My father would say, “I bet you can’t rub your head with one hand and pat your stomach with the other.” Try it; it’s hard, but is it possible. He would also say, “I bet you can’t grab yourself by the neck and pick yourself up.” This you can’t to. You have to be outside of yourself to do that. This is the problem with those who have faith in faith, by the way. Their faith is from within not without and it waxes and wanes with how they feel. But I digress, but not too far. Continue reading
Sola Structura
This may be an apocryphal story, but I was told my someone that the sainted Herman Sasse and Kurt Maquart were attending the vaunted Vatican II Council. As things were going on and on and on about this or that bureaucratic point St. Herman leaned over to St. Kurt and whispered, “Sola Structura.” Well, that ain’t us, is it? Continue reading
On Exploded Ordinance
If you drive about a major military installation, you will find signs warning you to be aware of live ordinance. An EOD, Explosive Ordinance Disposal, officer told me in 1993 that every year around Fort Hood someone is injured or dies because a passed-down ‘heirloom’ explodes. In a biography of the famous and furious Israeli warrior, Ariel Sharon, the story is related how his 11-year-old son took down an antique rifle that hung on the wall of the family home telling his father he would be out in front playing with it. He gave his father a playful salute and went out. Continue reading
Is This Confessional Lutheranism? A Critique of Confessing the Gospel, Volume I
The following is based on a presentation to my Bible Class on April 22, 2018. It was suggested that I put it in a blog. I would like to think I have refined it and not watered it down, but when self-editing it’s hard to know. In any event I publish this because I thought surely Confessional Lutherans would be on this like white on rice. Continue reading
Posted in For Pastors Only, Missouri Megatrends
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The Eww Factor Isn’t it
Joe Dallas, former homosexual activist, now married, father, and family advocate calls it the “Ick Factor” (Speaking of Homosexuality, 32). “Eww” is what comes to my mine. Choose whatever exclamation you will, Christians need to recognize that when it comes to homosexuality the Christian Continue reading
Posted in Families, For Anyone who dares
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Look to the Rock from which You were Hewn – Visit to a Baptist Church
“Look to the rock from which you were hewn,” is a call from Isaiah 51:1. Israel was to look to Abraham and Sara from which the Promised Seed came and therefore their righteousness did. In popular parlance it means to look back to where you came from. Contemporary worship of every stripe, every denomination, and yes even the oxymoronic non-denominational, Continue reading
Neither a Doctor’s or an Actor’s Look at Calvary Does it Justice
I’ve read the 1963 work A Doctor Looks at Calvary; you’ve probably watched Mel Gibson’s 2004 movie The Passion and while a medical doctor in my congregation says that the book is accurate and those who have watched the movie say the same, I don’t think either do it justice. Continue reading
Posted in Contemporary Worship, For Pastors Only
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A Janus-faced Synod
There are words in English that mean two different things. For example, ‘bolt’ means both secure in place and to dart away. ‘Dust’ means to both remove material and spread material. ‘Trim’ means to both add and to take away. ‘Cleave’ means to separate and to adhere firmly. The technical term for such words is contronym. The popular name for them is Janus-faced words from the Greek god Janus that had two faces looking in opposite directions (Crazy English, 86-90). Continue reading
Politics and Peeing on New Hay – Rerun
This is not deja vu. You might have read this in May of 2008; you could have read it in 1998. Think of this as my Carthago delenda est. I am republishing because both at the district and synodical level the political machinations begin, and I find myself asking myself for the umpteenth time: if the “wrath of man worketh not the righteousness of God” (James 1:20), can the politics of men? Greater minds than mine have believed and said, “Yes.” Well, Cato’s call wasn’t heeded till after he died. Continue reading
A Modest Plea for Retaining the Holy Ghost
To paraphrase Luther, the Holy Ghost Himself remains without our prayer or my plea. My pleas is for using the title Holy Ghost as opposed to Holy Spirit. Yes, I know the Greek and Hebrew are better translated ‘Spirit’ not ‘Ghost.’ Yes, I know you have to explain to a kid what’s all this about a Holy Ghost, and therein lies the basis for my plea. Continue reading
Posted in Families, For Pastors Only
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