Read the first section of this essay for one of the best examples of explanatory hermeneutics I have ever read.
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Pride is the chief sin. It is the sin against the First Commandment, and as every sin is against the First Commandment, every sin is pride.
Read MoreNote: This 2010 piece penned by Fr. Curtis connects rubrics, body language, and the way that ceremonies teach. ~ Ed.
Read MoreHave you ever pondered the positioning of the Our Father immediately prior to the Words of the Testament? The Words of the Testament are the Words in which Christ established His perpetual remembrance and in which He gives us a share in the Kingdom that is to come. Having given the Father thanks for every good gift He gives us in His Son and joining in the adoration of the heavenly hosts, we proceed to ask our Father for everything in the Our Father that through the Words of Institution Christ will then most surely grant and deliver to us.
Read MoreFrom this month's Gerhard translation work. The forthcoming volume On Justification is a must read. So many of our contemporary questions, especially regarding the Antinomian/Radical Grace strains within today's Lutheranism and wider Evangelicalism, are dealt with in fine detail.
Read MoreAn interLutheran/interWebs debate continues to rage on the topic of the antinomianism, or Law and Gospel, or Repentance and Faith, or the Third Use, or...whatever you want to call it. As with most debates in our Instant/Lite Culture, there is often more heat than light generated.
Read MoreWhat does saving faith look like? And what does it not look like? The chief teacher of the Augsburg Confession was not afraid to ask and answer those questions.
Read MoreHere's my first draft of a sermon for Sunday in the context of my flock's life in an America that continues to shed the last vestiges of being a society of Christians based on Biblical norms. Does anyone have a better collect for the conclusion? Other thoughts on what to say this Sunday and how to say it?
Read MoreWhile I sympathize with preachers who want to exert their freedom from government intrusion, I think the idea of endorsing candidates from the pulpit is beneath the dignity of God's House. I live in a small town and I've lived here a while now.
Read MoreAnother benefit of the long form, multivolume dogmatics is that the author has the time to include funny stuff. Gerhard's volume On the Church has a lot of great laughs, especially when examining Romanist "miracles." And here's a line from the volume I'm currently editing, On Repentance.
Read MoreJoel Osteen is obviously a clown and a hack. You can't pry riches out of God's hands or make Him your debtor with the power of positive thinking. But here Gerhard reminds us that every strong lie has some kernel of truth buried in there somewhere. This is from the volume I'm still editing, On the Gospel and On Repentance - but right now you can pick up his work On Sin & Free Choice, which is a very good volume indeed and certainly cleared up some muddled thinking in my head.
Read MoreMuch of our editorial staff returned home from Seward, NE, late last week where the Synod was holding the Institute on Liturgy, Preaching, and Church Music. I won't try for a full review here, especially since due to other commitments I was unable to catch the whole conference - I was only there the last couple days. But our esteemed Senior Editor will have a full review out shortly (I can sum it up, though: Fantastic!).
Read MoreThis is a great poem. But as soon as I read it, I was sad. Do you think that could be published in the New Yorker today? I don't think so - because the average literate American would no longer understand even these straightforward Biblical allusions.
Read MoreI'm scheduled to be on with Rev. Todd Wilken of Issues, Etc., to talk about the recent public prayer case decided by the US Supreme Court, Town of Greece v. Galloway. Tune in today, or listen to the podcast at your convenience anytime at issuesetc.org.
Read MoreSo the Supremes refused to say stop (in the name of love) to prayers at town council meetings. But only if the pray-ers try to be "inclusive" and because, well, nobody really means it anyway.
Read More"O God, save us from the fury of the Northmen!" And then, all of a sudden, the Northmen weren't so bad. They got baptized. They started building churches instead of sacking them. They replaced Beowulf's moral code of blustery boasting (reminiscent, as Prof. Balot used to say, of both Homer's Achilles and any ganga rapper) with the code of chivalry.
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