What should shine forth from the Church above all other things? Buildings? Traditions? Fund raisers? The pastor? Denominational programs? The youth group? Style of worship?
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No pastor, bishop, priest, or pope has the right to determine rules for apprehending eternal life when those rules have no authority from the gospel.
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The Reformation slogan, sola Scriptura, should be kept close in our thoughts. Much doubt and anxiety may be avoided, if God’s Word is our rule of faith and practice.
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If our righteousness must exceed that of religious experts, then what are we to do? We are to understand what righteousness actually is.
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The Defense of the Augsburg Confession concludes with a word on the power of the church. It insists that the church was corrupt and that this was harmful to the people in the church.
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These older widows had promised to not remarry so that they could receive assistance from the church. Remarrying was seen as breaking that “oath” — the same word translated as “faith.”
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These older widows had promised to not remarry so that they could receive assistance from the church. Remarrying was seen as breaking that “oath” — the same word translated as “faith.”
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It is clear enough from the context that these widows whom Paul spoke of were simply women the Church supported unless they remarried.
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We need all the help we can get. No one would deny this to be true. But if the help obscures Christ, it is not help; it is a great evil.
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We have a shared promise through Christ since we are all sons of God through faith in him. As such, all believers are joint heirs of the promise made to Christ, the Seed of Abraham.
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It is remarkably easy to take a verse or two from the Bible and construct a doctrine or a whole way of life. The safeguard to doing this, or falling prey to its adherents, is to, as we say, “be in the Word” — all of God’s Word.
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Our works, actions, and lifestyles do not make us right with God. Jesus Christ justifies us before God. This is why faith alone in the grace of God alone merits his forgiveness and salvation.
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Sometimes people make bad decisions. We all do this but one wrong decision should not necessitate a lifetime of poor choices or actions.
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Be sure that your commitments depend upon God’s promises, power, and faithfulness, instead of your own. Be doubly certain that you do not imagine keeping your promises is the way to salvation.
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Religious acting can take the form of doing worship, that is, not worshiping at all. This often takes the form of a ritual that does not come from the heart.
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The Word of God must be proclaimed with clarity, putting useless arguments aside in favor of the gospel. The best way to accomplish this is to cut a straight path through the Scripture.
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Watch your step. When going before God in worship and prayer, we must be very careful. It is easy to walk into false doctrine, hypocrisy, and useless rituals.
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Everyone who believes in Christ overcomes the world through faith. There is no need to leave the world in order to do so. There is no need for us to go to additional lengths in order to be forgiven.
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Jesus saw Matthew, a tax collector, and told him to follow: to be his disciple. How would there have been perfection if Matthew continued to sit there?
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Are you willing to follow Jesus? If it means you would lose the civil right to buy and sell, to make a living, to provide for your family, would you still follow Jesus?
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Having no bank account does not aid the spirit, though it may destroy the spirit if one takes pride in the so-called accomplishment of giving up money and property.
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I have known people who refused to work on Sunday. Some employers understood; others did not. I heard of one man who would not work on the Lord’s Day and as a result, lost his job.
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God does not command certain pietistic practices of giving up property, friends, family, food, and clothing. Indeed, Jesus tells us to not be anxious about such things.
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We must not forsake the gospel, even if it means loss of property, family, or even life. What is it that keeps you from following Jesus?
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God’s commandments forbid the forsaking of parents. Yet in this teaching of Jesus about leaving one’s family — even children — for him, it is clear that Jesus is using hyperbole to make his point.
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Does our virtuous lifestyle add anything to faith? To be sure, we are to furnish our faith with virtue, knowledge, self-control, endurance, godliness, and brotherly and godly love.
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We are not justified before God because of a particular lifestyle, no matter how holy or special it may seem. God is able to make a child holy while that child, as yet, has no occupation.
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As we are not made impure by physical things that enter us from the outside, so we do not purge our impurity by doing physical things.
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How may a person of faith be found on that Day “without spot or blemish”? Even more, how may one be certain that their life is so blameless that they are at peace with God?
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How much faith is enough? Is there an admittance fee to heaven, but then you have to pay for any extras? Does a little more get you more once you get inside?
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Where is your confidence, your trust? Is it your bank account or perhaps, your pension? Maybe it is the government, its promise to protect you while lowering taxes and providing new jobs.
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What a joy it is to realize that God’s forgiveness and eternal life are gifts. Now, we all understand that one does not work for a gift; otherwise it is not a gift at all. Instead of a gift, it has become something we earned.
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Those who who do not believe in salvation for Christ’s sake, in other words, because of what God has done through his Son, are not only blind and witless, they have refused grace.
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Does Jesus mean that dishonoring parents and dismissing the fourth commandment are of such great virtue that they merit eternal life? How absurd.
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I take a bit of exception to Melancthon’s verb choice—although I agree with him if I understand what he intended to say. I do not wish, however, to put my words in his mouth.
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We easily see that Paul, himself of the pharisaic tradition, taught that Christians leave the faith when they devote themselves to legal requirements such as those under consideration.
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The most important commandment is greater than people are capable of apprehending in thought, let alone action. It is the height of theology.
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There are good religious traditions, and those that are no good at all. The good ones found and construct you in the faith. These traditions are learned in the pure Word of God.
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Adiaphora are matters in which we should look for neither sin nor righteousness. They are non-essentials, things that have nothing to do with one’s standing before God. These non-essentials are typically traditions or customs.
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The “power belongs to God.” We are incapable of securing our own forgiveness and salvation. Imagine the person who looks in the mirror and declares, “I forgive you of your sins.”
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Before the advent of radio, television, and internet, news traveled slowly. In some circles, it travels more slowly today.
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Scripture is clear: those who try to justify their sin by their works have fallen from grace. We cannot balance the scales by placing good works against bad works. It is not a matter of weights and measures.
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Jesus said, “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them.” Paul then said, “Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes.”
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If our religion is one that earns forgiveness of sin and eternal life through religious devotion, services, and other good works, then we slander faith in Christ, just as the religious authorities in Jerusalem spurned Christ himself.
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Years ago, my Dad took me to a Cincinnati Reds baseball game. On the way, we ate at a restaurant he liked. Over his protests, I bought my meal...
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What does God want? What does he want more than anything? What does God want from us “above all things”? He wants us. He wants our hearts, our trust, so that he may bless us.
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Instead of “circumcision,” one might as well say “vows” or any other legalism — the idea is the same. Neither vows nor a lack of vows counts for anything. Only faith matters.
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What a trial the Lutheran Reformers faced; we can hardly imagine such an issue in our modern culture. Back and forth the arguments went, first being written out, edited by peers, then written again and again until all could be in agreement with the document before sending it on to Rome.
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So-called evangelical perfection is the keeping of all God’s commands. Let us consider three points in this regard. First, being in a monastic order does not equal “evangelical perfection” any more than does membership in a particular denomination.
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It is an easy enough trap to fall into. One imagines he is being religious but his religion is based on human traditions. Anything can happen now—and will, as was evidenced by Christians being slaughtered at the hands of the Church.
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Greed always ends in activity that is unfitting for Christians and harmful to the Church. What begins in the heart seeps out into character and behavior.
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