Gottesblog transparent background.png

Gottesblog

A blog of the Evangelical Lutheran Liturgy

Filter by Month
 
Posts by Heath Curtis
…That you may eat and drink with Me at my table in my kingdom

Have 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 More
Heath Curtis Comments
On repentance and faith

An 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 More
Funny from Gerhard

Another 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 More
Heath Curtis Comment
Does God reward good works with temporal blessings?

Joel 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 More
Heath Curtis Comments
The Importance of Vanilla

Much 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 More
Heath CurtisComment
Christianity and Culture

This 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 More
On the radio at 4:40pm central...

I'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 More
Heath CurtisComment
Sanctification is noticeable

"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. 

Read More