Christology – Page 6 – What Does This Mean?

Beg, Borrow and Steal

Encore Post:

[Sixteenth in a series of posts on Martin Luther’s Small Catechism]

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., drives off in your car, or holds 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 we take something, but also 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 for the harm done to us, it 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.

Originally posted at What does this Mean? Blog: https://whatdoesthismean.blog

The posts in the blog What does this Mean? are now available at What does this Mean? | Rev. Robert E. Smith | Substack

Rev. Robert E. Smith

Pastor Emeritus

Fort Wayne, Indiana

God’s Good Gift of Marriage

Encore Post:

[Fifteenth in a series of posts on Martin Luther’s Small Catechism]

“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 reflects 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, and temptation to all manner of sexual encounters. Jesus makes it no easier when he tells us that even to look at someone who is not your spouse with a desire for her is to break this commandment. (Matthew 5:27-28)

Thank God, we have resources to help us resist these temptations. Marriage itself helps by providing a 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 him and remind him of the consequences of such sin. And when we fall into sin, we know Jesus died to forgive our sins and is with us always to help us resist it.

Originally posted at What does this Mean? Blog: https://whatdoesthismean.blog

The posts in the blog What does this Mean? are now available at What does this Mean? | Rev. Robert E. Smith | Substack

Rev. Robert E. Smith

Pastor Emeritus

Fort Wayne, Indiana

St. Timothy, Pastor, Bishop, Friend of St. Paul

Encore Post: Timothy of Lystra had a blessed childhood. His grandmother and mother were Jews who came to Christ. Even in the womb, he heard the Holy Scriptures and was raised loving God, even though his father was a Gentile. He may have already a Christian when he first met St. Paul, or came to faith through his preaching of the Gospel. A kind, mature, and reserved young man, he impressed everyone, including St. Paul. So, Paul had him circumcised and brought him on his missionary journeys. Called as a pastor, he soon became Paul’s trusted and effective assistant. When Paul was near martyrdom, he called for Timothy to come to be with him. After Paul’s death, Timothy served as the Bishop of Ephesus. Church tradition reports that he was martyred in his old age.

On January 24th, the Lutheran Church gives thanks to God for St. Timothy and all pastors. God sent them to proclaim the Gospel, to care for his children, to bring to them the gifts of Baptism and the Lord’s Supper, to forgive their sins when they repent, and to be present with them in all the days of their lives. The Scriptures urge us to study their lives, learn from them, and imitate their faith. We do this not because they are holier than us. They are not. It is because they are just like us. Since they lived trusting in Jesus, we, too, can live trusting in him. After all, Jesus is the same yesterday, today, and forever. (Hebrews 13:7-8)

Originally posted at What does this Mean? Blog: https://whatdoesthismean.blog

The posts in the blog What does this Mean? are now available at What does this Mean? | Rev. Robert E. Smith | Substack

Rev. Robert E. Smith

Pastor Emeritus

Fort Wayne, Indiana

To Live Well, Honor Your Parents

Encore Post:

[Thirteenth is a series of posts on Martin Luther’s Small Catechism]

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 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 every one of us has one father and one mother. For us, a parent is a mask 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 stepfather 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 happy, productive lives. 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 balance.

Originally posted at What does this Mean? Blog: https://whatdoesthismean.blog

The posts in the blog What does this Mean? are now available at What does this Mean? | Rev. Robert E. Smith | Substack

Rev. Robert E. Smith

Pastor Emeritus

Fort Wayne, Indiana

Jesus Rejected in Nazareth

Encore Post: Synagogues are like churches. They are places where Jews gather on the Sabbath (Saturday) to hear a passage from the Old Testament read, hear a sermon, and pray together. The Old Testament is read from a scroll instead of a book. Someone would help the reader take it out of a storage box called an ark, unwrap it, and roll the text to the place where he should start to read. Often, the people would sing while they did this.

When the reading was finished, it was put away until the next Sabbath. When a boy reached the age of twelve, he got to read it for the first time in an event called Bar Mitzvah, which means “Son of the Covenant.” If the reader were also a teacher, he would sit down and explain the reading.

This is what Jesus was doing when he returned to Nazareth. He read from Isaiah 61. This passage predicts the Messiah’s ministry to preach the Gospel and heal the sick. He announced that he was the Messiah.

The problem was that his neighbors and friends had a hard time believing he was the Messiah. He grew up in such a normal way that there was hardly anything for the Gospels to report for the first thirty years of his life. The contractor down the block is the Messiah — please! They wanted results! What’s in it for them? Nothing! Their lack of faith in Jesus meant he could not perform miracles at home.

On the day they tried to kill him, it failed. But it would not be long before Jesus went to Jerusalem. There he suffered and died for their sins, ours, and the sins of the entire world. When he rose from the dead, he set us all free. When he returns for us, then we will also be healed — not for a little while, but forever.

Originally posted at What does this Mean? Blog: https://whatdoesthismean.blog

The posts in the blog What does this Mean? are now available at What does this Mean? | Rev. Robert E. Smith | Substack

Rev. Robert E. Smith

Pastor Emeritus

Fort Wayne, Indiana

The Confession of St. Peter

Encore Post: In northeast Israel, at the base of Mount Hermon, a giant spring gushed water out of a cave that flowed into Huela Marsh, the headwaters of the Jordan River. During the centuries following the death of Alexander the Great, Syria’s Greek rulers built a shrine to the god Pan there. During the earthly ministry of Jesus, Herod the Great’s son Philip built a town nearby and named it after Tiberius Caesar and himself. His father had added a temple to Caesar Augustus to the previous shrine to Pan. A major trade road, “The Way to the Sea,” ran through the town on its way to the Sea of Galilee and the Mediterranean Sea. At the end of his ministry in Galilee, Jesus took his disciples to this location to prepare them for his final year of ministry, suffering, death, and resurrection. (Matthew 16:13-28)

In this place, Jesus asked his disciples who people thought he was. They replied that people said he was a prophet, maybe even John the Baptist or Elijah. Jesus then followed up. “Who do you say I am?” St. Peter replied, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the Living God.” God the Father had revealed this to Peter, but it quickly became clear that he really did not know what a Messiah was supposed to do. Jesus explained to the disciples that he would soon suffer, die for the sins of the world, and rise from the dead in three days. Peter tried to scold him. It could not happen to him — he was the Messiah, after all. Jesus replied by calling Peter Satan. Anyone who would be his disciple would need to take up his own cross and follow Jesus.

Even though Peter was badly mistaken, Jesus praised his confession that Jesus was the Christ, the Son of God. The confession was so important that Jesus gave him the name Peter, the little rock. The confession itself is the rock on which Jesus builds his church. Even hell itself cannot destroy that church. Since the early years of the twentieth century, the Lutheran Church has celebrated this confession on January 18th, a day always in the season of Epiphany, when it meditates on how God the Son reveals himself to us.

Originally posted at What does this Mean? Blog: https://whatdoesthismean.blog

The posts in the blog What does this Mean? are now available at What does this Mean? | Rev. Robert E. Smith | Substack

Rev. Robert E. Smith

Pastor Emeritus

Fort Wayne, Indiana

Who is Your God?

Encore Post:

[Eighth is a series of posts on Martin Luther’s Small Catechism]

When St. Paul first visited Athens as a Christian, he noticed it was a very religious place. Everywhere he went, he found a temple or sometimes just an altar to this or that god or goddess. That he expected. But what caught him by surprise was that there was an altar on which to sacrifice to an unknown god. Someone really wanted to cover all their bases! (Acts 17:16-31)

Our world is also a very religious place. Everywhere you go, there are churches, temples, and gathering places. “In God we trust” appears on the money of the United States. Conversations often invoke a god, even if it’s just in cursing. At times of death and birth, a god is often called upon to provide blessings or comfort. In a secular society, gods are everywhere.

God made human beings so that we would need to depend upon him. So, even when a person is not a Christian, even if they are an atheist, they need to depend upon someone or something, especially in times of need. Martin Luther describes it this way:

“A god means that from which we are to expect all good and to which we are to take refuge in all distress, so that to have a God is nothing else than to trust and believe Him from the [whole] heart; as I have often said that the confidence and faith of the heart alone make both God and an idol. If your faith and trust be right, then is your God also true; and, on the other hand, if your trust be false and wrong, then you have not the true god; for these two belong together, faith and God. That now, I say, upon which you set your heart and put your trust is properly your god.” (Large Catechism 1.1.2-3)

For Christians, God is not some fuzzy concept, one of many competing gods or goddesses, or the whole universe merged as a single being or something we are obsessed with or addicted to. God is our Father, who loved us before he made the world, who knit us together in our mother’s womb, who in the person of the Son of God, suffered, died, and rose again, so that we might live with him forever. All other things that we can make into a god are products of the human imagination or are not made to bear the weight of our trust. Sooner or later, they will fail. But God will never fail. He is with us, now, through death and into eternal life.

Originally posted at What does this Mean? Blog: https://whatdoesthismean.blog

The posts in the blog What does this Mean? are now available at What does this Mean? | Rev. Robert E. Smith | Substack

Rev. Robert E. Smith

Pastor Emeritus

Fort Wayne, Indiana

The Two Greatest Commandments

Encore Post:

[Sixth post in a series of posts on Martin Luther’s Small Catechism]

Because God loved us before he made the world (Ephesians 1:3-4), we love God and want to keep his commandments. But where do we start? The rabbis count 613 commandments in the Torah (the first five books of the Bible, written by Moses) alone! While they kept track of each one in great detail and invented traditions to be sure and keep them, they found it helpful to ask each rabbi for his opinion. “Which commandment is the greatest of them all?” became a common question disciples asked their teacher. So it is not a surprise that people discussed this question with Jesus several times. (Matthew 22:36, Mark 12:28, Luke 10:25-28)

Jesus taught that two commandments summarize the whole of God’s Law — “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one.Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength” (Deuteronomy 6:45 ESV) and “you shall love your neighbor as yourself” (Leviticus 19:18) In a sense, the second of the two commandments is contained in the first. Every command in the whole of the Scripture will be kept if you love God with your whole heart.

As sinners, we cannot do this perfectly, of course. But we can do some good works because God loved us first, sending Jesus to die so that we might be forgiven. By His Holy Spirit, God has created faith in our hearts, so that we can truly love Him. So, then, because God loves us, we also love our neighbor as ourselves and in the same way that we have been loved by God. (1 John 4:7-12)

Originally posted at What does this Mean? Blog: https://whatdoesthismean.blog

The posts in the blog What does this Mean? are now available at What does this Mean? | Rev. Robert E. Smith | Substack

Rev. Robert E. Smith

Pastor Emeritus

Fort Wayne, Indiana

Why is Luther’s Small Catechism so Popular?

“Mercy! Good God! What manifold misery I beheld! The common people, especially in the villages, have no knowledge whatever of Christian doctrine, and, alas! Many pastors are altogether incapable to teach … Yet they [do not understand and] cannot [even] recite either the Lord’s Prayer, or the Creed, or the Ten Commandments”
— Martin Luther, “Preface” in The Small Catechism 0.1

Encore Post:

[Third is a series of posts on Martin Luther’s Small Catechism]

Luther was shocked and dismayed. His prince had sent him and his friends on a mission to go throughout Saxony and see what needed to be done to reform the church. There was no bishop who came over to the Reformation to provide care for the people, so the prince had to act. Luther knew the everyday people were poorly educated — but he didn’t know how badly. He had instructed his friends to write catechisms to help fathers and priests teach the people. He was not at all satisfied with their work, and it clearly was not working. So he produced two Catechisms — the Large Catechism for pastors and fathers to learn how to teach children, and the Small Catechism for the children to memorize.

Luther produced two classics. The Small Catechism revolutionized the Christian education of children, even beyond Lutheranism, leading to basic catechisms for children appearing in all denominations. Wherever the Lutheran Church and its missions went in the world, the Small Catechism soon followed. As soon as the Bible appeared in a new language, the Catechism and the liturgy were sure to follow. It is among the most translated works in Western civilization. When the first Missouri Synod Lutherans emigrated to America, among the essential books packed in the trunks were the Bible, the Catechism, a prayer book, a hymnal, and a book of sermons. Wherever the Missouri Synod organized congregations, they would immediately set up schools — sometimes multiple schools — where at first the pastors would teach, you guessed it, the Catechism, the Bible, and then other subjects. As soon as a congregation could afford it, they would also call a schoolteacher.

The Small Catechism was so popular because it was so basic. It taught the bedrock doctrines needed to live a Christian life — the Ten Commandments and with it God’s law in its three uses; the Creed and with it the Gospel, which saves us and gives us the power to live the Christian life, and the Lord’s Prayer, and with it the building of a life centered on Jesus. Luther also translated these treasures into the child’s native language, so they could comprehend them. He then explained them carefully and sweetly, in easily memorizable terms. He did all this without using combative language. The result is that even non-Lutherans cherish the Small Catechism.

Originally posted at What does this Mean? Blog: https://whatdoesthismean.blog

The posts in the blog What does this Mean? are now available at What does this Mean? | Rev. Robert E. Smith | Substack

Rev. Robert E. Smith
Pastor Emeritus
Fort Wayne, Indiana

Jews and Gentiles

Encore Post: The Greeks saw the world as made up of two kinds of people — Greeks and barbarians. For the Romans, it was Romans and pagans. In the 1960s, we saw the world as Americans versus Communists. The Communists saw the world as Communist, Capitalist, or Imperialist. For the Jews, it was Jews and Gentiles.

Of course, for them, God was the source of this separation. He called Abraham out of the Sumerian culture and the service of multiple gods to the service of the one true God. He set him apart from the rest of the world to be a blessing to it. He grew the nation from the descendants of Abraham and Sarah. He freed them from slavery in Egypt, gave them his law, formed them in the desert, and gave them the land of promise.

But there, the other nations — the gentiles — worshiped other gods and lived in great immorality. Not the least of that evil was that they would sacrifice their children for favors from their gods. So God commanded the people of Israel to kill them all and destroy all their possessions. The Israelites did not do this perfectly. Those people tempted God’s people to wander from him and sink into their immorality. God punished them by exiling them to Babylon. Except for 150 years, they lived as the subjects of pagan nations.

They learned a lesson. The Jews — at least the pious ones — tried to keep the law so perfectly they invented their own laws and traditions. Among those was strict separation from Gentiles, to the point of not even eating with them. In the temple, they would not allow Gentiles to enter the temple proper and punished transgression with death.

The celebration of Epiphany marks how the coming of Christ changes this once and for all. Jesus died on the cross for the sins of both Jews and Gentiles. The reason for the division is demonstrated when the temple curtain tore in two from top to bottom. Now, as Isaiah prophesied, the nations come to God through Christ and meet God’s people there. Together we praise him who called us both out of darkness into his marvelous light.

Originally posted at What does this Mean? Blog: https://whatdoesthismean.blog

The posts in the blog What does this Mean? are now available at What does this Mean? | Rev. Robert E. Smith | Substack

Rev. Robert E. Smith
Pastor Emeritus
Fort Wayne, Indiana