The Secret Wireless

Your life is precious to God.  And no one knows why. That is the great mystery of God's grace.  Why does He love us?  Why does He do good to us and not evil?  It is simply because He loves us, we are precious in His sight.  But we don't know why. God does not need us.  He does not owe us anything.  We are nothing more to God that the workmanship, the artistry of His hands.  He could destroy us with no less thought than we might destroy a picture that we have drawn on a scrap of paper. Yet God values human life (animal life too, albeit not equally).  And so should we. Of course we know why we should value life: because no one person is created greater than another in the sight of God.  You are no better or more precious than I am.  I am no more precious than you.  The infant in the womb is not less valuable than I am.  The elderly woman suffering in a nursing home is not less precious than you. Amplifying this to...

This world is not our trash heap. This planet is not your personal ash tray. This universe is not yours, period. Human beings are created by God and given dominion, or lordship, over the creation (Genesis 1:26-28).  Yet God remains Lord over all.  It is His creation, not ours.  And we must take care of it as good managers, good stewards, of the things He has given. Yet, this creation is passing away... because of our sin .  The land is cursed because of Adam's fall into temptation (Genesis 3:17-19).  We cannot save this world from deteriorating anymore than we can save a loved one from dying.  We can delay the inevitable.  We can do our best to care for what we have.  But the end will come when Jesus returns. We are not, however, waiting for Christ to come again and eliminate matter from existence.  We await a new heavens and a new earth (II Peter 3:13). You see, you are a creature .  And you belong in a creation.  And y...

The devil, like the Batman’s Joker, is an agent of chaos.   He loves chaos, thrives upon discord and disorder. But God is not a God of confusion, but a God of peace.   (I Corinthians 14:33)   He has established His order within His Church.   He has established His order within His creation.   And we are to follow that order. Some of this order is easier to understand than others.   Parents are to discipline their children, not the other way around.   Teachers are to teach and students are to learn.   Pastors are to forgive and preach while laymen are to gladly receive these gifts.   But what about hierarchy?   What about order in the Church when it goes past pastors and laymen?   Who tells the pastors what to do?   Who trains them?   Who will step in when the pastor steps out of line? These are questions that the Bible, by-and-large, does not answer.   Yet, we know that God loves order, and not ch...

The female half of humanity is not second class.  It is first class in a very unique way. In creation, God makes everything in a very orderly way.  And as He goes along, He makes things more and more grand.  It all comes to a climax in the creation of humanity, summarized in the forming of Adam ("the man") from the dust of the earth.  (Genesis 1) Yet a few verses later God says something shocking.  "It is not good," He says, "that the Man should be alone." God created the world good, at the end of each day saying that it was "good".  So it should knock us for a loop when He says that something in His perfect creation is "not good".  How will He fix this?  How will God finish His creation, putting on its crowning jewel? He creates Woman. That's right.  Men are not the height of God's creation.  Women are, Eve in particular. This is something that I think men know inherently.  You can't look at a woman and not thi...

How can you make God happy?  This is the question of righteousness before God.  And this question leads to the essential difference between Christianity and every other world religion. How can you make God happy?  How can you be righteous in the sight of God?  Ask a Mulsim and they will tell you to follow the Five Pillars.  Ask a Jew and they will tell you follow the Torah and tradition.  Ask any follower of any religion, and they should be able to give you a descent answer. But if you ask a Christian they should be dumbfounded.  Christians do not have an answer to this question, how do you make God happy.  The Christian answer is: "You can't!" The bedrock foundation of our trust in Jesus Christ is believing that He is the only one who can make God happy.  He is the only one who is righteous in the sight of God.  Can you, then, ever be righteous in the sight of God?  Yes!  But not by doing anything at all.  On...

Private confession is not an outdated practice.  It may have fallen out of fashion, but it is certainly not out of necessity or usefulness. If you are troubled by your sins (I certainly hope your sins trouble you) then it is more than appropriate that you bring those sins to your pastor, confess them to him, and allow him to forgive you under the authorty of Christ Himself. No one should be compelled to do this.  Confession should come freely from a person to their pastor.  That is because confession flows freely from a conviction that your sins will be forgiven for the sake of Christ. Confession, and the subsequent Absolution (forgiveness) are meant to strengthen faith in Christ.  This is why, when you confess your sins to the pastor, and he forgives you, he will NOT then tell you to go and pray 50 Psalms, or to help 10 people, or give $1000 to the Church.  There is no need to do anything to "make up" for your sin, because Jesus has already done that....

We don't really call it that anymore, well, Lutherans don't anyway.  We call it the divine service.  This goes back to what I said about tradition a few posts back, but we do not throw out ancient practices of the Church for no good reason.  Lutherans have kept what is beneficial from the past and only jettisoned that which is contrary to the Gospel.  We still begin our services by invoking God's Triune name.  We recite or sing the Psalms.  We read from the Scriptures, sing hymns, hear a sermon centered on Christ, recite or chant age old Christian verses.  We still celebrate the Lord's Supper with frequency.  Of course not all Lutherans (probably not even most Lutherans) celebrate the Lord's Supper every week.  I believe that is more out of a high respect for the preached Word than it is out of a lack of understanding about the Supper.  But why do we retain all of these strange things?  As my brother-in-law once asked, "What...

There is one proper vehicle for sexual activity.  It is called marriage .  And Christians vigorously defend that divine institution. When God created the world He said, "It is not good that the man [Adam] should be alone." (Genesis 2:18)  So God creates, from Adam's side, Eve, "a helper fit for him."  This is the first marriage. ("Helper" is also a term used for God elsewhere in the Bible, such as Deuteronomy 33:7 and Psalm 33:20, so it obviously is not meant to give the woman/Eve a second class status.  If anything it means quite the opposite.)  Thus we have the foundation of the Christian belief that marriage should consist in the life-long bond of one man and one woman to love and cherish each other.  One man is not permitted to take several wives, although many in Scripture sin in this and incur God's judgment.  One woman is not permitted to have several husbands.  A man cannot take a husband.  A woman cannot take a wife....

There is a practice among some Churches in only giving the bread/body of Christ in the Lord's Supper.  As Lutherans we believe that when God gives you a gift, you take all that you can get. Normally it is not good to be greedy.  Certainly Paul warns us against getting drunk upon the blood of Jesus (I Corinthians 11).  However, when God offers you His body and blood for the forgiveness of your sins, to refuse one of them is to misunderstand the depravity in which you are cursed to live.  You are a sinner, completely and totally.  The only thing, and I mean the ONLY thing, working against this depravity is God's Word coming to you in the Scriptures, in Baptism, and in the Lord's Supper. A similar question arises around baptism.  If I already have believed the Word of God without baptism, then why do I need to be baptized?  BECAUSE JESUS SAID SO!   Because in baptism God attaches you to the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ!  Becaus...

Regular saints, not super saints. A saint is a man or woman made holy by God in Christ.  The term may properly be applied to anyone who has been reborn by the power of God's Word and Spirit. The saints are not some special class of Christian who have proven themselves to be "better Christians" than everyone else.  No miracles or good works on our part are required, only the regenerative work of God. To be certain, we often speak of those who have died in the faith to be "sainted".  This is simply a reference to the fact that those who have died in Christ are now resting in His presence and no longer struggle with sin.  But why do we remember the saints?  Why should we study the lives of the men and women who were Christians before us?  So that we might be encouraged by their example in the faith. History is filled with saints who have proclaimed the Gospel in the face of adversity, who fed the hungry and clothed the naked, who cared for their fami...

The concern is this: If you go around telling everyone that they can do nothing to add to their salvation, that their works are meaningless in God's sight, then they won't do any good works! The concern is admirable.  After all, in the 21st century we certainly see the effects of living in a world where no one cares about doing what is righteous according to any objective standard.  As in the days of the Judges, everyone does what is right in their own eyes. The truth, however, is that it is only possible to do good works in the sight of God when you are convinced that you cannot do any good works in the sight of God.  It is only when we possess faith (which is a gift from the Holy Spirit) that Christ has done all that is necessary for our salvation that we are even remotely capable of doing anything good. Allow me to use a rather silly (perhaps even gross) illustration.  Let's say that you came home one day and there was a zombie (yes, zombie, an undead creatu...

You have civil free will.  That was the previous post.  When it comes to spiritual matters you have nothing of the sort. We are either a child of Hell by birth or a child of Heaven by adoption.  But we have no choice in the matter. Take, for example, Christ's words to Nicodemus.  "Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the Kingdom of God." (John 3:3) Nicodemus cannot understand how a man can be born again.  "Can he enter a second time into his mother's womb?" (3:4)  It would be impossible for him to cause himself to be born again. But that is precisely the point.  You had nothing to do with your birth the first time around.  Your parents decided that one for you.  And so when it comes to second birth, rebirth by the power of the Holy Spirit, you have nothing to do with it.  It is all God's work through His Word and Spirit. This makes perfect sense in light of the Biblical teaching on baptism as well....

Pick a card, any card!  Pick a spouse, a house, a car, or a suit.  You are free to choose any of these things that you want. That freedom to choose includes, in a certain manner of speaking, whether to do good or evil.  You can choose to hurt your neighbor, or to help him.  You can choose to commit adultery or to remain faithful.  You can choose to nurture your family or to abandon them. Yet there is one thing you cannot choose to do: love God.  You are incapable of yourself.  Only the Word of God can create such fear, love, and trust in God.  And in the end, this is the only kind of freedom that really matters. You could have chosen to do all the right things when it comes to the people who live around you here on this earth.  None of that matters if you do not first trust Jesus Christ as your Savior.  "Whatever does not proceed from faith is sin" (Romans 14:23).  You cannot choose to turn your heart towards God. God is the...

We believe in the resurrection of the dead and the life of the world to come. Jesus Christ shall return.  You might believe that.  You might not.  But He will. And when He returns He will raise the dead, all of us, and judge everyone according to their deeds (Revelation 20:12-13). If you believe that you have been good enough, done enough, loved enough, been nice enough, then you are wrong.  We shall all be judged, and if we are judged merely upon our own deeds, our own appearance, then we will be condemned to everlasting death. Yet we have been covered by the robe of Christ's righteousness.  At the judgment, those who are covered by Christ, who have been given His righteousness as a gift through the Word of God (including Baptism and the Lord's Supper), shall live forever in a new world.  That is our only hope.  It is our sure hope. Stand, and wait patiently for the return of Christ.  Behold He is coming soon.  Come Lord Jesus!...

Contrary to the direction that some are moving politically these days, the government is a good creation of God.  Libertarianism, which seems to hold that the government has no business doing anything other than punishing those who cause physical injury to others, are therefore acting contrary to Scripture.  Likewise liberalism, which would grant unconditional autonomy to individuals in matters of morals and ethics, is equally wrong headed. God established the government as His servant (Romans 13).  There is simply no way around this.  Government is NOT a necessary evil.  It is a necessary good. That is not to say that everything the government does is good.  That is as foolish as believing everything the Church does is good because the Church is the servant of God.  No, wherever and whenever sinful human beings (all of us) have influence, there will be corruption. As Christians, and especially as Lutherans, we should stand for a government which...

Wait a minute.  What?!  That isn't right.  "Tradition alone" is not one of the Reformation "sola's".  Usually we hear that Martin Luther stood for the Word of God over and against the traditions of men.  Why, then, would I say that we stand for tradition? It is true that the traditions of men can at times usurp the Word of God in the mind of the Church.  We are sinners and remain susceptible to the temptation of idolatry.  When tradition stands in the way of the Gospel, when the words and actions of men contradict the Word of God, then we must take refuge in God's Word.  We must cut out the harmful tradition in order to preserve a pure Gospel. Yet tradition in the Church is good and salutary.  Many traditions actually draw our attention away from the ways of the world and focus our minds on Jesus Christ. Take, for example, the Church Year.  We use this calendar unique to the Christian Church we celebrate the events of Jesus' life a...

You have a divine call.   That may not be what you have been told, but God Himself has called you in an objective and verifiable way to serve your neighbor. Do you have parents?   Then you are called to be a child.   Are you married?   You are called to be a spouse.   Are you baptized?   Then you are called to be a child of God. These are not small callings.   They are not unimportant.   In fact, they are of primal importance.   We encounter great difficulty when we begin to despise and reject our divine callings. Take, for example, a woman who is married and has 2 children at home.   Perhaps, given our current cultural setting, she might begin to feel that she needed to “contribute to society”.   She might feel pressure to use her college education in the marketplace.   So she obtains a job in a firm and works outside the home 40 hours a week. What is wrong with this picture?   She has left her divine...

The Sacraments are "signs and testimonies of God's will toward us." (AC XIII) Perhaps the difficulty of understanding the sacraments comes from the way we, as sinful people, tend to divide them from God's Word and faith.  The Sacraments do not exist apart from God's Word.  It is not as if there could be the possibility of Baptism or the Lord's Supper without the Word of God.  Through His Word of promise God declares that we are united to Christ in baptism, that Jesus is truly (physically) present in the Supper.  The Word makes the Sacrament. It is also false to say that we can reap the benefits of a sacrament without faith.  In fact, Paul says just the opposite.  Sacraments received without faith are detrimental to our salvation. (I Corinthians 11:27-32) That, however, is precisely because the Sacrament is powerful without our faith.  If the sacrament required faith in order to be powerful then it could not hurt those without faith.  But it ...

Repentance is one of the most misunderstood points of Christian teaching out there.  Some believe that repentance is the precursor to faith.  This is usually taken from the words of John the Baptist and Jesus Himself, "Repent and believe the gospel!" But if repentance becomes a requirement for faith, a prerequisite to trust in Christ, then once again my salvation is something that I earn.  Faith becomes something that God gives me as a gift only after I have repented.  My works take the forefront. Repentance, true repentance, is not possible, however, without faith in Jesus Christ.  According to our usual Lutheran understanding repentance has two distinct, yet inseperable parts:           1. Contrition: sorrow or terror over our sins.           2.  Faith which believes the promise of forgiveness for the sake of Christ. In this way, the entire Christian life is to be lived in repen...

"Thus it is written, that the Christ should suffer and on the third day rise from the dead, and that repentance and forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in His name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem." (Luke 24:46-47 After His resurrection, Jesus opens the Scriptures to His disciples/apostles and gives them work to do.  They are to proclaim repentance and forgiveness in the name of Jesus to the world. This proclamation is certainly to be done publicly for all to hear.  Yet it should not be exclusively public.  The forgiveness of Jesus Christ can and should be proclaimed to repentant sinners in private as well. This forgiveness (absolution) is the declaration that Jesus Christ has bled and died for you !  What better way to emphasize this "for you" aspect of the Gospel than to declare it privately straight to someone's face? Any Christian can forgive sins in the name of Jesus.  And when we sin against one another, we should confess to one anothe...

Holy Communion, the Eucharist, the Lord's Supper, the Sacrament of the Altar, the Lord's Table; these are all names given to the meal which Jesus Himself instituted on the night He was betrayed, what is commonly called Maundy Thursday. Lutherans stand virtually alone in their understanding of the Lord's Supper.  The understanding needs to be broken down into two important questions:           1. What is it?           2.  What does it do? What is the Lord's Supper?  It is the true body and blood of Jesus.  Jesus Himself says this in 3 of the 4 Gospels.  The words are also recorded by Saint Paul: "This is my body...This cup is the new covenant in my blood" (I Corinthians 11:24-25).  Lutherans do not argue with Jesus on this point.  He said it.  That makes it so. To be sure, this is a mystery.  We do not try to explain how the body and blood of Jesu...

There are a great many labels thrown around about this subject: believer's baptism, infant baptism, Spirit baptism, etc.  But Christians, specifically Lutherans, don't stand for any of these in particular.  We stand for Baptism, plain and simple, in all of its Biblical glory. You might object that Lutherans are always talking about the importance of baptizing infants, and this is true.  But to reduce the Sacrament to this argument is too simplistic. Baptism is commanded by Christ for the making of disciples (Matthew 28:19).  It is not optional.  And there is only one baptism, as Saint Paul tells us in Ephesians 4:5.  With this one baptism the Holy Spirit washes away our sins (Titus 3:5), and unites us with the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ (Romans 6:3-5), effectively guaranteeing our own resurrection to glory on the Last Day. This is all done by the work of God.  We have nothing to do with it.  It is an objective application of th...

We believe in the Communion of Saints.  We do not stand for a gathering of like-minded individuals.  We do not stand for a club for "spiritual people".  We stand for the people of God called by the Holy Spirit and gathered around His Word and Sacraments.  More importantly, however, Jesus Christ stands for the Church.  He is its foundation, its head, its bridegroom.  He is the King and the Church stands or falls by Him.  In other Words, since Jesus lives forever, the Church shall endure forever.  This is not because of the hard work of its members, but because of the grace of God showered in His Word. Where is the Church?  It is wherever the Gospel, the good news, is preached in its truth and purity. Who is the Church?  Those who have faith in Jesus Christ as their Savior from sin, death, and hell.  You can always find the Church, but you cannot always know who is in it because only God sees faith in hearts.  Why i...

There is only one source and norm for faith and practice.  It is called the Bible. The Bible is where we get our information about what God has done for the world in Jesus Christ.  This does not make the Bible some magic book that fell from heaven.  It is not above investigation.  But the simple fact of the matter is that the Bible has always withstood the critique of scholars and skeptics.  We may question the Scriptures as long as we are willing to accept the answer we receive. As the Word of God, the Bible must be taken seriously.  It must be read as a communication from God to His people.  It may not be ignored by His people ! This means we must take seriously what we like from the Bible and what we do not like.  We take joyfully the promises of forgiveness, life, and salvation.  We must also take the rebukes and commands. When the Lutheran Reformers were asked why people should obey the commandments if they are told that they can...

We are justified by faith, and not by works of the Law.   Yet how do we get faith? Faith is not something we are born with.   It is not a product of our imagination, or an act of the will on our part.   Faith comes by hearing (Romans 10:17).   It is a gift of God (Ephesians 2:8).   Faith is created and sustained by God the Holy Spirit working through the proclaimed Word of Christ (Romans 10:10-17). So that we might obtain faith, so that He might give us faith, Jesus Christ created the Means of Grace.   These are the Word of God preached and proclaimed, and also the Word of God attached to physical forms in Baptism and the Lord’s Supper.   Without these Means of Grace there can be no faith whatsoever. Without the Word of God coming to us through proclamation (sermons and absolution) and through Sacraments (Baptism and the Lord’s Supper) there can be no faith.   And God is more gracious still.   He has appointed officer...