[Fifth in a series of posts on how to read the Bible]Encore Post: In the Middle Ages, the most popular way of understanding a Bible passage was to look for four meanings in the text — the one that author intended for his readers to find there and other, “deeper” meanings. The problem Martin Luther and the Lutheran reformers found with this method is it allowed a person to find anything they wish in the Bible. So they insisted a principle summed up in the sentence: sensus literalis unus est — “there is one intended meaning [in each passage].”
What they observed is that God used human beings, using human language to speak to his people. To understand what God wants us to believe, then we find that original message, paying attention to the words, sentences, paragraphs, grammar and figures of speech the author uses. We look at the kind of literature it is (is it intended as history? Poetry? Is it a letter? A sermon? What were the customs of that time and place?) Most of the time we do this out of habit. When we do serious study of a passage, however, a good study Bible is very helpful with these efforts.
When most Christians talk about interpreting the Bible literally, they do not mean that we should always take it at face value. It means to understand it according to the words — what the author intended it to say to his readers. So, no one thinks that, when Isaiah said, “the trees clapped their hands” (Isaiah 55:12) that cedars grew limbs to clap. They understand it to be poetry to describe how they move in the wind. When we read the Bible, then, we understand what it says as normal speech when the book it is written in is a letter or a history. We understand it figuratively when the kind of literature it is poetry, parable or similar kinds of writing.
So, this rule tells us to work to find the meaning the author intended to send. It is that message that God wants us to hear and believe. We assume that the passage has only one of these meanings, unless the text tells us otherwise.
[Fourth in a series of posts on how to read the Bible] Encore Post: Many beloved passages in the Bible are as clear as mountain streams fed by melting snow. “In the beginning, God created the Heavens and the Earth.” (Genesis 1:1). “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only son (John 3:16). “God is Love.” (1 John 4:8) These and dozens like them are so clear, we teach them to small children. Yet others are not so clear. Some, like the detailed laws God gave to Israel, we suspect that God no longer wants us to observe. Others don’t seem to make sense to us at all. How can we be sure what they mean for us?
The answer is actually a part of Rule #1: since the Bible is God’s word, we can use one passage to explain others. We can be sure of the interpretation we discover this way, because the words we are using are God’s own words.
Let’s look at a few passages to see how this works. We know that most of the national law God gave to the Kingdom of Israel does not bind us, because St. Paul tells us not to allow anyone to judge us on the basis of them. (Colossians 2:16-23) We know, however, that the Two Great Commandments do, because Jesus tells us to observe them. (Luke 10:26-28) In another place, when God told Abraham to sacrifice his son, we wonder what he was thinking. The author of the Book of Hebrews tells us. Hebrews 11:17-19)
So, when you wonder if there’s more to a passage, look elsewhere in the Bible. God will often give you more insight when you do this.
[Third in a series of posts on how to read the Bible] Encore Post: When you read the Bible as a story, the main plot, salvation history, is all about Jesus (See Rule #2). Yet the Bible is not only a story, it is God’s message to his children. In it, he explains in great detail how he made the world, how it works and what he wants us to do, what happens when we do not do it and how he intends to restore it to its original condition. It gets kind of complicated. That is why God sums it up in two main teachings. Luther and Lutheran theologians call these teachings The Law and The Gospel.
These teachings help us organize all that the God teaches us in his word. The Law is about God’s will for our lives and how he wants us to live it, what happens when we disobey his commandments, what the likelihood is of us doing his will on our own, what the punishment is for rebelling against him and everything associated with the governing authorities he has appointed to keep at least some order in this life. (The Three Uses of the Law)
The Gospel is the good news that God, in his mercy, sent his Son, Jesus, to be born in the womb of the Virgin Mary, suffer, die, rise from the grave on the third day and ascend into heaven for our sakes. It tells us how the death of Christ has destroyed death, earned for us the forgiveness of sins, life and salvation and all of this is given to us by grace alone, received by faith alone for Christ’s sake alone. It contains all the precious things which God promises us because of what Jesus did for us. (See It’s His Story)
The rule teaches us to keep these two teachings straight. When we say the law saves us, we encourage sinners to try to save themselves; we deny them the comfort of the gospel. When we say that forgiveness comes with conditions, we place barriers between Jesus, his Means of Grace and the grace that is his free gift. So, we do what Luther described as the most difficult art — we allow the law to be the law — requiring perfect obedience, condemning us for our inevitable violation of it and pointing us to the gospel. We allow the gospel to be all the precious promises of God’s free grace and encourage his people to rely on it.
Encore Post: As a liturgical church, the Lutheran Church organizes its worship life around a calendar of themes, readings from Scripture, worship services, practices, symbols and prayers known as the church year. It shares much of this organization with other liturgical churches and even some non-liturgical faith traditions.
The most general division in the Church Year is the semester. Tradition divides the church calendar into two parts. The first begins with the first Sunday of Advent and ends with the Day of Pentecost. It is known by several names. Most often, it is called either the Festival Season or the Semester of our Lord. During this half-year, the church focuses on the life and earthly ministry of Jesus.
After the Day of Pentecost, the second half of the year, known as the Semester of the Church, begins. It is also called Ordinary Time, the Season of Pentecost or the Season of Trinity. The focus is on how Christians should live a life in this fallen world. Some pieces of the liturgy change at about week ten in the season of Pentecost and then again after the Feast of St. Michael and All Angels. The list of readings, known as the lectionary, changes from a list geared to the place of the reading in the season (nth Sunday in Lent, etc.) to its position on the secular calendars. These sets of readings are called Proper 1, Proper 2, Proper 3, etc. this is to keep the readings on the same Sunday, more or less, each year.
What this means is that a bit of variety is always a part of our worship, even in its most traditional forms. As we receive God’s gifts, we hear most of the Scripture read to us. At the same time, we study and pray in unity with the church in every time and place.
[Second in a series of posts on how to read the Bible] Encore Post: When you see a good friend reading a book, so taken by it they shut the whole world out, you ask them, “what’s it all about?” Your friend will sum it up in a few sentences. Of course, there is a lot more detail to the tale, but all the words, images it creates set the mood and move the plot along. Yet no really good story holds our interest if there is not a single central story that we care about.
The Bible is the most important book in the world, because it is God telling the story. This story is more than an enjoyable yarn. It is the story about how God saved us and how he will make the creation new again. Theologians call that Salvation History. So, if someone asks, “What is the Bible all about?” The best answer is “It is all about Jesus.” Jesus himself tells us this. (John 5:39)
Knowing that the Bible is all about Jesus helps us to understand its message and the place of each verse in that message. On the surface, the Bible is a small library of sixty-six books with different messages. They can seem disconnected and at odds from time to time. By this rule, we come to see the Bible has one story with a beginning, middle, climax and end, all tied to what Jesus did and will do to save us. It helps us to see that we are actually a part of this story. Unlike good fiction, this story is real news, not fake news. It is actually has a two-part message for us — which we’ll take up in the next post.
So, by knowing that the Bible is all about Jesus, or said in more formal language, all theology is Christology, we can unlock the treasures of the Holy Scriptures. The Bible is not all about how to live a happy life in this world, although it can help us with that. It is not about predicting the future, like some giant puzzle or math problem. It is not the key to success and riches, or even about what we should do to be good people. In fact, it is not so much about what we do, but what God has done: In Christ, he made the world, sorrowed over its sin, set out to save the world, was made man in the womb of the Virgin Mary, lived a perfect life in our place, suffered, died, rose again, ascended into heaven and one day will return to raise us from the dead to live with God forever. As you read the Bible, then, ask yourself: what does this have to do with Jesus? You’ll be surprised how much it helps to hear what God is saying to you in his word.
[First in a series of posts on how to read the Bible] Encore Post: For most Christians, the first rule for understanding the Bible seems obvious. The Bible is God’s Word. Yet believing that God speaks to us in his own words and is the author of the Bible affects the way we look at the Scriptures, how we approach it, what we expect from it and the assumptions that we make about what it says.
Because the Bible is God’s message to us, we believe that it is not fiction, a myth made up by people to explain the world, or something that it just very well written words to inspire us or make us feel good — like a great movie, a catchy song, or an absorbing novel written by our favorite author. After they make us feel good and escape the world for a while, nothing changes and life goes on. The Word of God, however, comes with the power of God to change our lives, brought to us by God’s own Holy Spirit. (see Romans 1:16-17, 2 Peter 1:16-21) It creates faith in hearts which do not believe and strengthens faith where it exists.
So, the clear teachings of the Bible are the final authority on everything it speaks about. When it says that all people are evil, not good, at heart, we believe that, even though our mind and culture tells us, everyone is basically good. When it tells us God made the world in six days, we believe that, too, even if the world’s myth tells us the universe has always existed and developed over millions of years into what we now see. When the Bible tells us both that God decided to save us before he made the world, but if we reject him, we can lose our faith, we believe that too, even though it doesn’t make sense to us.
So, this rule is that we assume that what the Bible teaches is true and use those things which are perfectly clear in it to understand things that are not so clear.
Grace, mercy, and peace be to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.
On the 26th day of the 3rd month, in 2025th year of Christ’s reign, the theme is this: The latter glory of this house shall be greater than the former.
Have you ever noticed that the church is better in our minds back in the olden days? Back then, there were more people in the pews and our kids were here with us. Back then, the building was newer, and there were more people willing to serve on committees. Or the really big reason … back then, the preacher was more to my liking. Back then, we had this thing or we did that thing. It’s a bit of a trap to think this way. There is always this desire in the back of our minds to return to the glorious golden age of St. John’s in Curtis, Nebraska.
Or maybe we think even further back. Surely, when CFW Walther or Francis Pieper were alive, that was the golden age of the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod. There were these larger-than-life church leaders that wrote extensively and worked tirelessly for the sake of the church. If not that, then the good old days of the LCMS was back when the hymnals were in German or Danish! Related to this idea, I have been reading Martin Chemnitz from the 1580s and every Lutheran parish had a school, and everybody went to individual confession and absolution, and the preacher preached for two hours every Sunday. (That sounds impossible, but oh so glorious!)
That obsession about important dates in the life of the church is something that Haggai knew well. He put a date on each of his sermons unlike most of the prophets and indeed most of the Scriptures. He marked the life of the church by the proclamation of the Word. And he preached on this occasion about the good old days. Haggai preached, ‘Who is left among you who saw this house in its former glory? Haggai is the preacher about 60-70 years after the Babylonians exiled the people of God and tore down the temple and the Ark of the Covenant was destroyed or removed from the house of God and His people. Can you imagine preaching to the church after all that they had been through?
It reminds me of when I visited churches in Russia and Latvia and Lithuania and Estonia. The communists slaughtered the priests and turned the churches into basketball gyms or swimming pools. And the people of God were not allowed to gather for Word and Sacrament for decades. Can you imagine if that was our history? Would any of you remember the church in its former glory before the pastors were killed and the buildings destroyed from the inside out?
To be sure, gathering together after such a long time would feel a bit empty and depressing. Haggai preaches along this vein when he says, How do you see it now? Is it not as nothing in your eyes? The church is small, and the destruction was great. The gold is gone, and the joy went with it. In fact, the Ark of the Covenant is gone. Where can the sacrifices take place? What would we do if the altar was gone and the sacramental vessels were melted down into swords and shields?
But hold up. I want to be clear: Haggai is by no means a doom and gloom preacher. In fact, he shows us exactly how to rebuild the church. First, he encourages the priests and preachers, Zerubbabel and Joshua. As I said before, Haggai defines the life of the church by the proclamation of the Word. Without new church leaders, the church in that time and place stood no chance of recovery.
And then he speaks to the church directly and encourages them: Be strong, all you people of the land, declares the Lord. Work, for I am with you, declares the Lord of hosts, according to the covenant that I made with you when you came out of Egypt. What a magnificent Word from Haggai! Be strong, every single one of you! Work; I am with you! Haggai compares the Babylonian exile to the first tribulation of the people of God, the 400-year slavery of God’s people in Egypt. And they knew and we know that the 40 years in the wilderness were no glory days for the life of the church. But the point is that the Lord was with them then and was with them at the time of Haggai’s sermon.
And here come the present promises of God. Haggai preaches, God’s Spirit remains in your midst. Fear not. And this is what I want you to think about. Certainly the temple at the time of Haggai was a worthy structure, but it too would be destroyed over time. The temple would be rebuilt again by King Herod.
But something way greater than a building in the capital city was in store. And when Haggai says, “Fear Not” I immediately think of the most famous “Fear Not” in the whole Scriptures. “Fear not, for behold, is born this day in the city of David, a Savior who is the Christ the Lord.” What glory days of the Old Testament could compare to the glory days of Jesus Christ born of a virgin and walking the earth to eventually die on the cross? Didn’t Jesus say, “I will destroy this temple, and I will rebuild it in three days?”
But let Haggai say it in his own words: Yet once more, in a little while, I will shake the heavens and the earth and the sea and the dry land. And I will shake all nations, so that the treasures of all nations shall come in, and I will fill this house with glory, says the Lord of hosts. The Lord shook the heavens at Jesus’ baptism and spoke out of the cloud. And the Lord caused the sea to be calm and not to shake any longer. And the Lord shook the earth at Jesus’ crucifixion when He gave up His spirit. And the Lord shook the dry land in order to roll away the stone that lay in front of Jesus’ tomb on Easter Sunday.
And the Lord shook up the nations by the power of His Spirit and the proclamation of His Word throughout the whole earth. And like Haggai says, the treasures of nations have been given to God to continue the ministry of the Gospel even up to the present day and in this present place. Remember this: The silver is mine, and the gold is mine, declares the Lord of hosts. It all belongs to Him, and we too belong to Him. What we thought were the glory days of the church do not compare to the glorious days of the crucifixion and resurrection of Christ for each and every one of us.
What the Lord says is absolutely true: The latter glory of this house shall be greater than the former, says the Lord of hosts. And in this place I will give peace, declares the Lord of hosts.’” In other words, Haggai points us to the future and to hope. In his day, he preached to the people who were preoccupied with the past, the good old days of the Old Testament. And he preached that what was to come is greater than what they currently were experiencing.
And he meant that Jesus would be greater than every temple. And Jesus most certainly was much greater than the sacrifices in the temple. But for us today, Haggai preaches to us about those good old days of Christ’s death and resurrection. And yet he also preaches to us that our temple here does not compare with the heavenly glory that we shall experience on the Last Day.
We are right now St. John’s Lutheran Church in Curtis. But we look forward to the day when we are St. John’s Lutheran Church in heaven. We await an even greater temple, the presence of God the Father and Son and Holy Spirit, worshipping at his altar forever and ever. Indeed, the latter glory shall be greater than the former in every way! In the holy name of Jesus, Amen.
Encore Post: The Ascension is an important event in the life of Jesus and the Church. It is the final part of the work which redeemed us: the cross, where our sins were paid for, the resurrection where the power of the grave was broken and the ascension, which restored all His honor, glory, authority and power. From the days of the early church, over 1500 years ago, until recent years, the church celebrated the Ascension on the fortieth day after Easter, or the Thursday ten days before Pentecost. In the 21st century, many churches celebrate Ascension on the Sunday before Pentecost.
When He ascended, Jesus left His Church with a promise, a mission, and a blessing. He promised to be with us always until the end of time. He gave us our mission. We would join His mission to seek and to save the lost by going to the whole world, being witnesses to His life, death and resurrection, to proclaim the good news of salvation, baptizing and teaching all He commanded us. As He ascended, He blessed them as Aaron and the High Priest did and as pastors do to this day, giving us His peace. He promised to be with us always until the end of time itself.
Now the church waits patiently for him to return. On a day that no one knows, Jesus will return. On that day, he will raise our bodies from the grave, judge all the living and the dead, bring an end to sin, death and the power of the devil. God will live among us again, throw the greatest marriage feast of all time. He will dry every tear from our eyes.
[Thirty-first in a series of posts on church words] Encore Post: Iconoclasm is a $0.25 word we don’t hear in our circles much these days. We are, however, surrounded by its effects in our American Christian culture. Iconoclasm is an English word derived from two Greek words (εἰκών, I-kohn, “image, figure” and κλάω, Klah-ō, “to break”). Iconoclasts throughout history, in various religions, and in the public sphere, have sought to “break images.” In earlier times, these breakings were literal, violent acts. We moderns are far more enlightened. We stick to character assassination rather than physical violence.
For this discussion, We’ll treat iconoclasm, aniconism, and iconophobia as roughly interchangeable terms. The first refers to destroying images. The second implies the avoidance of images. The third suggests a fear of images. Since the thumbnail image would make them all similarly uncomfortable, we can speak of them all in a categorical group.
Iconoclasts are a historical minority in Christianity. Widespread use of Christian images, statuary forms, and crucifixes appeared only after Constantine’s legalization of Christianity in the Roman empire around the time of the Council of Nicaea in 325 AD.
Byzantine Emperor Leo III issued edicts between 726-730 AD, against the veneration of images. Wealthier, Greek speaking Byzantines in the West resisted these measures. Poorer, Slavic, Arabic, and Farsi speaking Byzantines in the East embraced these policies. The issue may have been fueled by the strict outlawing of images in the theocracies of the Islamist world with whom the poorer Eastern Byzantines were interacting.
When the fires of iconoclasm dwindled again. The Eastern and Western Christian churches developed very different aesthetics concerning icons or images in the church. In the West, realism in painting and statues became the norm. Three-dimensional statues and paintings with a perceptible depth of field gathered common use in churches and homes, including primarily images of Jesus’ crucifixion.
In the East, iconography developed into a specific type of flattened painting style. Eastern Christian icons use a field of vision where the near ground is lower in the picture and sometimes larger. The background is higher and sometimes smaller. These also make significant use of words and names in the image to identify the subjects and events, including primarily the crucifixion of Our Lord.
In both cases, preference was given to events in the life of Christ, the prophets and saints of the church.
In the reformation era, Thomas Müntzer and Andreas Karlstadt (associates of Martin Luther) sought to purge the reforming churches in Germany by removing their statues and stained glass imagery. Luther opposed them. Afterward, Lutherans retained a love of sacred art and statuary at home and in their churches.
The radical reformers of the 16th century, including Calvin and Zwingli, rejected icons and statuary in their churches. These groups and their progeny certainly influenced American revivalist Christianity and, as a result, the common American expression of the faith. Ours could be called a semi-iconoclastic culture.
In the 16th & 17th centuries, one could scarcely find an example of crosses in use without some or most displaying a corpus (Jesus’s body). In modern America, we are nearly afraid of seeing Jesus on the cross … in a statuary form … on our walls at home or altars at church. (Paintings at home were fine). I think for German-American Lutherans, this stems from a uniquely American German expression: das ist Katolisch (that is Catholic).
[“I would also add that the specific Old Testament Commandments concerning graven images are right after they have left Egypt and aptly describe the mixture of animal and human characteristics in the idols of Egypt. Whereas God, who says make no such graven images, then immediately tells the Israelites how to make the Ark, the Menorah, the symbols of the Angels on the Ark, how to stitch Angels into the fabric and tapestry of the paraments for the Tabernacle, and then the Temples. Even in the tablets given to Moses, the Lord is clearly not opposed to sacred images, but to pagan, idolatrous ones.” (Rev. Larry R. Görlitz, in conversation, 22 May 2024) (cf. Exodus 25-28, 30-31, 35:30-39:43)]
German-American Lutherans were very sensitive to being confused by Baptists, Methodists, and the Reformed with Roman Catholics. Our chanted liturgy, non-English services, use of vestments, stodgy hymnody, and short preaching may have fed that confusion. But, the reaction, das ist Katolisch, revealed a willingness to allow some practices and images to slip away. There was a need to be seen as uncatholic.
These days arguments will revolve around statements of Spiritualized Christianity like: “We worship a risen Jesus.” Or, “The empty tomb is our hope.” The rarity of a barren cross and the near complete absence of the open tomb in pre-enlightenment Christian art should warn us against those errors.
We are better to speak with Paul, “For Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles” (1 Corinthians 1:22-23). The risen Jesus is the proof of it. But Christ and Him crucified is our salvation. It is the very price paid for sin. Jesus’s death frees us from the fear of the pain of death in ourselves. We ought to celebrate and revere it.
Also, don’t forget the condition of Jesus as the disciples saw Him in the resurrection. “Eight days later, his disciples were inside again, and Thomas was with them. Although the doors were locked, Jesus came and stood among them and said, ‘Peace be with you.’ Then he said to Thomas, ‘Put your finger here, and see my hands; and put out your hand, and place it in my side. Do not disbelieve, but believe’” (John 20:26-27). The lamb, who was slain and yet He lives, still bears the marks of our salvation in His flesh for us.
[Thirtieth in a series of posts on church words] Encore Post: In our post on Justification, we talked about the very good news that Jesus saves us by grace alone, through faith alone for Christ’s sake alone. When God declares us “not guilty” from his throne, we really are “not guilty” for our sins and will not be punished for them. This is because Jesus was punished in our place on the cross. We are now holy in God’s sight, as if we had never sinned in the first place.
There is one problem — we still sin. In one setting of the Divine Service in the Lutheran Service Book, we recite to each other during confession a passage from the First Letter of St. John, which makes this clear. We’re fooling ourselves if we think we don’t sin. (1 John 1:8-9) St. Paul discusses the war within himself between his new Adam and his old Adam in Romans 7. God solves this problem by sending his Holy Spirit to make us holy. This process is called sanctification.
The word is borrowed directly from the Latin word that means, “to make holy.” Lutheran theologians use it in two ways. In general, sanctification includes everything the Holy Spirit does to make us holy from when he uses baptism and the preaching of the gospel to create faith in our hearts to the day we die or Christ returns and he purges sin from our lives forever. Because Catholics believe a person isn’t fully saved until sin is completely gone from their lives, they include time in purgatory after death. Lutheran theologians prefer to use it in a more specific way to everything the Holy Spirit does after God justifies us.
When we talk about sanctification in general, we talk about it as a process. Using God’s word and the Lord’s Supper, the Holy Spirit changes our hearts. Now we want to please God — not to bribe him to save us, but to serve God because we love him. We now do truly good works and these, in turn, help us in the battle between our sinful self and our saintly self. Even then, these works are not strictly ours — God prepares them for us to do in the same way a teacher prepares homework for us to do. (Ephesians 2:10) This struggle lasts all our lives, but is complete the day we die. On that day, Jesus will greet us and say, “Well done, good and faithful servant!” and welcomes us into his eternal kingdom.
