The NALC has posted this official press release.

Snippet:

Lutheran CORE leaders note that the problems in the ELCA are really not about sexual behavior but
rather about an ongoing movement away from the authority and teaching of the Bible throughout the
ELCA, on issues far broader than simply human sexuality.

“It was not our choice to leave the ELCA, but the ELCA has chosen to reject ‘the faith once delivered
to the saints,’ so now we are acting to maintain our position within the consensus of the Church
catholic,” said Schwarz.

“The ELCA has decided that it is in a position of authority over the Bible itself rather than
submitting to the authority of the Bible over all matters of faith and life,” Chavez said. “And
unfortunately, most of the attention is given to the sexuality issues, but there are actually much more
disturbing trends within the ELCA.”

“Unum praedica, sapientiam crucis!” [There is one thing to preach, the wisdom of the cross!] That is the answer (in a sermon-fragment of 1515; WA 1, 52) which Luther gives to the vital question of the ministry [Predigtamt] of all ages: “What shall I preach?” The wisdom of the cross, the word of the cross, a great stumbling block to the world, is the proper content of Christian preaching, is the Gospel itself. So thinks Luther and the Lutheran Church with him. The Christian world regards that as a great onesidedness. The cross is just one part, among others, of the Christian message. The Second Article is not the whole Creed, and even in the Second Article the cross stands in the midst of other facts of salvation. What a narrowing of the Christian truth Luther is guilty of (so we are told by some Lutherans today) by his limiting real Christian theology to the theology of the cross. Is not there also a theology of incarnation and a theology of resurrection? Must not the theology of the Second Article be supplemented by a theology of the Third Article, a theology of the Holy Ghost and His activity in the church? Luther had, indeed, very much to say about these things also, e.g., in his doctrine on incarnation and in his theology of the sacraments. Besides, he had a more profound understanding of the article of creation than most theologians who preceded him.

“Thus the question arises what that alleged narrowing, that much criticized onesidedness of Luther’s theologia crucis, means. The theology of the cross obviously does not mean that for the theologian the whole church year shrinks to Good Friday. It rather means that one cannot understand Christmas, Easter, or Pentecost without Good Friday. Luther was, alongside of Irenaeus and Athanasius, one of the great theologians of the incarnation. He was that because he saw the cross behind the manger. He understood the victory of Easter as well as any theologian of the Eastern Church. But he understood it because he understood it as the victory of the Crucified. The same can be said of his understanding of the activity of the Holy Ghost. It is always the cross which illuminates all chapters of theology because the deepest nature of revelation is hidden in the cross. This being so, Luther’s theologia crucis wants to be more than one of the many theological theories which have appeared in the course of the history of the Church. It claims to be, in contrast to another theology, which now prevails in Christendom and which Luther calls the theologia gloriae, the correct, the scriptural theology with which the Church of Christ stands and falls. Only of the preaching of this theology, Luther thinks, can it be said that it is the preaching of the Gospel.”

Sasse, Letters to Lutheran Pastors 18

One of the finest and most powerful presentations of the Gospel I’ve ever seen or heard.

Giovanni Battista Tiepolo (b. 1696, Venezia, d. 1770, Madrid)

We pray:
Almighty God, Your Son Jesus Christ chose Bartholomew to be an apostle to preach the blessed Gospel. Grant that Your Church may love what he believed and preach what he taught; through Jesus Christ, our Lord, who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen.

All praise for him whose candor Through all his doubt You saw When Philip at the fig tree Disclosed You in the Law. Discern beneath our surface, O Lord, what we can be, That by Your truth made guileless, Your glory we may see… for You have mightily governed and protected Your holy Church, in which the blessed Apostles and Evangelists proclaimed Your divine and saving Gospel. Therefore with Patriarchs and Prophets, Apostles and Evangelists, with Your servant Bartholomew, and with all the company of heaven, we laud and magnify Your glorious name, world without end. Amen.

God’s Word for the Festival of St. Bartholomew
Old Testament: Prov. 3:1-8
Epistle: 2 Cor. 4:7-10
Gospel: Luke 22:24-30

Information about Bartholomew
One of the Twelve Apostles, mentioned sixth in the three Gospel lists (Matthew 10:3; Mark 3:18; Luke 6:14), and seventh in the list of Acts (1:13).

The name (Bartholomaios) means “son of Talmai” (or Tholmai) which was an ancient Hebrew name, borne, e.g. by the King of Gessur whose daughter was a wife of David (2 Samuel 3:3). It shows, at least, that Bartholomew was of Hebrew descent; it may have been his genuine proper name or simply added to distinguish him as the son of Talmai. Outside the instances referred to, no other mention of the name occurs in the New Testament.

Nothing further is known of him for certain. Many scholars, however, identify him with Nathaniel (John 1:45-51; 21:2). The reasons for this are that Bartholomew is not the proper name of the Apostle; that the name never occurs in the Fourth Gospel, while Nathaniel is not mentioned in the synoptics; that Bartholomew’s name is coupled with Philip’s in the lists of Matthew and Luke, and found next to it in Mark, which agrees well with the fact shown by St. John that Philip was an old friend of Nathaniel’s and brought him to Jesus; that the call of Nathaniel, mentioned with the call of several Apostles, seems to mark him for the apostolate, especially since the rather full and beautiful narrative leads one to expect some important development; that Nathaniel was of Galilee where Jesus found most, if not all, of the Twelve; finally, that on the occasion of the appearance of the risen Savior on the shore of the Sea of Tiberias, Nathaniel is found present, together with several Apostles who are named and two unnamed Disciples who were, almost certainly, likewise Apostles (the word “apostle” not occurring in the Fourth Gospel and “disciple” of Jesus ordinarily meaning Apostle) and so, presumably, was one of the Twelve. This chain of circumstantial evidence is ingenious and pretty strong; the weak link is that, after all, Nathaniel may have been another personage in whom, for some reason, the author of the Fourth Gospel may have been particularly interested, as he was in Nicodemus, who is likewise not named in the synoptics.

No mention of St. Bartholomew occurs in ecclesiastical literature before Eusebius, who mentions that Pantaenus, the master of Origen, while evangelizing India, was told that the Apostle had preached there before him and had given to his converts the Gospel of St. Matthew written in Hebrew, which was still treasured by the Church. “India” was a name covering a very wide area, including even Arabia Felix. Other traditions represent St. Bartholomew as preaching in Mesopotamia, Persia, Egypt, Armenia, Lycaonia, Phrygia, and on the shores of the Black Sea; one legend, it is interesting to note, identifies him with Nathaniel.

The manner of his death, said to have occurred at Albanopolis in Armenia, is equally uncertain; according to some, he was beheaded, according to others, flayed alive and crucified, head downward, by order of Astyages, for having converted his brother, Polymius, King of Armenia. On account of this latter legend, he is often represented in art (e.g. in Michelangelo’s Last Judgment) as flayed and holding in his hand his own skin. His relics are thought by some to be preserved in the church of St. Bartholomew-in-the-Island, at Rome. His feast is celebrated on 24 August. An apocryphal gospel of Bartholomew existed in the early ages.

George Bernard Shaw to the Times of London:

There is a pedant on your staff who spends far too much of his time searching for split infinitives. Every good literary craftsman uses a split infinitive if he thinks the sense demands it. I call for this man’s instant dismissal; it matters not whether he decides to quickly go or to go quickly or quickly to go. Go he must, and at once.

Cited in Patricia T. O’Connor’s Words Fail Me: What Everyone Who Writes Should Know about Writing.

HT: Trevin Wax via Justin Taylor

Let us consider then, first of all, our human weakness and imperfection. . .Let us consider, in the second place, our unworthiness. . .man is unworthy in very many and more grievous ways, for by his sins he has offended his Creator. . And in our preparation for this Holy Supper, let us not simply examine ourselves, but let us also consider this blessed bread, which is the communion of the body of Christ, and then will it appear to us as a true fountain of God’s grace, and an inexhaustible spring of divine mercy. . .Thus this Holy Supper will transform our souls; this most divine sacrament will make us divine men, until finally we shall enter upon the fullness of the blessedness that is to come, filled with all the fullness of God, and wholly like Him. (Johann Gerhard, Sacred Meditations, 20:108-111)

HT: Pastor Alms

Today we commemorate and thank God for His faithful servant, Bernard of Clairvaux [1090-1153]. Bernard has always been a particular favorite Medieval church father of mine, and apparently, I’m in good company, since he is spoken highly of by many of our own Lutheran fathers. He is cited favorably at least five times in the Book of Concord, and is frequently cited favorably by Dr. Luther. He had a depth of expression and a deep love for Christ expressed in a warm, living, piety that touched many in his own life and countless others since He is perhaps most widely known as the writer of several famous hymns: O Jesus, King Most Wonderful and O Sacred Head, Now Wounded. In the second issue of Dr. CFW Walther’s newspaper, The Lutheran, he printed this short piece about Bernard:

“St. Bernard, the famous abbot of Clairvaux, who died in 1153, is a noteworthy example how the most pious and the best of those in the papacy, when they came into great trials, rejected all of their trust in their own human holiness, in their own works and service, and in the intercession of the saints in heaven, and took sole comfort in the all sufficient service of JESUS Christ for their salvation. Even though in his life Bernard had most strictly pursued holiness and had ascribed such a high value to his position as a monk that he considered it as if it were another baptism (Apolog. Ad Builielm. Abb.), he nevertheless confessed when he suddenly cried out for his salvation because of a severe trial: “I confess that I am not worthy of myself nor can I receive heaven through my own service. But my LORD JESUS Christ has a double right to heaven; first because he is by nature its heir, and then because he has earned it through his meritorious suffering. That first right he has for himself, the second he gives me. Through this gift heaven is mine by rights, so I cannot be lost.”

In the extended entry of this post, you can read a biographical sketch of Bernard.

Read more…

Dr. Jack Kilcrease had an interesting blog post recently, which I’m sharing here.

Having attended a Roman Catholic university for my doctorate, I must say that there is a massive incomprehension regarding the Lutheran doctrine of justification, as well as what’s at stake in it in the minds of Roman Catholics.

In general, Roman Catholics assume that what’s at issues whether or not grace is necessary for salvation. They define grace as a kind of divine power which makes us capable of living better. What they believe is that Lutherans are essentially ignorant and think that for Catholics there’s no grace involved in justification or perhaps too little. They then go on to assume that if they can prove to you that they believe that no one can be saved without divine help, then all of your objections will some how go out the window.

If you read the text of JDDJ, this is basically the assumption throughout the whole document. When they’re not pretending that the same words mean the same things in the different traditions (often times they will use “justification” “faith” or “grace” as if we agree what those things mean), the assumption is that Lutherans and Catholics agree that no one can be saved except by grace. Problem solved!

I would cite two major problems with this.

1. Grace is a meaningless concept if it does not involve a strict monergism. In other words, if I claim that grace is necessary to salvation, but then say that free will has a little something to contribute, it makes grace effectively meaningless within my system of theology. Why? Because without my contribution the whole thing would fall apart. For this reason, there is no functional difference between whether I did the whole thing on my own or I just did a little bit. At the end of the day, it all depends on me and hence I still have a reason to trust in myself. If I have a reason to trust in myself, then I am still curved in on myself and am not oriented towards the external grace of God.

2. The grace of God is a meaningless concept of it is not primarily an external judgment of God which I place my faith in. I say “primarily” because the Formula of Concord claims that the term “grace” sometimes means sanctifying grace in the NT. Interesting enough modern interpreters have not been so generous. According to Kittel’s Wort-Buch of the NT, the word never means anything other than a forensic verdict.

In any case, the point is that grace radically reorients the self. By trusting in God’s external judgment of grace, I look away from myself and to God. This restores the original relationship of receptivity that is natural to creator and creature.

This is why the Augustinian schema effectively doesn’t work either. Even if I do posit monergism, but then say that it leads to my meritorious behavior and from there to salvation, then I’m stuck trusting in myself. Though I am intellectually claiming that God is doing all the work, I nevertheless existentially look to my own merits as a source of my relationship with God. In this I am still curved in on myself and dead in my sins.

Ultimately, what Roman Catholics don’t understand is that the justification that the Reformation posited was justification by faith, not merely justification by grace (as Gerhard Forde has noted). The Catholic system is full of grace. And the end of the day though, it cannot allow for faith in the sense what we Lutherans have. The Catholic position cannot help but posit that we look to something other than the grace of God as an ultimate source of trust, whereas the Lutheran position looks to Christ alone.

“The invocation of the saints is also one of the Antichrist’s abuses that conflicts with the chief article and destroys the knowledge of Christ (Philippians 3:8). It is neither commanded nor counseled, nor has it any warrant in Scripture. Even if it were a precious thing–which it is not–we have everything a thousand times better in Christ. The angels in heaven pray for us, as does Christ Himself. So do the saints on earth, and perhaps also in heaven. It does not follow though that we should invoke and adore the angels, and saints. Nor should we fast, hold festivals, celebrate Mass, make offerings, and establish churches, altars, and divine worship in their honor. Nor should we serve them in other ways of regard them as helpers in times of need. Nor should we divide different kinds of help among them, ascribing to each one a particular form of assistance, as the papists teach and do. This is idolatry. Such honor belongs to God alone. As a Christian and saint upon earth, you can pray for me in many necessities. But this does not mean that I have to adore and call upon you. I do not need to celebrate festivals, fast, make sacrifices, or hold Masses for your honor. I do not have to put my faith in you for my salvation. I can honor, love, and thank you in Christ in other ways. If such idolatrous honor were withdrawn from angels and departed saints, the remaining honor would be harmless and quickly forgotten. When advantage and assistance (both bodily and spiritual) are no longer expected, the saints will not be troubled, neither in their graves nor in heaven. No one will much remember or esteem or honor them without a reward or just out of pure love.”

–Martin Luther

Smalcald Articles, Part I, Article II, par.25-28.
Concordia: pgs. 292-293.

During the week of August 9, Issues Etc. will be studying the five favorite hymns of “Issues, Etc.” listeners.

Monday, 8/9 – “My Hope Is Built on Nothing Less” with Rev. Bill Cwirla

Tuesday, 8/10 – “The Church’s One Foundation” with Dr. Arthur Just

Wednesday, 8/11 – “Lord, Thee I Love with All My Heart” with Rev. Paul McCain

Thursday, 8/12 – “Thy Strong Word” with Dr. Arthur Just

Friday, 8/13 – “God’s Own Child I Gladly Say It” with Rev. Wil Weedon.

Listen live from 4-5 p.m. CDT or on-demand at www.issuesetc.org.

It never ceases to amaze and perplex me that people who should know better say such utterly absurd things, for instance: that non-Christians do know and worship the one, true God. I came across this wonderful comment by Dr. Martin Luther, who said:

He who wants to know God, love God, worship God, and serve God should learn to know Christ aright, should love Christ, should worship Christ, and serve Him. To know, love, worship, or serve God without Christ is impossible.

Source: What Luther Says (CPH: 1959), Quote 476, p. 160; Weimar 52:732)

As I walked out of the St. Louis History Museum a few years ago, I did a double take as I noticed two intriguing words carved in a large stone set in the pavement: beauty and burden. I stopped to look more closely and read this interesting quote from noted St. Louis author Eddy L. Harris:

The past is beauty. It is also burden. It is where we go, many of us, to remind ourselves who we are and even sometimes to find out.

The Church’s history is a beautiful burden. To regard it as such is to embrace simultaneously a realistic and grateful regard for it. To respect the past as a teacher is to recognize the blessings God has given to so many faithful men and women down through the ages. To idolize the past is to do a disservice both to ourselves and to those who have gone before. To ignore the past is to place ourselves, and our future, at great risk. Moving forward into the future while regarding the past to be irrelevant is the greatest danger. To do so is like driving down a dark road on a moonless, cloudy night with no headlights.

There is something about our culture that takes perverse pride in neglecting the past. It is often the case that our culture regards anything “modern” or “contemporary” as automatically worthy of more attention and more trustworthy than long-held truths. This is certainly not a biblical attitude. Scripture makes it clear that we are to remain rooted and anchored in the historic revelation of God in Christ Jesus and in the Word of the Lord, which endures forever.

“Continue in what you have learned and have firmly believed, knowing from whom you learned it” (2 Timothy 3:14 ESV). Continue in what you have learned and have become convinced of, St. Paul said to St. Timothy. Elsewhere he wrote, “Teach what accords with sound doctrine” (Titus 2:1 ESV). We are to “contend for the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints” (Jude 1:3 ESV).

As I reflected on the museum inscription, I was reminded of something G. K. Chesterton once said:

Tradition means giving votes to the most obscure of all classes, our ancestors. It is the democracy of the dead. Tradition refuses to submit to the small and arrogant oligarchy of those who merely happen to be walking about. . . . Tradition asks us not to neglect a good man’s opinion, even if he is our father. (Orthodoxy [Westport, CT: Greenwod Press, 1974], p. 85)

What about us Lutherans who, by God’s grace alone, remain committed to the truths of Holy Scripture and to the confession of this truth that is contained in the Book of Concord? How do we regard the past? We do well to embrace the beautiful burden of our past, to let it remind us who we are and help us to find out when we forget or are tempted to run after the latest fad or trend.

We do not embrace the past in an unthinking and uncritical manner. Neither do we scurry about as some churches do these days, throwing overboard virtually every discernible doctrine or practice anchored in the historic confession of the Church through the ages.

Among many people in our culture is a deep hunger and longing and searching for truth. This hunger for authentic spiritual truth is to them like a distant melody that they can barely make out, but for us who have been brought into the truth of Christ, it is a glorious symphony. The search for peace and genuine certainty in an age of chaos is to many like peering far out at the deep, dark expanse of the horizon and seeing small, flickering pinpoints of light. For those who are in Christ, the light of His truth fills our lives with a warm and eternally satisfying radiance from His eternal Word and life-giving Sacraments. May God stir up in us renewed zeal for spreading the light of Christ and bringing many, many more to hear the wonderful symphony of the Gospel of Christ, truly, the splendor of truth.

Perhaps in many ways the burden of the past is a result of its great beauty, a beauty that when contemplated and meditated on reduces us once again to repentance as we recognize our many sins and failings. But then we are moved to thankful praise to the One who has called us out of sin and death’s darkness into the life and light of His salvation. For so many people today, the past is a burden that presses down on them, forcing them to ask those questions that come to all people in the moments of quiet and stillness, in the moments when they are unable to stuff their ears and cover their eyes with the transient sounds and images of a culture rushing always headlong toward new pleasures, new sensations, new emptiness. In their quiet moments, so many find themselves all alone with the haunting voice of grief or guilt that pierces their dreams at night and their thoughts during the day. Pilate’s question echoes to this day: “What is truth?”

It is precisely for the sake of Christ’s mission that we joyfully take up the beautiful burden of the past and reflect together on those who have labored and gone before us. “Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God” (Hebrews 12:1-3 ESV).

As the Church rejoices and celebrates our Lord’s resurrection victory, we are embraced by, and in turn we embrace, the beauty and burden of the One who has gone before us. He bids you to take your cross and follow Him. He lays the yoke of discipleship on you because of the burden of your sin that He bore. He has gifted you with the light and easy burden of grace, mercy, and salvation, purchased by His body and blood sacrificed for you on the cross, the very body and blood He gives to you in His Holy Supper. Forgiveness, life, and salvation are yours.

May you have great joy in your Lord’s Easter triumph. When the burdens, stresses, and strains of your duties and responsibilities weigh heavily, when the shadow of a sin remembered and guilt felt appears as a dark shadow on your heart and in your mind, then hold even more closely to the forgiving love of Him who loves you more than His life itself. He gives you, again and again, the peace that truly passes all human understanding. May the Lord bless your ministry!

Cordially in Christ,

Rev. Paul T. McCain Concordia Publishing House