Quote of the Day

"The reason why we are so neurotic is that we worship work, we work at play and we play at worship." Kenneth Korby

Ascension quote

"Whoever truly believes in Christ has eternal life. Even though he still feels sin, death, and sorrow, he nonetheless possesses righteousness, life, comfort, and joy in heaven through Christ." Martin Luther.

Salvation and Scripture

For it ought above all to be settled and established among Christians that the Holy Scriptures are a spiritual light far brighter than the sun itself, especially in things that are necessary to salvation - Martin Luther

A Future Present

Baptism and the Lord's Supper are not "types," not prefigurements or parables. They do indeed point to the future, but it is a future already present with its gifts of grace. - Hermann Sasse

Communion Quote:

It is through His human nature that Christ is our Paschal Lamb sacrificed; and therefore, it must be through His human nature that Christ, our Paschal Lamb, is eaten. If it was not through His divinity, separated from His humanity, that He was sacrificed upon the cross, it cannot be that through His divine nature, separate from His humanity, He is given to us at His table. Charles Krauth

Love Begets Love

This is the miracle of conversion by the gracious working of God the Holy Spirit.  He creates faith in us through the Gospel, that is, He brings us to our hold on Jesus.  Our coming to faith is not an act of our free will.  Yet it is not by compulsion; we may resist.  Our conversion is the miracle of creative love.  God's love in Christ awakens us to responding love.  Love cannot be compelled or directed.  Love begets love, and there is no greater love than the love of  God in Christ.  -- Dr. Norman Nagel

Two Natures, and the Mystical Exchange.

"Just as divine and human things are predicated about Christ because of the personal union of the two natures in Christ, so also through the spiritual union of God and the faithful soul, and Christ and the Church, become one mystical thing, 'one spirit' (1 Cor. 6:17), about which both human and divine things are predicated... Through this mystical exchange, Christ transfers our sins to Himself and grants His righteousness to us through faith. This is not a bare and verbal predication, but a most effective and, so to speak, most real imputation." Johann Gerhard

Error in the Church

"When error is admitted into the Church, it will be found that the stages of its progress are always three. It begins by asking toleration. Its friends say to the majority: You need not be afraid of us; we are few, and weak; only let us alone; we shall not disturb the faith of others. The church has her standards of doctrine; of course we shall never interfere with them; we ask only for ourselves to be spared interference with our private opinions. Indulged in this for a time, error goes on to assert equal rights. Truth and error are two balancing forces. The Church shall do nothing which looks like deciding between them; that would be partiality. It is bigotry to assert any superior right for the truth. We are to agree to differ, and any favoring of the truth, because it is truth, is partisanship. What the friends of truth and error hold in common is fundamental. Anything on which they differ is ipso facto non-essential. Anybody who makes account of such a thing is a disturber of the peace of the church. Truth and error are two co-ordinate powers and the great secret of church-statesmanship is to preserve the balance between them. From this point error soon goes on to its natural end, which is to assert supremacy. Truth started with tolerating, it comes to be merely tolerated, and that only for a time. Error claims a preference for its judgments on all disputed points. It puts men into positions, not as at first in spite of their departure from the Church’s faith, but in consequence of it. Their recommendation is that they repudiate that faith, and poistion is given them to teach others to repudiate it, and to make them skilful in combating it." Charles P. Krauth

Sermon On Soberness and Moderation

There's a lot of myths about Martin Luther floating around out there, one of them being that he was a drunk. While it is true that he loved to share a drink with his friends and talk theology, he certainly was against drunkenness. Neither was he afraid to use colorful language to prove it:

"It is possible to tolerate a little elevation, when a man takes a drink or two too much after working hard and when he is feeling low. This must be called a frolic. But to sit day and night, pouring it in and pouring it out again, is piggish... all food is a matter of freedom, even a modest drink for one's pleasure. If you do not wish to conduct yourself this way, if you are going to go beyond this and be a born pig and guzzle beer and wine, then, if this cannot be stopped by the rulers, you must know that you cannot be saved. For God will not admit such piggish drinkers into the kingdom of heaven [cf. Gal. 5:19-21]... If you are tired and downhearted, take a drink; but this does not mean being a pig and doing nothing but gorging and swilling... You should be moderate and sober; this means that we should not be drunken, though we may be exhilarated." Martin Luther, May 18th 1539.

Death

Do you see how again He does not promise them deliverance from death, but permits them to die, granting them more than if He had not allowed them to suffer it? Because deliverance from death is not near so great as persuading men to despise death. - St. John Chrysostom, Homily 34 on Matthew

Into Our Grasp.

God binds Himself to our humanity, wine and bread, through His Word and words to give Himself and His salvation into our grasp. Luther's basis for this is simply the fact that this is what God has done and does. He will therefore allow nothing that he sees as a diminution or disruption of this. The heart of his concern is not some notional omnipresence, but what God has said, done, and gives. Here is the contingency of what God does and says which cannot survive in any philosophical system. -- Dr. Norman Nagel

Quote Of the Day.

The sun begins the day and ends it, and yet exists before the day and endures after it. O Lord Jesus, You began our salvation in Paradise and carried it through the high noon of the scorching cross, and You shall end it on the Last Day, in the evening of the world, and on the day of the restoration of all things You shall summon us to gladness. You are before all ages from eternity, and You endure forever. -- Valerius Herberger, The Great Works of God, p. 86

Pastoral Care to Former Evangelicals

"They basically have suffered from Christ-less Christianity or maybe its more accurately a cross-less Christianity. They do have a Christ that is taught them. Christ as the life coach or Christ as the entertainer. The Jews seek for a sign, the Greeks seek after Wisdom, but Americans desire to be entertained. It's not that they're getting Christ. They're getting a Christ. They're just not getting a Christ that comes to us on the cross, a Christ that is centered in his death and resurrection for you. And this leads people into a failure and inability to cope with life, reeling from the effects of sin and death." Pr. Jeremy Rhode, Issues etc interview.

Theology of the Cross Quotes

"A God who is everywhere is as useless as a God who is nowhere. What we need is a God who is somewhere." Dr. Norman Nagel

"God hides himself in order to reveal himself." Rev. Todd Wilken.

A Kleinig Gem

"We, surprisingly, stand in for others [who do not know God] with Christ through our thanksgivings for the blessings that they have received from God. If they prosper and things go well for them, we do not envy them and begrudge their happiness. Instead, we act as if their blessings are ours. We use our access to God to thank Him on their behalf for His loving kindness and generosity to them because they are not yet in the position to do so themselves. This is an aspect of intercession that has received scant attention in recent times, but it was prominent in both Judaism and the Early Church. They believed that the Church was appointed to serve, together with the angels, as a single choir that voiced thanks and praise to God on behalf of the whole human race." -- John Kleinig *Grace Upon Grace*

Put that in your Thanksgiving Holiday Pipe and smoke it.

To paraphrase GK Chesterton: "Church and Tradition is the truest democracy."

"Tradition means giving votes to the most obscure of all classes, our ancestors. It is the democracy of the dead. Tradition refuses to submit to the small and arrogant oligarchy of those who merely happen to be walking about. All democrats object to men being disqualified by the accident of birth; tradition objects to their being disqualified by the accident of death. Democracy tells us not to neglect a good man’s opinion, even if he is our groom; tradition asks us not to neglect a good man’s opinion, even if he is our father. I, at any rate, cannot separate the two ideas of democracy and tradition; it seems evident to me that they are the same idea. We will have the dead at our councils. The ancient Greeks voted by stones; these shall vote by tombstones. It is all quite regular and official, for most tombstones, like most ballot papers, are marked with a cross."

Luther Quote:

"I am more afraid of my own heart than of the pope and all his cardinals. I have within me the great pope, Self."

Death

"If the resurrection doesn't sound like the Gospel, you haven't really considered how great and powerful death is. An ordinary man might conquer a vice. He may fix a hole in his reasoning. But he will never defeat death."

Josh Strodtbeck

Death

There are a lot of different kinds of Good News, but there is little good news in “My argument scored more points than your argument.” But the news that “Christ is risen!” really is Good News for one kind of person: The person who is dying. If Christianity is not a dying word to dying men, it is not the message of the Bible that gives hope now.

The late Michael Spencer, aka, Internet Monk.

Sins

If we make our sins look small, we make Christ look small. -- C. F. W. Walther, Law and Gospel