Oil In Scripture And Church Practice Perspective The Lutheran Reformation restored great truths to the holy Christian church, above all the primacy of God's grace: namely that sinners are spared the condemnation due to them because to their sins solely on the basis of God's grace and goodness! No one can purchase his way into heaven, but it is "the gift of God, not of...

What does St. Paul mean when he writes: "I count all things as loss for the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, through whom I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, that I might gain Christ; and be found in him not having my own righteousness proceeding from the Law, but that righteousness which comes "through the faith of Christ" w...

What does St. Paul mean by "the end of the ages" in Sunday's epistle (Lent 3C)? "Now these things happened to them as an example, and were written down for our instruction, upon whom the ends of the ages is come. (1 Cor.10:11) How can he say of the church 2,000 years ago that "the end of the ages" had come upon them? How can we say it? If we interpret Scripture with s...

Below is my translation of Sunday's gospel (Lent 3 - Series C). If we read it with liturgical, sacramental and incarnational eyes we will find that St. Luke casts this, and his entire gospel, in a liturgical framework. In other words his gospel is not simply a desultory report of things Jesus did, but the verbal icon of the liturgy that his life is. This becomes evident wi...

Every commentator I've ever read says that "son of man" in Ezekiel has nothing to do with that term as it applies to Jesus. But I must ask, why? We know that Ezekiel is a type of Christ, even as are all the prophets (Acts 10:43 et. al.). So why the man, but not the title? I suspect that, like so many other presuppositions, that this is one more false conclusion that has ...

"Watch out for false prophets.They come to you in sheep's clothing,But inwardly they are ferocious wolves."Mathew 7:15 NIV Wolves are not detected because of inferior costume design.On the contrary, they know their craft and dress themselves accordingly. They've studied the trends and understand the importance of adapting to the sheep's ever-changing preferences and des...

They say that, "War is hell," and how true it is. The present Russian Ukrainian war is the first ever to be brought to you live from the battlefield. Yes we've all seen pixels of previous wars in the Middle East, in Viet Nam. But never before were there instant updates on social media from the battleground, from the soldiers, from the survivors of the civilians who were s...

The appointed lesson for Lent 1 (Series C) for the LCMS is Deuteronomy 26:1-11 which says in part: 1 When you come into the Land that the LORD your God is giving you as an inheritance and have taken possession of it and live in it 2 you shall take some of the first of all the fruit of the GROUND which you harvest from the GROUND that the LORD your God gives you, and you s...

Concerning the reading from St. Luke for Transfiguration, this account/liturgy is pregnant with dedokatuplets so that a dozen full sermons could easily be preached on it. If I have time I will list some of those later, but for now I call your attention to just one verse: 36 "And after the voice had spoken, Jesus alone was there; and they kept silent and told no one in thos...

The Sanctus, which is the liturgy of Isaiah 6 and Revelation 4:8, calls us away from earth, and all earthly cares, to "fix our minds on the things that are above, and not the things below" (Col. 3). I don't know if anything in Divine Worship expresses this better than the Cherubic Hymn of the St. John Chrysostom Liturgy. Please enjoy this article which explains things mor...