This is an essential catholic and evangelical truth: the Word of God does not speak of something the way, for example, I may speak of something I know or have an opinion about. Scripture is God speaking. When Scripture speaks, we hear the voice of God.

For most of Protestantism Scripture has become a book of rules to be followed, a set of principles to inform how we reshape the world, a set of practical tools to better your life, or a road map to lead you from here to eternity. But that is just plain wrong. Scripture is the voice of God. Scripture is the discourse of God in human words. This Word is powerful and can do what it claims and keep all its promises. This Word has the power to call and gather the Church.

On Sunday morning we often treat the Word of God as if it were nothing more than a book of wise sayings, some of which may be practical enough and pointed enough to make a small difference in the ordinary and mundane of our world. We treat so casually what is essentially the Voice of God who speaks to us and is speaking to us in Scripture.

We act as if the gems of Bible study were the hints or conclusions reached from that study — like a school child reads the encyclopedia for things he or she can use in a paper that is due tomorrow. Bible study is important because it is time with God, it is the conversation in which God is the speaker to us and we who have ears tuned in faith can hear Him speaking. It is not what we learn from Bible study but what we learn in Bible study as a people gather to hear every word and as a people who know that this every word is important.

Nowhere is that more true than in worship — the Word of God predominates not because we have found it useful but because it is Christ speaking to us. In this respect liturgy is the only real context for us to hear Scripture — everything else flows from this assembly and is not in competition with it or can substitute for it.

This is what we need to rediscover – the urgency, the immediacy of God’s voice in our midst. In response to that voice, we come, we listen, we hear, and we grow. The distasteful practice of cell phones and watch alarms going off in worship is a sign that we have not understood that Scripture is God’s voice speaking to us — or surely we would shut those things off. The strange practice of people moving in and out of the Sanctuary as the Scriptures are read and preached is a sign that we do not understand that Scripture is God’s living voice speaking to us or we would find a way to fit our bathroom needs around this holy and momentous conversation in which God is the speaker and initiates the dialog that brings forth faith in us and bestows upon us all the gifts of the cross and empty tomb.

Instead of burying our faces in bulletins to read, we would raise our heads to listen. I am convinced that the reading of Scripture is heard differently than the reading of Scripture from a service folder page. We don’t listen to each other with our heads buried in a booklet. We listen to each other by looking at the point where the voice is coming from and by learning to tune out the distractions so that we might hear what is said. This is the discipline that is so missing on Sunday morning.

All because we think of Scripture as a vehicle that delivers something to us instead of the thing that is delivered — the voice of God speaking grace and mercy, conviction and condemnation, redemption and restoration, death and life… Wisdom!! Attend!!

Source: Pastor Larry Peters

Great insight from John Halton, a Lutheran in England. Or as he describes himself, a “First-Evangelical.”

One of the accusations levelled at Jesus during his earthly ministry was that (in contrast to the ascetic John the Baptist) he was a “glutton and a drunkard”:

‘For John the Baptist has come eating no bread and drinking no wine, and you say, “He has a demon”; the Son of Man has come eating and drinking, and you say, “Look, a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax-collectors and sinners!” Nevertheless, wisdom is vindicated by all her children.’ (Luke 7:33-35)

Now, I think we can take it as read that this accusation was (to put it mildly) an exaggeration: a defamatory slur directed at Jesus’ hanging out with “the wrong crowd” rather than an impartial assessment of his behaviour.

But, reading Deuteronomy 21 this morning, it struck me that there is a darker undercurrent to this accusation thrown at Jesus by the self-righteous. Deuteronomy 21 includes the following passage (a somewhat troubling one for the parent of three sons!):

If someone has a stubborn and rebellious son who will not obey his father and mother, who does not heed them when they discipline him, then his father and his mother shall take hold of him and bring him out to the elders of his town at the gate of that place. They shall say to the elders of his town, ‘This son of ours is stubborn and rebellious. He will not obey us. He is a glutton and a drunkard.‘ Then all the men of the town shall stone him to death. So you shall purge the evil from your midst; and all Israel will hear, and be afraid. (Deuteronomy 21:18-21)

In other words, those describing Jesus as “a glutton and a drunkard” were not making a random accusation: they were implying that he was a “rebellious son” who deserved to be stoned to death.

Indeed, the very next paragraph in Deuteronomy reads:

When someone is convicted of a crime punishable by death and is executed, and you hang him on a tree, his corpse must not remain all night upon the tree; you shall bury him that same day, for anyone hung on a tree is under God’s curse. You must not defile the land that the Lord your God is giving you for possession. (Deuteronomy 21:22-23)

- a passage that was applied to Jesus’ death on the cross by the early church (Acts 5:30, 10:39; 1 Peter 2:24). This in turn was a classic example of appropriating an insult: “You say Jesus was a rebellious son? Under God’s curse? That’s only because he took upon himself our (and your) rebelliousness, and bore our (and your) curse.”

Hey, isn’t it great when somebody has a birthday and you get the presents? This is precisely what’s happening at Concordia Publishing House, Feb. 1-3. Our music department is celebrating its 60th Birthday today, and in honor of this event, please check out the special 60 Hour Sale. There are some great savings available on nearly 450 items at 60% off: choral, handbell, and organ music, as well as books and CDs. From its beginning Concordia Publishing House published music and hymnals, but there were no full time staff members devoted to music. On February 1, 1950, CPH hired its first full-time head of the newly formed Music Department, Edward Klammer.

Happy Birthday CPH Music Department!

I picked up this comment over at the Evangel blog siter, where a person was commenting on a blog post about the Christian Church Year. Quite perceptive!

The church year is so natural! Our lives follow from birthdays to anniversaries to the start of baseball season to the first snowfall to…. and the church year goes from Advent, waiting for the Incarnation, then the celebration, then the ordinary time marked by saint’s days, to Lent, the waiting for the Passion, Death and Resurrection of our Lord, then back to ordinary time, more saints, more milestones of history. When we stand to petition the Lord for various things at worship each Sunday, we start with the Church, since it overarches all Creation. Its timeline drives all the rest. I learn and retain a ton more Scripture by following the cycle because it flows naturally from Mary’s Yes, then Jesus’ birth, life and ministry, into what He proclaims, His miracles, and then the Pharisees and their plottings. For teaching children, it’s better than any serial or soap opera!