New Sunday Adult Bible Class: "Law & Gospel"

Coinciding with the release of the new translation of C.F.W. Walther's Law and Gospel, we will begin a new study for adults on Sunday morning entitled - you guessed it - "Law & Gospel."  We will be using material from "The Lutheran Difference" series from Concordia Publishing House.  Join us at 9:15 am on Sunday morning in the Social Hall.

If you ordered the leather edition of The Lutheran Study Bible...

...you didn't get the cool prayers and devotions that were included in the inside of the cover. Those were only available in the hardback edition. However, the other day I was poking around on the CPH website and ran into a file to download which contains those same prayers and devotions. Print it off in booklet format and you have a handy little insert to place in your leatherbound TLSB. Click or on the link below to download the file.

http://www.cph.org/images/topics/pdf/tlsb/devotions_prayers.pdf

LEGO version of Solomon's temple

You gotta see the whole thing at http://assemblingthetemple.blogspot.com/. Amazing detail.

Issues, Etc. 24...this promises to be good

Twenty-four hours straight of good, solid, Bible study from respected teachers and theologians. I'm sure I won't be staying up for 24 hours straight, but I'm excited about downloading the podcasts of this.

Never mistook Barney Fife for a liberal.

Critique of Beth Moore from "Fighting for the Faith"

Beth Moore has become a very popular "Bible" teacher. I put "Bible" in quotation marks because her interpretations of Holy Scripture are questionable, if not downright heretical. Her materials have even found their way into some LCMS churches. Listen to Chris Rosebrough's important and urgent critique by clicking on the player below.

March Newsletter Article: "Starting the Day with Jesus"

What’s the first thing you think about when you get up in the morning? For me, it’s “Where’s my coffee?” I climb out of bed, head down the hallway, eyelids half open, hoping not to stumble over toys left on the floor from the night before. Once in the kitchen, still drowsy, I somehow manage to fill the coffee maker with water and grounds and flip the switch for some welcome “motion potion” as I call it.

Then begin thoughts of what I have to do today. I won’t bore you with my daily to-do list, because right now you are probably already thinking about yours. And then inevitably come the worry and anxiety over getting everything done. I can relate.

Recently, I read a beautiful passage from the book Life Together by Dietrich Bonhoeffer that was a helpful reminder to start the day out with God’s Word (and the prayer that flows from that Word):

For Christians, the beginning of the day should not be burdened and oppressed with besetting concerns for the day’s work. At the threshold of the new day stands the Lord who made it. All the darkness and distraction of the dreams of night retreat before the clear light of Jesus Christ and his wakening Word. All unrest, all impurity, all care and anxiety flee before him. Therefore, at the beginning of the day let all distraction and empty talk be silenced and let the first thought and the first word belong to him to whom our whole life belongs. “Awake thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee light” (Eph. 5:14)

That’s a good prescription for putting the day’s work in perspective. Sit down with God’s Word for a few moments at the beginning of each new day. That’s not always easy. Some of us have children who are early risers and demand our attention (that’s true in my household!). Those are the times when you can start with Luther’s suggestion for morning prayer in the Small Catechism, which takes no more than a few minutes. Then, you can reschedule a longer time in God’s Word for later in the day.

Whether you need coffee or not because you feel so “dead” in the morning after you “sleepest,” we all need the life and light that our Crucified and Risen Savior gives to us. Apart from him, we all sleep the sleep of spiritual death. His “wakening Word” opens our eyes to his grace, mercy, and forgiveness. It opens the blinds on our darkened hearts to let his light shine in. His Word and Spirit raises us to a new life of faith and trust in him. Daily we can spend some time with Jesus whose death and resurrection puts all things in the right perspective for us.

In Christ’s service and yours,
Pastor Onken

"The ways of destroying the church"

Since we've been studying 1 Corinthians in our Sunday morning Bible class, I may have to pick up a copy of the book from which this quote is taken. Thanks to Paul McCain for posting this at his blog Cyberbrethren.

The ways of destroying the church are many and colorful. Raw factionalism will do it. Rank heresy will do it. Taking your eyes off the cross and letting other, more peripheral matters dominate the agenda will do it-admittedly more slowly than frank heresy, but just as effectively over the long haul. Building the church with superficial ‘conversions’ and wonderful programs that rarely bring people into a deepening knowledge of the living God will do it. Entertaining people to death but never fostering the beauty of holiness or the centrality of self-crucifying love will build an assembling of religious people, but it will destroy the church of the living God. Gossip, prayerlessness, bitterness, sustained biblical illiteracy, self-promotion, materialism-all of these things, and many more, can destroy a church. And to do so is dangerous: ‘If anyone destroys God’s temple, God will destroy him; for God’s temple is sacred, and you are that temple (1 Cor. 3:17).” It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.

- D.A. Carson, The Cross and Christian Ministry: Leadership Lessons from 1 Corinthians (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1993), 83-84.

Word Clouds of the Books of the Bible

I've been using Wordle for some time now to create "word clouds" of my sermon texts. It shows the more prominent words that are used in any given text which you enter.

Now, Brad Thomas at his Identity33 blog has created word clouds of all 66 books of the Bible. It's an interesting visual analysis. Check it out by clicking here.

HT: Gene Veith

Pastor Weedon's reflections on TLSB

Click here to read Pastor Weedon's reflections on The Lutheran Study Bible.

The first cases of The Lutheran Study Bible have arrived at Messiah. First come, first served for the first 30 copies. After that, you'll have to wait until the next order is placed. Sign up on the poster in the entryway.

I'm still waiting for my leather edition, which is supposed to be an early Christmas present. Julie won't let me look at her hardback copy. (Just kidding...she's graciously letting me peek inside).

Videos about The Lutheran Study Bible

The more I learn about this Bible, the more I can't wait to get my hands on one. Be looking for more information at church. We've already ordered a number so that we won't have to worry about having them backordered in October. If we need more, you can order them as one of our book of the month offerings in the Fall.

Here are the latest videos from Concordia Publishing House introducing the features of the Bible.

More about TLSB

Cool New Promo for The Lutheran Study Bible

Faith Comes By Hearing: Listening to the Word of God

During a recent cleaning at the house, we ran across a set of CD's from "Faith Comes By Hearing," an organization dedicated to distributing the Bible around the world in audio formats in a multitude of languages. A number of years ago, many people at our church bought CD sets of the New Testament and we challenged ourselves to listen to the entire New Testament during Lent (if memory serves me correctly...maybe it was at a different time of the year).

With the rediscovery of this set, I decided to pop the CD's in my car last week and start listening once again. It is a unique experience hearing the Word of God read and hearing it read in a continuous fashion. And it's also interesting to find how much of the Bible you can listen to in a series of 7 minute commutes (which is exactly how long it takes for me to drive to the church). With a few other brief drives here and there, it only took me 2 days to get through 22 chapters of Matthew.

Before writing this post, I checked out the "Faith Comes By Hearing" website and noticed that they also offer the New Testament as a free mp3 download. This is great for those of you who use this format. If not, you can order the Bible on various forms of media, in various translations, and in dramatic or non-dramatic style (mine is dramatic, which basically means that there is a musical "soundtrack" and the voices change when there is dialog or discourse...I actually find it distracting; I wish I just had a straight reading).

If you've never done something like this, give it a try. You'll find it beneficial and faith strengthening. After all, Scripture does say that, "faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ." (Romans 10:17)

February Newsletter Article

Lutherans: Confessional

Over the last few months, we have been discussing how to answer the question “What does it mean to be a Lutheran?” Thus far, we have answered that question using the words evangelical, catholic, and sacramental. This month’s word is confessional.

When you ask some Christians what they believe, they might say something like this: “I believe the Bible.” Sounds good, right? Only one problem. There are many churches and non-Christian cults that use the Bible as their source of religious beliefs, yet they come to different conclusions about central doctrines of the Christian faith.

Similarly, some Christian churches pride themselves on not using any man-made creeds in order to summarize their beliefs. “No creed but Christ,” they might say. Ironically, these same churches probably have some kind of “statement of faith” which they publish. That becomes their “creed” whether they realize it or not. After all, the word creed simply comes from the Latin word credo, which means “I believe.”

Lutherans have the advantage of having a set of documents which summarize what makes someone a Lutheran. These documents are the “Lutheran Confessions,” as they are called, and are contained in The Book of Concord or Concordia of 1580. The first of these documents are the historic, ecumenical creeds (Apostles’, Nicene, Athanasian), placed there to show that the Lutherans at the time of the Reformation were not trying to teach anything other than what the ancient church believed and taught. Other than the creeds, Luther’s Small Catechism of 1529 is probably the most familiar of the Lutheran Confessions. It is important to note, also, that we do not place The Book of Concord on the same level of Scripture. The Bible is our only source and norm for our faith and our life. It alone is divinely inspired. Yet, we still declare that The Book of Concord is a true exposition of what God’s Word teaches.

Sadly, some contemporary Lutherans do not hold the Lutheran Confessions in such high regard. They believe that they are important historical documents, but it is not necessary to pledge unconditional agreement with them. On the contrary, our LC-MS pastors are expected to subscribe unconditionally to the Lutheran Confessions in their ordination vows. “Confessional” Lutherans believe in the importance of making an unconditional subscription to the Lutheran Confessions because they are an accurate and truthful exposition of the Word of God. Other Lutherans will say that they hold to the Confessions in so far as they agree with Holy Scripture. But that is really not much of a confession. It leaves the door open to one’s own private interpretations based on subjective feelings, rather than a bold, clear, united confession of faith given to the world, as was the original intent of the Lutheran Confessions.

The Book of Concord closes with these words, and sums up what it means to be a “confessional” Lutheran: “In the sight of God and of all Christendom, we want to testify to those now living and those who will come after us. This declaration presented here about all the controverted articles mentioned and explained above – and no other – is our faith, doctrine, and confession. By God's grace, with intrepid hearts, we are willing to appear before the judgment seat of Christ with this Confession and give an account of it [1 Peter 4:5]. We will not speak or write anything contrary to this Confession, either publicly or privately. By the strength of God's grace we intend to abide by it.” (Formula of Concord, Solid Declaration, Article XII, paragraph 40)

In Christ’s service and yours,
Pastor Onken

P.S. To read more about The Book of Concord, go online at bookofconcord.org. You may read the Confessions online there along with helpful articles. Concordia: The Lutheran Confessions is also a wonderful edition for laypeople, with helpful explanatory introductions and notes. Cool pictures, too! Or you can get a handy-dandy pocket-sized edition (no pictures). Order online from CPH or call them at 1-800-325-3040.

The Story of The Lutheran Study Bible

Click on the link below to read the background behind the production of Concordia's latest study Bible project.  It also gives some interesting historical information about other study Bibles in our church's past.

The Story of The Lutheran Study Bible

HT: Cyberbrethren

Blogged with the Flock Browser

By the way, make sure you order "THE" Lutheran Study Bible

I posted the cartoon from Tuesday's post over at the Wittenberg Trail, and it started a conversation about The Lutheran Study Bible from Concordia Publishing House, set to be released in the Fall. Apparently, one person thought I was subtly commenting on CPH's new product and questioning the need for another study Bible on the market. No, I just thought the cartoon was funny. And I'm wholeheartedly looking forward to purchasing a copy of The Lutheran Study Bible. Preordering begins in February and the Bible will be available Reformation Day (October 31) 2009.

Having said that, I was informed that there is another study Bible being released in March by Augsburg/Fortress (the ELCA's publishing arm) called Lutheran Study Bible. Note the absence of the article "The." But that's not all that distinguishes this Bible from Concordia's version.

See for yourself. Compare the two samples in the links below. Augsburg/Fortress' version appears to be light on the "study" in study Bible, while at the same time displaying the ELCA's reliance on liberal scholarship. You'll see that Augsburg/Fortress' product is rather "lightweight" in comparison to Concordia's product.

Click here to view a sample of Lutheran Study Bible from Augsburg/Fortress.

Click here to view a sample of The Lutheran Study Bible from Concordia.

Just remember ... don't get confused. Look for the all important "THE" in the title.

One too many study Bibles

HT: The Sacred Sandwich

If you're in the market for a new study Bible, hold off until you can get The Lutheran Study Bible

Pre-orders for The Lutheran Study Bible begin next month. This looks like it's going to be great. If you're looking to buy a new study Bible for yourself or as a gift for someone, hold off until you can get your hands on this one. Click here to see a sneak "pre-preview" over at Cyberbrethren.

Remember, this is not just an edited edition of the recently published ESV Study Bible, much like the Concordia Self-Study Bible was a revision of Zondervan's NIV Study Bible. The Lutheran Study Bible is unique in that it is "the first in English to be developed from the ground-up with notes that are distinctively Lutheran, prepared by Lutheran theologians and pastors from over twenty Lutheran church bodies. Current Lutheran scholarship, insights from the Church Fathers, and rich devotional commentary provides meaningful perspective for both young and mature Christians." (from the CPH website)

Newsweek's Latest Cover Story

Newsweek and Time have not exactly proven to be fair to conservative, orthodox Christianity. Click here to read another example of this in a critique by Mollie Hemingway at GetReligion.org.