Enthusiasm in the LCMS
Two links were added to Why we joined the Lutheran Church:
Don’t Worry About Food and Drink
This sermon by Rick Stuckwisch, Ambassador of Reconciliation, complements What does it mean to seek the kingdom of God?
Do not worry about what you will wear tomorrow, but seek to return to the white wedding gown of your Baptism each and every day. Thus are you clothed and not found naked.
So, too, does God your Father feed you with the Bread of Life, the Body of Christ, which is real food for body and soul, for life everlasting. And He gives you to drink from the Cup of Salvation, the overflowing Chalice which is the New Testament in Christ’s Blood, poured out for you for the forgiveness of all your sins.
The One Thing Needful
Comfort in every adversity
These errors {of the Reformed and others on the Incarnation}, and all that are contrary and opposed to the [godly and pure] doctrine presented above, we reject and condemn as contrary to the pure Word of God, the Scriptures of the holy prophets and apostles, and our Christian faith and confession. And we admonish all Christians, since in the Holy Scriptures Christ is called a mystery upon which all heretics dash their heads, not to indulge in a presumptuous manner in subtile inquiries, concerning such mysteries, with their reason, but with the venerated apostles simply to believe, to close the eyes of their reason, and bring into captivity their understanding to the obedience of Christ, 2 Cor. 10, 5, and to take comfort [seek most delightful and sure consolation], and hence to rejoice without ceasing in the fact that our flesh and blood is placed so high at the right hand of the majesty and almighty power of God. Thus we shall assuredly find constant consolation in every adversity, and remain well guarded from pernicious error.
The Solid Declaration of the Formula of Concord, The Person of Christ, emphases and “{of the Reformed and others on the Incarnation},” added. The title of this post directly quotes the Kolb and Wengert translation.
For further discussion of the stumbling block the Incarnation poses to fallen reason, see Absolute Paradox: “the god in time.”
Modern Reformation
The article “If God exists, why doesn’t he prove it?” appeared today on the web site of Modern Reformation with its New Atheism issue.
With contributors “from Anglican, Baptist, Congregational, Episcopal, Lutheran, Presbyterian, and Reformed churches,” Modern Reformation describes itself as “the leading voice for confessing evangelicals across the Reformation spectrum.” Should the Lutheran Reformation and the Zwinglian Reformation be considered together as one Protestant Reformation?
Forgiveness denied
A link to this ER clip was added to Theology of the Cross: the Faith Luther Confessed. See this reaction by Higher Things.
The Historic Lectionary
A link to HistoricLectionary.com as a frame makes Dawning Realm’s prayer page (“Worship in the kingdom”) more helpful as an aid to daily worship.
If God exists, why doesn’t he prove it?
The author of The End of Faith asked, “How is it fair for God to have designed a world which gives such ambiguous testimony to his existence?” Christians typically respond to the new atheists with answers from the Intelligent Design movement or from other developments of Thomas Aquinas’s “proofs” of God’s existence. By contrast, orthodox Christians of the first century, far from advancing philosophical arguments for the existence of God, maintained that those who deny his existence suppress the knowledge they already have of him from the things he created…
