Anthropology – Page 3 – What Does This Mean?

Speak up for others

Encore Post: It all began with a lie. “You shall not die, but you will be like God…” (Genesis 3:4-5) Since then, falsehood has been the go-to sin — the way we try to wiggle out of tough spots. Sometimes it works — for awhile. The trouble with lies is that they multiply like rabbits and it is hard to keep them all straight. A variety of this strategy is to try to build yourself up by tearing others down. It is why it is the staple of garden variety gossip — and political campaigns. It is also when someone is in competition with us that we assume the worst of others — and spread it. The problem is, of course, such lies destroy reputations and lives. It is why God forbids lying about others. But you know all that. It is the common theme of preachers when they take up this commandment.

Martin Luther sees something more in this commandment. It is God’s call to speak up for others — especially those who cannot speak for themselves. So, when when the opportunity comes, we should speak well of others. We should praise people publicly when they do well, help others to see their good side and when we hear someone criticized, defend them. This is especially true if they are weak, defenseless, not present to defend themselves or are in danger. This can be challenging when the person is a friend or loved one, but difficult if they are opposed to us or even an enemy. We may discover that they are not as bad as we think.

Every day we fail to do this. Yet there is forgiveness for us. Jesus suffered the insults and lies of others — even his friends. These lies resulted in his crucifixion. He knew this would happen, yet he willingly suffered that we might be saved. Because he died and rose again, God now sees only the best in us — that we do good because we love him and that we are holy for Jesus’ sake. He now gives us the ability to see the good in others, to pray for them and defend them.

Rev. Robert E. Smith

Concordia Theological Seminary

Fort Wayne, Indiana

Blog Post Series

Beg, Borrow and Steal

Encore Post: Advertisements are all around us. They call to us: “you can have that bright, shiny, car. If you act now, you can get it for hardly any money at all…” “Buy a lottery ticket and you will win millions of dollars.” The temptation to win something for nothing, to take a shortcut to get what you desire is strong in us. What we may not realize is that at the bottom of it all is taking something that is not given to us or earned by us. In fact, you could see the first sin as theft — taking the one fruit God did not give.

Stealing is obvious when someone breaks into your house and takes your T.V., when they drive off in your car or hold up a grocery store. Less obvious, but just as real, is when someone steals your identity, charges you way more than an item is worth or sells you a property they know will need major repairs. What is less obvious is how each of us steals. We rob people not only when take something, but when we do not give others what we owe them. When someone pays us, we owe them our best work. When we do not help them to protect their possessions and improve their business, they are poorer for it. Even when we sue someone for damages and are awarded more than we need to recover from the harm done to us is a form of theft.

Thank God that he is merciful even to thieves. Jesus forgave the thief on the cross and died for his robbery and ours. Not only that, but in Jesus God gives us everything we need — life, salvation and faith to be generous to those in need. With the strength he gives, we can resist the temptation to steal and become, like him, people who give.

Rev. Robert E. Smith
Concordia Theological Seminary
Fort Wayne, Indiana

God’s Good Gift of Marriage

Encore Post: “It is not good,” God said, “that man be alone. I will make a helper fit for him.” (Genesis 2:18) Formed from the rib of Adam, God presented Eve to man. “At last bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh!” replied Adam. … “Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife and they shall become one flesh,” Moses concludes his account of the first marriage. (Genesis 2:23-24)

God’s gift was very good. Marriage is the closest picture we have of the nature of God. In it, there are two persons, yet one flesh. It is a reflection of the relationship between Christ and his bride, the church. It is the foundation on which God builds families, where children can be raised in love and security. It is sealed with God’s gift of sexual intimacy. God thinks so highly of marriage that he makes it a part of the ten commandments. That is why he limits sexual activity to marriage.

In our culture, which makes sexual freedom into a god, it can be more challenging than ever to keep this commandment. Everywhere are sexual images, pornography, temptation to all manner of sexual encounters. Jesus makes it no easier when he tells us that even to look at someone not your spouse with desire for her is to break this commandment. (Matthew 5:27-28)

Thank God we have resources that can help us resist these temptations. Marriage itself helps by providing the place for these feelings to be expressed. We also have each other. All of us have these temptations and we can urge each other to be faithful. When we see a friend tempted, we can plead with them and remind them of the consequences of such sin. And when we do fall into sin, we know that Jesus died to forgive our sins and is with us always to help us resist it.

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Being for Life and not Death

Encore Post: On the surface, “you will not murder” seems easy enough to keep. In spite of what the TV and the Internet like to make us believe, very few people outside the military ever actually kill another person. Most policemen on the job do not draw their weapons even once in their careers. It should be easy to check this one off, we are tempted to think.

In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus tells us there is a lot more to this command than that. Murder begins in our hearts when we become angry with someone and wish harm to them. (Matthew 5:21-26) hatred has a way of spilling over into action when we give it room to fester.

Martin Luther sees in this command every place God forbids us to harm our neighbors in any way. It also calls on us to help anyone who is hurting, in danger, weak, hungry or ill. God, the Author of Life, wants us to be for life, too. When we do not come to the aid of others, we kill them, even if it is only in a small way. Jesus even promises to remember on the last day when we do not care for them. What we do or do not do to the least important of our neighbors, he will count as having been done to him. (Matthew 25:31-46)

In our modern culture, it is ever more challenging to defend life, protect the weak and care for those who suffer. Mothers are taught it is their right to kill babies in the womb if they do not want to raise them. Doctors urge patients and their families to put to death those who suffer greatly. In some cases, governments take these decisions out of the hands of family and kill patients they find too expensive to treat. Rightly so, Christians come to the defense of the weak and defenseless.

Because God in Christ died so that we might rise again, we seek not to harm others, but to help them as he helped us.

Rev. Robert E. Smith
Concordia Theological Seminary
Fort Wayne, Indiana

Blog Post Series

Remember that You Are Dust…

Encore Post: Ash Wednesday works like kind of a speed bump in the lives of Christians. After celebrating the birth of Jesus, listening to the ways in which God revealed himself in the person of Jesus Christ, God’s Son, seeing him in his full glory on the Mount of Transfiguration, we’re tempted to bask in the glory of God’s grace and love. Yet still our stubborn, Old Adam or Old Eve clings to us and threatens to take over our lives. Lest we forget, Lent comes to help us discipline ourselves, repent of our sin and live life, trusting in God and his promises. Ash Wednesday greets us with the words God spoke to Adam — and to us — when imposing the curse that resulted from the first sin: “Remember that your are dust and to the dust you will return.” (Genesis 3:19)

This phrase is a part of the ancient discipline of remembering mortality. (Memento mori — “Remember death”) It is the conscious meditation on the cold, hard truth that all the pleasures and blessings of life are temporary and that death comes to all of us, often suddenly. Ash Wednesday calls on us to stop what we are doing, consider the damage our sin does in our lives — both now and eternally. The collect for the day sets the tone: “Almighty and everlasting God, You despise nothing You have made and forgive the sins of all who are penitent. Create in us new and contrite hearts that lamenting our sins and acknowledging our wretchedness we may receive from You full pardon and forgiveness; through Jesus Christ, Your Son, our Lord, who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever.”

Repentance is more than saying you’re sorry. The Greek word the New Testament uses for repentance is μετάνοια means “to completely change your mind.” It includes recognizing your sins, being sorry for them and to stop doing them. All of this is only possible for Christians because it is the work of the Holy Spirit that makes us holy. Ash Wednesday wakes us up, reminds us how to use the disciplines of fasting, prayer and meditation, gives us the forgiveness of sins through confession, absolution and the Lord’s Supper. It sets the tone for our forty day meditation. It marks our sorrow with the ashes of the palms from the previous Palm Sunday and with the sign of the Holy Cross, reminds us of the redemption that is ours in the passion, death and Resurrection of Jesus.

May God grant you a blessed meditation on the suffering and death of Jesus that you will be well prepared to celebrate with joy the coming Easter celebration.

Rev. Robert E. Smith

Concordia Theological Seminary

Fort Wayne, Indiana

To Live Well, Honor Your Parents

Encore Post: The Fourth Commandment is different. This commandment is positive. It urges us to honor our father and mother rather than the “nots” of most of the commandments. It comes with a promise — that you will live a long life. It is the first commandment that even non-believers can keep and their lives will be better in this world. It is the first of the Words to explain what it means to love your neighbor — to do to others what you want them to do to you.

So, why is honoring our father and mother the first commandment about loving our neighbors? Of all of the vocations (callings) that God gives to us, parenting is the most basic. We are not all blessed with children, professions, businesses or crafts, but everyone of us has one father and one mother. A parent is for us a mask that God wears to care for us in this world. When the evil of this world deprives us of a loving father and mother, adoptive father and mother, a step father or mother or a foster father and mother, life is profoundly more difficult and troubled. When a father and mother serve God by caring for their children, providing for their needs, disciplining them and loving them, their children have the best chance of living a happy and productive life. When we love them, thank them, care for them in old age and illness, we encourage them to serve faithfully. Most of all, we set an example for those we care for.

Martin Luther also saw in fathers and mothers a model for all people God calls to care for us. Employers, rulers, pastors, teachers, first responders, husbands and others are called to lay down their lives for those in their care. We benefit from their leadership and protection. When we honor them, we honor God who called them. We, in our turn, then serve those in our care, as Christ loved us and gave his life so we can live. When we honor all our leaders, we live longer, simpler and happier lives in the balance.

Rev. Robert E. Smith

Concordia Theological Seminary

Fort Wayne, Indiana

Blog Post Series

The Sabbath Rest

Encore Post: The Sabbath rest is ancient. God himself rested on the seventh day, just after he created the world in six days. When God gave his law to his people the command to rest on the seventh day made the top ten. God knew that working without rest would damage his creatures. So he built it in — rest every night and the seventh day. It provided time for his people to worship and to meditate on his word.

Yet for Christians the day they worship — and rest — is a matter of freedom. It belongs to the civil law, the law for the nation of Israel. It is not a part of the moral law, the law for all people. We know this because Jesus called himself “the Lord of the Sabbath” and St. Paul describes that freedom in Romans and Colossians. Still the church chose from the beginning to rest every Sunday, the first day of the week, to remember the Resurrection of Jesus.

While Christians should worship God every and any day, resting on Sunday brings with it the opportunity to hear God’s word preached, to receive his gifts of baptism and the Lord’s Supper, to meet with each other and pray for each other and to study the Word of God. It not so much that we have to go to church than that we get to go to church. At many times and in many places that freedom does not exist.

So we honor Sundays and Holy Days. We use the opportunity to receive the forgiveness of sins and bread for our daily lives. We rejoice to honor our Lord Jesus, who died for us, rested in the tomb three days and rose again, so that we might rest with him forever.

Rev. Robert E. Smith

Concordia Theological Seminary

Fort Wayne, Indiana

Blog Post Series

Pray, Praise and Give Thanks

Encore Post: A name has a lot more packed into it than we often realize. It carries a person’s reputation, authority and power with it. In ancient magical lore, if you know a person’s true name, you can have power over them. God’s name is the most important of all, not because it is magical, but because God has promised to hear us when we call to him.

The Second command is all about using God’s name in prayer, to act as his tools in this world to bring the Gospel to the lost and do his will as we serve him and our neighbors. We baptize in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. We teach all that he commands us to teach. When we make promises to tell the truth and make promises to each other in his presence, we commit ourselves to keep them.

The problem is our sinful nature wants to use God’s name to cover lies and to make people believe we intend to do what we have no intention to do. We want God to give us things that we desire, treating God as if he were some kind of cosmic vending machine – insert prayer, believe you will get it and it will come to you. We are inclined to say “O my God” when we are surprised or shocked rather than as a prayer for help. These uses are misuses of God’s name and what the command tells us not to do.

So, then, do we go the other way, as Judaism does, and not even use his name at all? No, God wants us to use his name. We call to him in trouble. We are comforted when in his name our pastors forgive our sins. We draw strength when we remember that he came to us in our Baptism and put his name on us that in his name we are saved. We call his name like we call a beloved father, mother and grandparent, knowing we are loved and they want to share our lives. We use his name to praise him and thank him for his love and mercy.

Rev. Robert E. Smith

Concordia Theological Seminary

Fort Wayne, Indiana

Blog Post Series

©2018, rev. 2020 Robert E. Smith. All rights reserved. Permission granted to copy, share and display freely for non-commercial purposes. Direct all other rights and permissions inquiries to cosmithb@gmail.com

Fence, Mirror and Guide Book

Encore Post: “In the day you eat of it, you will surely die,” God warned Adam. (Genesis 2:17) And he did die and all of us with him. (1 Corinthians 15:22) The first sin disrupted everything. It set creation against itself, bringing decay, suffering, grief and disorder. The greatest disaster, however, is separation of God from his children. Now they were under sentence of death. Yet God did not destroy the world, nor damn Adam and Eve as they deserved. In his love and mercy, God promised instead to send his Son to crush the ancient snake (Genesis 3:15). With his judgment on their sin and the curses that followed, he began to reveal his law to Adam and Eve so that they might learn the consequences of their sin, cling to the promised Seed of Eve for salvation and learn to serve God and others once again.

To this day, the Law of God restrains our sin, drives us to the Gospel for salvation and show us how in faith we can serve God and our neighbors. The law does this in three ways.

First, it stops sin from running free in the world. Through human authorities — parents, governments, employers and others, the law praises and rewards good behavior and punishes evil deeds. It acts like a fence, to contain and restrain sin.

Second, the law tells us what God requires of us, threatens us with eternal death if we do not obey it in thought, word and deed. It reveals every one of our sins, evil motives and desires. It charges us with rebellion against God in his court. It shows us we are guilty and cannot free ourselves. It drives us to the Gospel and the sacrifice of God’s Son for our salvation. It acts like a mirror that shows us our sin.

Third, the law guides Christians, in whom the Holy Spirit has created faith in Christ. Because we love God and want to please him, the law reveals his God’s will for our lives and how he wants us to love him and our neighbors. It acts like a guide book or a manual that clears away the confusion of life in a sinful world.

Rev. Robert E. Smith

Concordia Theological Seminary

Fort Wayne, Indiana

Son of Man

Encore Post: Jesus does not use the title Son of God to refer to himself, even though we use it all the time for him. Instead, he most often uses the title the Son of Man. Yet, it is rarely used by anyone other than Jesus. In the Old Testament, God calls Ezekiel “Son of Man.” and Daniel talks about a vision of the Messiah, who would be “like a son of man.” (Daniel 7:13-14) Likely Jesus is claiming this prophecy with his favorite title.

Yet in this title, Christians see more. The Eternal Son of God, King of Kings, Lord of Lords, the Messiah is not ashamed to become one of us. He takes not only our nature, born in our form, but calls himself our brother, made like us in every way. (Hebrews 2:16-17) He experienced every temptation that we do, except he did not sin. God does not consider this physical world, our bodies or lives inferior, as if only the spirit matters. After all, he made it and called it “very good.” (Genesis 1:31)

More than that, even after he died for our sins, Jesus did not shed his body the way we discard our clothes after a hard day of work. He rose again after three days, keeping the wounds that were the price of our salvation and still lives as one Lord Jesus Christ, both Son of God and Son of Man to this day and forever.

The title, Son of Man, also reminds us that the Almighty and Everlasting God, whom we can never fully understand, does not live far away from us at a distance, but comes to us in a way we can understand. God in his glory we cannot grasp, but God in the person of the man Jesus Christ, we can understand. (John 1:18). He is God-with-us, and even though he is at the right hand of God in Heaven, is with us until the end of time itself — and beyond. (Matthew 28:18-20) He comes to us even more so in the Lord’s Supper, where he gives us his body with bread and his blood with wine to eat and to drink. That is why we thank and praise God that he is our Lord — Son of God and Son of Man.

Rev. Robert E. Smith

Concordia Theological Seminary

Fort Wayne, Indiana

Blog Post Series

©2018-2021 Robert E. Smith. All rights reserved. Permission granted to copy, share and display freely for non-commercial purposes. Direct all other rights and permissions inquiries to cosmithb@gmail.com