Jason Kaspar – Page 6 – What Does This Mean?

The Parsonage Is the Future, Not the Past

“Pastors don’t want parsonages anymore.” That was a colloquial refrain in churches around the close of the 20^th Century. It may have been the case, to varying degrees, among the boomer generation. Conversely, Gen-X and following have lived through less prosperous economic times. Particularly, we’ve seen our churches struggling increasingly with less capability to meet budgets. Dwindling church membership and attendance in Christian churches throughout the US, in various denominations, aren’t helping the issue either.

This article does not seek to address causal issues of economic struggles, attendance, membership, or congregational vitality. Those are topics for other men and other articles. Here, I’m sticking to pragmatic realities of housing, savings, and retirement plans.

Mentoring can be part of the problem here. Pastors who are struggling with significant poor financial timing or choices aren’t quick to advise other men in the office. Men who are recipients of dumb luck or unusually long calls can be quick to attribute the benefit of time in the housing market to their own wisdom rather than fortunate timing.

Advice from within and outside the congregation may also pressure men to buy sooner than they ought. These pressures can take the form of the sociological, “You need to send a message to the people that you’re in it for the long haul by buying a house.” They can be tribalistic, “Don’t you want to buy a home and become part of the community?” The advice can ignore conflicting financial burdens, “You need to buy right away, while the market is [insert favorable condition here].” These kinds of advice frequently outweigh and shout-over calmer, slower advice.

Stacking debt upon debt is always a bad idea. Our grandparents understood this. Somehow, we lost track of that wisdom. Men serving as pastors frequently enter the office of the ministry with large piles of debt already. “But the seminary is free…” Personally, I missed the “free” seminary days, which preceded and followed my time. Regardless of that, undergrad degrees are not free. Moving, renting, and maintaining our households on minimal budgets can cause other debt pressures.

Consider this: what’s an ideal pastoral candidate? The call committees on which I served prior to the seminary reflect some variation of this theme. “We want a younger man with a few years under his belt in the pulpit. We want a man with young children. It really would be advantageous if his wife plays the organ, teaches, or is a deaconess.” That’s certainly a great sounding candidate. He and his family will be a great benefit to your congregation.

Here are some pitfalls associated with that. This family unit is an inherently high debt family. Did they meet at a synodical university? That’s debt. Did he go directly to the seminary, getting married along the way? That’s debt. Did they start their family in the seminary, as many do? She wasn’t working while he attended. That’s debt.

The debt this ideal family has acquired isn’t evil or inherently bad. It remains a preexisting debt pile that they’ll have to address for some years to come. Home ownership can be a tremendous blessing for those without other significant debt. But, it can also be an impoverishing curse to those for whom each expense of ownership is a financial crisis.

Back to our ideal guy, has he owned his home between two and three years? Generally, that means he won’t lose any money trading into another home. Pastors don’t choose their own calls. When a call comes from a weak housing market to a strong one, he’s likely to suffer in the exchange. What about the economic climate? Have interest rates climbed recently? In 2022, interest rates are climbing rapidly. That can be a poor time to buy or sell.

Pastors are in an inherently unpredictable living situation. Each pastor accepts a call intending to live out his days of service there and nowhere else. When a call comes in, he now has two Divine calls and must prayerfully consider which is God’s intention for him. The call process has an inborn risk of placing men into disadvantageous positions in housing markets at disadvantageous times.

The colloquial late 20^th Century wisdom will say, “But a home is a great investment.” It can be a decent investment, for those who stay put, build equity, and move up only at advantageous times. Actual investments, however, are better long-term solutions. A pastor working, retiring debt, and saving will retire well. I can think of at least a dozen men, including my grandfather, who retired from a lifetime of mostly or exclusively parsonages. These men bought their retirement homes with cash. Thanks to their parsonages, the financial burden of home ownership was reduced for both the congregations served and the pastors.

If you’re concerned about your pastor’s debt management and financial health, send him and his wife through Dave Ramsey’s Financial Peace University. They are theologically equipped to navigate the pitfalls and errors of Dave’s religion. The important part is his wisdom about money, budgeting, and the dangers of debt.

The days may be coming when congregations without a parsonage will also sit without a pastor. The parsonage is not just a benefit to your pastor. It’s also a gift to the congregation’s future generations. In desperate times, you will better be able to retain a pastor, because he and his family have housing. In simpler times, he’ll be more able to save and prepare for the future.

If your congregation has a parsonage, keep it. Even if your pastor doesn’t live there, maintain it, and consider improving it. The next man is likely to need it. If y’all don’t have a parsonage, start working towards getting or building one. It’s also worth preparing for a bigger family than you might expect. Bigger families are becoming common again among folks who marry younger. Your pastor will also have a tough time accepting a call to a congregation without a parsonage from your parsonage, or to an inadequate parsonage from an adequate one.

There will no doubt be much dissent on this opinion. That’s perfectly fine. I live in a parsonage. Most of my circuit brothers do too. There is a vacancy in a local circuit that does not have a parsonage. Though it may not have mattered in years past, the lack of a parsonage may be a big deal this time.

For the Scripture says, “You shall not muzzle an ox when it treads out the grain,” and, “The laborer deserves his wages. (1 Timothy 5:18)

Rev. Jason M. Kaspar – Sole Pastor

Mt. Calvary Lutheran Church & Preschool

La Grange, TX

– and –

Mission Planting Pastoral Team

Epiphany Evangelical Lutheran Church

Bastrop, TX

What’s the Deal with the Rapture (Left Behind style)?

Encore Post: The rapture and host of other teachings about the end times spring primarily from the American theological quagmire of 1800s upstate New York. This area gave us Charles Grandison Finney, Joseph Smith, Charles Taze Russel, and William Miller among others. Those four respectively produced American Revivalism, the LDS church, the Jehovah’s Witnesses, and the Adventist & Davidian churches.

There is some significant commonality of end times teaching (eschatology) between these groups. The belief in a millennium, a literal 1,000-year reign of Christ on Earth, is one such teaching. The rapture is a key feature of these millennial eschatologies. There will, no doubt, be additional questions in the future about the teachings from these groups.

Generally, the rapture is the notion that the righteous, the believers will be yanked away from creation into the air. Often, that also means they are removed from earth for a period of time, during which the tribulation occurs. There are numerous variations on the sequencing and chronology. But, that’s the thumbnail sketch.

One of the major proofs of the rapture is from Matthew 24. Jesus speaks at great length about the end of days. Verses 40 and 41 are often used in support of this “left behind” type rapture teaching.

Then two men will be in the field; one will be taken and one left. Two women will be grinding at the mill; one will be taken and one left. (Matthew 24:40-41)

That seems a fairly straight forward interpretation. The one taken is the righteous person, the believer. The one left behind is the unrighteous person, the unbeliever. Now, those verses do not indicate which might be which.

Is there a way for us to see that passage more clearly from its own context? Well, let’s look at verse 38 and 39. They immediately precede these two.

For as in those days before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day when Noah entered the ark, and they were unaware until the flood came and swept them all away, so will be the coming of the Son of Man. (Matthew 24:38-39)

It’s unlikely that any of us would argue in favor of the righteousness of those taken in the flood. They were swept away. Noah and his family, eight souls in all, were preserved, left behind, amidst the destruction.

It seems quite clear that the unbelievers, the unrighteous are the ones who are taken. In the broader context of Matthew, the things taken, cut into pieces, burned by fire, and cast into the outer darkness are the wicked things. As Lutherans we also hold that all of this is part of the in-an-instant-ness of the day of salvation.

When the Son of Man returns in glory, the trumpet sounds, and all is accomplished at once. The day of judgement and all its events are one moment for all of creation. We are the ones coming out of the great tribulation, right now.

Thanks be to God for the salvation bought by the death of Jesus.

Rev. Jason M. Kaspar
Sole Pastor
Mt. Calvary Lutheran Church & Preschool
La Grange, TX

and

Mission planting pastoral team:
Epiphany Lutheran Church
Bastrop, TX

A Major Win For God?

The following is a post seen on social media following the overturning of Roe v. Wade & Planned Parenthood v. Casey. A friend and opponent in the abortion debate, who is agnostic/non-Christian shared it with me seeking commentary. I obliged them. So, here is the commentary. My responses are included inline. [You may identify my remarks by the brackets containing them]. The author of the original post is unknown to me at the time of this writing.

The Post:

A headline on one of my Facebook friends’ posts yesterday was “Today’s Supreme Court decision was a MAJOR win for God.”

A win for God?

[No, it’s a win for morality. Moralism for the sake of morality in the secular realm isn’t for God.]

I immediately thought, does he think our God is so feeble that he needs a panel of nine men and women to affirm him and bestow favor on him?

[No, He isn’t. No, He doesn’t. And, they didn’t affirm Him. SCOTUS affirmed the rights of all people to be secure in their person from death by murder as enumerated in the Constitution. The poor precedent didn’t stand scrutiny in its discovery of unenumerated rights that superseded the life of a unique human being in the womb.]

Regardless of where you stand on the issue of abortion, yesterday’s decision has proven to be a terrible day for God and His church. Why? Because so many of the people that make up His church are deciding to act anything but Christlike.

Scripture says, “They will know you are my disciples by your love.” By your love. Not your memes, not your posturing, not your gloating, not your politics, but by your love.

[That’s out of context and a poor translation in any case. A better on says, “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” (John 13:34-35)

Does Jesus say other things about this “love?” Yeah, He sure does. He says a lot more.

“Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?” And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.” (Matthew 22:36-40)

Was Jesus diminishing the commandments here? No, “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them.” (Matthew 5:17) In the rest of chapter five, He expands the commandments beyond their perceived limits. Hatred is the same as murder. Lust in the heart is the same as adultery. This is our understanding of and the way we teach all of the commandments (Matthew 5:17-48).

Love begins with the love of the Lord and His commandments. Then, love moves to my neighbor. No one can love his neighbor while encouraging his neighbor to commit sin like murder.]

On the day the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, so many in the church began waiving victory flags for Jesus, while the enemy was using your actions to turn more and more people off to God.

This wasn’t a win for the church.

[Meh, it’s a win for babies, who were being murdered. More of them may live now. Murder is always evil. Not murdering is always good.]

In fact, I believe history will show that this decision was a tipping point for the downfall of church attendance and effectiveness. No one on the opposite side of the decision felt the love, compassion, and ministry of Jesus yesterday. No one.

[This guy doesn’t want to see the church or Christians’ love for people. He wants us to be indifferent to sin. He wants us to encourage our neighbor in their separation from God. That would be the end of the church and the Christian faith.]

Let me be blunt.

If you are a Christian who believes in a God who will condemn people to hell for not believing in Him and you’re choosing to spew hate and vile towards people you disagree with, then you, my friend, have more blood on your hands than any person who chose to get an abortion.

[Acceptance ≠ Love. Acceptance/encouragement of sin = actual hatred, and not the imaginary kind dreamt up by an unbelieving world. But, actual, genuine hatred for your fellow man. The kind of hatred that gleefully of indifferently watches my neighbor hurtle themselves toward perdition.

We believe that we separate ourselves from the love of God by our sin. Only forgiveness received by faith, which turns us from sin, can remedy this.]

It’s time for the separation of church and hate.

[No one can love his neighbor while encouraging his neighbor to commit sin. The world has redefined love by the definition: acceptance and exaltation. Accepting, exalting, and encouraging sin, which separates people from God is not love. That’s indifferent hatred. A hatred that doesn’t mind my neighbor going to hell, separated from the Lord by their beloved sins.]

The church is the richest organization in the world. We have more money than Apple, Jeff Bezos, and Elon Musk. If we really cared about babies, we could do something about it.

[False! The tech billionaires are extraordinarily wealthy individuals, and their international corporations are wealthy to a degree we can’t fathom. They are also quite miserly in their charitable donations.

It’s possible that the Roman Catholic Church may be a very wealthy organization. All other Christian churches organizations pale in comparison. My parent organization, the Lutheran Church – Missouri Synod, with her 2.9 million members is quite poor comparatively. Others are significantly smaller still. I’d love to see a dollar by dollar comparison of monies taken in vs. those spend for the good of people. Between charitable organizations run by individual congregations, small groups of them, and their parent organizations as well as money sent into use outside of themselves, there isn’t a comparison in the secular sphere.

I will leave the graft, waste, and fraud in government, the wealthiest organization yet mentioned, for others to address.]

I am hoping when I attend church on Sunday there is a line around the corner for the church to volunteer to adopt and foster. That’s what you do when you really care about babies.

[There is. The state is the only thing preventing even more. The legally mandated goal of CPS and every foster agency – working to reunite families of birth – directly opposed to best interests of the children in their care. This genetic priority further wounds prospective and current foster parents in a much lesser way than the children themselves.]

I hope there are special offerings taken on Sunday to raise money for diapers, formula, babysitting, and therapy, because that’s what you do when you really care about babies.

[We don’t need special offerings. It’s baked into the cultural bread of every church. We don’t talk about it much. Because, it’s just business as usual.]

I hope every church that offers preschool will now do so at no charge, because that’s what you do when you really care about babies.

[Nah, the best place for babies is with their mothers. Daycare/preschool raised babies/toddlers do less well than kiddos with mom at home. We offer the service and help folks make ends meet. But, we also encourage and assist in the best situation for every child: mom & dad, married for life, raising their kids. We work hard to uplift and strengthen families, because that’s the very best thing for babies. We do that because we love babies, toddlers, children, and their parents.]

Where is the love and compassion for women?

[Right alongside the compassion for the children, about 50% of whom will also grow to be women. Even if there were a complete absence of care or support for mothers, that would never justified murdering their babies. But, that premise is faulty. It assumes a counterfactual situation and condemns us Christians based upon an imaginary sin.]

Where is the Christ-like behavior?

[Which Christ do you want us to emulate? Jesus, who dared the crowds to throw their stones, if they were without sin? Jesus, who called the Syrophoenician woman a dog? Jesus, who became angry with His disciples for keeping the infants away? Jesus, who flipped over tables and chased the money changers with a whip? Jesus, who forgave sin AND commanded sinners to go forth and sin no more? Jesus, who lived a perfect, sinless life, died for our sins, rose again to life on the third day, and ascended to the right hand of the father?

They are all the same Jesus.

I’m not Jesus. Neither are you. Let’s let Jesus be Jesus and Jesus us in the way that He Jesuses.]

Where is the empathetic understanding that this decision, even if you agree with it, has placed real fear in the hearts of so many?

[Love can never encourage its neighbor in sin. I cannot encourage my neighbor toward hell.]

Church, remember why you exist. It’s not so you can consistently get your way politically. It’s so you can introduce people to a God who loves and cares for them. It’s time to confuse people on where you stand politically and give them the unconditional grace that God gave to you.

[No sir, this is the commission, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.” (Matthew 28:18-20)

Go back, read it all again, teach it, and do it.
The Law & The Gospel
Condemnation & Forgiveness]

You only have ONE LIFE. You might as well MAKE IT COUNT.

[No, we have eternal life to live. Jesus counts for us, dying for our sin to deliver us from it and into eternal life. Some don’t want that and love sin. There is eternal damnation for those having no need of forgiveness. As a result, and we can only live our lives to the glory of God. Speaking out against sin and preaching forgiveness in Christ Alone. “Some indeed preach Christ from envy and rivalry, but others from good will. The latter do it out of love, knowing that I am put here for the defense of the gospel… For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain.
(Philippians 1:15-16, 21)

I suspect this will fall on deaf ears. The writer, who may be a part of a Christian church, clearly knows very little about the work of the church or the life and teachings of Jesus. His goal seemed to be eliciting a shamed backpedaling apology.

In the law of God I delight. And, I am not ashamed of the Gospel of the forgiveness of sins. I preach Christ and Him crucified for sinners who are perishing, but God grants hearing, faith, and growth.

I am not ashamed of the Gospel.]

Rev. Jason M. Kaspar
Sole Pastor
Mt. Calvary Lutheran Church & Preschool
La Grange, TX
and
Mission planting pastoral team:
Epiphany Lutheran Church
Bastrop, TX

Isn’t Disapproval of LGBTQ people Hatred?

Encore Posts: Another great question concerning the threads from previous weeks: love is love, homosexual inclinations, physical deformities, and now: virtuous acceptance of sin.

It shouldn’t surprise us that a sinful world misidentifying love would also fail to accurately recognize hatred. This has been a moving target over the past ten or twenty years. The sequence was tolerance, acceptance, celebration, and elevation. This sequence applied a moving standard to Christians. We were deemed hateful by failing to meet the current pagan standard of what is allowed outside of the 6th commandment.

Tolerance: you will allow LGBTQ lifestyles. It was the toe-in-the-door. The pagan world told Christianity that we shall not define acts outside of the 6th commandment any way other than acceptable. The choices wouldn’t be called preferential or good. But, anything less than acceptance was deemed hateful.

Acceptance: LGBTQ lifestyles are good and acceptable within your social circles. There are two things happening here. You must allow these folks into your social circles. And, their absence from your social circles is cause for suspicion. Your failure to include LGBTQ persons in your peer group may see you judged as a hater by this former standard.

These first two goal post positions defined my youth and young adulthood. I was coming of age during this shift. Churches began to allow lifestyles defined solely by their setting aside 6th commandment. Sex is a gift only rightly enjoyed by a man and a woman, married to each other until death. Society disagrees with God’s Law and was succeeding in pushing incremental change into the church. Soon, LGBTQ persons would be invited to the altar, then the pulpit, then the church hierarchy.

Celebration: LGBTQ is a laudable lifestyle. All aspects of culture and faith must embrace it within themselves. Here, the lifestyle must be judged “good” in a moral sense. You may not call the thing sin any longer. Our identification of sexual sins as sin is sinful, in the eyes of our pagan culture. Instead, we must recognize and celebrate the LGBTQ persons in their lifestyle.

Elevation: this lifestyle is morally superior to CIS gendered existence. CIS is a pejorative term that may not appear in your lexicon yet. It means all forms of heterosexuality and fixed gender identity. The category of people diminished by this term also includes folks engaged in unacceptable heterosexuality, according to the 6th commandment.

It is preferable in the current stage of elevation for people to be in the LGBTQ community. They are allowed to exclude and belittle CIS persons for their closed-mindedness and hateful views. Consider TV, film, and other media. More often than not, the LGBTQ characters are smarter and morally superior to other characters in portrayal. The killer, the evil actor, or the perpetrator are most likely a CIS male, or for want of one, a CIS female.

Each of these progressive phases encourages sin. “Though they know God’s righteous decree that those who practice such things deserve to die, they not only do them but give approval to those who practice them.” (Romans 1:32)

Love can never encourage sin. That’s the opposite of love. Behavior that encourages our neighbor to sin is actually hatred. If we allow our neighbor to persist in the idea that their sin doesn’t separate them from God, we want them to perish eternally. What can that be, other than hatred?

“For this is the message that you have heard from the beginning, that we should love one another. We should not be like Cain, who was of the evil one and murdered his brother. And why did he murder him? Because his own deeds were evil and his brother’s righteous. Do not be surprised, brothers, that the world hates you. We know that we have passed out of death into life, because we love the brothers. Whoever does not love abides in death. Everyone who hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him.” (1 John 3:11-15).

Our Lord died to forgive sin. Faith in that promise flees from sin. Tolerance, acceptance, celebration, and elevation of sin are a rejection of the forgiveness that Jesus won for us.

Live instead in that forgiveness.

Rev. Jason M. Kaspar
Sole Pastor
Mt. Calvary Lutheran Church & Preschool
La Grange, TX
and
Mission planting pastoral team:
Epiphany Lutheran Church
Bastrop, TX

Love Is Love, Right?

Encore Post: That talisman worn by the LGBTQ activist inside and outside the church would have us believe that romantic love is completely equal to Christian love. Further, they would have us believe that human love is not corrupted/corruptible by original sin.

In the Greek language there are four different words for love. These refer to familial love, brotherly love, perfect/Godly love, and romantic love. Rather than getting into the weeds of the Greek here, there’s one important point for us in this discussion. The word for romantic love doesn’t appear in the New Testament.

So, each discussion of Love in the bible is referring to love in completely different way from the talisman: “love is love.” That use only means romantic love and specifically the sexual component of the romantic love. Moreover, this sexual love must be pure and good in their minds because “love is love.” This is self-referential justification.

Jesus talks about love this way: “And one of them, a lawyer, asked him a question to test him. ‘Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?’ And he said to him, ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.’” [Matthew 22:35-40]

Jesus summarized the entire first table of the Law, commandments 1-3, in love of God. And, He summarized the entire second table of the law, commandments 4-10, in love of your neighbor. Love cannot lead our neighbor into sin. Love as God defines it is in perfect compliance with His law for us.

The discussion of “love is love” revolves around the sixth commandment. In Martin Luther’s small catechism we learn it this way.
You shall not commit adultery.
What does this mean?
We should fear and love God so that we lead a sexually pure and decent life in what we say and do, and husband and wife love and honor each other.

When Christians talk about romantic love, we may only speak about love between a husband and a wife, a man and a woman. Jesus says this in answer about marriage to the Pharisees. “But from the beginning of creation, ‘God made them male and female.’ ‘Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.’ So they are no longer two but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate.” [Mark 10:6-9]

Romantic love is only practiced in Christian love between a man and woman. A woman and a man, who are married to each other. The entirety of the acts condoned under the “love is love” talisman fall outside of Christian love. So too, divorce and extramarital sex of all sorts fall outside of Christian love. In that Mark chapter 10 passage, Jesus is specifically condemning divorce on grounds of personal preference.

Love is Love? No, human love is just as likely to be corrupted by our sinful nature as any other deed. It may even be more corruptible than other aspects of our modern life.

God loves you perfectly and intends better for you.

Rev. Jason M. Kaspar
Mt. Calvary Lutheran Church & Preschool
La Grange, TX

God’s Foreknowledge and Election – pt. 1

This can be a challenging topic for Christians to hear and understand. But, understood well, it is a tremendous comfort. The comfort is not just for the confidence of individual Christians in the faith. But, the confidence also is in Christian witness, that what we perceive as success and failure are not ours but the Lord’s.

First, it is good for us to understand that’s foreknowledge and election are different attributes of God. This distinction is not for God’s benefit or to contain His action or His will. This distinction serves us by preventing us from applying our own reason to fill in gaps what God has revealed to us of himself. The revealed aspects of God and those hidden things can deliver us truths which seem to be in paradox. Our duty as Christians is to embrace and hold fast to those seeming paradoxes in the confidence that we have received what we need to know.

God’s foreknowledge is his knowledge of all events of history, the current time, and the future prior to their occurrence. The prophets are all examples of this attribute of God. This is not to say that they possessed the attribute of God of which we speak. But rather, God revealed to them some of his foreknowledge, allowing them to prophecy correctly. And, that is the mark of a true prophet. What a prophet says, if they are from God, must come true.

“But the prophet who presumes to speak a word in my name that I have not commanded him to speak, or who speaks in the name of other gods, that same prophet shall die.’ And if you say in your heart, ‘How may we know the word that the Lord has not spoken?’— when a prophet speaks in the name of the Lord, if the word does not come to pass or come true, that is a word that the Lord has not spoken; the prophet has spoken it presumptuously. You need not be afraid of him.” (Deuteronomy 18:20-22)

God’s foreknowledge includes Christians and unbelievers alike. But it is not given to us to understand this as a causal relationship. That is to say that the foreknowledge of God does not cause sin or evil. The cause of evil and sin is the Devil himself, and mankind’s evil inclination to do sinful things. God’s awareness of all things does not cause bad things to happen.

There are two errors of human reason concerning predestination/election that arise from our discomfort with those things revealed to us that seem to be in paradox.

The first is that there is no predestination/election. This is the Arminian teaching commonly referred to as decision theology (teachings rising from: Jakobus Arminius 1560-1609). Decision theology lays hold of the truth that damnation is a result of mankind’s sin and hatred of God. Then, the Arminians make the intellectual extrapolation that salvation must also be a result of the will of man. The assumption that I can choose God simply does not stand in the face of the scriptures. St. Paul say we were dead in sin. Dead things don’t do things apart from the external, life-giving work of the Holy Spirit.

“And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience— among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind.” (Ephesians 2:1-3)

The second error is that God chooses both the salvation of some and the damnation of others. This is a Calvinist error that rises from applying human reason to the hidden things of God and in mingling together foreknowledge and election (teachings rising from: John Calvin 1509-1564).

“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love he predestined us for adoption to himself as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace, with which he has blessed us in the Beloved.” (Ephesians 1:3-6)

Reason says, “if God chooses some for salvation, then He must choose not to save others.” Reason is wrong. He is uncomfortable with incomplete understanding God reveals to us. The rest may be revealed to us at the eschaton, the resurrection of all flesh. But, for now, it is not give to us to know or understand.

There is a simple gap in our understanding between what is revealed and what is not. Those are not given to us to fill-in or to work-out in our own understanding. Rather, God has revealed what He wants us to know. It is sufficient for our salvation by faith in Christ Jesus.

Rev. Jason M. Kaspar
Mt. Calvary Lutheran Church & Preschool
La Grange, TX

Christianish – It Doesn’t Quite Sound Christian Because It Isn’t

I only entertain beggars on Thursday morning, first thing in the mornings. We have a preschool on our property and it’s imperative that the folks seeking handouts don’t get the impression that they are welcome to visit anytime and speak to anyone. I ask our staff and volunteers to firmly invite anyone seeking aid to come again on Thursday. I invite them to hang me out to dry by saying something like, “Pastor won’t let us speak to anyone or give anything out. You have to come talk to him first thing on Thursday morning,” implying that I’m a big meanie.

Another time, I may talk about tactics used by beggars. Today, I wanted to share a particular story for a different reason. I had a visitor in my office just before Christmas with a fantastic story. She came at around 11:15, just late enough to be inconvenient. That’s usually on purpose. I invited her into my office to sit and talk.

I make a habit of asking an open-ended question or two and letting folks talk themselves out. I make the time to sit and listen as long as necessary. Sometimes, I’m convinced that I can help in some way, and I do. Sometimes, I’m convinced my help will not be helpful, and I don’t. This often becomes clear quite soon. But, I like to give folks a chance to speak their mind.

This woman was one who didn’t like dead air in conversation. Silence is strong tool in listening to folks sharing their stories. True stories tend to become more consistent within themselves as they’re repeated to fill uncomfortable silence. Lies and distortions tend to get convoluted and details confused with repetition. Her story quickly fell into the later category.

The woman was a fairly well-spoken, clean, well-kempt lady in her late 40s – early 50s with clean clothes, a recently purchase vehicle with temporary tags, and newly done nails. She was dying for four forms of end-stage cancer, had recently move to La Grange from the coast, was homeschooling a special needs child, and unable to find work despite help wanted signs in most windows around town. When she seemed to understand I may not be buying her story, she started to speak a different language.

No she wasn’t exhibiting glossolalia (speaking in tongues). She started to incorporate Christian sounding phrases. I’m going to call this style of speaking Christianish. It doesn’t quite sound Christian, because it isn’t. Now, I’m sure Christians may speak this way from time to time. But, Christianish seeks to convince the hearer that I’m a Christian just like you think I ought to be.

Suddenly, She and her previously unmentioned husband left the coast because they prayed on it. And, having prayed, “God told me to leave, shake the dust off our sandals, because there was nothing for us there. His Spirit had provided all He could.”

She had noticed me noticing her vehicle and wove that artfully into skein of her yarn. “That truck is the perfect vehicle for us. We found it over a month ago. But, the owner wanted too much. So, we prayed on it and claimed it in prayer. God gave us peace over it. The owner called two days ago to accept our offer. It’s a God thing.”

Concerning her apparent good health, she said, “I don’t know how I’m still alive. It must be for my kid. God said He would put a hedge of protection around me. I have a special needs child. He’s slow and he’s got ADD, ADHD, and PTSD. I don’t trust those schools with him, so I keep him at home. He loves Jesus and reads his bible. When, I was pregnant with him, God told be he was going to be special gift. He said this boy was going to be a man after Gods own heart. And, He has a great plan for him.”

When she caught me taking in the quality of her nails, she offered, “Yeah, just had my nails done yesterday. I don’t spend this kind of money on myself. But, a friend gave me money as a birthday gift for me to get these nails. The gift covered most of it. And, I felt like I had to honor her. She’s blessed to be a blessing.”

For the sake of time and space, I’ve distilled this 45 minute conversation down to a few sound bites. Any of the phrases above might be used by Christians. They are not the kind of language we Lutherans would use. The collection represents influences of spiritual enthusiasm, name-it-and-claim-it, prophetic anointing, and others not cited here.

The enthusiasts expect direct revelation from the spirit by feelings, impressions, and actual words of God. These new revelations are treated as equal to or over the Word of God in the Bible. Moreover, the enthusiast sees them as a proof of true Christian faith.

The name-it-and-claim it crowd teaches that the wants of this physical world are just a prayer away. If you pray right, and with adequate faith, God must deliver what you ask. Your lack of faith is the only thing holding you back from forcing God’s hand.

The notion of prophetic anointing requires modern prophecy to be a thing. Then, it encourages mothers to believe themselves to be like Hannah, the mother of Samuel. But, more still, that they are to receive a direct divine promise of their kiddo’s assignment.

Combining these elements of very specific Christian groups together is an odd fit. Along with the unmentioned bits, I was left with a picture of a collector. This woman had gathered Christian expressions and compiled them into a language she could use to convince you that she’s a Christian just like you. Ultimately, it’s just another begging technique like pressing the time on your end to encourage you offer-up “go away” money.

The begging feature here is less important than the way the language works. In isolation, certain expression may sound Christian. But, when the bits don’t fit together and don’t flow from the scriptures, you’re hearing a false Christianity. Maybe it’s a suit for work, a cover for insecurity, or ploy to separate you from your money.

Be wary of the Christianish language.

Rev. Jason M. Kaspar
Mt. Calvary Lutheran Church & Preschool
La Grange, TX

What If They’re Not A Visitor?

The Lutheran church is often maligned for her lack of friendliness. We are well aware of the issue. We even assign greeters to welcome folks as they come into the building. Just like the back pew preference, I suppose we’re not alone in Christendom in this either. But, is there a possibility that there’s another underlying issue?

I’ve concluded over the years that some of our chilly interaction is caused by fear. Not some introverted fear of interaction itself, but a fear of being exposed or causing great pearl clutching offense. Both, I suspect, originate from the same source.

We’re afraid to greet a strange face, because they might be an infrequent, long-time member. We fear offending them and chasing them off. We also fear being exposed as a newbie, regardless of how many years are under our belts, in the face of a generational member, who deserves more credit than us.

To the second concern, impostor syndrome is a real thing. In most of the rest of our lives, it’s sort of an irrational fear. But in Christianity, it’s legitimate. We come to confess our sins, hear the absolution, hear the word of God, and receive his gifts of forgiveness of sins life and salvation. We do it often, constantly reminding ourselves that we don’t belong or deserve these gifts. Baptized into Christ, we are imposters no more. We are grafted into the body of Christ. We are members of the one body, the one family of faith.

The fear of offense is also legitimate. But, we should not be paralyzed by it. The misidentified delinquent member may get mad, but they lack standing in the case. They are the ones who’ve hidden their faces from the congregation. They are the ones who’ve absented themselves from the place where God promised to deliver his blessings to His people.

Think of it this way: Attendance is membership. Membership is not a listing on the membership roll caused by a protracted failure to clean-up the rolls, not a ancient familial connection, not a community presence, not a huge donation in the recent or distant past. “I don’t have to go to church to be a Christian” you’ll often hear.

That’s true but consider this. “Just a like a fish doesn’t have to be in water to be a fish. What happens to that fish when you take it out of the water for too long?” (Tyler Edwards, “Do You Really Have To Go To Church Every Sunday,” Relevant Magazine, 2017). God gives us His church to keep us in the faith and guard us against the Devil, the world, and our sinful flesh.

Our fear can block us from serving those returning folks and, more importantly missing new visitors among us. By simply not engaging, we won’t be exposed or hurt somebody’s feelings. At what cost? How many folks have visited among us without a word from the person sharing their pew, seated behind, or seated in front of them? How many people did we miss getting to know and folding into this body of faith?

You Are the Church! A simple word of greeting from one individual to another can make all the difference in the world to that person you don’t know yet. “Hi, my name is Esmerelda, and you are?” “Can I show you how to use that bulletin?” “We’re on page 167.” Even the simplest things can make their scary visit more comfortable. It can’t be done by formatting of the bulletin, welcome banners, or uncomfortable announcements. It can be done by each of us offering a word greeting or assistance.

That’s also true of the long delinquent member too. They may have forgotten what comes next, or never learned in the first place. If you don’t know them, they prob’ly don’t know you either. We’re here for the same reason. We come to the house of the Lord to hear and receive that forgiveness bought for us by the death of Jesus.

Let us attend to the house of the Lord.

Rev. Jason M. Kaspar
Mt. Calvary Lutheran Church & Preschool
La Grange, TX

Does God Still Speak Directly To Us?

Yes, of course God still speaks to us. He speaks directly to us each week, when we hear His Word. When your pastor says, “in the stead and by the command of my Lord, Jesus Christ, I forgive you all of your sins.” We are to hear the words as if Jesus Himself spoke them to us just now. The Divine Service on Sunday morning is all about the Lord speaking to us.

But, that’s not really the question, is it?

Your Aunt Beatrice, who now calls herself, Sister Mooncloud, means something entirely different. She or Uncle Stinging-rain say that God speaks directly to them. They’ve told you that they are more in touch with the Spirit of the Almighty in some way.

The method doesn’t matter. What matters is content.

A prophet is simply one who hears and reports the Word of the Lord. A true prophet cannot speak falsely. Moses warned the people of Israel, and us, too, that false prophets are coming, and here’s how you will know. “And if you say in your heart, ‘How may we know the word that the Lord has not spoken?’— when a prophet speaks in the name of the Lord, if the word does not come to pass or come true, that is a word that the Lord has not spoken; the prophet has spoken it presumptuously. You need not be afraid of him.” (Deuteronomy 18:21-22)

Always, the prophet must speak truth. If Uncle Stinging-rain or Auntie Mooncloud say a thing purporting to be the voice of God, it must come true as they have said. If the Senate doesn’t overturn the election, the comet doesn’t strike the earth, Mom and Dad don’t die at the appointed time, or the market doesn’t have a cataclysmic reaction, then the prophesy and the prophet are false.

Even the remedy given by the Lord through Mosses reflects a curious disdain. “You need not be afraid of him.” The proscribed reaction here isn’t fisticuffs, scourging, or stoning. It’s indifference. Have no fear, de-escalate, disengage.

All prophesy must point to Jesus and Him crucified for our sins. You and I may not always readily see it. But, it is the case to be sure. On the road to Emmaus, two of the followers of Jesus received clear teaching on their seven mile walk from Jesus himself after the resurrection. “And he said to them, ‘O foolish ones, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken! Was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer these things and enter into his glory?’ And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself.” (Acts 2:25-27)

“But, Pastor Kaspar, what about St. Peter’s Pentecost sermon concerning visions? Doesn’t that indicate a renewed prophesy?” That’s a fine question. When Peter and the disciples spoke in tongues, speaking all the languages of the people present, He did preach about prophecy. But, what does he actually say?

“But this is what was uttered through the prophet Joel: ‘And in the last days it shall be, God declares, that I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh, and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams; … before the day of the Lord comes, the great and magnificent day. And it shall come to pass that everyone who calls upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.’

Men of Israel, hear these words: Jesus of Nazareth, a man attested to you by God with mighty works and wonders and signs that God did through him in your midst, as you yourselves know — this Jesus, delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, you crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men. God raised him up, loosing the pangs of death, because it was not possible for him to be held by it.” (Acts 2:16-17, 20b-24)

Jesus taught on the Emmaus road: all prophecy is of Him. Peter also preached the same from the prophecy of St. Joel, chapter two. The prophet spoke of Jesus. The day of prophesy is the day of salvation. It’s the day of Jesus. For you, that day is today.

The writer of Hebrews puts a fine point on it too. “In many and various ways, God spoke to His people of old by the prophets. But now in these last days, He has spoken to us by His Son.” (Hebrews 1:1-2a) We have prophecy. But, the whole of it points to Jesus and his work saving us.

And St. Peter teaches us in His second epistle, chapter one, “For we did not follow cleverly devised myths when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eyewitnesses of his majesty … And we have something more sure, the prophetic word, to which you will do well to pay attention as to a lamp shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts, knowing this first of all, that no prophecy of Scripture comes from someone’s own interpretation.” (2 Peter 1:16, 18-20)

We have the interpretation: the saving work of Jesus for us. Now, also we have the lens through which prophecy is revealed to us. We have Jesus and the scripture attesting to Him. Anything else is false prophecy. Fear not, dear Christians, ignore those words.

Let us prophesy of Jesus alone, and the work He has done.

Rev. Jason M. Kaspar
Mt. Calvary Lutheran Church & Preschool
La Grange, TX

A Christian Logo Design

Photograpic basis for the design by Rev. Jason M. Kaspar

The new logo for Mt. Calvary Lutheran Church & Preschool of La Grange, TX features two elements of our ecclesiastical architecture. Both our pulpit and lectern walls within the chancel feature the same brick form. These two features flank the large chancel cross.

In church architecture, we should always see the numbers before our eyes as deliberate and pedagogical. The repeated features in church sanctuaries are generally done on purpose. They also serve to teach about the Christian faith, reminding us about something significant.

These numbers include fours for the Gospel writers, sixes for creation and the fall into sin, sevens for holiness, tens for the completeness of all peoples, and twelves for holy completeness. Our sanctuary also makes use of numbers to teach us about the Christian faith.

The brickwork flanking the cross has a central column consisting of two independent bricks and a continuous column. In the church threes are a Trinitarian symbol. The Trinity is, then, core upon which eight horizontal bars hang. Eights in the church are symbols of resurrection, recreation, new life in Christ, and baptism.

In six days, The Lord created the Heavens and the Earth. On the Seventh day, He rested. After the fall, the eight day becomes a symbol of the promised redeemer. In Genesis 3:15 we hear, “I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel.”

In the flood, eight souls are preserved in the ark. They are preserved by water, which also washes way the wickedness of the earth. St. Peter teaches us in 1 Peter 3 “20because they formerly did not obey, when God’s patience waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was being prepared, in which a few, that is, eight persons, were brought safely through water. 21Baptism, which corresponds to this, now saves you, not as a removal of dirt from the body but as an appeal to God for a good conscience, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ.”

All Jewish males are circumcised as a mark of God’s covenant with His people. This circumcision is proscribed for the eight day of life. That Genesis 3 promise is tied to the eight day.

Jesus’ resurrection is an eighth day event. He is crucified and dies on Friday. He is entombed in death from Friday through the entirety of the Sabbath (the seventh day), and is raised again from the dead on the eighth day.

In Colossians, chapter two, St. Paul teaches us to understand baptism from circumcision. “11In him also you were circumcised with a circumcision made without hands, by putting off the body of the flesh, by the circumcision of Christ, 12having been buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him through faith in the powerful working of God, who raised him from the dead. 13And you, who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses.”

These two Trinitarian Baptismal symbols on both sides of our altar point our eyes to the source of our salvation. In baptism, we receive the forgiveness of sins AND the faith, which clings to that promise. The forgiveness purchased and won by Jesus’ crucifixion and death on a cross. A symbol of death promising us eternal life.

Let us ever glory in that baptismal promise.

Rev. Jason M. Kaspar
Mt. Calvary Lutheran Church & Preschool
La Grange, TX