What Does This Mean?

Creator of Heaven and Earth

“In the Beginning, God created the heavens and the earth,” are the first words in the Bible. “I believe in God the Father almighty, Creator of Heaven and Earth …” we confess in our creeds. At the heart and center of all we believe is the fact that God made the universe — including us. This teaching is the foundation of everything else that we believe. The whole structure of Christian faith depends upon it, from the authority of God’s word to the doctrine of salvation by grace. Because God is the Creator and he loves us, we can live at peace. Nothing can harm us eternally because He protects us. If he is not the Creator, than we are on our own in the face of evil.

Like much of the Christian Faith, the conviction that God is the Creator of all things is a axiom — an idea that is assumed to be true. Strictly speaking, we do not try to prove that the God of Holy Scripture is the Creator. We take God’s word for it. We might argue from the evidence of the orderliness of the universe that a Creator exists, but we cannot use the evidence in the material world to identify his as the God we trust.

Some non-Christians will argue that this faith is a weakness. It is not based upon observation of the physical world and logical explanations of the data found there. (In other words, we do not use science to prove it) Yet everyone who tries to explain how the world came to be also use axioms. For example, those who trust scientific theories assume: that the world is an orderly place, that experiments repeated in precisely the same way over and over again will respond with more or less the same results. It assumes that nothing that cannot be seen, touched, tasted, smelled or heard is real.

Everyone, then, relies on beliefs that they conclude explain the world. While we may disagree with each other, discussion requires a certain amount of respect for those with very different faiths,

Friedrich Wyneken’s Indiana Ministry

Settling down to serve St. Paul’s Lutheran Church of Fort Wayne and Zion Lutheran Church of Decatur (Nicknamed “Friedheim”) in Northeast Indiana did not stop Friedrich Wyneken, full of zeal, from preaching, teaching and organizing congregations whenever he had the time. He visit other settlements on weekdays and preached in them. The circuit rider felt he could not organize these stations into congregations because mostly they lacked either the sufficient knowledge of the faith or piety (at the time, Friedrich was a pietist — but that’s another story!) and because he simply could not properly care for them.

It broke his heart to have to ignore the many pleas to come and prepare children for confirmation and to meet many desperate needs. In September of 1839, one hundred and eighty years ago, the very frustrated circuit rider reported to Friedrich Schmidt of Pittsburgh that at least five preaching stations lay within forty miles of Fort Wayne. These he visited more or less regularly. In addition, he planned to make at least two larger trips a year to do what he could throughout the region. He could see whole villages sinking back into paganism. He could only promise to return from time to time and tell them of his many letters to Germany, begging for help. On his longer trips, sometimes four to six weeks from home, Wyneken had to depart settlement after settlement, sick with the knowledge that not even a survey missionary would minister in these places for the next few years.

In January of 1840, the circuit rider reported to the American Home Missionary Society that he served two stations beyond his parishes on a regular basis, one nineteen miles and the other thirty miles distant. Sometime during 1840, Wyneken set out for Chicago to help Lutherans who had asked for his help. Weather prevented him from traveling further than Elkhart, where he ministered for a time before returning to Fort Wayne. In 1841, Wyneken reported to his friend Friedrich Schmidt that he so wanted to bring the joy of the Easter season to settlements to his west that he traveled so often that he couldn’t even correspond until he returned to his little Fort Wayne “Elijah’s Room.”

In addition to the congregations and places documented above, the oral traditions in the Northeast corner of Indiana credit Wyneken with ministering at preaching stations that would one day become congregations throughout Allen and Adams Counties, Avilla, Bremen, Corunna, Elkhart, Huntington, Kendallville, Mishawaka and South Whitley in Indiana and Wilshire (“Schumm”) and Wapakoneta, Ohio.

Doctor Luther Publishes his Galatians Lectures

As a professor of theology at Wittenberg University, Luther lectured on the Letter of St. Paul to the Galatians from October of 1516 to March of 1517. With the help of his young friend Philip Melanchthon, working from student notes of the lectures, Luther began to convert the lectures into a proper commentary in March of 1519. Five Hundred years ago this month, Luther’s first commentary on Galatians was published.

The work was very popular. Unlike other commentaries of the time, Luther did not make much use of the four-fold method of understanding Scripture. He tried to determine the meaning intended by St. Paul in each passage. Rather than be content with working from Jerome’s Latin Vulgate generally used by the church, he returned to the original Greek. Like a sermon, he applied the text to the church of the day, not being especially kind to his theological opponents. Yet immediately Luther expressed his dissatisfaction with the work. Over the next decade, Luther would revise the commentary several times. When he lectured on Galatians in 1531, he started from scratch. The result was one of his best works, the Galatians Commentary of 1535.

Luther’s greatest insight in both commentaries have to do with reading the words of the letter with Christ as focus of its message. All of Scripture is about Christ, his work to redeem us by his sufferings and death on the cross. By our own works we cannot save ourselves because we are sinners and deserve damnation. But by God’s grace for the sake of Christ, we are forgiven our sins and granted salvation. With this commentary, Luther came closer to fully understanding the Gospel. Within a few short months, he would write three works in which he fully explains Lutheran theology for the first time.

Sermon on Genesis 2:18-24

Marriage of
Jenna Lynn Witte and Wesley Robert Smith
31 August 2019
Cornerstone Lutheran Church
Carmel, Indiana

Text:^“Then the Lord God said, “It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him.” … Then the man said, “This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man.” … Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.”

Intro: Wes, Jenna, friends and family, grace, mercy and peace from God our Father and from the Bridegroom of the Church, Jesus Christ, our Lord. This is great day. That one missing piece of the puzzle of your life is found and the picture is now complete. You both have done quite well. You have built successful careers, set up homes, served God and others and achieved what many people strive for. And yet something was missing. And so it was for Adam. God had made him and gave him a perfect life. But it was “not good” God said. So God gave him lots of animals. And that did not do it. Even a dog didn’t do it. That is why He made Eve and why He brings you together today.

Now that you are together, you are never really alone.
1. As you take hold of each other today, you become one.
2. This marriage of yours is the closest you get to understanding the Trinity – two people, yet one, as He is three persons, yet one.
3. Now, even when you are apart from each other, you will be together.

Yet the World, the Devil and your sinful self will try to pull you apart.
1. Sin separated us from God, from our world and each other.
2. Our Old Adam and Old Eve curves us in on ourselves, pulling us apart from God and from others.
3. When we serve ourselves, rather than God, we end up all alone.

To free us from our sin, the Father sent His Son to save us.

“From Heaven Jesus came and sought you …”
1. With his own blood he bought you …”
2. When you were baptized, he washed you clean of sin “by water and the word.”
3. He now brings you, and us, together with God.
4. So even when you are alone, you are never really alone.

Now may the peace of God, which passes all understanding, set watch over your hearts and minds through faith in Christ Jesus, to life everlasting. Amen.

How Good is Good Enough?

Encore Post: One day, a sincere rich young man came to ask Jesus a common question — perhaps you have asked yourself the same question: “What do I have to do to get into heaven?” (Mark 10:17) From the way Jesus responded to him, we know the man wasn’t arrogant, looking for an easy way out or looking for a loophole in God’s law. He truly wanted to live with God forever. Yet he was asking the wrong question. He thought salvation was something you earn, even though his own polite words should have told him that. You do not earn an inheritance. It is something given to you by your father.

The young man was likely a Pharisee, but not an opponent of Jesus. He called Jesus a good teacher. Jesus reminds him gently what he should already know — there is no good person. Only God is good. He then set out to show him this path was a dead end. If someone was going to earn salvation, Jesus in so many words said, you needed to obey the Ten Commandments. The young man still didn’t get it. He told Jesus he always had kept these.

The fellow must have been very good at it, for Jesus did not challenge him directly. He dodged the question entirely. Rather than talk about what someone can do to be saved, Jesus told him how he could make his obedience to God’s law complete — he could become his disciples — sell all his goods, give it to the poor and become Jesus’ disciple. This is was not ready to do, because he was very rich. The scripture does not tell us if the man ever conquered his trust in riches to trust in God. Some people think this man might even have been the Evangelist Mark himself. But at this moment, he was not able to do this.

Eternal life, after all, is not something we purchase, but something we inherit from God. It is a gift that comes in Jesus’ last will and testament — the New Testament in his blood, shed upon the cross. Jesus is good because he is God himself. So he was able and willing to take all our evil upon himself and pay the price for it — death. Now that he has done so, he gives us that inheritance — his body to eat with bread and his blood to drink with wine. With this gift, God writes his law upon our hearts, so that we want to follow him now and forever.

The Four Ways of Interpreting Scripture

Encore Post: Pastor Smith has spoken a little about the four fold sense of interpreting Scripture. The Alexandrian theologians (at least some of them) followed this four fold sense method. Antioch held just to the literal or historical sense.

Those four are: Literal, Allegorical, Tropological, and the Anagogical senses. Below, I will try to explain them. I hope it proves to be a helpful primer. I do not believe I have a full grasp on each of these senses, but again I hope this gives some idea as to how the senses of interpretation were used to “get deeper into the meaning.”

The literal or historical sense is applicable to both a historical event and literary text. The literal sense is emphasized insofar as it historically grounds subsequent spiritual interpretation. Every subsequent sense was supposed to be connected then to the literal sense.

The allegorical sense then is used after the literal sense. The allegorical sense has been argued to go all the way back to St. Paul, even Jesus uses allegory in some of this parables. The allegorical sense of Scripture has been understood as referring to the mysteries of Christ and the Church as prefigured in Scripture. So then in the allegorical sense the object of allegory is properly Christ and the Church. Another principal of the allegorical sense in light of the Old Testament is that the object of allegory in reference of the Old Testament is a reality in the future.

The tropological sense applies a Scriptural text to the moral life. This sense, historically, has been a contributing factor for Christian anthropology and spirituality. The tropological and allegorical senses are united because while the allegorical sense refers to Christ and Church, the tropological sense refers to the individual members of the Body of Christ.

Finally the analogical sense is the eschatological sense of Scripture that looks forward to the consummation of everything in Christ at his final coming. In light of this we can kinda begin to see how these senses work all together. For instance, the anagogical sense represents the fulfillment of allegorical sense.

This was all supposed to find Christ, but more often than not, theologians went much further afield. This is why Luther was very weary of it. The medieval Church came up with some fanciful interpretations that had absolutely nothing to do with Christ.

Rev. Jacob Hercamp
St. Peter’s Lutheran Church
La Grange, MO

Bread From Heaven Five Ways

Encore Post: From the time that people began to plant crops until this very day, bread has been a basic food for people. God fed His people in the wilderness with manna to teach them to trust their Heavenly Father for daily bread. Later Satan would tempt Jesus to make stones into bread rather than trust Him. Jesus quoted what Moses said to Israel about Manna: “people do not live only on bread but on every word that God speaks.” (Deuteronomy 8:3)

Later, God would do other miracles with bread. The Prophet Elijah would feed the widow and her son with bread — their flour and oil did not run out for years. Elisha would feed one hundred men with a few loaves. Jesus would feed crowds in the desert with a few loaves and fishes. The crowds knew what it meant — Jesus was the Messiah and like Moses and Elijah.

Jesus also used bread in another way. During His Last Supper, Jesus took bread, broke it, blessed it and gave His body for them to eat. To this day, when we gather for communion, Jesus feeds us with His body — the true Bread from Heaven. When we receive this bread, we are given strength for our journey through this life to life everlasting.

When Jesus Walked Through a Storm…

Encore Post: It had been a long day. Jesus had just fed the five thousand. The people had tried to grab him and make him king, so they would always have bread. He sent the disciples ahead, while He went to a mountain to pray. (Mark 6:45-60)

The apostles worked hard all night to row against the wind. As professional fishermen that worked at night, they were very familiar with this kind of labor. Yet this night was particularly difficult. What they did not expect was to meet someone walking on the whitecaps.

So, when they saw Jesus coming, that was the last straw. They thought Jesus was a ghost. When Jesus told them who he was, they were no longer afraid.

Peter, who was known to rush in where angels fear to tread, asked Jesus to call on him to walk on the water to meet the Lord. (Matthew 14:28-31) When Jesus called Peter, the disciple walked on the water. As long as he focused on Jesus, he was fine. The moment he focused on the wind and the waves, he began to sink. It was all a member of trust. Peter called out to Jesus to save him. Jesus pulled Peter out of the water. Jesus scolded his star pupil for his lack of faith.

When Jesus returned to the boat, the wind stopped. The disciples then worshipped Jesus as God.

We should be careful how critically we view Peter. We like to think we have everything under control, especially in areas we are experts. When events demonstrate we really are not in control, we panic rather than trust God. To us God says “do not be afraid.” He cares for us now and forever.

A Keg full of Beer, a Purse full of Money

The publication of the Bible in everyday language stuck a chord throughout German speaking lands. For the first time in history, middle class families could afford to own a Bible and one they could read with their children! The investment was about what a modern American household spends on a car. Even his opponents recognized the high literary quality of its phrases and sound. Luther translated so it sounded good read out loud. Where his enemies faulted him was where he changed Greek and Hebrew figures of speech and added words not in the original texts to make the result sound like a German wrote it.

While in Coburg Castle waiting for the presentation of the Augsburg Confession, Luther wrote a letter now known as On Translating. In it he explained his method. The goal was to be faithful to the meaning of the original text while making it understandable in German. This is a very difficult thing to do. Translate idioms word for word and it will sound like nonsense. Here is how Luther describes what happens when you translate that way the greeting of the Angel Gabriel to the Virgin Mary:

When the angel greets Mary, he says, “Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with you!” (Luke 1:28) … When does a German speak like that, “You are full of grace”? What German understands what that is, to be “full of grace”? He would have to think of a keg “full of” beer or a purse “full of” money. Therefore I have translated it, “Thou gracious one,” so that a German can at least think his way through to what the angel meant by this greeting … Suppose I had taken the best German, and translated the salutation thus: “Hello there, Mary!”
Martin Luther, On Translating, AE 35:190-191

So the Reformer picked words and figures of speech common in spoken German. No, he didn’t go as far as translate: “Hello, Mary!” He wrote: “Greetings, blessed one!” When Luther translated this way, he overturned much ancient churchly language. Over the centuries the words of translations obscured the gospel and the new translation brought to everyone the discoveries he found when studying the Scripture in their original language. It touched hearts, changed the way people spoke to each other and created in a few short years a standard form of the language. More than anything else, Luther taught scholars to translate and translations that follow were better for it.

Why do Pastors Baptize?

Encore Post: Because God calls the church to organize its work in an orderly fashion, the church has designated those God has called to bring his word to them to be the usual baptizer. Their pastor represents God, who is actually the one who baptizes, and represents them, acting on their behalf. They welcome new Christians into the church and into the congregation to which they now belong. Pastors maintain a record, so there is assurance, even years later, that they were baptize.

Since the days of the apostles, pastors have baptized new Christians. We see this in the book of Acts, in the letters of St. Paul and in the writings of the earliest leaders of the church. Pastors need to know whom God has placed in their care. When they baptise, they know the new Christian bears the cross of Christ and is in their flock. They will faithfully nourish them and hand their care to the next pastor when their ministry in a place comes to an end. Finally, when pastors baptize a new Christian in a regular service of a congregation, those believers brothers and sisters get to know them. They recognize their fellow laborers in Christ, with whom they live, grow and will likely die.

When an emergency threatens the life of someone not baptized and a person is brought to its waters without a pastor or away from worship, their pastor will announce that baptism in church with a rite of thanksgiving, so their congregation can rejoice that God has found his lost sheep and brought him or her home.