." Here is another paper on the subject. Here is a good personal story on the subject. I stole the gorgeous Rembrandt from the last link.

September

2011-10-01T21:12:00.001-06:00

Well, now it's October and I should be finishing the Becker. If you are interested you might like to have a look at my pictures, as I was able to enjoy a very interesting holiday with my husband looking up relatives, as well as Facebook friends. We drove down the coast of Washington state and Oregon returning via seeing the mountains of the coastal region.

The reading material along the way consisted of reading the collected works of Flannery O'Connor, American novelist and short story writer. She has been mentioned much among my Facebook friends and she has certainly been a great discovery for me and my husband. She rounded out the American experience for us. The theology behind the stories made for great food for thought and discussion along the way.

Mount Hood on the South Face

Mount Hood's North Side with Orchards

From the lighthouse at Cape Disappointment

Oregon coast with rain

Astoria, Oregon

Mount Rainier at Paradise

Mount St. Helens from the closest observatory

Pastor Nadarkhani

2011-09-30T00:11:00.001-06:00

It really is quite incredible. Last week, a convicted murderer, Troy Davis, was finally executed in the United States, and it seemed as though the entire British (and EU) Establishment arose to denounce the barbarism. Even Pope Benedict XVIappealed for clemency.
Yet today, Iran is scheduled to hang a Christian pastor for 'apostasy', and the collective silence from our scurvy politicians, trappist churchmen and hypocritical media is positively deafening.

From here: http://archbishop-cranmer.blogspot.com/2011/09/pastor-yousef-nadarkhani-to-be-hanged.html

My prayers are with all Arab brothers and sisters and have been for some time. May the Arab spring serve freedom and the Gospel of Christ. May the Lord have mercy on this man and his family and grant all strength in these trials. May his good and gracious will be done also in Iran.

Human Rights Watch has this on the situation in Iran and some facts about Nadarkhani.

Luther's Small Catechism with Explanations

2011-09-28T11:40:00.002-06:00

http://www.mtolivelutheran.info/uploads/5/9/1/6/5916933/explanation.pdf

Blogging in September

2011-09-08T09:23:00.002-06:00

We need to finish the Becker, but there won't be much blogging possible in September.

"Grieving" interfered with by "fanatical belief in the afterlife"?

2011-09-03T13:07:00.003-06:00

On a blog where I have lately been commenting frequently, the topic was this given by the blogowner:

I remember during my clinical pastoral education studies watching a short film about a man who was diagnosed with terminal cancer. I remember he had a wife and some teenaged children. In the face of his certain death he became fanatical about his belief in the afterlife and insisted that his family not be sad because he wasn’t really dying but transferring to a better place. They weren’t allowed to be sad or cry, even after he died. He insisted. We were shown the film as students because it was obvious the man was coping with his suffering by adopting a posture of denial with belief for its engine. It was sad to watch him and his family unwilling or unable to process their grief. Tragic.

This is what I wrote:

I have thought about this all morning because grief is still very acute in our house.
Anyone who has lost a child, and ours was 18 years old, knows that this grief will never be entirely over. I did not understand this about people previously. There is an elderly couple in our congregations whose son dropped dead in gymn class at the school where the father was school principal. He was the couple’s only son (there are two daughters). This must be how many decades ago now? When all the special days come and anniversaries of this and that everything is as raw as ever. Before it happened to us I would watch this from the outside and wonder why they are still not over this. Why the hugging and crying with other members in similar situations? I truly thought that this should be over by now.
But when someone is missing every Christmas, Easter, Birthday, death anniversary, Mother’s day, etc. they are still missing again and again, each time. The only thing is to be with people and get some distraction and companionship.
Our dead have been burned into our heart and brain and body. Our feelings for them, the things they said and did, the cars they drove, the clothes they wore, the pleasures and pains they had, the hugs they gave, the way they smelled… It is wired into us now, somewhere in the neurons. It does not go away. It is part of us, and the pain will be there.
It’s good to talk it out and cry it out, but it can’t be programmed.
And at the time of death and funeral, it may not at all be the right time. Then we need every bit of strength we can muster. I refused to cry then because crying gives me headaches and a headache puts me into bed and I could not afford to be in bed. Plus, there were hundreds of mourners, many young and inexperienced people and you end up being there for them. There was no time for grieving then. And every bit of spare energy was called upon for other things.
People looked at this and thought it was unnatural. They wanted to talk me through Kuebler-Ross. Good grief! We have all heard this a thousand times.
When the pastor came over, we just did a liturgy from the hymn book, the Apostle’s creed, the Lord’s prayer. What a relief to just fall back on that. What a gift. That’s all that was needed. “The Lord be with you.” “And also with you.” Amen.
Please, don’t make me cry.
But on Monday, I cried. It was a really good cry. I was with a women I did not know well, but she also lost a child and we walked along the North Saskatchewan river and sat on a bench in the sunlight and looked at downtown Edmonton. And we shared our difficulties and I cried. There was a time and a place and person. And this also was a gift. It could not be planned.
Others benefit from other things. I am just telling how it goes for me.

We are not really discussing the belief in the afterlife and resurrection here, though my guess is that to the blogowner it is simply a myth. But since he likely does not believe in the afterlife and even though he calls himself a pastor, he needs to have some kind of view on the subject. And this is what comes out.

And what is the pastor's purpose? To facilitate the grieving I don't need him. To tell my psychological platitudes I don't need him.

Just wanted to hang on to this item.

The Place of Reason in Apologetics

2011-08-30T15:54:00.000-06:00

Becker, p. 168-176, quoting:

After having heard Luther's scornful and vehement denunciation of the use of reason in the defense of Scripture, it is a little surprising to hear him insist, as he did at Worms, that he would bow to the dictates of sound reason. It is still more surprising to find that he repeatedly castigates his opponents as irrational and senseless fools.

...While Luther believed that it was ridiculous and downright blasphemous to presume to defend Scripture with rational argumentation, yet he also believed that it was perfectly proper to point out the logical weakness in the attacks made on Scripture whenever the opportunity to do so presented itself. In his controversies with his adversaries he says a number of times, "This reason itself is forced to admit." It is evident that Luther did not place a great deal of confidence in such a procedure, but there is scarcely an opponent against whom he did not use this approach.

In the same way he often pointed out logical weaknesses in the arguments of the Anabaptists. Some of the Anabaptists had insisted that the children who were brought to the Lord Jesus for his blessing were not children age-wise, but "children in respect to their faith." In regard to this interpretation Luther says,

But whoever has a little reason will see that the devil has possessed the Anabaptist completely, for they, in the name of all hangmen, characterize the children as being without reason, but they themselves are not only without reason, but they are completely insane and foolish, since they do not want to let those who are "carried in the arms" be children, as the text clearly says.

...At the end of the treatise Against the Heavenly Prophets Luther has a chapter entitled, "Concerning Mistress Hulda, Dr. Carlstadt's clever Reason, in this sacrament." In this chapter he endeavors to show that the arguments of Carlstadt are not logically sound, and that they become ridiculous if applied in analogous situation... It must be noted throughout that Luther is not seeking to establish the truth by reason, but to show that the arguments of Carlstadt are weak. If they are consistently followed to their logical conclusion they will always end in nonsense.

The papists are to be attacked in the same way as the Mohammedans. Commenting on the pope's prohibition of marriage on the part of priests and his claim to be above Scripture, Luther once said,

That senseless, asinine pope has dealt so crudely that it would have been possible to lay hold of him with the judgment of reason even if we did not have Scripture.

Toward the end of 1519 the faculty of Louvain issued a condemnation of the Ninety-Five theses and of some other works by Luther. In reply, Luther says that the learned faculty at Louvain argues like a bunch of old women, who say, "It is so! It is not so! Yes! No! You are wrong! I am not wrong!" He complains that they use neither reason nor Scripture against him, but only the feelings of their own hearts and their own opinions. They answer him simply by reasserting the very things which he attacks is as untrue, and therefore they are guilty of begging the question. Here again Luther uses an argument which he does not allow anyone to use against the Scriptures. And then, having pointed out the logical fallacy in the university's chain of reasoning, Luther adds what was for them the crowning insult, that this is "forbidden even by Aristotle."

...It is clear that Luther did not believe that the Christian church had a monopoly on folly and irrationalism, and he knew that unbelievers could be just as foolish and irrational in their arguments as Christians. While he would never have written a book on the reasonableness of Christianity, he might conceivably have been the author of one with the title "The Irrationalism of Unbelief". Philosophy will fulfill its proper role in the church when it serves to destroy the "pretensions of speculative reason."

As we have said, Luther was certainly not averse to the use of reason in debate with unbelievers. He warns against the use of reason in the doctrine of justification, in matters of conscience, and in regard to satisfaction, remission of sins, reconciliation and eternal salvation. But

at other times, whenever you must, outside of this doctrine of justification, debate with Jews, Turks, and sectarians about the wisdom, or the power, or the attributes of God, then use all your skill, and be a subtle and sharp a debater as you can be, for then you are in a different kind of argument.

Such disputations with Jews, Mohammedans and sectarians are possible because many things are clear in the light of natural reason. Not every point of doctrine could be argued on this ground, for there are many things that are not clear in the light of nature. Many of these, however, are clarified in the light of grace. But even in the light of grace not every problem is answered. For a solution to the problems that remain unilluminated by the light of grace we must wait for the light of glory in heaven.

______________

From The Foolishness of God by Siegbert Becker (c) 1982 Northwestern Publishing House (www.nph.net). All rights reserved. Reprinted with permission.

Scripture The Defense of Scripture

2011-08-26T11:45:00.000-06:00

Becker, quotes, p. 162-168

If God has said it, it will surely come to pass. Of that I have no doubt. For there stands his Word. That cannot lie. Besides, God is almighty. Therefore, whatever he says cannot fail. It must come to pass. but, as has been said, the only thing that is lacking is that men do not believe that God is almighty, that he can do it, and that he has said he wants to do it.

If we could convince a Mohammedan of these two premises, namely, that God has said such things and that God is almighty, he would surely also believe all the other articles of faith. But of this only the Holy Ghost can convince men, as we have seen. We, on our part, have enough to do if we will only set out to repeat all that the Scriptures have said. We do that poorly enough, and our repetition of the scriptural truth is done in a stammering way. But to fail with God's Word is better than to succeed without it.

We shall, therefore, be well equipped to defend the articles of faith against all the temptations of the devil if we are well grounded in God's Word and cling to it firmly when the devil seeks to overthrow our faith with clever fables, which are brought forth out of human understanding and reason.

... Against Erasmus he wrote that the principles of the Lutheran Reformation can be defended by clear Scripture, and he went onto say that whatever cannot be so defended has no place in the Christian religion.

...There is no better advice on how to stand against the deception of the devil than to hold fast to the bare, clear word of the scriptures, and think no farther nor speculate. Rather, we ought to close our eyes and say, "What Christ says, that must and should be true, even if I or any other man cannot understand or comprehend it or know how it can be true. Christ knows well what he is, and what or how he should speak of himself." Whoever does not regard this, he will stumble and err and fall. For it is not possible to comprehend even the most insignificant article of faith with human reason or human senses.

If therefore the Christian believer wants to be well prepared to defend his faith, he should know the texts of Holy Scripture on which the articles of faith are based and from which they are drawn. In divine things we are not to argue, but only to listen. We are not to engage in subtle disputation in an attempt to prove the possibility of what God has said.

...let this be the primary concern of a theologian, that he knows the texts well, as they say. And let him hold this as his first principle, that in holy things one must not dispute nor philosophize.

...The devil must be conquered with Scripture and not with reason. In fact, to defend God's Word with reason is like trying to defend one's helmet and sword with a bare arm and bare head.

Interesting in this connection is Luther's comment on Peter's admonition to be ready at all times to give an answer to anyone who asks a "reason for the hope" that is in us (1 Peer 3:15). This text is often used today as a call for a rational apologetic in defense of Christianity. It also was understood in this way by scholastic theology Luther, however, commented,

The scholastics have twisted this text to the effect that one should overcome heretics with reason and out of the natural light of Aristotle, because it says here in the Latin, "rationem reddere," as though Peter meant that we should do it with human reason. Therefore they say that the Scriptures are far to weak to overcome heretics. It must be done with reason and must come out of the brain. From that source one must prove that the faith is right. And yet our faith is above all reason and produced only by the power of God. Therefore, if people do not want to believe, you should remain silent, for you are under no obligation to compel them to accept the Scriptures as God's Book, or God's Word. It is enough to show that your view is based on Scripture.

...the gospel stands in need of proclamation, not defense.

Whoever believes nothing and denies everything that we say of God and of God's Word, with him we have nothing to do, as it is also taught in the schools, 'One must not debate with him who denies the first principles.'

Luther understood the dialectical implications of this approach very well. He himself points to the apparent weakness of this point of view. (more about that p. 167-168).

From The Foolishness of God by Siegbert Becker (c) 1982 Northwestern

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Attempts to make the Gospel Reasonable/ Sacramentarians

2011-08-25T09:46:00.005-06:00

Becker, p. 153-161, quotes

Since we have ourselves not become believers as a consequence of rational argument or by means of a rational decision on our part, we should not expect to persuade other men by lengthy and learned disputations. In 1541 in connection with the controversies over the Lord's supper Luther remarked,

It is not necessary that we should dispute sharply on this matter, since it is seldom that a man can be sufficiently instructed and satisfied by long disputations, even if we meet once or twice. It requires a good long time to remove such erring opinions and delusions from the heart. For this we require good, friendly discussions and polite, sensible people.

As we would expect from a man who took such a position, Luther resisted all attempts at making the gospel reasonable. Christian theologians are often tempted to do this, and questions like "Isn't it reasonable?" are sometimes asked in an attempt to persuade others of the truths of the christian religion. Luther considered such efforts to be not only a waste of time, but even positively dangerous and destructive of the Christian faith.

... Faith has to do with unseen things. This is a commonly repeated emphasis in Luther's lectures and sermons. He asks, "What kind of faith is this to which reason can attain?" There would be no need of faith, he says in the Table Talk, if the truths were rational. Of the doctrine of the person of Christ he says that if it could be understood by reason, there would be no faith involved in its acceptance. The sacramentarians, who denied the real presence of Christ's body and blood in the Lord's Supper, argued that since Christ was now sitting at the right hand of God, he could not be present in the sacrament. But Luther says that we know (and do not need to believe) that in the sacrament there is bread and wine. We can recognize it for what it is when we see it with our eyes. But by faith alone we furthermore insist that Christ is both at the right hand of God and also truly present in the sacrament. This does not make sense to us. But we must remember that if our Lord God had given us articles of faith which our understanding could grasp, none of us would be saved.

...More than this, faith cannot be maintained even in a Christian by arguments from reason. All the articles of the true faith are so difficult and so far beyond our reach that no man can hold fast to them without the grace of the Holy Spirit.

...Luther held that it is only man's damnable pride that keeps him from seeing that the way out of this conflict between reason and the Word is not to be sought in a modification of the Scriptures but in a change in reason. Since scripture cannot be broken, it is reason that must break. It is not difficult, according to Luther, for men to change the truths of Scripture to make them reasonable. It takes no great skill to philosophize about these things. When unbelievers point out that there are difficulties in Christian doctrines, they ought not to imagine that these same thoughts have not occurred to believing children of God. But if a Christian apologete reacts to this accusation by trying to make the message more consistent with the dictates of reason, he is courting disaster.

...He said that if we would insist on comprehending the articles of faith with our reason, we would very quickly lose baptism, the sacrament of the altar, the Word, grace, original sin, and all things, for not one of these is understood by reason. Of the arguments which the sacramentarians used against the real presence of the body and blood of the Savior in the Lord's Supper, Luther said that they want to measure and master this whole matter with their sophistic reason and clever subtleties, and he predicted that eventually it would come to this that they would also deny that Christ is God, for the same arguments which overthrow the first (the real presence), also cast doubt on the second (the personal union in Christ). Luther's prophecy in this matter has been fulfilled in modern Protestantism, where the denial of the real presence has borne this fruit.

From The Foolishness of God by Siegbert Becker (c) 1982 Northwestern

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Faith and the Processes of Reason

2011-08-24T10:32:00.001-06:00

Becker pp. 148-152.

Whenever and wherever the Word of God has spoken, then and there we are not to ask for additional proof or to demand a rational explanation of what has been clearly revealed by God in the Holy Scriptures.

In the theology of Martin Luther faith is never and in no way an achievement of men. It is always in its totality a gift of God's grace. The conviction and the confidence which is the essence of the Christian faith is not an intellectual and emotional position which a man chooses for himself and by his own powers. It comes about not by a free decision of man's will, but according to the working of the almighty power of God.

Luther warns earnestly against faith which is a work of man. That he calls a "manufactured faith" or a "fictional faith." The true faith, he says, "is a complete trust of the heart in Christ. Such faith is kindled alone by Christ. Whoever has it is blessed. Whoever does not have it is damned. Such faith also does not come out of our own preparation, but when God's Word is preached openly and clearly, then such faith and hope, such a firm confidence in Christ begins to spring up."

Luther believed that man is totally impotent in conversion and that faith is worked in man by an act of God's gracious omnipotence, without any cooperation whatever on the part of man. It is a "divine miracle."

...In the explanation of the third article in the Small catechism he confesses, "I believe that I cannot, by my own reason or strength, believe in Jesus Christ, my Lord, or come to him; but the Holy Ghost has called me by the gospel, enlightened me with his gifts, sanctified and kept me in the true faith."

...Unbelief is therefore not due to the weakness of the intellectual capacities of the unbeliever. Indeed, nothing is more fit to understand the words of God than a weak intellect. ... And if we did not want to be saved until we had grasped God's promises with our reason, we would be a long, long time at this business.

...There is no greater danger in all the world than a highly gifted reason which seeks to deal with spiritual matters. It would be easier to teach a donkey to read than to set reason right; and while a poorly gifted man needs one teacher, a highly gifted one needs ten, as the German says "die Gelehrten die Verkehrten" (The greater the education, the greater the delusion).

...Luther's views on this matter are brought into the sharpest focus by his doctrine of the faith of infants.... Infant baptism without confidence that these infants can believe he calls blasphemy. For his part Luther asserts emphatically that babies can have faith. In answer to the argument that it is impossible for them to believe because they have not yet come to the age of reason he says, "Friend what does reason contribute to faith and God's Word? It is not reason that opposes faith and God's Word in the highest degree..."

... He goes on to say that children are much better qualified for faith than adults just on this account that in them reason is still weak and not yet fully developed. the "big head" of adults will not go through the narrow gate.

...The gospel is to lead obstinate and blind reason away from its own light into the true light, which is perceived only by faith. Faith therefore is not the result of a rational decision on man's part. Natural reason does not have the ability to see God, but it is the Spirit of God alone who enlightens the minds of men through the Word.

From The Foolishness of God by Siegbert Becker (c) 1982 Northwestern

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Luther's Apologetic cont. / Luther and Analogies

2011-08-23T08:46:00.003-06:00

Becker, p. 145

"In perfect agreement with this denial of man's right to ask why God deals with men as he does, Luther rejects every attempt to explain the counsels of God and to make them palatable to human beings. He also rejects all attempts to probe into the mind of God or to prove divine truth by use of analogy. Luther did not, it is true discountenance every use of analogy."

Luther sometimes delighted in comparing his relationship with his children to the relationship with the heavenly Father.

He often used analogy to illustrate the doctrine of the resurrection.

But "He raises the question of whether such analogies are dialectical or rhetorical arguments. While he does not give a categorical answer to his own question, he does imply that they would be rhetorical in nature. In other words, they are intended to illustrate rather than to serve as logical proof. They may therefore be used most effectively after the matter itself has first been clearly established by Scripture. Such analogies are related to allegories, which also proceed from human to divine matters. It is well known that Luther gradually drifted away from the allegorical method of biblical interpretation until, in the end he almost completely abandoned and rejected it. " p. (146)

For example: "Thus the Turks say that in one house there should be no more than one master or one host. Using this as an analogy, they are led to reject the doctrine of the Holy Trinity." (p. 147)

Thus far Becker.
_____________________

The use of analogies and Christ's use of parables. The other day I had a brief, private discussion with a hugely qualified and very confessional Lutheran pastor about the parables. Since the pericope has been working through Matthew lately, we were in Matthew 13, where it says:

"Why do you speak to the people in parables?" He replied, "The knowledge of the secrets of the kingdom of heaven has been given to you, but not to them. Whoever has will be given more, and he will have an abundance. Whoever does not have, even what he was will be taken from him. This is why I speak to them in parables: 'Though seeing, they do not see; though hearing, they do not hear or understand.' In them is fulfilled the prophecy of Isaiah: "' You will be ever hearing but never understanding; you will be ever seeing but never perceiving. For this people's heart has become calloused; they hardly hear with their ears, and they have closed their eyes. Otherwise they might see with their eyes, hear with their ears, understand with their hearts and turn, and I would heal them.'"
But blessed are your eyes because they see, and your ears because they hear. For I tell you the truth, many prophets are righteous men longed to see what you see but did not see it, and to hear what you hear but did not hear it." (Matthew 13: 10-17)

The point was made that Jesus spoke in parables as a kind of judgement, things were going to remain hidden for those who won't hear, not to make things more understandable for the simple. They were not nice illustrations to help people learn better.

Having taught Sunday Schools for decades and acted out many parables with children, it did not sit right with me that they were not meant as a teaching device for the children. Also, I did not like the fact that Jesus who is the revealed God proclaiming the kingdom, is sitting here hiding things. Certainly, more than one thing can be going on at the same time. This is perhaps similar to the law, it instructs us, accuses us and drives us to Christ all at the same time and in various measures at various times. So a parable can maybe instruct, illustrate, hide and illuminate at the same time?

I quoted from Reu, which James Swan had sent over kindly some time ago.

p. 74.

"For the people are greatly delighted with allegories and similitudes, and therefore Christ Himself oftentimes uses them. For they are, as it were , certain pictures which set forth things as if they were painted before the eyes of the simple, and therefore he stireth especially the simple and ignorant."

The answer I received was in line with what Becker says above, that Luther grew increasingly cold to the validity of the use of analogies and allegories.

Still, I am not really happy with this, for it is Luther's analogies about the resurrection and fatherhood which have really stuck in my mind for years and years. Also, Luther, as a pedagogue and catechist always tried to make things palatable and memorable for children and the simple.

To summarize, perhaps, analogies, allegories and parables do not convince in an apologetic sense. They will not "prove" anything to "reason" and they should not. Those who already have faith in God' revelation will be built up by an appropriate use, but for those who will not believe the illustrations only further distance them.

Comments?

From The Foolishness of God by Siegbert Becker (c) 1982 Northwestern

Publishing House (www.nph.net). All rights reserved. Reprinted with

permission.

Luther's Apologetic

2011-08-22T09:36:00.001-06:00

Becker, p.141, 142.

Luther saw reason as an enemy of faith and would have been horrified at the thought of reason coming to the defense of the Christian religion.

Luther did believe in the study of logic and philosophy for the student of theology.

He said about himself: "I had to learn scholastic theology just as Daniel had to learn to speak Chaldean and Joseph had to learn Egyptian."

He did not believe that philosophy had any positive contribution to make to theology and should be limited in its use and application.

Philosophy must be limited to its own sphere.

He becomes an advocate "of a philosophical scepticism which aims at clearing the lumber of metaphysics from the mind, in order to make room for the complete and unqualified acceptance of the revelation of God in Christ." (Casserley)

Becker, p. 142.

"Philosophy has been called the attempt to explain the whys and the wherefores of the Christian faith in order to 'justify the ways of God to men,' as John Milton proposed. All such efforts Luther condemned as arrogant and presumptuous blasphemy."
...Luther: "The mouth which asks God, 'Why did you do this?" belongs on the gallows. And if you ask me, then go ahead and ask in the name of all devils, and I will tell you where you can stick your snout."
This "why?" addressed to God is suggested by the devil, who wishes to search out the hidden secrets of God. Even a human being does not tolerate it if another man seeks to pry into his secrets in this way, and the Lord surely will not permit it. He is Lord alone. and because he is Lord,he has authority to do what he wills, and no one has a right to ask him what he is doing or why he is doing it. God has his own reasons for doing whatever he does. if he had to answer all the questions that men put to him, he would be the poorest kind of God (der ermste Gott). When someone asks why God deals as he does with men it is really an attempt on the part of reason to tutor God... "But one cannot persuade reason of this. Much less can one convince it to forget this profitless, damned grubbing and investigating in such high and incomprehensible things, for it always says, "Cur? Quare?" "Why? Tell me why!"
When we are tempted to let our reason ask this, we should bear in mind that God is not accountable to us for his works.

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...quoting Christ against Scripture

2011-08-21T14:09:00.001-06:00

Becker deals with one more paradox, the paradox of law and gospel, which are both God's word and true and at work in the believers heart. From here we go to the simul justus et peccator.

I will quote here, because this is a quote we discussed with Steve not that long ago.

p. 138.

It is in the light of this distinction between law and gospel that we must understand Luther's often quoted ad almost-as-often misunderstood and misused statement, "If our adversaries quote the Scriputres against Christ, we will quote Christ against Scripture." Those words were written in a series of theses for a disputation Romans 3:28, in which Luther tried to show that justification is by faith alone without the deeds of the law. The adversaries had quoted the passages of Scripture in which it is stated that a man will be saved if he keeps the law. Luther believed this too but the "if" involved here was, he knew, an impossible condition, and so he said in the Galatians commentary that if we teach the law in the hope that by it men might be justified, we have already exceeded the limits of the law. By such a course we confuse active and passive righteousness and become "poor dialecticians," who do not rightly divide God's word. The law passages are used correctly only when they show the need of Christ. When they are used in such a way that they make Christ and his atoning work unnecessary, as though it is possible to be justified without his unmerited grace, then they are used against Christ.

p. 139.

...it is impossible that the Bible should contradict itself, except in the minds of senseless and hardened hypocrites. Among the pious and the intelligent it produces testimony for its Lord. If you contend that Scripture contradicts itself, go manufacture your own reconciliation. I will stay with the author of Scripture.

So the idea of "quoting Christ against Scripture" is applied within the context of a proper distinction between law and gospel, and also within the paradox of living within this simultaneously, none if which negates justification by faith in Christ alone, and is not at all saying anything to the effect that parts of scripture are contradictory or false. Rather the paradox is upheld and scripture is never wrong. Faith is above reason. Scripture is true. Justification by faith alone is true.

What is not being said by this saying is that the Bible is wrong or contradicts itself.

----------------

From The Foolishness of God by Siegbert Becker (c) 1982 Northwestern

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The Paradox in Conversion

2011-08-20T16:11:00.003-06:00

Becker, p. 127-134. Quote.

The whole matter of conversion of man presents us with a series of doctrines which cannot be harmonized in a rational way.

...Man is a captive slave either to the will of God or to the will of the devil. Thus man sins by the necessity of his nature. This doctrine, Luther held, must stand firm against every attempt to make total depravity in any way less than total... Thus we are all "necessarily damnable."

However, Luther is careful to point out that the necessity under which the will of man acts is not the necessity of compulsion. Man is not forced to do evil in the same way that a murderer is forced to go to the gallows. He acts freely. He does what he wants to do, and he does it gladly. But it is the will itself and the desire to do evil that he cannot control or lay aside. A truly "free" will should be ascribed only to God.

...Why does God blame man for rejecting his grace when man is born with this attitude of rejection and cannot do otherwise? We are not permitted to ask. If we impertinently embark anyway on a search for the solution, it will only be a waste of time and we will never be able to find the answer.

...Contrary to Erasmus, Luther specifically rejects any solution which sees even the slightest natural difference in attitude between those who are saved and those who are lost. We may not say that the one tried and the other did not try. Rather, we must say that there is the same will in all.

Above all, here again we must take care not to judge God according to our reason. We must believe that he is just, even when he appears to us to be unjust.

...Luther was correct when in the closing paragraphs of On the Bondage of the Will he said to Erasmus, that of all his enemies only Erasmus had really understood his position. It has sometimes been said that since Erasmus was under pressure to write something against Luther he looked for some obscure point of theology in which he would not be forced to compromise his own views concerning the need for reformation in the church. But the defense of the freedom of the will by Erasmus was much more than that. His Diatribe struck at the very heart of Luther's theology. Of Erasmus' attack in the Diatribe, Luther said, "You have struck at my jugular vein." The bondage of the will, man's lack of freedom, which bore the brunt of Erasmus' attack, is a corollary of the doctrine of salvation by grace alone. Everyone who desires to vindicate his view of God at the bar of reason must deny either man's total depravity or the universality of divine grace. But Luther held firmly to both doctrines. Reformed theologians often say that a man must be either a Calvinist or an Arminian--that is, he must find the answer to why some ar converted while others are not converted either in a difference in God or in a difference in man. A true Lutheran con only say, "A plague on both your houses!"

...But had Luther been involved in a debate with Calvin rather than with Erasmus, his argument would have taken a completely different path, one which would have made his position even less tenable from a rational point of view... He says that we must be on our guard against the notion that the promises of God are only for the disciples. He died for all and eared salvation for all. He loves all men with the highest kind of love. Luther believed also that it is the earnest will of God to convert all men. He said, "He wants all men to be saved, in whatever condition they may be. Let each one therefore see how he may find himself in that all." God comes to all men with the word of salvation.

...Luther wrote a letter of comfort to a man... who was troubled about his salvation because he was convinced that God had already elected those who are saved and that he was not one of the elect. In his letter, Luther said that the first of these statements if perfectly true and that all things must happen according to the will of God; but beyond that, he told him to forget all about damnation and to remember that it is God's sincere desire and intention and command that all men should be saved and made partakers of eternal joy. Since God wants the sinners who live everywhere in the whole world to be saved, we ought to find our comfort in this doctrine and not permit foolish thoughts to separate us from his love. When God says that we want all to come to him, no one is left out, not even the very worst, not even harlots and rascals.

Luther recognized very well that we are faced with an insoluble mystery when these doctrines are placed side by side.

... Here we are beginning to deal with the hidden God whom no one can ever know.

From The Foolishness of God by Siegbert Becker (c) 1982 Northwestern

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The Valley still Echoes with his Laughter

2011-08-20T15:27:00.001-06:00

In Canmore along the creek bed there is a bench dedicated to a boy who lived only to be five years old. It gives his dates and finishes with: "The valley still echoes with his laughter."

I sat on it for a while and let the dog sniff around the bushes, admiring the majestic mountains, the creek bed with its huge boulders and the town below.

"He's got the whole world in his hands." The simple song came to my mind. If we believe--we know that he has the whole world in his hand and he even knows my thoughts now. One can cradle oneself in this song.

But there are our dead.

There is this little boy, sorely missed with his memorial bench here.
It made me think that I might want to set up some kind of memorial somewhere also for myself.
Stefan has been gone for two and a half years.

There there is the family in Canmore who lost two children when a tree fell on them, killing them both.
There is the girl run over by a train when she walked on the tracks with her i-pod going.
There is someones grandson, who killed himself. The parents are pregnant again with twins at a late age.
There is another boy who killed himself. My niece dances with the sister.

I know some things about this town below.

He has got the whole world in his hands and he has also all our dead in his hands.

Will I ever be able to think about anything else?
Do I have to?

Paradox cont.

2011-08-19T17:48:00.005-06:00

Becker, p. 123-126

When Martin Luther said that Jesus Christ was man, he went out of his way to make it clear he believed him to be a man in every sense of the term--conceived, born, weak, helpless, dependent, subject to all the limitations of space and time, as all other men. On the other hand, when he said that Jesus Christ was God, he pointed out again and again that he meant to be understood as saying that Jesus was God in every sense of that term--eternal, without beginning, omnipotent, omnipresent, the Lord of all creation. Luther insisted on taking this view with all earnestness, without resolution, without regard for the logical consequences. He believed that here we have one indivisible person, who is both God and man at the same time. Nor was it blind, thoughtless faith on his part to hold such a position. He was fully conscious of what such a view entailed. He saw no way to make such a paradox rationally defensible. He said, "I can follow the idea, but I just do not understand what it means." No one who is "rational" will say that this can be made to fit into the category of what DeWolf calls rationally meaningful paradox.

This was the doctrine, as we have already seen in another connection, that Luther was sure was at stake in the controversy concerning the Lord's Supper. The denial of the real presence by Zwingli was in reality, so he held, a denial fo the full unity of the Person of Christ and of the communication of attributes. Zwingli held that when the Scriptures ascribe divine attributes to Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Mary, or when they ascribe human attributes to the eternal son of God, this is a figure of speech, which he called alloeosis. Luther, however, insisted that this was not a figure of speech. He called the alloeosis a "mask of the devil." Luther believed that God, who is immortal, died. And with the Council of Chalcedon he held that Mary is "the mother of God."

...In fact, he says, this is an offense to reason. No reason can ever make things like this agree. Our faith is a wondrous thing. We believe that this man is God and yet crucified. Ad we believe that this is God who was crucified. Unless his death is Gods' death we are not redeemed. On the other hand he is man, and yet he has been given almighty power.

In line with this thinking, Luther was afraid that if the sacramentarians would be permitted to separate the body of Christ from his deity by denying it the capacity of being present in the Lord's Supper, they would eventually on this same ground deny the personal union of the two natures in Christ. In a sermon preached in 1526 he said,

"I am afraid the time will come when our unruly spirits with their reason will want to destroy Christ completely and not let him be the eternal and true God. For they neglect the Word and operate with their reason. They confuse themselves in their thoughts, so that they do not know what they are about... That is not the case with the Holy Ghost. He is brave, without fear in the truth, sure of his ground, etc. But how this can be that Christ is everywhere--you should commend to God and believe to the glory of God, even if you cannot explain it with your reason."

Zwingli and Oecolampadius and Erasmus could only shake their heads over such "riddles and paradoxes" for Zwingli held to the philosophical dictum that the finite cannot contain the infinite. But as we have already seen, Luther believed that in Christ the finite and the infinite are perfectly joined without either being destroyed. The law of contradiction simply does not operate here.

...For faith, he insists, is not limited by nor subject to the rules and words of philosophy, but it is free.

From The Foolishness of God by Siegbert Becker (c) 1982 Northwestern

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The paradoxical nature of Luther's thought

2011-08-19T11:23:00.003-06:00

Becker, p. 119-121

It is a well-known fact that Luther's writings abound in paradoxical expressions. This has helped to create the impression that Luther had no regard for the laws of logic or the regular processes of reason.

...Because of this, some have claimed to have discovered a spiritual kinship between Luther and Kierkegaard. But to read these two men side by side is to detect a fundamental difference in spirit. Luther never quite delights in paradox in the same way that Kierkegaard does. It is difficult at times, when reading Kierkegaard, to escape the conviction that the Danish philosopher was quite proud of his cleverness in having discovered the paradox. Furthermore, Kierkegaard makes human reason the judge of revelation. He says, for example, "In a sense Paul too had a revelation, only that in addition he had an unusually good head." This is just the thing that Luther condemns. It is not man's good head that enables him to receive God's revelation, to say nothing about accepting it. This comes about only by the grace of God. It was Kierkegaard's
"good head" that undoubtedly misled him into what is basically a legalistic theology.

The evangelical Luther, on the other hand, is not proud of his recognition of the paradox. He makes it clear that he had learned this art from the Apostle Paul. He says that in Paul we regularly find such expressions as "I live," "I don't live," "I am dead," "I am not dead," "I am a sinner...

...The work of Christ exhibits this same characteristic. When Christ began his great work of salvation, he became the most despised of all men, so far as outward appearance goes.

...When Christ set out to win a kingdom for himself, he went about it "in such a way that all reason and sense must be offended by it. Even the apostles could not understand it..."

The very same thing holds true in the life of the believer in Christ. When God speaks in anger and punishes us, when he hands us over to our enemies, when he sends pestilence to us and hunger and persecution and other plagues, this is a sure sign that he desires our good and that he is well-disposed toward us. But when he says to us, "I will no more punish you, I will say no more. I swill take my zeal from you and let you continue in your opinion and do what you please," then this is a sure sign that he has forsaken us.

From The Foolishness of God by Siegbert Becker (c) 1982 Northwestern
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The tendency of reason to judge on the basis of inadequate evidence

2011-08-09T08:57:00.001-06:00

Becker, p. 101-103.

Faith humbles itself before God and clings to his Word as the source of wisdom and truth. Reason, on the other hand, in its corruption and pride, always makes the mistake of exalting its very limited experience and equating it with omniscience. When Luther says that reason judges by the "isolated instances and beginnings" of evil, he points to a basic weakness of the Aristotelian and scholastic approach to truth. It is the very nature of inductive reasoning that most of its universals are theoretical constructions. Reason is not able to acquire universal truth just because man is not god. the experience of man is always limited to isolated moments (puncta et pricipia) in the vast expanse of time and space. Even at their highest reaches the senses can acquire knowledge that is merely fragmentary. Self-evident as this is, men in practice tend to forget it.

...But again we must call attention to the corruption and depravity of fallen reason. Instead of viewing the data of experience as precious gifts of God, who has given us all things richly to enjoy, men exalt their limited experience to the point where they consider themselves competent to sit in judgment over God.

...Having done this, it proceeds to permit its fabricated universals to sit in judgment on God and his Word.

From The Foolishness of God by Siegbert Becker (c) 1982 Northwestern

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Reason as the judge of biblical truth

2011-08-09T08:47:00.001-06:00

Becker, p. 97.

By faith we see just the opposite of what we experience with our senses. In death the Christian sees life. In God's wrath and judgment we see righteousness. In the bad conscience we see peace and salvation...

So also God lets all his works stand in contradiction to reason, so that reason judges that nothing can come of them and that his words and promises are nothing at all. But God acts as he does because he wants to put proud reason to shame and to accustom is saints to trust in him alone. This is an important and very practical lesson, for when evil days come to the child of God, he must learn that God always hides his "Yes" under a "No.

From The Foolishness of God by Siegbert Becker (c) 1982 Northwestern

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Summer

2011-08-09T08:43:00.000-06:00

The marshy flats on the east side of the North Saskatchewan river which is just beyond the ridge. Nice place to walk and bike, except for the mosquitos.

True knowledge of God can only be found in God's revelation

2011-08-04T09:53:00.001-06:00

p. 67

In his whole treatment of natural theology, Luther is always intent upon this one thing: men must learn that sure and true knowledge of God can be found only in God's revelation. And God's certain revelation is to be found only in Scriptures. Because of man's total depravity and blindness, he can never read the revelation of God in nature fully nor draw conclusions correctly and with certainty. God must come to our aid. Yet, because of man's weakness and sinfulness, the majesty of God must hide behind masks in order to reveal itself. Men should take care lest in sinful pride and presumption they are offended by the lowliness of the masks and by the simplicity of the Scriptures. It is the crib in which we find the Lord Jesus Christ. And only as we find him there, and God in him, can we know all creation correctly.

"Therefore," Luther says, "let us teach that true knowledge is found in Holy Scripture, in the Word of God. For it instructs us not only about matter, not only about the form of the whole creation, but also about the efficient and final cause and the beginning and end of all things, who has created it, and to what end he made it. Without knowledge of these two causes our wisdom differs little from that of beasts, who also use their eyes and ears, but clearly know nothing of a beginning or an end."

From The Foolishness of God by Siegbert Becker (c) 1982 Northwestern

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Reason's Incompetence For the Study of Causes

2011-08-03T09:02:00.002-06:00

Back to the Becker, finishing chapter 2 on Natural Theology in Luther, p. 64,65.

Reason's Incompetence For the Study of Causes

Luther approaches this whole problem of the knowledge of our present visible world also from another point of view. He says that the wisest of men do not know final and efficient causes. In the modern scientific world final causes are usually not considered at all. Hutchison quotes the remarks of Francis Bacon, who said that final causes are like vestal virgins, dedicated to the gods but unproductive, and, he continues, "The Aristotelian classification that comes closest to modern scientific views of cause is the efficient cause."
Just at this point Luther would have raised violent protest. If modern science agrees in Hutchison's estimate of its philosophy, it is deceiving itself. Luther would have said that just this is the basic error of modern science--it professes to know more than it knows. In reality it can find only material and formal, or instrumental, causes, but in its ignorance it imagines that it has found efficient and final causes. It is this attitude which is behind the "scientific" assertion that diseases cannot be caused by devils because they are caused by germs, or that God cannot answer prayers for rain because rain is the result of the interaction of complicated meteorological factors. Man, with his reason, can only deal with phenomena, and he ought to be conscious of the limitations which this places on all his investigations.
...Since reason cannot truly know God, and since God is the only true efficient cause, and God's will is the only true final cause, therefore reason can never go beyond material and instrumental causes. Consequently reason can never know anything correctly.

I feel incompetent to unpack this properly, however, the question seems to center around whether final causes matter or not. Francis Bacon's analogy of the vestal virgins may be elegant, but is false. If we do not know the ultimate cause or the answers to ultimate questions we don't really know much that matters.

I have previously said this, too. Science is great but in the end it does not answer the questions that really matter the most to us.

[For one thing it does not explain how so many can be one body. :) (See previous post.)]

From The Foolishness of God by Siegbert Becker (c) 1982 Northwestern

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Brothers and Sisters

2011-08-03T08:42:00.000-06:00

I went up north with a team and it was the most wonderful experience. There were a number of us and we barely knew each other and we were supposed to gel in no time flat and coordinate a weeks worth of activities for a town.

There were Lutherans from more than one synod, and Lutherans from the same synod with different spiritual temperaments.

We were people with varied gifts but not different outlooks. We were instantly welded together by God's grace. We complemented each other and bore each other. We are all floored by this. Thanks be to God.

Ineffable

2011-07-30T23:34:00.002-06:00

The Lord's gifts are unspeakably amazing.

The foolishness of God, origins and causes / election--an analogous thought

2011-07-18T10:18:00.001-06:00

(I can't find the Becker right now. It must have taken it somewhere. So I'll go from memory today because I have a thought I want to put down.)

This still relates to the usefulness of reason in relation to science, causes and origins.

Luther uses the example of your own parentage. This example does not work as well today because we can do genetic testing. However, even there a 100% certainty cannot be achieved. I can tell you this because I have adopted children and one submitted to a test of paternity and it came back 99.99% certain. That seems pretty certain but whatever is not 100% can still be questioned. So maybe Luther's example works.

So here it is: just as you cannot be certain as to who your parents are except by their telling you that they are, we can say nothing certain about the origins of the natural world via reason. This is the limitation of science. It cannot tell us anything about how things came to be or for what reason, it only can to a limited extent describe how some things work.

What interests me today is this idea that we cannot know who are parents are for sure but that we go by "revelation", our parents "tell" us that we are their children.

Knowing who your biological parents are is a huge deal for every person. This can especially seen in the cases of adopted children; they illustrate this point well. Having been a parent in open adoptions, I have come to conclude that knowing who your biological parents are is a human right. This goes as far as sperm donors or whatever lengths modern situations may present. You can have the most wonderful parents and the children may be the most well adjusted and they still need to know who their parents are because it is integral for their knowing who they are themselves. You are your parents in large measure and if you don't know your parents you miss a good deal of knowing who you are yourself.

It is similar with knowing that God is your own dear Father in Heaven. You cannot know it from yourself. Also you don't know who you are if you do not know your Father in Heaven. You don't know if you are stuck with your damnable self and left to fend for yourself or if you have a gracious God. Election works like this, too. Election says in the positive sense: you are my child, I knew you from the beginning, in fact, I made you. I will always love you, you are my own most treasured, valued being in this world.

Election does not mean that people were chosen to not be God's children. Just as parents don't go around saying to people: You are NOT my child. It is the devil who goes around saying: You are NOT God's child. Parents just go around cuddling their own children and telling them how much they love you. They don't go around saying to other people's children: "You are not my child."

Just a thought on "election" only being used in the positive sense.

Reading late on Calvinism

2011-07-17T13:34:00.002-06:00

When I was up late reading last night it was this gentleman, I started reading.

http://www.brandonacox.com/theology/free-to-decide-confessions-of-a-former-calvinist/

He has gone from Calvinism to Saddleback, which I don't know if that's much of a change.

I thought this statement was revealing:

Only a few years ago, I would have proudly labeled myself a Calvinist and I had my arguments in tact to defend my position. I found myself teaching these truths in my pulpit ministry, unwilling to give a universal invitation to anyone who would want to be saved. Rather I qualified my invitations with such phrases as, “If God is dealing with you, then come…” My intent was to avoid “casting my pearls before swine.” I had two basic approaches to defending my incorrect theology. One approach was to run to the familiar proof texts such as Ephesians 1:3-14, John 6:43-46, and Romans 8:28-30. The other was to twist my opponents’ words using human logic. In fact, my first confession would be that Calvinism had a strong appeal to my own appetite for that which was intellectually challenging.

This is what we keep on saying, and is the elephant in the room and no Calvinist I am talking to addresses this: --the invitation to believe is ALWAYS qualified!

To pride oneself on one's intellect in all this discussion is likely a temptation for all involved. I thought about it myself. Why am I always drawn into this. Is it pride?

I am not sure. To be honest, blogging is both easy for me (my replies come to me quickly, easily and passionately) but also hard. After I have written something, this is what goes around in my head: "You are so stupid. You have to quit writing. This is all dumb. You must stop. I will stop. Stop, stop, stop." This seems pretty schizophrenic. I don't know what to do with that except to try and cool it at times.

Anyhow, it does seem to me that some Calvinists take joy and pride in simply arguing and I don't have the sense that they are always listening or honest about their answers. It's like you are some kind of test. Let's see if we can win this argument against this person. It comes across very unreal.

Now, this gentleman linked above also has a video with Piper defending having Rick Warren speak at his conference. I am no real student of either one of these gentlemen, so this is a bit of a tempest in a tea pot for me. What does strike me is that Piper is not expecting people to have a clear confession of TULIP. Yea, this is really important, but you know we all have trouble with this.

Sorry, this is not how I make my confession. I am very certain of what I am saying. And both asserting and not really asserting is just playing with people. It's like when the Heidelberg Catechism says: Yes, the Lord's supper is as if it were real.

Ahem. What the "h" is that?

Here, I also read this:

In keeping with this view, Calvin sees no need for a common confession of faith for all the Reformed churches. It belongs to the authority of each individual church to formulate its doctrine and order its life according to biblical precepts. In his view the universal church is a kind of federation of confessions. However much the churches have to agree in the essential affirmations of the faith, the confession of each individual church nonetheless retains its specific emphasis.²⁴ Exchange remains an urgent task, as genuine consentire in diversity will only be possible if churches are open to one another and prepared to give account of their affirmations.

Sorry, that is not a confession to me.

Now, I've also read Stuart Wood's article. It read like a decent summary to me and a valid warning. Thank you, Stuart.

Why I am doing this on a gorgeous Sunday afternoon, beats me, (I am a total idiot), but I won't come back to this until it's late and dark, the soonest. :)

Reason is also insufficient in the area of science.

2011-07-15T10:45:00.002-06:00

Becker p. 60-63.

Four hundred years before Van til, Luther held that man can have no true knowledge of anything at all in creation by the powers of reason.
... Luther did not deny that reason could discover many things... but he did hold that natural reason, which does not know God, is also ignorant of that which has been created by God (ignorat creaturam Dei).
...Luther did not condemn natural science, although he did ridicule its pretensions to wisdom.
...And yet even in this limited area reason takes more delight in fables and lies than in the truth.
...Now, if human reason cannot deal adequately even with natural science, how can it hope to begin to solve questions about the origin and destiny of the word? Reason does not know the fact of creation. Aristotle wrestled with the problem and came to no sure knowledge, although he inclined toward the opinion that the world must be eternal. At least he insisted, says Luther, that one can neither posit a first nor a last man. Here human reason is force to stop, for it is just as absurd according to human reason to posit a beginning of the world as it is to assert its existence from eternity.
...Reason, however, consider the biblical account of origins to be absurd. Luther said that if Aristotle were to read the account of Adam's creation, he would breakout in laughter, and if one were to follow reason, the story of the creation of Eve would sound like a fable. Commenting on the account of Eve's creation , he writes, "Where will you find a man who would have believed this story of the creation of Eve, if it had not been so clearly handed down to us?"
To know only present phenomena is to know scarcely anything. Luther asks, "For what...does a philosopher know about heaven and earth if he does not know where it comes from and where it is going?
...he would not be greatly impressed by modern advances in science. After looking around, he would soon remind us that we have not yet discovered, by the scientific method, the answers to the important question. Moreover, without the Christian faith it is impossible to know any part of creation correctly. Luther says, for example, that on cannot know what a man is or what a woman is unless one is a believer.... All the miseries of married life arise therefore, out of a lack of faith, because one spouse does not recogize the other as a creature of God.

If we recall our Popper, we remember that a theory which is not refuteable is not scientific. If no test can be designed that could possibly "falsify" it, it is not a scientific theory. Anything to do with origins and purposes falls into this area.

As a young person, now I am kind of used to it, I used to marvel at the stars and think about how things are either infinite or have a beginning or end. None of it can be grasped by our mind. It is completely mind-blowing.

From The Foolishness of God by Siegbert Becker (c) 1982 Northwestern

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Green tomatoes and the grace of God.

2011-07-14T09:13:00.003-06:00

In surveying our little garden, this morning, though enveloped in a cloud of mosquitoes, I took a certain pleasure in viewing the developing tomatoes. Already we have eaten two of them. The flavor was something considerably more full and nuanced than what we get all winter from the store--a simple, but still great gift.

Then my thoughts turned to what it is like for God to survey his vineyard, to check out the plants and the developing fruit. What looks and tastes good to him?

Hebrews 13:15. Through Jesus, therefore, let us continually offer to God a sacrifice of praise--the fruit of lips that confess his name.

It came to me that first and foremost it is praise that is the fruit.

It maybe seems a little cheap to us. Praise is easy. Praise is maybe sitting down in a pleasant place with your hymnbook. It is nothing, it appears.

That's just like faith. It seems a little cheap to us. Do nothing and enjoy a marvelous hope anyhow. Through Christ all the riches have been poured out, all we could need and more.

Just like the tomato plant: it is not really doing anything. It was a seed. It received water and soil and sunshine and voila it grows tomatos for me. It does what it was designed to do, naturally, happily.

And yet, that's just it. This joy of faith is just what makes God happy. It is the big, ripe tomato.

The trust we bear to God, is exactly what he wants. The fullness of the heart resounds in praise and thanksgiving. This is the pleasing fruit of lips who confess Christ.

Sixth Commandment continued

2011-07-14T08:43:00.000-06:00

We should live decent and disciplined lives.

95. 1 Corinthians 6:19-20. Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God, and do not belong to yourselves? For you have been bought with a high price; therefore, praise God with your body and in your spirit, which both belong to God.

96. Phillipians 4:8. Whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is decent, whatever is lovely, whatever sounds beautiful, if there be any virtue or anything praiseworthy--think about such things.

97. Matthew 5:8. Blessed are those with a pure heart; because they will see God.

98. Psalm 51:12. Create in me, God a pure heart, and give me a new and certain Spirit.

99. Psalm 63:7. When I go to bed, I think about you; when I awaken, I talk about you.

Natrual knowledge is always legalistic

2011-07-14T08:01:00.000-06:00

Becker p. 53

But the natural knowledge of God is always a "cognitio legalis", a law knowledge.
[Luther:] They [the heathen Romans] know better how to govern external things than St. Paul and other saints Therefore the Romans also had glorious laws and statutes. For reason told them that murderers should be punished, that thieves should be hanged, and how inheritances should be distributed. All this they knew and did in a splendid and orderly way without any counsel or instruction fro the Holy Scriptures or the apostles... Although it was godless kingdom and persecuted the Christians bitterly, yet they ruled by reason and were respected by everyone. They kept the peace. At their time there was peace, and the world was open. This was an earthly, rational government.
Cato and Aesop and Cicero, and even the hated Aristotle, are better teachers of morals than their scholastic theologians. Of the pagan philosophers he said, "As far as their moral precepts are concerned, one can find no fault with the industry and the diligence of the heathen".
He recognized that from a sociological and political point of view the works and attitudes of the heathen might be called good. But from a theological point of view a man without the Holy Spirit is wicked, even if he is adorned with all virtue. Against the argument that reason is able to effect the most beautiful virtues and therefore cannot be under the devil, Luther says that the devil rules even in the best of our virtues. All the most admirable and most useful things in the world are damned by God.
p. 55.
Moreover, this knowledge of the law, excellent as it may be in itself, often leads men to pride and presumption. Coupled inextricably with this knowledge of the law is a legalistic concept of salvation. man naturally believes that he will be saved by "being good." A modern "philosophical defense of the Trinitarian-theistic faith" defends the righteousness of God by saying, "God's nature, then, is one which expresses itself in making the kind of world where some men go to heaven for obedience and some go to hell for disobedience." It is precisely this sort of theology that Luther rejects. "What good does it do you," he asks, "if all you can say is that God is gracious to the pious and punishes the wicked?"
[Luther] This pernicious opinion about the law, that it justifies, sticks very tenaciously to reason, and by it the whole human race is held so securely that it can be freed from it only with difficulty.

Human reason insists on making a tradesman out of God and says, "If I obey him, I will be in favor." In proud presumption reason seeks to strike a bargain with God and says, "if you will give, I will give." In this opinion both monk and Mohammedan agree. Both of them think that if I do this or that work, God will be merciful to me; if I do not, he will e angry.
... Man cannot free himself from such a quid pro quo (this in exchange for that).
... Speaking of his own life in the monastery, Luther said, "The holier we were, the blinder we became and the more purely we worshiped the devil." The heathen were guilty of a similar sin.

From there we get further exploration of the familiar themes of falling either into pride or despair. Even the heathen falls into despair in the light of this law.

This section brings back to me vaguely other very strongly worded statements about the unholy alliance between reason and works-righteousness. This is why, and which context, "reason" is the "whore". It can only give you the law and will make you "naturally" trust in the law. Reason cannot give you undeserved mercy in Christ, a gracious God. The "quid pro quo" trading system is not the same as the blessed exchange of my sins for his purity. It wants to trade my merits for a little bit of heaven.

This does not work because it robs God of his being God and gracious. It offends right against the first commandment.

God's word is enough and the thing needful.

Reason cannot tell us what we need to know.

2011-07-13T09:41:00.005-06:00

Becker, p. 42

For Luther and for anyone to whom the greatest question in life is "How can I find a gracious God?" and whose sense of sin is overpowering, so that he cannot have any real peace of mind until he has found the certainty of forgiveness, such unstable knowledge of God is of little use. Luther saw no profit in knowing God as Aristotle knew him, as "a being separate from his creatures and contemplating his creatures within himself," and so he asks, "What is that to us?" the god who is known to reason on rational grounds Luther calls a Philosophical, Aristotelian God, and he says of this God, "He means nothing to us." (Nihil vero est ad nos.) To a long and learned defense of the existence of God based on rational arguments, Luther might well have answered, "Yes, yes, brother, what what of it? Even if we could prove beyond question that there is a God, we would still not know what we need to know."

p. 46

In seeking an understanding of Luther's position in this matter, it is necessary also to remember that for Luther the important question is never this: "Is there a God?" to ask that question, for Luther, constitutes the kind of blasphemy of which no honest man would make himself guilty. What man needs rather is an answer to the question, "Is God my God? Does he love me? Does he care for me?
Luther writes: Therefore it is not enough, and cannot be called a worship of the true God, if we worship him as the Mohammedans and Jews and the whole world without God's Word and faith boast--that they worship the only God, who made heaven and earth, and so forth. Up to that point you have come to know neither his divine essence nor his will. That there is a God, by whom all things were made, that you know from his works,... but God himself, who he is, what sort of divine Being he is, and how he is disposed toward you--this you can never discover nor experience from the outside (das kannst du nicht von auswendig ersehen noch erfaren).

This ties into the Bondage of the Will. In matters of the gospel and true knowledge of God we are blind as bats. Blind, deaf, dumb, dead, ignorant. Since we don't know it, we can also not chose it. Once we hear the gospel proclaimed, however, it has its powerful effect of giving us hope. Even then it is a scandal and it is the Spirit who draws us.

In other matters-- such as the law--though limited, there is a light of reason which operates of its own accord, but it tells us nothing we really need to know about God.

From The Foolishness of God by Siegbert Becker (c) 1982 Northwestern

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permission.

Natural theology: God is not just

2011-07-12T14:34:00.003-06:00

Becker, p. 39,40.

In a comment on Psalm 129:4 Luther writes that it is necessary that the Word assure us that God is just, because when we look at the way the world is governed, God seems to be completely unjust. He favors the godless with wealth and prosperity and power, and the heretics win fame and the approval of the populace. To be God is to be omnipotent..., omniscient... To be God is also to be perfectly good, and as such God ought to want no evil to exist... "This argument of Epicurus and people like him," says Luther, "is plainly unanswerable."
..."Aristotle comes wholly to this conclusion, that, even if he does not call God shameful, yet he lets God be ignorant of all things, so that God knows and sees none of our affairs, and thinks of nothing except himself and delights in nothing but the contemplation of his own Being.... But what kind of God is this, and what good is he to us?"
Luther goes on to say the Holy Ghost diverts us from this stumbling-block when he assures us in the Word that God is just. We are not to judge by what we experience in the present, but only to believe what God tells us about the future.
When Luther here in his own words repeats the argument of Epicurus, he plainly indicates that this is a very natural conclusion of the very same reason which has from other evidence concluded that there is a God.

So we see how far reason gets us: it tell us that there is a God and it tells us that there is no God or he is not good, which precludes him from being God.

Poor Cicero, having had no revelation to work with went from a good beginning to a bad end with his theology.

p. 41.

(Quote Luther) [Cicero]... yet, even though he comes to this conclusion, nevertheless he is overwhelmed by the vacillations of his speculations, so that at times this opinion is not firmly held and it seems to slip through his fingers. For this argument about infinity is so strong, that the place of religion is again torn out of our reason when we see this natural world overwhelmed by various calamities.

p. 42, Becker concludes this treatment with this sentence:

Luther did not disparage the natural knowledge of God because it was rational, but because it was unstable and incomplete.

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Luther and probability vs. certainty of faith.

2011-07-10T18:26:00.002-06:00

This Becker is important.

p. 37.

While it is clear therefore that Luther did not deny that there was such a thing as natural theology and an objective revelation of God in nature, and while he did not consider the so-called "proofs" unworthy of notice, yet he laid little stress on this natural knowledge for several reasons.
First of all, Luther recognized, as do all those who understand this problem, that at best a rational approach to the knowledge of God can never go beyond a high degree of probability. But to Luther the commonly accepted rule, "Probability is the guide of life" would have been an abomination in the area of religious knowledge. Luther says that the very essence of unbelief is that men say, "I do not know. I am not sure."

So the proofs are not without value. There is inherent knowledge. The heathen, too, can know something about the law of God, the existence of God and the goodness of God. BUT he cannot be sure of anything. And probability just does not cut it in the area of religious knowledge. You don't know that you have a gracious God this way, that your life has any meaning or that God is willing to help you.

Faith is a God-created certainty and assurance. He says,
Properly speaking, faith is that which endures in extreme evils and holds fast to the Word of life and in this way conquers all the might of the devil, all terrors and all dangers, through which it enters with glory and confidence into eternal life.
Even the most ardent defenders of natural theology will generally agree that such a firm and settled assurance cannot be found in natural theology.
Luther saw that natural theology can maintain itself only with the greatest difficulty. Long before the antinomies of Kant were announced to the world, Luther had already laid down the rule:
No reason is so firm that it can not again be overthrown by reason. There is no counsel, no matter how wise, no thing, no edifice, no matter how magnificent or strong, which cannot again be destroyed by human counsel, wisdom, and strength. And this can be seen in all things. Only the Word of God remains to all eternity (Solum verbum Dei in aeternum manet).

I'm not really familiar with the antinomies of Kant, and I should be looking it up. Here they are. Interesting. One could learn more about that. Anyhow, we see the limits to such intellectual pursuits. We can be sure of nothing, even science. (Science makes truth claims, but it is always being tested and changed. What kind of truth is it?) Only the revealed word can have any certainty. -- Wow.

p. 38.

Precisely because he rejected "probability" as the enemy of faith, he considered the natural knowledge of God to be of limited value. "The right faith," he says, "is complete trust of the heart in Christ."
But the natural knowledge of God is by its very nature subject to doubt, and human reason can never come to a sure knowledge of God. but sure knowledge is what we must have, if we are to have peace of conscience. This, to Luther, was always basic to the whole problem.
It is just at this point that Luther parts company with neo-orthodoxy and its emphasis on the unreliability of the natural "proofs." Up to this point there is a certain similarity between Luther's thought and that of Kierkegaard, although, so far as I know, Luther never said that the proofs were "harmful" to faith, as Kierkegaard did. But the new fashion in theology has reduced all religious knowledge to the level of natural theology, at least so far as intellectual certainty is concerned. Emil Brunner, for example, says that when the church seeks for certainties she is doing something that always turns out to be disastrous. For that reason he opposes the concept of divinely inspired, and therefore "infallible," doctrine. He calls upon the church to recognize the "element of untruth which clings to every human formulation of divine truth" and the fact "that in our hands the divine revelation is always mingled with error and arrogance."
[However] For Luther the doctrines of faith were infallible and certain. He would have criticized the spirit of intellectual doubt and uncertainty that neo-orthodoxy has introduced into the church much more severely than he criticized the vacillations of Cicero and the heathen.

Publishing House (www.nph.net). All rights reserved. Reprinted with

permission.

Luther and Proofs from Natural Theology

2011-07-10T16:04:00.003-06:00

Becker, p. 26.

Contrary to the approach of neo-orthodoxy, Luther held that the fault for man's failure to know God and to read the record correctly lies not at the doorstep of the revelation, whether in the works or in the Word, but in the depravity of human nature.

It would be difficult, for example, to imagine Luther agreeing with the views of John Hutchison, who writes,

"Concerning their subjective or persuasive force, it may be pointed out that the arguments, while they tend to sustain the faith of those already convinced of belief in God, are seldom convincing to those without that faith. It is characteristic of genuine proof that it communicates conviction to minds hitherto unconvinced. What kind of proof are they which lack this quality? It is difficult to avoid the conclusion that they are covertly circular, assuming what they ought to conclude."

... He [Luther] would never have asked, as Hutchison does, "What kind of proofs are these which lack this quality?" He just did not think that way. Instead Luther would has asked, "how fallen, how blind, and how wicked is man, that he can not and he will not see what God has so clearly and so graciously revealed!" In the final analysis, Luther and Hutchison and neo-orthodox theologians agree that natural man is without sure and certain knowledge of God, but they would undoubtedly disagree vehemently on the premise on which that conclusion is built. Neo-orthodoxy would say that man lacks faith in God because no revelation has taken place. Luther would say that man lacks sure knowledge because he refuses the revelation. In spite of everything that has been written since Kierkegaard became the fashion in theology, the "proofs," for Luther, have a great deal more validity than is commonly supposed. This is not difficult to establish.

p.28.

In one of his sermons Luther observed:

If the natural law were not written in the heart and given by God, one would have to preach a long time before the conscience would be touched.... But because it is previously written in the heart, although it is dark and completely faded, it is reawakened by the Word, so that the heart must confess that what the commandment says is right: that one should honor a God, love and serve him, because he alone is good and does good not only to the pious but also to the wicked.

It is evident that Luther would sooner have agreed with the Platonic doctrine of anamnesis than with the dictum of Aquinas, "There is nothing in the intellect which is not previously in the senses."

end of quoting Becker

This whole thing is totally fascinating to me because it comes up again and again. When talking with Atheists, the question of morality relates to this. Can you live moral lives without God? (The last atheist I talked to had a slogan: Be good without God!) The teaching and the usefulness of proofs of God's existence ties in and how often have we disagreed on that. My doctrine professor for one person insisted that they can do nothing in advancing faith. I had told him that I found the cosmological proof cogent and he said: "That's because you believe already." I didn't like the answer.

Then there is also this new book on Natural Law which we have started and should dovetail here.

I am also quite glad that there could be things in the intellect which have not been first in the senses. Aquinas was so smart but he messed so many things up. There we hit again the limits of reason.

From The Foolishness of God by Siegbert Becker (c) 1982 Northwestern

Publishing House (www.nph.net). All rights reserved. Reprinted with

permission.

The foolishness of God, the place of reason in the theology of Martin Luther

2011-07-09T16:34:00.006-06:00

"The foolishness of God" by Siegbert Becker came in the mail a couple of days ago, a used book from Amazon. It came highly recommended by Larry Hughes and I think James Swan also liked it. So far it is an easy, well-organized read. I've read the first two chapters and the last chapter.

I will quote a bit from page 11, which received the most high-lighting so far.

Neo-orthodoxy's distinction between faith in Christ and faith in statements, or 'faith in a book,' is artificial and contrary to reason. By rejecting "propositional revelation" and making the Bible only a "record of" and "witness to" revelation, the neo-orthodox theologians drain faith of its intellectual content. They make it little more than an emotional response to a "divine self-disclosure" which takes place not through the words of Scripture, though possibly in conjunction with them.
Emil Brunner, for example, says that: "faith means to be gripped by the Word of God [by this he does not mean the words of Scripture]; it means that a person submits in the very center of his being, in his heart, to Him to whom he belongs, because He has created him for Himself.... But this does not mean an intellectual understanding, but a personal encounter." [emphasis added]
The false antithesis which Brunner sets up here is one against which we must always be on our guard. In positing such a sharp distinction between "intellectual understanding" and "personal encounter" (as some call it "total commitment"), neo-orthodoxy betrays its Calvinistic and Zwinglian roots.
The Formula of Concord teaches that the assurance of our faith is to be based on the fact that God's grace and the promise of the gospel are universal and that this promise is made in all earnestness by God. Since Calvinism rejects the universality of the gospel promise, a consistent Calvinist can never find assurance in that promise. Instead, he seeks it within the experience of his conversion, or, in neo-orthodox terms, in his "personal encoutner" with God, who speaks directly to the heart.
Luther, on the other hand, always exalted the Word. The Holy Spirit, according to Luther, does not wish to deal with us other than through the spoken Word and the sacraments. The faculties of human reason are therefore necessary to grasp and to understand what the Word proclaims."

The questions in my mind are: who are the neo-orthodox? What was and happened with their teaching? How does the paradox about the use of reason in understanding God parallel this question of relating faith in Christ vs. word, and the false dichotomies which have been set up by some. Have these false dichotomies risen from liberalism or Calvinism, or are those two somehow related? Does the theology around a "living word" clash with the revealed word in scripture?

So much.

From The Foolishness of God by Siegbert Becker (c) 1982 Northwestern

Publishing House (www.nph.net). All rights reserved. Reprinted with

permission.

Going out on a limb

2011-07-06T11:36:00.005-06:00

This will offend some and I don't want to be too hypocritical, but this is coming to me today:

Steve and I have been commenting on a site called the nakedpastor where the author of many pictures and cartoons illustrates the problems he and other have and have had with the "church". Some of it reminds me of i-monk, which I've always enjoyed. And the discussion, though often vigorous, was usually gracious and constructive. Many people there witness to the "post-evangelical-wilderness" but have not given up on faith or Jesus Christ. They know they must have him and his grace or they might as well expire. There was always that which we could share. Michael Spencer was also always very forthright and transparent with his readers while being gentle. This was incredibly refreshing and his greatest strength.

I don't get that same sense at the nakedpastor. There is some transparency attempted with the commentary on the pictures but it usually is guarded in some way, questions are not answered directly. One does not get the sense that we are on a quest for truth together, rather that truth is individual. Yes, No? Or we need to just listen more to ourselves and our spirit and God's Spirit and not be manipulated? Maybe that's it. I find the ambiguity distressing. I like to think for myself and speak honestly. Surely, I am a posterchild for this. Yet, I also have something to confess.

There is a way of being "prophetic" and a way not not being "prophetic" at all. Yet, I sympathize with those who struggle with their faith and with what they have experienced and how they feel they have been abused. Abuse should be exposed. All manner of abuse should be exposed and the blogger exposes some. I am with him there. There we are on the right track.

I am trying to listen with an open mind, though, and hear the pain. Still, the answer is decent, Christ-centered, scriptural, teaching about sin and forgiveness, and love and truth.

The other thing I am reminded of, is a piece by CBC radio "Tapestry" not too long ago on one of Daniel Dennett's attacks on Christianity by focusing on disillusioned pastors. This was a very sad piece to me. In a way what came out of it for me was: if you don't believe anything, then just get out of the arena. You cannot help anyone. Is this too harsh? And it is not about you and your disillusionment. And yet, also, compassion for those who lost faith. Very much. (I commented on the much commented on show and received a lot of thumbs down, one of the most rated comments. 10 thumbs up and 31 thumbs down.)

What Dennett asserts at the end is preposterous. Since "real scholarship" shows how everything is "wrong" about the Bible, practically, everyone is found in a hypocritical and soul destroying situation. Well, you are wrong there Mr. Dennett.

(The whole subject of pastors "losing faith" also relates to recent discussion with the Reformed on whether one can lose one's faith, the famed doctrine of "perseverance of the saints". Their answer would be: he never had faith to start with. I think these former pastors would tell you differently. I am suggesting, however, what their idea of what "faith" might have been was too anemic. See Bror on this, today. Also the summary on the first commandment.)

Apologetics and comparative religious studies, however, need to be done and making clear statements "metaphoric" unnecessarily or fitting clear texts into your system and twisting them on the way must be stopped (Calvin). The theology of glory must be given up for the theology of the cross. The Law and Gospel must be cleanly distinguished.

The Sixth Commandment

2011-07-05T09:20:00.000-06:00

You shall not violate the marriage union.
(Ehebrechen).

[I chose to go this way, because "adultery" is only one way of doing this.]

We should fear and love God so that we live clean and decent lives in both words and deeds and that each one love and honor their marriage partner.

93. Matthew 5: 27-28. You have learned that it was told the people of old: You shall not commit adultery. but I say to you: whoever looks at a woman and desires her, he has already broken marriage with her in his heart.

94. Hebrews 13:4. Marriage is to be kept in honor by all, and the marriage bed remain undefiled. The Lord will judge the immoral and adulterer.

________

This is one way we know Jesus is Lord. He knows our hearts. Faith is cradled there and from it all other things flow.

but help him in every physical need

2011-07-05T09:18:00.000-06:00

...but help him in every physical need.

89. Ephesians 4:32. Be friendly towards each other from a sincere heart, and forgive one another, just as God has forgiven you in Christ.

90. Matthew 5:44. But I say to you: love your enemies; bless those who curse you; do good to those who hate you; pray for those who insult and persecute you.

91. Romans 12:18. As far as it is possible and the matter lies with you, be at peace with all people.

92. Matthew 5:9. Blessed are the peacemakers, because they will be called the children of God.

___________

by the grace of God; so help us God.

The Fifth Commandment

2011-07-04T09:58:00.000-06:00

You shall not kill.

We should fear and love God so that we cause no harm to our neighbor's body but are of assistance to him in any physical needs he may have.

You shall not kill.

81. Genesis 9:6. Whoever sheds the blood of man, his blood shall also be shed by men; this is because God has made man in his image.

82. Proverbs 24,8. He who predetermines to hurt others, him you shall call an evil person.

We should not harm our neighbor's body.

83. Matthew 5:21-22. You heard that it was said to the people of old: you shall not kill but whoever kills, he shall be liable to judgment. But I say to you: whoever is angry with his brother, he is guilty of judgment and whoever says to his brother: 'Racha', he is guilty to be brought to council; but who ever says: 'You fool', he is guilty of the fires of hell.

84. 1 John 3:15. Whoever hates his brother is a murderer; and you know that a murderer will not have eternal life.

85. Proverbs 24:17. Do not rejoice in the fall of your enemy, and your heart not be glad in his misery.

86. James 3:14-16. But if you have bitter enmity and rancor in your heart, do not be proud of that, and do not lie against the truth; because this is not the wisdom which comes from above, but wordy, human and from the devil; because where ever there is envy and disunity, there is disorder and simply and evil thing.

87. Romans 12:19. Do not take your own revenge, my loved ones, leave it be, giving room to God's wrath because it is written: "Vengence is mine; I will repay, says the Lord."

88. Jeremiah 9:8. There false tongues are murderous arrows; with their mouth they speak in a friendly manner to their neighbor, but in their heart they are lying in wait for him.

-----------------

Phew.

Dear Lord Jesus, have mercy, we are all undone. Our hearts are murderous pits.

Pastor Fisk on "Where are the Lutherans"

2011-07-01T21:08:00.003-06:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xMCayHARWSM&feature=share

Watch it. It's long but it's good.

New blog

2011-07-01T20:35:00.000-06:00

http://goandmake.ca/

Rev. Glenn Schaeffer has started a blog on missions!

Sasse on reformed on baptism from Pr. H. blog

2011-07-01T20:29:00.000-06:00

http://mercyjourney.blogspot.com/2011/07/sasse-on-reformed-teaching-on-baptism.html

Luther and Natural Law

2011-07-01T15:47:00.001-06:00

I'm supposed to lay paving stones, but such slave labor is not my favorite thing and thus have detoured myself to a new book. "Natural Law: a Lutheran Reappraisal."

This book contains a collection of essays on the subject by a number of current authors, some of whom or their families I know via Facebook. The world has shrunk and scholarship is amazing.

The essay I just finished is titled: "Luther's Pragmatic Appropriation of the Natural Law Tradition" by Thomas D. Pearson who is an associate professor of philosophy at the University of Texas. It delineates what Luther rejects and affirms in the Natural Law Tradition. Apparently, he makes quite a mish-mash out of it over the course of his career, yet it becomes clear that he does believe in the existence of something called "natural law". (p. 49). The essay finishes with this summary: "Ultimately, Luther creates a new account of natural law morality: instinctive, not rational; provisional, not ontologically secured; pragmatic, not divinely commanded; chastened by sin, not robust with natural human possibilities. When Luther invokes natural law, it is with a different insight than that supplied to him by the classical natural law tradition." (p. 63).

So much for that.

Fourth commandment cont.

2011-07-01T09:39:00.000-06:00

2. Similarly to the masters, such as a) the authorities

73. Romans 13:1,2,4. Everyone live in subjection to the authorities, which has the power over him. For there is no authority which has not been given by God; where ever there are authorities they have been instituted by God. Whoever puts himself against the authorities is resisting God's order; however those who resist will receive their judgment. Because it is a servant of God to your own good. So if you are doing evil, be afraid, for it does not bear the sword for no reason; the authorities are a servant of God, an exacter of punishment for those who do wrong.

74. 1 Peter 2:17. Give honor to everyone, love the brothers, fear God and honor the king.

75. Matthew 22:21. Give to Ceasar what is Ceasar's and God what is God's.

76. 1 Tim. 2, 1-3. So I admonish you, that firstly one make petitions, intercession and thanksgiving for all people, for the king and all in authority, in order that we may lead a quiet and peaceful life in all godliness and decency. For so to do is good and pleasing to God, our Savior.

b) to teachers

77. Hebrews 13:17. Obey your teachers and follow them because they are watching over your souls in a way for which they will be accountable, so that they may do it with joy and not with complaints, which would not serve you.

78. 1 Thess. 5:12-13. We ask you dear brothers that you will respect those who labor over you and lead and admonish you in the Lord. Love them all the more because of this work and be peaceable.

c) to the Masters/Lords

79. Ephesians 6:5-8. You servants obey your earthly masters with fear and trembling, in sincerity of heart as to Christ, not alone to please men but as servants of Christ, so that you will fulfill the will of God from your heart and gladly. Think about this, that you are serving the Lord and not man; and know that each one who does good will receive his reward from the Lord whether he be a slave or a free man.

80. 1 Peter 2:18. You servants be subject to your masters with all respect, and not only to the ones who are good and gentle, but also to those who act strangely.

Look at the little tyke go!

2011-06-30T12:17:00.002-06:00

The Fourth Commandment

2011-06-30T11:37:00.000-06:00

You shall honor your father and your mother.

We should fear and love God so that we do not despise or anger our parents; but instead we should honor them, serve them, obey them, and love them dearly.

A We shall not despise or anger our parents.

67. Proverbs 30:17. An eye which ridicules the father and despises the mother, must be hacked out by the ravens at the creek and devoured by the young eagles.

68. Proverbs 20:20. Whoever curses his father and his mother, his light will go out in the midst of darkness.

B But honor them.

69. Matthew 15:4. You shall honor your father and mother. But whoever curses his father and mother shall be put to death.

C serve and obey them.

70. Ephesians 6:1-3. Children obey your parents in the Lord; for this is right. Honor your father and your mother is the first commandment with a promise, so that it will go well with you and you will live long on earth.

71. Proverbs 1:8. My child, obey the discipline of your father, and do not neglect the command of your mother.

D dearly love them.

72. 1 Tim. 5:4. To return good to your parents is a good deed and pleasing to God.

Chemnitz from yesterday's Treasury/ on Christ's presence in the supper.

2011-06-30T11:16:00.000-06:00

This guy is good. One of the other famous Martin's.

"But the proper, simple, and natural meaning of the words of institution teaches that Christ Himself is present with us in the celebration of the Supper with both His deity and His flesh, and that he comes to us in order to lay hold on us (Phil. e:12) and join us to Himself as intimately as possible. This brings sweetest comfort. for Christ, both God and man, must lay hold on us in order that there may be a union between Him and us. But we, weighed down by the burden of sin and pressed under the weight of our infirmity, are not yet able to enter the secret places of heaven (Col. 2:18) and penetrate to Him in glory. He Himself therefore comes to us in order to lay hold upon us with that nature by which he is our Brother. And because our weakness in this life cannot bear the glory of His majesty (Matt. 7:12 ff.; Acts 9:3 ff.), therefore His body and blood are present, distributed, and received under the bread and wine. Nor does He will that we wander around the gates of heaven uncertain in which area of heaven we ought to look for Christ in His human nature or whether we can find Him; but in the supper He Himself is present in the external celebration and shows by visible signs where he wills to be present with His body and blood, and there we may safely seek Him and surely find Him, for there He Himself through the ministry distributes His body and blood to the communicants. There most sweet and necessary comforts will be completely snatched away from us if the substantial presence, distribution, and reception of Christ's body and blood are removed from the Supper." Martin Chemnitz in The Lord's Supper, translated by J.A.O. Preus, pp. 187-188. CPH

For those of us, who have believed this and come to the supper needy and empty, we know what it means to receive there, bringing nothing. We cannot come to him and can not find him in heaven. But he has deigned to be born a human being, dwell among us, suffer, die and rise, and surely he is also with us in the supper, as he said.

3rd Commandment

2011-06-29T11:49:00.001-06:00

You shall sanctify the Holy Day.

What does this mean?

We should fear and love God so that we do not despise preaching and God's word, but rather hold it sacred and gladly hear and learn it.

A You shall sanctify the Holy Day.

55. Genesis 2:3. God blessed the seventh day and made it holy because he rested on it from all his works.

56. Exodus 20:9-10. You shall work on sixth days and look after all your affairs; but the seventh day is a Sabbath of the Lord. You shall not work on it, nor your son, nor your daughter, nor your servant or your maidservant, nor your cattle, nor the stranger within your gates.

57. Ezekiel 20:20. You shall keep my Sabbath days holy, so that they will be a sign between me and you; you will know that I am the Lord, your God.

B We shall not despise preaching and God's word.

58. Proverbs 13:13. Whoever despises the word is ruining himself; but whoever fears the law will be rewarded.

59. Hebrews 10:25. Let us not stop meeting together, as some have become accustomed to doing; but let us admonish one another, and this all the more as we see the day approaching.

C But hold it sacred.

60. Psalm 119:11. I treasure your word in my heart that I might not sin against you.

61. James 1, 22-24. But also be doers of the word and not only hearers, so that you are not deceiving yourselves. Because if someone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who is looking at his face in a mirror. And when he has looked at it, he goes away and forgets what he has seen.

62. James 1:27. A pure and unspoiled service to God the Father is to visit the orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself undefiled by the world.

D and gladly hear and learn it.

63. Psalm 26, 6-8. I keep to your altar, Lord, where one hears the voice of thanksgiving and where are preached all your wonderful deeds. Lord, I love your house and the place where your honor dwells.

64. Ecclesiastes 5:1. Guard your steps when you go to the house of God and come so that you will listen.

65. Colossians 3:16. Let the word of Christ dwell among you richly, in all wisdom; teach and admonish one another with psalms and songs of praise and lovely spiritual songs, and sing to the Lord in your heart.

66. Luke 11:28. Blessed are those who hear the word of God and also treasure it.

In Memory

2011-06-28T11:43:00.000-06:00

Stefan would have been 21 years old today.

30 months.

The county tried to fix the intersection again without actually moving it to a spot up the hill. Who is in charge of these public works?

Sharing with a Calvinist/Fisk

2011-06-26T17:30:00.002-06:00

Fisk on sharing with a Calvinist.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EHcbEaawfro&feature=player_embedded