In honor of the 200th anniversary of Dr. C.F.W. Walther’s birth, Concordia Publishing House is pleased to be the exclusive provider of a commemorative medallion. We are asking people to express their interest in receiving a copy by placing advance orders. We have to receive at least 200 orders to move forward on this project. So, if you are interested in having a keep-sake, limited edition commemorative medallion, please reserve a copy before September 1. Place your reservation order here.

Here is more information.

Honor Walther’s Lasting Leadership

This October will be the bicentennial celebration of one of the most influential leaders in the history of The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod, C.F.W. Walther. As the first president of our synod, Walther used his passion and outspoken nature to ensure that Lutherans in 19th century America remained faithful to the Scriptures and Lutheran Confessions. A beautiful reminder of Walther’s lasting leadership, this antique bronze medallion is now available for pre-order. The front features a timeline of his accomplishments, while the back pays homage to his most popular work, The Proper Distinction Between Law and Gospel. This impressive 3″ medallion will make a striking statement on your desk or library shelf! This limited edition medallion requires a minimum order quantity be achieved by September 1, 2011. In the event this minimum order is not reached, your pre-order will be cancelled with no strings attached.

Here is a picture of the front of the medallion:

Here is what the back will look like:

Perhaps you noticed that red “free” button? You did? Good.

I wanted to underscore something you may have missed in my post yesterday about Lutheranism 101 and to let you know about a free resource we’re providing with it.

First, it is available now for only $5.00 a copy when you place your order and use promo code YTH at checkout. Order it here.

Second, we have a FREE Leader’s Guide for the resource. Click here to download it.

Sound good?

I told you about the Lutheranism 101 workbook we were publishing, well I’m happy to tell you that it is now available for purchase. It is very well done, on nice white paper, easy to write on/in, and the same design as Lutheranism 101. This is just what so many people have been asking us for: “Hey, CPH, are you going to do some kind of course or workbook on Lutheranism 101?” Answer: “Yup.” A copy of Lutheranism 101: The Course is just $6.99 a pop. You can place your order on our web site, click here, or call 800-325-3040 and say, “Hey, CPH, give me one of them there Lutheranism 101: The Course book things” or words to that effect. You can see a sample by clicking this link.

GOOD NEWS: Special introductroy offer for Lutheranism 101: The Course only $5.00 each!

But wait, there’s more!

We are now offering a “bundle” deal, when you order the Lutheranism 101 “combo pack” which consists of a copy of Lutheranism 101 and a copy of Lutheranism 101:  The Course. It’s a great deal at only $19.99 for both resources. Take advantage of this offer by clicking here.

Here is more information from our web site about it:

For those new to Lutheranism and for those who want a fresh approach to the heritage of what Lutherans believe, teach, and confess, Lutheranism 101 together with Lutheranism 101: The Course helps create a solid foundation upon which a lifetime of sound teaching can be built. Besides your personal copy of Lutheranism 101, it will be useful to have these books with you as you work through The Course. Lutheranism 101: The Course works closely with Lutheranism 101 to take the reader deeper into the teaching, doctrine, or practice being presented. Sometimes that means digging into the text of Lutheranism 101 and exploring connections that are being made. Other times it means working with Scripture or some of the primary Lutheran resources for doctrine and practice.

For those new to Lutheranism and for those who want a fresh approach to the heritage of what Lutherans believe, teach, and confess, Lutheranism 101 together with Lutheranism 101: The Course helps create a solid foundation upon which a lifetime of sound teaching can be built. Besides your personal copy of Lutheranism 101, it will be useful to have these books with you as you work through The Course:

A Bible

Comments and quotations in Lutheranism 101 and The Course are based upon the English Standard Version (ESV). When choosing a Bible, we suggest that it is best to use a translation instead of a paraphrase. A study Bible includes added notes and resources that help explain the Bible. The best Bible to use with The Course is The Lutheran Study Bible.

Book of Concord

The Book of Concord is a collection of statements of faith written by Lutheran Christians in the sixteenth century when they were risking their lives to stand up for the Bible being the basis for belief and practice in the Church. It was first published in 1580. The best version of the Book of Concord to use with Lutheranism 101 is the edition specifically prepared to aid understanding: Concordia: The Lutheran Confessions, 2nd ed. (St. Louis: Concordia, 2006).

Hymnal

Hymnals offer excellent resources for individual worship and prayer in addition to settings for worship (Divine Service) and hymns. Throughout The Course you will be directed to Lutheran Service Book, which is the hymnal used my much of The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod.

Small Catechism

While the Small Catechism is included in the Book of Concord and in many contemporary Lutheran hymnals, recent English editions include extra explanations that make the catechism even more helpful as a teaching and learning tool. The best edition of the Small Catechism for this purpose is Luther’s Small Catechism With Explanation.

The Course can be used by groups, families, and individuals who want to dig deeper into what it means to be Lutheran. After reading a chapter in Lutheranism 101, turn to the corresponding chapter in The Course and work through the questions.

Disturbing new report from Pew Foundation on the restrictions being placed on religious observance worldwide.

From the report:

The report, Rising Restrictions on Religion, by the Pew Research Center’s Forum on Religion and Public Life, finds that restrictions on religious beliefs and practices rose between mid-2006 and mid-2009 in 23 of the world’s 198 countries (12%), decreased in 12 countries (6%) and remained essentially unchanged in 163 countries (82%).

Because several countries with increasing restrictions on religion are very populous, however, the increases affect a much larger share of people than of states. More than 2.2 billion people – nearly a third (32%) of the world’s total population of 6.9 billion – live in countries where either government restrictions on religion or social hostilities involving religion rose substantially over the three-year period studied

The full report is available here. Here is a graphic illustrating the problem:

A few videos of shooting fun today. Took my son, John, out to the range for a great father/son outing. He leaves for college on Tuesday.

We pray:

We hear the Word of the Lord:
2 Samuel 22:26–34
1 Corinthians 10:6–13
Luke 16:1–9 (10–13)

We meditate on the Word of the Lord:
“The master commended the dishonest manager for his shrewdness” (Luke 16:1–9). The steward’s shrewdness is praiseworthy for two reasons. First, he knew the master would be merciful. He trusted that the master would honor the debts he forgave in the master’s name. In the same way, though we have squandered our heavenly Father’s possessions in selfishness and sin, Jesus is the Steward who has canceled our debt, knowing that His forgiveness will be honored by the Father because of the holy cross. Secondly, the steward was shrewd in using oil and wheat to provide for his earthly welfare. So also do these earthly elements aid us when pressed into heavenly use in the anointing of baptism and the wheat of the Lord’s Supper. Those who have the Sacraments will have an eternal home when their earthly home fails. These provide us aid in times of temptation (1 Cor. 10:6–13). For the Lord is our strength and a shield to all who trust in Him (2 Sam. 22:26–34).

Luther on the Gospel Reading:

You must hence remember that eternal life consists of two things, faith and what follows faith. If you go and believe and do good to your neighbor, everlasting life must follow, although you never think about it. Just as when you take a good drink, the taste will follow as soon as you drink, even though you do not seek it. So it is also with hell, the damned do not seek it, but it follows unsought and undesired, and he must inherit it whether he will or no. This St. Paul also says, I Thes. 2:15-16, of the persecutors of the Gospel: They “drove out us, and pleased not God, and are contrary to all men; forbidding us to speak to the Gentiles that they may be saved; to fill up their sins always, but the wrath is come upon them to the uttermost.” As though he would say: They only persecute us to fill the measure of their sins and fairly to deserve hell, and ever urge their sins more and more until they become entirely hardened, and finally have no regard for either God or man.

16. Thus the Scriptures declare here, that we should do good, so that we may be saved; and this is not meant to say, that we must first earn salvation by our works, but that we must believe, and it will follow of itself. Therefore mark well, that you do not take what follows for what goes before, and keep yourself free from the merit of works. Should God give us heaven for our works? No, no, he has already given us heaven freely, out of mere mercy. Therefore give unto the poor, in order that the eternal tabernacles may follow, and not that you may merit them by your works.

17. Observe then that these passages are explained in two different ways. First, that a man should seek salvation by works, which is false. Second, as a consequence of faith, which is right. Therefore, you are not to seek heaven with any kind of works, but only to do the works freely, then the result, eternal life, will follow of itself without your seeking. For if I should see heaven standing open and could merit it by picking up a straw, I would not do it, lest I might say: Behold, I have earned it! No, no, not to my deservings, but to God be the glory, who has given me his Son to abolish sin and hell for me.

18. In the third place, you should faithfully hold fast to the following words: “That they may receive you into the eternal tabernacles.” Behold, they say, here it stands written that they receive us into heaven, how then can you say that we dare not place the saints as mediators before God, and that they cannot help us to heaven? Here observe, that we have but one Redeemer before God, and he is Christ. For thus St. Paul speaks, 1 Tim. 2:5: “For there is one God, one Mediator also between God and man, himself man, Christ Jesus.” Again, Christ himself in John 14:6 says: “I am the way, no man cometh unto the Father but by me.” Therefore we must not seek our consolation in any of the saints, but in Christ alone, through whose merits alone we and all Saints are saved. Therefore I will not give a penny for St. Peter’s merits, that he should help me. He cannot help himself, but whatever he has he has from God by faith in Christ. Now then, if he cannot help himself, how then can he do anything for me? Consequently I must have another, who is Christ, God and man in one.(From Luther’s Church Postil, text in public domain).

Bach Cantatas for the Ninth Sunday after Trinity
There are three extant cantatas for this Sunday, BWV 105, BWV 94 and BWV 168.

BWV 105 – “Herr, gehe nicht ins Gericht mit deinem Knecht”

May God grant His gracious answer to this beautiful prayer by Dr. Martin Luther:

“God grant every Christian the sort of heart that, when they hear the word Sacrament or LORD’s Supper, races in pure joy, yes, even with the kind of true spiritual joy that weeps sweetly. For I have such a heartfelt ardor for the dear blessed Supper of my LORD JESUS Christ, where he even gives his physical body and blood into my physical mouth to eat and to drink, with such thoroughly sweet and kind words: Given for you, shed for you.”

(L.W. XIX, 1576; as quoted by Dr. C.F.W. Walther in Der Lutheraner, March 7, 1846; translated by Pastor Joel Baseley),

Yes, you read that right, there is a “Lutheran Church—International” and the name proves a theory I’ve had for a long time. The smaller the group, the more grandiose the name. And so, here also, in this case, there is a “church body” that consists of less than fifteen micro-congregations, if that many, and because they have some micro outpost in the Caribbean and in Africa and/or elsewhere, they have decided to use the name “Lutheran Church—International.” To my knowledge, no group of Lutherans have ever taken such an arrogant step and claimed “international” status. But there’s a first for everything. The long history of the Lutheran Church shows that Lutheran Church bodies have always identified themselves linked to their primarily geographical place of existence. As we see the fallout from The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, we’ll continue to see more and more of this kind of micro-church splintering and fracturing. Sad, but that’s how it goes.

The general editor of the forthcoming Lutheran edition of the Apocrypha, Rev. Ed Engelbrecht, took the cover design of the book for a test drive recently. Here is an exciting action shot from the test drive. It does give you a good idea of the size of the book.

I’m happy to let you know that Pastor Matthew Harrison’s book, At Home in the House of My Fathers, is back in print, and includes an extra essay at the end now. Also, it is a bit thinner than the first printing, due to slightly different paper. If you didn’t get a chance to buy it when it first came out, here’s your opportunity. It is a great book full of inspiring and encouraging essays by the German-speaking presidents of The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod. I was not prepared for how much I liked this book. When I started reading it, I found it hard to put down. There is a deep pastoral love for theology and for Christ’s mission that shines through each essay. It is available now from Concordia Publishing House for $29.99. The professional church worker discount applies. Let me underscore that this book is for all people, not simply/only pastors. In fact, many, if not most, of these essays were written by our Synod’s presidents precisely to encourage and support the laity.

You can place your order here, online, or by calling 800-325-3040. You can view a sample, a PDF file will download to your computer, by clicking this link.

Here is more information about the book from our web site.

Read this chilling article in the NYT about a couple who decided they really didn’t want one of the two babies the woman was pregnant with. Chilling stuff. Now, here’s my challenge to all us: Do we hear enough in our congregations warnings from pulpits about using reproduction technologies that result in multiple pregnancies and how often there results the death of children? Not using a “fertilized egg” means a baby dies, you don’t even have to go as far as this couple did.

Here’s the link to the article and here’s a snippet from the article:

Jenny’s decision to reduce twins to a single fetus was never really in doubt. The idea of managing two infants at this point in her life terrified her. She and her husband already had grade-school-age children, and she took pride in being a good mother. She felt that twins would soak up everything she had to give, leaving nothing for her older children. Even the twins would be robbed, because, at best, she could give each one only half of her attention and, she feared, only half of her love. Jenny desperately wanted another child, but not at the risk of becoming a second-rate parent. “This is bad, but it’s not anywhere as bad as neglecting your child or not giving everything you can to the children you have,” she told me, referring to the reduction. She and her husband worked out this moral calculation on their own, and they intend to never tell anyone about it. Jenny is certain that no one, not even her closest friends, would understand, and she doesn’t want to be the object of their curiosity or feel the sting of their judgment. This secrecy is common among women undergoing reduction to a singleton. Doctors who perform the procedure, aware of the stigma, tell patients to be cautious about revealing their decision. (All but one of the patients I spoke with insisted on anonymity.) Some patients are so afraid of being treated with disdain that they withhold this information from the obstetrician who will deliver their child.

Ed Engelbrecht writes on his blog: Saw this endorsement come in and thought I would share it. Something for pastors and catechists to think about as Confirmation classes loom on the horizon. If you’ve been in the trenches a few years and want to renew your vigor for teaching the basics, here’s word about a helpful new tool:

“Albrecht Peters’ work is indispensable for any scholarly treatment of Luther’s Catechisms. With a mastery of the sources both ancient and modern, Peters sets the Catechism in the catholic context of the history of dogma, demonstrating the Reformer’s brilliance in the evangelical confession of the threefold work of the Triune God from the perspective of the Apostles’ Creed. With the clarity of a systematic theologian, Peters unfolds the biblical and doctrinal themes vividly distilled in Luther’s simple catechetical prose. The careful study of this volume will yield bountiful fruit in deepened teaching and preaching in the congregation. I know of no other book that comes close to this volume in English. It should be read and regularly consulted by pastors and catechists who are responsible for teaching the faith.”

John T. Pless
Assistant Professor of Pastoral Ministry and Missions and Director of Field Education
Concordia Theological Seminary
Fort Wayne, Indiana

Download a sample and give it a test drive, click here to download the PDF file.

You can buy this book by calling 800-325-3040, or by purchasing it from our web site, by clicking here.

You can buy it in Kindle format. Click here.

You can but it in ePub format. Click here.

The volume on the Creed comes available this fall and the volume on the Lord’s Prayer will follow shortly.

Great sermon by Pastor William Weedon for the festival of St. Mary, Mother of Lord.

Homily for St. Mary, Mother of Our Lord (2010)
from Weedon’s Blog by William Weedon

The artists get it right. When you see the Blessed Virgin holding her Child, you will notice that she tends to be looking either at Him or right at you, and with her hand she gestures toward Him. Mary is not about Mary. Mary is all about your Jesus.

And when the Lutheran Church puts into her calendar a day to commemorate the Mother of God, it is not in the spirit of Rome or of the East – a glorification of Mary that pushes beyond the bounds of Scripture, announcing the dogma of her bodily assumption into heaven and her enthronement at the right hand of her Son and her taking her place there to manage your prayer requests. Um, no.

As to whether or not Mary was bodily taken to heaven, we have to confess our ignorance. We don’t know. Scripture doesn’t tell us. Might be – we grant that that would be rather like her Son to do such a thing. But if He wanted us to know about raising his Mother from the dead, He’d have seen fit to have His apostles write it for us in the Sacred Scriptures. Alas, not a word. So as Lutherans, we’re content to confess: He has taken her to be with Him and that is all we need to know. That’s how Dr. Luther wisely dispatched that question. Not our business.

As to enthronement at the right hand of her Son, same story. May be. After all, St. Paul says that WE are enthroned with Him in the heavenly places. But it’s speculation not firm faith stuff. And as to her handling the prayer requests of all believers, well, there’s no promise of her doing any such thing in Scripture, and what would be the need for it? After all, we have revealed in Scripture that both the Eternal Son – the only Mediator between God and Man – and the Holy Spirit directly intercede for us. We readily grant that Mary prays along with the whole body of the Church triumphant for the good of the Church still on pilgrimage; it’s a reasonable assumption given the way the Church works and that heaven is the fulfillment of love, and we know from Scripture that the angels intercede for us. Our Confessions even point to 2 Maccabees where the long-dead Jeremiah was seen in a vision, praying for God’s people. But beyond that, we’re just not going to go.

So why this day as a festival in the Lutheran Church then, if we’re not all about glorifying the Blessed Virgin? Because we’re not about ignoring her either, or being afraid of her place in the Church and in the good news of our redemption. Today we remember what she herself sang, inspired by God the Holy Spirit, in her hymn of praise, the Magnificat. “For behold, from this day, all generations will call me blessed.”

We set aside this day not to magnify Mary, but to join Mary in magnifying the Lord and rejoicing with her in the Savior He showed Himself to be for her and for us. We set aside this day to extol the One – Holy is His name! – who has done great things for her, lowly though she was. We set aside this day to remember that in the fullness of time God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law that we might receive adoption as sons. (Epistle)

So what’re the great things that the Mighty One has done for her? He looks on the humble estate of His servant. That is, He regards her with kindness and favor. He takes on flesh and blood from the likes of her in order to offer that flesh and blood back to His Father in perfect, unfailing obedience – even to death on a cross. That’s how He’s her Savior and yours too. He is the God who has mercy. The One who does not stand aloof from us in our humanity, in our messes, in our pain. He comes down to us. How far down? All the way down to being fetal matter in His mother’s womb, his tiny heart beating beneath her own, and being flesh and blood nailed for you to Calvary’s tree! The God who has mercy and remembers to keep His promises.

But note that His mercy is for the lowly, the weak, the despised, the hungry. Mercy isn’t wanted by those who are proud, strong, famous and full. They think there’s nothing more that they need. They can’t imagine going begging before God – praying, Kyrie eleison, Lord, have mercy.

But Mary’s not of that sort. And that’s a miracle right there. The Mother of God, you would think she’d give herself airs, wouldn’t you? I mean, wouldn’t YOU, if YOU were so chosen? But she remains a person who confesses herself of no-account, among the weak, the looked-down-on, and the hungering. Last year a friend asked me: “Why Mary? Why did He choose Mary and not some other?” I said: “I think it was because He knew that it wouldn’t destroy her.”

Rather than proud, she becomes a model of humility for us. We too have been blessed by her Son with blessings that could easily turn our heads. He has made us His sisters and brothers via the waters of Baptism. He has given the promise of sharing in His eternal Kingdom. We have a place set for us at the Table on the day of the Great Feast and receive into ourselves already now the guarantee of that in His body and blood. It would be exactly wrong for us to look at all the Lord’s blessings to us and conclude: “I must be something special then, mustn’t I?” Instead, with Mary we look at the huge size of the gift given and we shake our head in astonishment and awe that He would do that for the likes of us? The outrageous size of the gift given leads not to pride, but to humility and awe. Even to tears. We are so unworthy of such love – how could we ever deserve it? Never in a million years. Yet there it is.

Mary invites us today into such marveling. She would say to us: “He has loved you with a love everlasting, deep, divine. And so He took on flesh in me. That’s how He came to us who could not come to Him. He came to bring us mercy because He remembered His promise to Abraham. He came to pour out the blood that He took from me to blot out all this world’s sin. He came to offer His body to the Father so that we could have a way back home to the Father’s house. He came to pour out His Spirit into us so that we could be His temples. He came to take everything was ours by nature and give us everything that is His by grace. Who are we that He should love us so? But He has! He has! Let us glorify Him together, for He who is mighty has done great things for us all and holy is His name.”

“Hail, Mary, full of grace!” the angel cried. “The Lord is with you and blessed are you among women and blessed is the fruit of your womb, Jesus.” And she was troubled that the angel could say such things about her. That she should be so utterly given to and blessed by the Lord. For who was she? The Church joins the angel in calling Mary blessed and in praising God for what He gave us through her: the gift of her Son in whom we have redemption, and in whom, lowly though we are, we are made children and heirs of the Father to whom be all the glory with His Son and the Holy Spirit now and to the ages of ages. Amen.

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“Nothing would please her better than to have you turn in fear from all
lofty things on which men set their hearts, seeing that even in His
mother God neither found nor desired anything of high degree.” — Martin Luther

“The two natures [in Christ] are so united in one Person that it is correct to say: “The mother of God is a virgin; God is born.” Since God and man are one Person, the properties characteristic of humanity alone are attributed to the deity; for the properties of the two natures are also united. Not to be born is also peculiar to the divine nature. In the Creed we pray and confess: “Who was conceived and who was born”—that is human; and “sits at the right hand”—that partakes of the divine, although it may also be human. Thus the Child who drinks His mother’s milk is eternal; He existed before the world’s beginning, and He created heaven and earth.” — Martin Luther

Today is the day in the Church Year set aside to remember and honor the Mother of our Lord, the Blessed Virgin Mary, who is properly called “Mother of God” because she was the chosen instrument through which the only-begotten Son of God, the Second Person of the Holy Trinity, took on human flesh, in her womb. Other Christian traditions have marked this day to honor Mary’s blessed death, her “dormition” as it is known in the Eastern churches. Rome, sadly, elevated pious speculations about Mary to the level of doctrine and declared this day to be the “Assumption of Mary” the belief that Mary did not die, but was instead translated to heaven without experiencing physical corruption. That there is precedent for this in the Scriptures is clear. We need think only of our Lord Jesus Christ Himself, or His servant the prophet Elijah, and probably Enoch. But we have no Scriptural warrant to believe that this happened to Mary. The Early Church is silent on this question, until after around 400 a.d. Hermann Sasse years ago wrote a brilliant piece on the development of Marian doctrine, explaining how its origin have more to do with the remnants of the worship of the goddess Diana than anything else. But, sadly, the necessary polemic against the false doctrines concerning Mary have soured us Lutherans, and obviously all the Protestants, from a proper regard, respect and honoring of the Mother of God.

It is best therefore to use a day like this one to focus on the fact that our Lord humbled himself and took on human flesh in the womb of the maid Mary, the young woman whom was chosen for this role and humbly accepted God’s will, saying, “Let it be as you have spoken.” A model of Christian faith and humility for us all. Truly all generations have, and should, call her blessed.

Martin Luther, while clearly rejecting the excesses of Medieval Romanism when it came to Mary, elevating her to a position as an intermediary with Christ, retained a healthy devotion to our Blessed Lady, and we Lutherans need not let the dangers of Roman Mariology/Mariolatry dissuade us from appreciating the gift of Mary the Virgin and honoring the gifts given to her and through her, to us; namely, our Lord Jesus Christ. Read on for some comments by Martin Luther about the Virgin Mary.

Read more…

We pray:

Grant to us, Lord, the Spirit to think and do always such things as are right, that we, who cannot do anything that is good without You, may be enabled by You to live according to Your will; through Jesus Christ, Your Son, our Lord, who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen.

We meditate on Holy Scripture:

Jeremiah 23:16–29