2 Peter 3
The Day of the Lord Will Come
3:1This is now the second letter that I am writing to you, beloved. In both of them I am stirring up your sincere mind by way of reminder,2 that you should remember the predictions of the holy prophets and the commandment of the Lord and Savior through your apostles,3 knowing this first of all, that scoffers will come in the last days with scoffing, following their own sinful desires.4 They will say, Where is the promise of his coming? For ever since the fathers fell asleep, all things are continuing as they were from the beginning of creation.5 For they deliberately overlook this fact, that the heavens existed long ago, and the earth was formed out of water and through water by the word of God,6 and that by means of these the world that then existed was deluged with water and perished.7 But by the same word the heavens and earth that now exist are stored up for fire, being kept until the day of judgment and destruction of the ungodly.

The more I study scripture (now with the TLSB), the more I’m becoming less surprised when I read or hear about such things. As our Lord’s coming draws near, the church will lose more and more battles and rebellion will rule the day. The good news is, that Christ has already won the war for His church! All that being said, we don’t sit back, but take them head on with the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Not with gimics or methods, but with hard core theological tools that have been forged in the fires of scripture. I watched the Lord of the Rings (Fellowship of the ring) last night, which explains the imagery.

MM

I guess I just want to know what is meant by “backing away.” I mean, I do have some doubts, and sometimes I openly struggle with them, and sometimes, the people who put down their banjo just long enough to scream shrilly “the Bible says,” really are troglodytes. Hmmm.

This is why our Church is blessed with the Lutheran Confessions, a summary of doctrine. Thanks be to God.

I take it, the authors were intending to be polite by using the terms “doubt” and “backing away.” I don’t think they are talking about struggles/doubts that Christians experience. I think they are talking about those beholden to the hermeneutic of skepticism who find certain matters “incredulous.” BTW, I think the “banjo” reference above (I take it, he means, “backwoods,” or “hill billy”) tends to prove axiom #9.

While I can understand some of the frustration of the “Emergent” folk with 20th Century Evangelicalism and its relegating God to the purely cerebral, they so miss the boat by not going back into Word and Sacrament in an experiential (total self) way. Rather than going back and looking at the depth of Christians who have gone before and encountered God in Word and Sacrament (as I believe is one of the strengths of Lutheranism) they go further into errors of the evangelical movement and become even more focused on themselves rather than upon God. In trying to escape what they perceived was lacking, they became even more lacking. It’s actually kind of sad.

The first thing this made me think of was that scene in C.S. Lewis’ The Great Divorce, where the Episcopal priest says that when the doctrine of the resurrection ceased to commend itself to the faculties God gave him, he preached his famous sermon, defied the teaching and the authorities, took every risk. At which point the bright spirit responds by saying something to the effect of, “What risk? What at all was likely to come of it except what actually came– success, admiration, sales for your book, and finally a bishopric?”

While I can understand some of the frustration of the “Emergent” folk with 20th Century Evangelicalism and its relegating God to the purely cerebral, they so miss the boat by not going back into Word and Sacrament in an experiential (total self) way. Rather than going back and looking at the depth of Christians who have gone before and encountered God in Word and Sacrament (as I believe is one of the strengths of Lutheranism) they go further into errors of the evangelical movement and become even more focused on themselves rather than upon God. In trying to escape what they perceived was lacking, they became even more lacking. It’s actually kind of sad.