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CONCORDIA JOURNAL
OCTOBER
2007
October 2007
VOL. 33, NO. 4
VOLUME 33,
NUMBER 4
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1:55 PM
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EDITORIAL COMMITTEE: William W. Schumacher,
Dean of Theological
Research and Publication
Charles P. Arand
Andrew Bartelt
R. Reed Lessing
David R. Maxwell
David R. Schmitt
EDITORIAL ASSISTANT: Suzanne Pavelski
STUDENT ASSISTANTS: Joel Haak
Carol Geisler
Jonathan Ripke
Take a fresh look at the psalms
and Luther’s writings on them
INTRODUCING
Reading the Psalms with Luther
The Psalter for Individual and Family Devotions
with Introductions by Martin Luther
Martin Luther loved the
Psalter. This is especially
evident in his short introductions to the psalms where he
gives readers a glimpse into
his theology and prayer life.
All correspondence should be sent to:
William W. Schumacher
CONCORDIA JOURNAL
801 Seminary Place
St. Louis, Missouri 63105
Luther saw the Psalter as a
Christ-centered model for
Christian prayer. He classified
each psalm and applied the
message of the text to the
life lived under the cross.
Now Dr. Luther introduces
to you the beloved Book of
Psalms when you reach for
Reading the Psalms with
Luther. Dig deeply into the text of the psalms from
the English Standard Version® and the classic prayers.
This devotional also helps you expand your understanding of the Christ-centered aspects of Psalms and
Luther’s perspective on them.
Open Reading the Psalms with Luther today for a fresh
look at one of Luther’s favorite Old Testament books.
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© COPYRIGHT BY CONCORDIA SEMINARY, ST. LOUIS, 2007
© 2007 Concordia Publishing House
CONCORDIA JOURNAL
Volume 33
October 2007
Number 4
CONTENTS
EDITORIALS
Editor’s Note .............................................................................. 342
ARTICLES
The Ministry of the Church in Light of the Two
Kinds of Righteousness
Charles P. Arand ................................................................. 344
A Synthesis of Narratives: Religious Undergraduate Students
Making Meaning in the Context of a Secular University
Henry A. Corcoran ............................................................... 357
Justified by Works and Not by Faith Alone:
Reconciling Paul and James
David R. Maxwell ................................................................. 375
GRAMMARIAN’S CORNER .............................................................. 379
HOMILETICAL HELPS .................................................................. 381
BOOK REVIEWS ............................................................................. 410
BOOKS RECEIVED ......................................................................... 421
INDEX ............................................................................................. 424
CONCORDIA JOURNAL/OCTOBER 2007
341
Editor’s Note
Lutherans in America have always wrestled with the doctrine and practice of the holy ministry, and a recent document in these pages (July 2007),
prepared jointly by the departments of systematic theology from Concordia
Seminary, St. Louis, and Concordia Theological Seminary, Fort Wayne,
further contributed to that ongoing discussion.
Dr. Charles P. Arand picks up the discussion of the ministry again in
this issue, and develops it with the help of the distinction between the two
kinds of righteousness (coram Deo and coram mundo). That theme, too,
will be familiar to regular readers, who will remember recent articles (April
2007) which explored the distinction and relation between the two kinds of
righteousness, a distinction which has sometimes been neglected or overshadowed by our preoccupation with the distinction between Law and Gospel, but which lies at the heart of the clarity of Biblical theology reclaimed
through the Lutheran Reformation.
The ministry of the word delivers the saving message of Christ in
order to ignite and sustain genuine faith in Him. Using James Fowler’s
analysis of the stages of faith development, Dr. Henry A. Corcoran explores the ways in which Biblical stories, not just doctrinal propositions,
work as the crucial means by which people transition from one stage to
the next. Christians, like all people, experience their own lives as narrative, and they make meaning of their lives and understand their identity
by means of the narratives (especially including Biblical narratives) they
appropriate. The story of the Gospel “not only informs, it actually accomplishes the movement from chaos to order.” Mentors both support and
challenge those to whom they minister, as they “re-story” their lives with
the radical new life of forgiveness and meaning.
Dr. David Maxwell’s shorter essay contributes to a clearer understanding
of a question that has bedeviled Lutherans for centuries, namely, the striking differences between Paul and James in their use of the terms for “justification.” Drawing on evidence from Clement of Rome, Maxwell supports
the contention that the term had a range of meanings, which can help
reconcile the theology of the apostolic authors.
A unique feature of this issue is the survey in which we solicit your
feedback about the Concordia Journal. The survey is printed on the last
pages of this issue. You are invited to respond either by removing the
pages from this issue and sending your answers to us, or by going online
and answering the same questions at the faculty’s theological website
(www.ConcordiaTheology.org). If you choose to respond electronically, please
take a few moments while you are at it to browse around the articles and
resources which are available there.
I cannot close without offering a word of thanks, admiration, and re342
spect to my colleague, Dr. Quentin F. Wesselschmidt, who guided and oversaw the Concordia Journal as chairman of the editorial committee for 25
years. The sheer magnitude of his service is impressive. With Dr.
Wesselschmidt at the helm, the CJ published more than 400 articles, 1,200
book reviews—a total in excess of 10,000 pages. He has always exercised
this leadership with competence, consistent diligence, Christian humility,
attention to detail, and cordial collegiality. He made the task look easy—
and I can testify emphatically that it is not. He has served this publication
well, and he deserves our thanks. It is the fate of editors that their own
scholarship must take a back seat to the publication of others, yet we are
pleased to note that Dr. Wesselschmidt’s important contribution to The
Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture series is scheduled for release from InterVarsity Press later this year. And we hope that these pages
may see more of his own writing in the near future.
About a year ago I was in Cameroon, West Africa, to meet with Lutheran
church leaders involved in theological education. Their church body has
not had a historic relationship with the LCMS, and to the best of my knowledge no one from our Synod or our seminary had ever visited there before.
But in a sense, they knew us, since the Concordia Journal is regularly
received and eagerly read at their seminary, where it constitutes an important resource in their theological library. I am happy to acknowledge
and celebrate Dr. Wesselschmidt’s important role in making the Concordia
Journal such a significant part of the public face of our seminary and our
Synod, here at home and around the world. As we engage new challenges
and employ new technologies, we aspire to enhance rather than replace
that legacy.
William W. Schumacher
Dean of Theological Research and Publication
CONCORDIA JOURNAL/OCTOBER 2007
343
Articles
The Ministry of the Church in Light of the
Two Kinds of Righteousness
Charles P. Arand
The expectations on pastors have greatly expanded over the last generation. At times, the increased responsibilities brought with them shifts
in the “job descriptions” of pastors. Much of this was due to a renewed
emphasis on the importance of mobilizing the priesthood of the baptized
for that mission of the church. In the process, pastors came to be seen less
as “curers of souls” or mouthpieces for God and more as counselors, managers, coaches, leaders, administrators, spiritual guides, and the like. The
need for pastors to function in these capacities brought about curriculum
revisions in seminaries that supplemented courses on preaching, catechesis,
leading worship, baptizing, and presiding at the Lord’s Supper with courses
that focused on other skills like administration, conflict resolution, leadership, management, and counseling. Acquiring competence in these areas
is a good thing, even a necessary thing, in a society in which shepherding
congregations has become analogous to running medium to large size nonprofit organizations.
Just as the twentieth century saw increased attention given to the
human and sociological aspects of the church, the last few decades have
seen similar attention given to the person, personality, entrepreneurial,
and leadership skills of a pastor. At times it has occurred at the expense of
the theological definition of the pastoral office in which the pastor serves
as the one who delivers the gifts of Christ to God’s people. In any event, we
need to rethink the office of the public ministry and the priesthood of the
baptized within the framework of the two kinds of righteousness in order
to do justice to the Biblical and confessional understanding of the pastoral
office as well as the contemporary mission needs of congregations in twentyfirst century America. Like the church, the office of the public or pastoral
ministry rests upon the presupposition that the believer lives in two distinct but inseparable relationships. God’s Word of forgiveness establishes
our relationship with God; God’s design for human action regulates the
Dr. Charles P. Arand is Waldemar A. and June Schuette Chair in Systematic Theology and Chairman of the Department of Systematic Theology at
Concordi Seminary in St. Louis, MO.
344
horizontal sphere of life. The understanding of this ministry rests also
upon the nature of God’s Word in Lutheran theology, for the church as
church is created and identified by that Word. The public ministry of the
church is ultimately a ministry of the Word.
The Ministry of the Church Coram Deo
In the early days of the Reformation it was necessary to stress, in light
of the doctrine of justification, that there was no distinction coram deo
(“before God”) between the spiritual estate and the secular estate. The
confusion of the two kinds of righteousness during the Middle Ages had
resulted in the development of a hierarchical relationship between the socalled spiritual and secular estates in at least two ways. First, the spiritual
estate was ranked as a higher order than the secular estate, thereby creating a distinction between first-class and second-class Christians. The
Christian could best achieve righteousness in the eyes of God by dedicating himself or herself fulltime to the pursuit of sanctification. In other
words, to attain full godliness it was necessary to dedicate oneself to God
twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, three hundred sixty-five days
a year. Such dedication required that one be in a situation that was freed
of external distractions or temptations that would attach a person to this
world. Only by entering one of the spiritual orders could a person climb up
the ladder beyond the Ten Commandments to the “evangelical counsels”
in order to attain the angelic life (vita angelica). Those who entered the
“holy orders” thus entered into a state of existence whereby they could
acquire a higher level of perfection than ordinary Christians. Luther’s distinction of two kinds of human righteousness stressed that those who entered one of the spiritual estates were no closer to God than those who
labored on the farm or in the mill. The relationship with God was established only by faith in Jesus Christ.
Second, the confusion of the two kinds of righteousness in the Middle
Ages gave rise to a job description for those who lived in the spiritual
estate as priests that empowered them to dispense the habitus of grace to
the people through the Sacrament. If a priest’s standing before God gave
him special standing over his parishioners, his power to dispense God’s
grace gave him special power over them. It was argued that the priest had
been given a special quality through his ordination that enabled him to do
things no others could do. In a sense, they “controlled” God’s grace to the
people, turning it on and off like a faucet. Early on, however, Luther came
to realize that the power of God is expressed through the Word, not through
priests who had attained a special spiritual status. All are justified on the
basis of Christ’s work. The priest could not control God’s dealing with
believers or dominate the life of the believer. Luther insisted that all hold
in common the gifts that flow from justification. “Rome said ordination
separated. The Lutherans said baptism is our common base. Thus they
CONCORDIA JOURNAL/OCTOBER 2007
345
promoted something of a baptismal egalitarianism.”1 All Christians, whether
ordained or not, have the same Baptism, the same Gospel, and the same
faith. There is no spiritual distinction among the people of God.
The Ministry of the Church Coram Mundo
So does this mean that Luther abolished the office of the ministry in
favor of an egalitarian or democratic view of the work of the church? Not
at all. Although there are no distinctions among people coram deo when it
comes to the matter of justification, Luther did not deny that God established different roles and tasks for people coram mundo (“before the world”)
when it comes to the matter of carrying out the work of the church. The
two kinds of righteousness not only allowed Luther to break through the
secular-spiritual estate distinction coram deo but also allowed him to recover the value of vocation for life here on earth. This led him to emphasize that in our horizontal relationships (coram mundo) God has established distinct estates or walks of life within which people serve. In these
walks of life people are given “offices” or responsibilities that Christians
recognize as callings or vocation from God. On the eve of the Reformation,
many believed that God had structured the human life to be lived in three
situations: home (both family and economic activities), the political realm,
and the church. By virtue of their creatureliness, people are commissioned
to discharge complementary tasks in these offices for the good of creation
and human society. By virtue of their Baptisms, Christians are given the
task of confessing the name of Christ within every walk of life. All Christians bring the message of repentance and forgiveness of sins in ways
appropriate to their walks of life.2 In other words, Luther stressed that by
virtue of Baptism, every Christian had the responsibility and privilege to
share the Word of God with others.
That every Christian had the responsibility to share the Word with
their neighbors did not mean that there was no need for a public office of
the ministry nor that every Christian automatically held that public office.
For Luther, it simply meant that every Christian had the responsibility
and privilege of taking that Word to others within his or her divinely appointed walk of life. They were to be prepared to give reason for the hope
that was within them. To that end, the Lutheran reformers placed a renewed emphasis upon the responsibility of parents to keep the Word of
God before their household—a household that would include not only the
children, but farmhands, maids, servants, etc. Within this role, Luther
was not even averse to speaking of the husband and wife as the bishop and
1
John F. Johnson, “The Office of the Pastoral Ministry: Scriptural and Confessional
Considerations,” The Collected Papers of the 150th Anniversary Theological Convocation of the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod, eds. Jerold Joersz and Paul McCain (Saint
Louis: Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod, 1998), 88.
2
Johnson, “Office of the Pastoral Ministry,” 88.
346
bishopess of the household.3 Indeed, Luther prepared his Small Catechism
and addressed each “chief part” to the head of the house in order to help
him carry out his responsibility of witness and discipleship.4 In a similar
way, Luther frequently gave instruction to governmental leaders regarding their responsibilities for maintaining community chests and for establishing schools.5
As God has ordered each of the horizontal spheres of human life (governmental official or ruler and subject or citizen, parent and child), so he
has ordered the church (pastor and parishioner). Unlike his medieval predecessors, Luther did not see this as an ordering coram deo, but as an
ordering of the church coram mundo. Particularly as the Reformation
moved into its second and third decades, it became necessary to stress this
aspect against the spiritualists and fanatics who relegated God to work
simply within and through some kind of internal word. Over and against
the radicals, Luther stressed that the public ministry was not optional.6
I hope, indeed, that believers, those who want to be called Christians, know very well that the spiritual estate [the pastor] has
been established and instituted by God, not with gold or silver but
with the precious blood and bitter death of His only Son, our Lord
Jesus Christ. From His wounds indeed flow the Sacrament…He
paid dearly that men might everywhere have this office of preaching, baptizing, loosing, binding, giving the Sacrament, comforting,
warning, and exhorting with God’s Word, and whatever else belongs to the pastoral office…Indeed, it is only because of the spiritual estate that the world stands and abides at all, if it were not for
this estate, the world would long ago have gone down to destruction.7
Robert Rosin points out that Luther is not saying here that either the
church or the world depends on the office of the ministry for its existence,
but because things go wrong, pastors must be the line of defense. “True
preaching—the Word—will set things right again.”8
The Wittenberg reformers stressed that for the proper ordering of the
3
“Ten Sermons on the Catechism,” LW 51:57; WA 30, 1:57, 26-58, 22.
Small Catechism, Household chart, Book of Concord, 365-367, BSLK, 523-527.
5
For example, in his “Ordinance of a Common Chest, Preface,” published along with
the regulations for social welfare in the Saxon town of Leisnig, 1523, LW 45: 169-194; WA
12:11-30; and his “To the Councilmen of All Cities in Germany That They Establish and
Maintain Christian Schools,” 1524, LW 45:347-378; WA 15: 27-53.
6
“Confession Concerning Christ’s Supper,” 1528, LW 37:364; WA 26:504, 30-35.
7
“A Sermon on Keeping Children in School,” 1530, LW 46:219-220; WA 30, 2:526, 33527, 25.
8
Robert Rosin, “Luther on the Pastoral Ministry, the Biography of an Idea,” unpublished paper delivered for the ILC Theology Professors conference in Erfurt, Germany in
2004.
4
CONCORDIA JOURNAL/OCTOBER 2007
347
church coram mundo, God has established the special priesthood within
the midst of the common priesthood. Luther viewed it as a gift from God in
the horizontal sphere of human relationships, a particular position to which
some are called to make possible the formal and public use of God’s saving
Word. The pastor possesses no spiritual superiority or special holiness
coram deo. Instead, God created the office of the pastoral ministry for the
well-being of all the priests of God (even as He gave parents for the sake of
children, governors for sake the of citizens). And so it exists as a place of
service for others. For this reason, the church has the command to appoint ministers.9
So for Lutherans, the ministry of the Word has been entrusted to the
common priesthood and the special priesthood. Each uses the Word, but in
different settings. Even though the offices of spouse or parent or public
official are not dedicated exclusively to the delivery of the Word (also serving creation), this does not mean they are inferior offices coram deo or
that the pastoral office is of superior status coram deo. Both belong together, but each has a different sphere of activity. To play them off against
each other is to confuse the two spheres of relationship and the mutual
service in and through the Word.10 This most often occurs when personal
authority and talk of rights dominate the conversation about the ministry,
be it common or special. Then problems only get worse.11 The pastor is a
servant of God’s command and of God’s people’s needs. The people respect
the office on account of God’s institution and the Word delivered to them.
Called from Common Priesthood into Special Service
In addition to telling people about Jesus within their vocations, the
common priesthood carries out its responsibility of the keys by calling
someone from its midst to serve in the special priesthood. In one sense, all
Christians are priests in that they are born of water and the Spirit, and
any could carry out the public functions—to baptize, preach, celebrate the
Lord’s Supper, to bind and loose sins, to sacrifice (offer up praise in worship), pray for others, and judge doctrine.12 Yet they are not to usurp the
tasks delegated to the special servants of the congregation by claiming the
public use of God’s Word for themselves without consideration for the community. “Publicly, one may not exercise a right without the consent of the
whole body or of the church.”13 This is the point of the fourteenth article of
9
Apology of the Augsburg Confession, XIII, 12, Book of Concord, 220, BSLK, 294;
Treatise on the Power and Primacy of the Pope 69, Book of Concord, BSLK, 491.
10
Robert Kolb, “Ministry in Martin Luther and the Lutheran Confessions,” in Called
& Ordained: Lutheran Perspectives on the Office of the Ministry, eds. Todd Nichol and
Marc Kolden (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1990), 52.
11
Rosin, “Luther on the Pastoral Ministry, the Biography of an Idea,” 12.
12
“Concerning the Ministry,” 1523, LW 40:33-34; WA 12:189, 5-190, 31.
13
“Concerning the Ministry,” 1523, WA 12:189, 26-27.
348
the Augsburg Confession concerning the proper placement of pastors into
their office. The common priesthood has the responsibility by virtue of
Baptism to fill the public office of the special priesthood. Luther put it well:
You should put the Christian into two places. First, if he is in a
place where there are no Christians he needs no other call than to
be a Christian, called and anointed by God from within. Here it is
his duty to preach and teach the Gospel to erring heathen or nonChristians…even though no one calls him to do so…. Second, if he
is in a place where there are Christians who have the same power
and right as he, he should not draw attention to himself. Instead,
he should be called and chosen to preach and to teach in the place
of and by the command of others.14
All Christians serve the Word in one setting (in private or out in the
world); a pastor serves the Word in another setting (in the public assembly,
for all to see).15 Thus pastors do not exercise their office in their own right
and of themselves but because they have been asked to do that by and for
the community of believers. Those who are pastors, in the public office,
were chosen to be there by others with whom they share that common
priesthood by virtue of Baptism. The pastor serves with the approval of
the congregation.
Therefore, the reformers stressed that pastors must be “rightly called”
(rite vocatus). The reformers generally insisted that three things occur for
one to be rightly called: examination, call, and ordination. Examination
signaled to the congregations that candidates were aligned with evangelical theology. Those who are called to serve in the special priesthood must
above all else “be apt to teach” (1 Tim. 3:2). That is to say, they must be
competent to proclaim the Word. This was especially important for the
reformers who saw the church as a creature of the Word and defined the
office of pastor in terms of delivering the Word. The call signaled to the
candidate that a congregation was willing to receive him as its pastor.
Ordination was a rite celebrated to mark the coming of one called.
While the reformers tended to regard the three moments, examination, call, and ordination, as non-negotiable components of being rite
vocatus, precisely how that took place could vary according to human wisdom (de jure humano). There was not one “proper method” for how a man
might be placed into the public office. Luther was prepared to use whatever established procedures were in place so long as the Gospel was being
proclaimed. Procedures for doing so could always be revamped if necessary. But it will be done, and the ministry of the Word will happen. That is
14
“That a Christian Congregation or Assembly has the Right and Power to Judge All
Teaching,” 1523, LW 39: 310; WA 11:412, 30-34.
15
Rosin, “Luther on the Pastoral Ministry, the Biography of an Idea,” 11.
CONCORDIA JOURNAL/OCTOBER 2007
349
to say, how much education and how that education is delivered in order to
be apt to teach could vary. Often it has occurred by way of university education. In other cases it was by on-site continuing education. That training
in the Word culminated with the examination (certification). It, too, could
take place in a variety of ways. Often it took place through a lengthy examination before a panel of three professors at Wittenberg. In other cases,
the local superintendent bore the responsibility. Similarly, the procedures
for calling, whether by the superintendent, the congregation, or a placement board, could, and did vary during the era of the Reformation. Ordination was a rite by which the wider church celebrated a man called to a
particular congregation. Thus the bishop or superintendent normally performed the ordination. But pastors could ordain where a superintendent
was unavailable.
Although the Confessions place a strong emphasis on the importance
of filling the office of pastor, they recognize certain “emergency” situations
can occur when a pastor cannot be obtained. Two situations stand out.
First, it may be that a pastor cannot be obtained because the established
authorities refuse to provide pastors to congregations. In the 1530s Roman bishops refused to ordain Lutheran candidates as pastors of congregations. So what are the churches to do when bishops refuse to give them
pastors? Melanchthon gave an answer in 1537 when he wrote “On the
Jurisdiction of Bishops” in his Treatise on the Power and Primacy of the
Pope. The church cannot be without pastors. The people cannot be denied
God’s Word. Thus churches must ordain pastors for themselves. Second,
emergency situations may arise when a pastor cannot be obtained because
there are no candidates available. That may require any believer to step in
and carry out the responsibilities of the office.16 The “Treatise on the
Power and Primacy of the Pope” also affirms that in cases of necessity
each Christian has the right to baptize and publicly to declare the forgiveness of sins. It is important to note in both emergency situations the issue
has to do with how the pastoral office was filled, not whether it is optional
to fill the office.
The common priesthood (the priesthood of the Baptized) has been given
three tasks de jure divino: (1) as individuals they share the Word within
the mission assignments of their vocations, (2) collectively as a congregation they call an individual to serve as pastor within their midst; (3) in an
emergency, the common priesthood temporarily takes on the tasks of ministry, serving publicly until the office can be properly filled.
Distinguishing a Pastor’s Duties
De Jure Divino and De Jure Humano
As the office of pastor was established by God for the proper ordering
16
350
“Concerning the Ministry,” 1523, LW 40:34; WA 12:189, 15-16.
of Christ’s church coram mundo, it is further necessary to distinguish
between those responsibilities given by God and those assigned to the pastor by the common priesthood.
When titles were chosen for the first seven articles of the Augsburg
Confession, the title “the office of the ministry” (German) or the “office of
the church” (Latin) was chosen for the fifth article, which flowed from the
central teaching of the document, found in the fourth article on justification. The article opens by stating, “To obtain such faith God instituted the
office of the ministry.” Melanchthon uses the word ministerium as a “verbal noun.”17 In other words, Melanchthon regarded the medieval term for
the office of the ministry, “ministerium,” as a word that describes both the
thing and the action that constitutes the thing and gives it its purpose—in
the case of the ministerium, serving. Even as the confessors stressed that
God had instituted a specific office for conveying the power of God’s Word
into the lives of sinners, they emphasized that the pastor who filled that
office did so by serving in a specific way: as the agent for releasing God’s
forgiving and re-creating Word.
Augsburg Confession V defines the nature of the service rendered by
the office of the ministry with the phrase, “that is, [through it God] provided the gospel and the sacraments as means through which the Holy
Spirit ignites faith within the human heart.”18 The public ministry of the
church is inextricably linked with God’s tools for creating faith. “Pastor
and Word are like horse and carriage; the church does not have one without the other.”19 Melanchthon especially stresses this in Augsburg Confession XXVIII, where he distinguishes between those tasks that God has
authorized and those tasks that other humans (especially ecclesiastical or
secular leaders) authorize. He repeatedly argues, “The power of the keys
or the power of the bishops is the power of God’s mandate to preach the
gospel, to forgive and retain sins, and to administer the sacrament.”20 Even
though pastors are responsible for conveying the Word of God into the
lives of people, this does not mean that pastors can convert anyone. The
Spirit does that through the Word, and He creates faith “when and where
he pleases.”
What God has given the pastor to do (de jure divino) must be distinguished from what human beings assign the pastor to do (de jure humano).
This is in part the burden of article XXVIII of the Augsburg Confession,
where Melanchthon deals with the confusion and the damage done to the
17
Peter Fraenkel, “Revelation and Tradition: Notes on Some Aspects of Doctrinal
Continuity in the Theology of Philip Melanchthon,” Studia Theolgica 13 (1959): 97-133.
18
Augsburg Confession, V, Book of Concord, 40-41, BSLK, 58.
19
Kolb, “Ministry,” 56.
20
“This jurisdiction belongs to the bishops as bishops (that is, to those to whom the
ministry of Word and sacraments has been committed): to forgive sins, to reject teaching
that opposes the gospel, and to exclude from the communion of the church the ungodly
whose ungodliness is known—doing all this not with human power but by the Word”
(Augsburg Confession, XXVIII, 21, Book of Concord, 94 BSLK, 123-124.
CONCORDIA JOURNAL/OCTOBER 2007
351
pastoral office by having bishops fill a formal political role in secular society. Today, there is little danger of a man serving simultaneously as a
pastor and a governor. Still, the church as a non-profit human organization within God’s left hand realm may ask the pastor to exercise certain
secular tasks. That is to say, the congregation as an empirical community
of people asks the pastor to carry out left hand kingdom responsibilities
alongside the right hand kingdom responsibility of proclaiming the Word.
In calling a pastor, a congregation (as non-profit organization) may authorize a pastor to lead its members in strategic planning, administration,
counseling, vision setting, hiring, budgeting, and the like. This is only an
authority given by human right (de jure humano).
Similarly, distinctions that might be made within the public ministry,
such as that between pastor and bishop, are de jure humano. The confessions of the Lutheran church consistently affirm that these are not distinctions coram deo. Whether they are called bishops, pastors, or presbyters, they all belong to the singular ministry of the word. This became an
important point to make in the 1530s over against Rome. During that time
Roman bishops increasingly refused to ordain Lutheran candidates for the
ministry, thereby depriving evangelical congregations of pastors. Medieval
theologians had contended that priests could conduct five of the seven
sacraments (Baptism, absolution, Lord’s Supper, marriage, and last rites)
while bishops carried out the additional tasks of confirmation and ordination. In “Treatise on the Power and Primacy of the Pope,” Melanchthon
argued that such distinctions were humanly devised. By divine right, all
the tasks of the one office belonged to all those who served in that office.
Thus, when bishops refuse to ordain, the church should have its pastors
ordain men into the ministry. And so throughout the course of the sixteenth century, Lutheran churches did not in any way regard themselves
as less church than Rome because they lacked bishops.
Case Study 1: The Pastor’s “Job Description”
The tasks found in a pastor’s job description have expanded greatly
over the past several decades. As a result, many pastors have become
increasingly specialized. For example, a congregation may ask a pastor to
be a church planter. Others may call a pastor to develop and expand the
youth program. A congregation may call a pastor to serve as counselor. Or
they may call a pastor to be the administrative pastor or the director of
ministries. All of these specialized tasks are not intrinsic to the office of
the ministry in such a way that one is not a pastor if one is not engaged in
these particular specializations. Consider the topic of strategic planning.
In a sense, strategic planning has no direct or immediate connection
to the well-being of the church as an assembly of believers coram deo. Nor
is it an activity that Christ has explicitly given to those who hold the office
of the ministry. He has given them the mandate to proclaim the Gospel
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and administer the Sacraments. Planning does have to do, however, with
building those human support structures in the left hand realm for the
proclamation of the Gospel and the administration of the Sacraments. That
is, it deals with how we go about carrying out the mission of God as a
congregation. It deals with how we can best accomplish that task given the
challenges and opportunities that we have. To that end, it requires the use
of brains and imagination in the service of the Gospel.
Inasmuch as strategic planning involves finding ways to carry out the
mission God has given His church, it is of interest to the pastor. The Gospel and the theology of the church (as an assembly of believers) must provide the basis and direction for everything that the church (as an empirical
sociological reality) does here on earth. Inasmuch as strategic planning
involves a specific process it may well (and often does) go beyond the particular skills, experience, and training of the pastor. That is to say, it involves activities in which lay people may be far more skilled, for strategic
planning is itself a process that has grown out of non-theological disciplines. So a pastor certainly has a vested interest in the outcome of strategic planning and how it contributes to the proclamation of the Gospel among
the lost. On the other hand, it is a process and activity with which those in
the corporate world may have more experience and skills.
To be sure, a pastor can certainly go out and acquire the training and
skills necessary to lead a congregation through a process of strategic planning. But as he engages in that process, it should be recognized that he is
carrying out an activity that is not intrinsic to the pastoral office. That is
not to say that it is an unimportant activity by any means. But it belongs
to the bene esse (well-being) of the church and not to the esse (essence) of
the church. Thus it cannot simply be equated with the de jure divino activities of the office by which the church as an assembly of believers is
built up. Instead, it provides the context, structures, and direction needed
for a congregation to use every resource and opportunity it has to bring
the Gospel to those living in unbelief.
Case Study 2: The Pastor’s Creaturely Gifts
The particular direction that a pastor takes in his ministry may depend in part upon his first article gifts. Indeed, many of the tasks given to
a pastor are not rooted in the pastoral office itself, but are assigned on the
basis of an individual’s first article creaturely gifts. Some pastors are gifted
with a charismatic personality, an entrepreneurial spirit, organizational
abilities, and leadership abilities. These gifts and skills can be a tremendous asset for a congregation. The downside is that they can overshadow
the Gospel or build a congregation upon the unique talents of the individual.
At their best, pastors will develop and utilize their first article gifts to
serve the third article proclamation of the Gospel. For example, learning
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Greek assists in interpreting the Scriptures. The Bible is inspired by the
Holy Spirit and was originally written in Hebrew and Greek. Yet we do not
learn Greek grammar and syntax from the Bible. The Bible is neither a
dictionary nor a grammar. Instead, we use lexicon and grammars produced through first article gifts and then utilize them to interpret the
Scriptures, which were written in human language. Similarly, learning
the first article gift of rhetoric or communication can assist in the construction of a sermon that effectively conveys the Gospel into the lives of
people. Developing first article people skills can greatly assist a pastor in
breaking down barriers for finding entrance into people’s lives for sharing
the Gospel. Developing analytical and thinking skills through the study of
philosophy can help pastors diagnose intellectual obstacles within our culture that prevent people from giving a hearing to the Gospel. Developing
first article leadership principles and financial management skills can assist in organizing the church so as to get the Gospel out to a wide variety
of people. For these reasons, Lutheran seminaries have traditionally placed
a strong emphasis on a good liberal arts background for seminary students
as preparation for the study of the theology and the proclamation of the
Gospel.
At their worst, first article gifts can be used unintentionally to replace
or supplant the Gospel in a way that shifts our focus from growing the
church as a fellowship of the faith to growing the church as a first article
non-profit organization. This can occur when we unconsciously come to
regard first article gifts as key to the growth of the church more than third
article preaching and teaching. These first article gifts have a tremendous
impact upon the establishment and growth of the church as a first article
creation. Indeed, a pastor who has been endowed with extraordinary first
article gifts such as charisma, people skills, or administrative skills could
grow any organization, be it a business, a company, a church, or, for that
matter, a cult. First article gifts alone can create large communities or
institutions.
Pastors’ creaturely gifts also differ greatly from one person to another.
Not everyone has been endowed with the same charismatic personality or
gifts for organization. Not everyone shares the same willingness for risk
taking that is a prerequisite for entrepreneurial types. This is not to say
that each should not develop to the fullest the particular gifts that God has
given us. There is no excuse for not developing and using the gifts that
God has given us. At the same time, Lutherans are skeptical about the
idea that if one only follows “this particular program” or “these proven
principles,” then all churches will grow. Much depends upon the God-given
abilities of each person to carry out these things.
Case Study 3: Delegation of Tasks
The core of the pastoral office is the proclamation of the Gospel and
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the administration of the Sacraments. With regard to the first, it involves
at the very least, preaching and teaching. He is responsible both for his
own teaching as well as the doctrinal content of all those who are engaged
in instruction within the congregation. The administration of the Sacraments involves acting as gatekeeper in terms of those who are admitted as
well as the actual ministration of the Sacraments. Herein lies the core.
Now does this mean that only the pastor can teach? Or only the pastor can
administrate the Sacraments, especially to shut-ins? Does it mean that
only the pastor carries out hospital calls? After all, it is very possible that
the load of hospital and shut-in visits is beyond the scope of a single pastor,
or even several pastors, given the size of the congregation. Can these be
delegated to lay staff or elders without undermining the pastoral office?
The answer is yes and no.
Consider shut-in communions. The pastor’s task involves not only the
actual administration of Communion but also especially the matter of acting as a gatekeeper. That is, he has the responsibility to determine who is
admitted to the table and who is not. It seems to me that a good solution is
to do the following. When the Lord’s Supper is celebrated in the congregation on Sunday, the pastor not only hands the elements to elders for distribution to members who are present that morning, but he also hands the
elements to elders who immediately take them to shut-ins that very morning. In a sense, then, the entire congregation joins together in Communion, both those who are present and those who are homebound. But, if in
the course of distributing the elements to the homebound, the shut-in
reveals a particular spiritual problem that requires pastoral discernment
and care, then the elder has the responsibility of getting in touch with the
pastor who can then come and deal with that person.
Something similar can take place for the hospitalized. Trained lay
people can certainly visit the sick and offer a devotion or prayer. That it is
seen as an exclusively pastoral task is more a matter related to the culture of the congregation than the theology of the church. At the same
time, if the hospitalization involves a serious illness or the parishioner is
experiencing a spiritual crisis of some kind, the pastor must be notified
that he may administer care for the soul. People will want the pastor not
only because he is ordained, but also because as such he has more training
and experience in the care of souls than the average person.
We can use the example of a physician’s assistant. Very often, when I
am ill, my wife will call the doctor. She will not actually speak with him.
Instead, she speaks with the physician’s assistant to whom she describes
my symptoms. The physician’s assistant then phones in the appropriate
prescription to the pharmacy. Now that works as long as we are dealing
with such recurring things as allergies, flu, bronchitis, sore throats, etc.
Generally, my wife and I are okay with that. But if there is something
more serious going on, something out of the ordinary, then we want to
speak with (or see) the doctor himself. Why? Because he is the doctor. It is
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his role. He has the training and experience for such matters. I think that
something similar would apply to the pastor-parishioner relationship.
Conclusion
Many of the challenges confronting the church lie within the horizontal realm of life. The reason for this is that the Christian foundation that
shaped society for the last two millennia continues to crumble. For much
of that time, the church could rely on the wider society to support its
efforts and do much of its work. As Jim Bachman has noted, “We are living
through a painful transition from congregational dynamics governed by
what I call the ‘hidden hand familial and of ethnic social structure’ to
dynamics that are today much more in need of ‘visible hands’ to build,
shape, and guide our church communities. And how we... argue to build,
shape, and guide.” The same applies to the pastoral office. “The hidden
hand of ethnic social dynamics no longer constructively shapes and supports congregational life. Pastors and those who prepare them are scrambling to think through how pastors along with other congregational leaders must be community creators, builders, and sustainers, as well as stewards of the Word and Sacrament.”21
21
James Bachman, “The Communion of Saints: The Church’s Unique Contribution
to the Changing Moral Landscape,” Issues in Christian Education, 35: 2 (Fall 2001), 1819.
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A Synthesis of Narratives:
Religious Undergraduate Students
Making Meaning in the Context
of a Secular University
Henry A. Corcoran
Frank Baum’s delightful story of Dorothy’s journey back home captures a very human longing for full development. Each of the main characters seeks one thing that will satisfy a deep craving. Baum demonstrates
in narrative form how each finds fulfillment. Yet it requires the Wizard’s
words to make plain what we all have witnessed, but what to the characters appears invisible:
As for you, my fine friend—(the Wizard turns to the Lion)—you’re
a victim of disorganized thinking. You are under the unfortunate
delusion that simply because you run away from danger, you have
no courage. You’re confusing courage with wisdom. Back where I
come from, we have men who are called heroes. Once a year, they
take their fortitude out of mothballs and parade it down the main
street of the city. And they have no more courage than you have.
But! They have one thing that you haven’t got! A medal! Therefore—for meritorious conduct, extraordinary valor, conspicuous
bravery against wicked witches, I award you the Triple Cross.1
The Wizard’s words join the narrative evidence to cast a light upon the
fullness that came to each character. Yet the words require the story. In a
similar way, propositional theology must join Biblical narratives to cast a
light on what God intends for full human development. By itself, however,
systematic theology cannot do what is required. The Bible does not come
to us as a systematic theology text. Rather, alongside the material aimed
at the head, the Bible is full of stories, food for the whole person. I contend
that servants of the Word need to make use of Biblical narratives that lead
to life transformations. Narratives build minds and hearts.
While I do not recommend that narratives replace propositional forms
1
Noel Langley, Florence Ryerson, and Edgar Allen Woolf, “The Wizard of Oz (Cutting Continuity Script taken from Printer’s Dupe),” transcribed Paul Rudoff (MetroGoldwyn-Meyer, 1939), retrieved March 1, 2006, from http://www.un-official.com/
The_Daily_Script/ms_wizoz.htm.
Rev. Dr. Henry Corcoran serves as pastor at Christ Triumphant Lutheran
Church in Denver, Colorado. This article reflects some of his PhD research
into the faith development of young adults.
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of theology, I would argue that both be used in tandem.2 Narrative theology echoes the recovered insight that human experience is narrative in
nature.3 As Stephen Crites observes, “Our sense of personal identity depends upon the continuity of experience through time, a continuity bridging even the cleft between remembered past and projected future.”4 To
support my contention that servants of the Word need to teach Biblical
narratives to foster life transformations, I will first review how some people
have used Biblical narrative materials to restory their lives. Next, I offer a
discussion of transitional periods in the life cycle when people might seek
new narrative materials for transformation. Finally, I discuss how the
church may embody Biblical narratives and transmit their meanings.
The Restorying of Lives
One interpreter of young adult faith, Colleen Carroll5 tells the story of
a young woman, “Liz Sperry.”6 In her teen years, Sperry centered her life
in a relationship with her boyfriend. When he told her of his conversion to
Christ, she paid serious attention. Later, as she read the Gospels and Paul’s
epistles, she became convinced of their spiritual depth and truth.
One night when reading the account of Jesus’ agony in the Garden of
Gethsemane, His prayer resonated with her fear and longing. Jesus wanted
to do the Father’s will, even as He faced the cost of obedience. She, too,
wanted God’s will, but “I was afraid that if I gave my life to God, I would
become a different person.”7
Carroll finishes the story:
Then Sperry read Christ’s prayer of surrender. His words in Mark
14:36—“Take this cup from me”—echoed her own fears and desires. Lying on her bed that night, she gave up her fears and repeated those words as her own.
“What I meant was, take my life from me and take it over,” Sperry
2
David Tracy argues for both in “A Plurality of Readers and a Possibility of a Shared
Vision” in The Bible and Its Readers, eds. W. Beuken, S. Freyne, and A. Weiler, (Philadelphia: Trinity Press International, 1991).
3
Please find a useful apology for narrative theology in Terrence Tilley’s Story Theology (Collegeville, MN: Michael Glazier/The Liturgical Press, 1985).
4
Stephen Crites, “The Narrative Quality of Experience,” Journal of the American
Academy of Religion 39 (1971), 302.
5
Colleen Carroll, The New Faithful: Why Young Adults Are Embracing Christian
Orthodoxy (Chicago: Loyola Press, 2002).
6
As with all the life accounts in this essay, pseudonyms protect the research subjects.
And as with all the life accounts, their use certainly is not intended to position them as
perfect theological paradigms of the Christian life. Rather they serve as examples of
meaning-making efforts with the narrative materials and hermeneutical orientations
these meaning-makers had at hand.
7
Carroll, The New Faithful, 40.
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said.
After she said the prayer, Sperry said, she felt an instant physical
change.
“I felt like there was something in me, running through me. I can
only describe it as electricity, or water. I’d never felt anything like
that before. I hadn’t felt that from any human being. That really
got my attention. I knew there was something to Christianity. And
I had this conviction that I would keep pursuing it, even apart
from my boyfriend.”8
Many observers of human transformations (including psychologists,
educators, and even theologians)9 advocate a narrative approach to the
study of lives because they contend that stories are the manner by which
“self” experiences life. The self has its own form of reflecting on life experiences, a narrative form.10 The narrative nature of consciousness grants
a sense of self by uniting the stored images of memory, the present experience, and the imagined future. I am the storied version of what I did, what
I do, and what I imagine I might do. Personal narrative gives the gift of
meaning to life events for a person.11
Life stories grant meaning through the story told. Donald Polkinghorne
conceptualized life-story-episode creations as meaning-making activities.
By selecting from remembered events and fitting them into a plot line that
is chosen from those available to the individual, the self creates a storied
episode. The plot line gives the events meaning because they contribute to
the story’s conclusion or denouement. The various episodes’ plot lines come
from a culture’s depository of stories.
Liz Sperry told her story, a story centered in her boyfriend. Her life
had meaning. Then Sperry read the account of Jesus’ prayer of surrender
8
Carroll, The New Faithful, 40.
Psychologists would include Jerome Brunner, “Narrative and Paradigmatic Modes
of Thought” in Learning and Teaching the Ways of Knowing, ed. E. Eisner (Chicago: The
National Society for the Study of Education, 1990); Acts of Meaning (Cambridge, MA:
Harvard University Press, 1994), and “The Narrative Construction of ‘Reality,’” in Psychoanalysis and Development: Representations and Narratives, eds. M. Ammaniti and D.
N. Stern (New York: New York University Press, 1994). Educators include Daniel
Polkinghorne, Narrative Knowing and the Human Sciences (Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 1988); “Narrative Knowing and the Study of Lives,” in Aging and
Biography: Exploration in Adult Development, eds. J. E. Birren, G. M. Kenyon, J. E.
Ruth, J. J. F. Schroots, and T. Svensson (New York: Springer Publishing Co, 1996).
Narrative and educational theologians include Lutheran Margaret Krych, Teaching the
Gospel Today: A Guide for Education in the Congregation (Minneapolis: Augsburg,
1987) and Presbyterian James Loder, The Transforming Moment: Understanding
Convictional Experiences (San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1981).
10
Polkinghorne, Narrative Knowing and the Human Sciences, 107.
11
For the purposes of this essay, Wesley Kort (Story, Text, and Scripture: Literary
Interests in Biblical Narrative [University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press,
9
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to the Father’s will. The plot fit the events of her life. As she pondered
those connections, the Holy Spirit urged her to pray. Actively at work both
in the Word offering a new life and in the prayer receiving that gift, the
Spirit transformed her life. She began the movement from one meaningmaking context—a community committed to the story of the autonomous
self—to the household of faith—a community committed to dependence on
Christ Jesus. And the mechanism, the means of transportation was a transformative Biblical narrative.12
In the past, the educational justification for the use of Bible stories
focused on understanding. Stories illustrate the propositional point. Glenn
Nielsen says of one use for sermon illustrations:
They shed light on the point to be made. Their role was instrumental, typically subservient to some propositional content. The
stories were to make the abstract visual or concrete, and thus
more understandable.13
However, Nielsen points out a second use, “Stories also invite participation. They elicit emotion. People live in a narrative as it’s being told.”14
Narratives, and, in particular Biblical narratives, allow people imaginatively to “try on” a new life, a new community, a new worldview. The teaching of Biblical narratives aimed at life transformations should become an
intentional activity in a Christian educator’s repertoire for individual, small
group, and congregational spiritual development.
The Search for a New Narrative
According to social constructivists, a core narrative serves a religious
or metaphysical-mystical function of orienting residents of its “world,” its
narrative community, to ultimate reality.15 Further, by telling the story of
from whence it all comes (alpha) and to hence it goes (omega), a core narrative also offers a cosmological function. There is a grand story. There is
1988]) provides a substantive definition of the four constituting components of “narrative” character, plot, tone, and atmosphere. Character consists of sets of human traits
bound to a name. Plot focuses on “temporal processes depicted in a narrative,” that is, on
“the image of time as coherent movement” (16). Kort’s third component of story, tone,
refers to the storyteller in the narrative. Tone embraces three elements: material selection, voice, and an attitude toward the material. Atmosphere delineates the boundaries of
the narrative world, its rules and expected occurrences, its setting. My intent is to use this
general definition to cover the essentials of all stories, with cultural narratives at one end
of the spectrum and personal life story episodes at the other end.
12
Krych, Teaching the Gospel Today, 300-309.
13
Glenn Nielsen, “Preaching Doctrine in a Postmodern Age,” Concordia Journal 27
(2001), 24.
14
Ibid.
15
Joseph Campbell, The Masks of God: Creative Mythology (New York: Penguin
Books, 1968).
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direction. Third, for social constructivists, the structuring story performs
a moral-social function. By this, it establishes a form of government, encourages the development of certain virtues and discourages certain vices,
and fosters adherence to specific mores, laws, and rules. A core narrative,
finally, tends to a psychological function. Psychologically, it outlines acceptable social roles, role models for a well-lived life in that socio-cultural
context, and a personal orientation to integrate the various aspects of life.
One who follows these guidelines receives meaningful psychological support. These last two functions play such a significant role in the restorying
of lives. The socio-cultural context provides personal narrative orientations of morality and identity.
In our postmodern environment, where pluralities of cultures market
their various libraries of meanings, their depositories of stories, the church
holds resources to change lives. We broadcast Biblical narratives centered
in the great metanarrative of Christ Jesus. However, ours is not the only
narrative community. Members of other socio-cultural worlds urge people
to experience what life might be like in their world, what meaning might
be assigned to their life episodes. For instance, feminists tell stories rooted
in a core narrative of women experiencing transformation from the silence of the oppressed to the confident assertions of the genuinely free.16
And from their library of stories, enacted in women’s studies courses and
narrated in their literature, feminists offer stories for “seekers” to discover meaning. These “seekers” imaginatively see if feminist stories align
with their own lives. On the other hand, from another point of view, seekers may see if they can align their lives with the feminist defining narrative.
“Seekers” describe those who have become dissatisfied with the way
they have thus far made meaning of their lives. Psychosocial theorists17
16
M. F. Belenky, B. Clinchy, N. R. Goldberger, and J. M. Tarule, Women’s Ways of
Knowing: The Development of Self, Voice and Mind (New York: Basic Books, 1986).
17
The use of psycho-social theories for a biblical and theological anthropology requires some adaptation. James Loder, The Logic of the Spirit: Human Development in
Theological Perspective (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1998) argues for a theological transformation of the insights of human development theories. He uses an analogy of the
transformations required of the insights envisioned by Newtonian physics when Einstein’s
theories of special and general relativity reframe them. Just as Newtonian physics makes
legitimate but incomplete descriptions of the physical universe, so theories of human ego
development make legitimate but distorted descriptions of human growth. Loder offers a
Christological solution, the Chalcedonian model of the two natures of Christ as the
paradigm for relating theories of human development and theological perspectives on
human existence. Loder proposes, “Consistent with the Christomorphic character of this
methodology, theology and the human sciences will enter into a relationality that assumes that theological categories have ontological priority over those in the human
sciences” (41, my emphasis). Loder’s suggestion remains a great improvement on the
priority granted developmental theories by other synthesizers (e.g., Whitehead and
Whitehead, Christian Life Patterns, 1979, 1997). However, I believe his perspective requires further improvement. Christ’s cross and empty tomb must take their rightful and
central place as the re-creational message for a new humanity.
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361
point to predictable periods of life when such dissatisfactions may emerge.
James Fowler christened those periods “transitions.”18 Developmental
theorists outline specific and predictable restless times of transition, times
when people search for new stories.19 Fowler guides us to developmental
periods and the transitional movements between them that push people to
seek out new narrative materials.
Fowler’s Stages of Faith20
Pre-Stage—Undifferentiated Faith
The quality of the relationship with the primary caregiver lays the
foundation for the development of faith. From across a spectrum of relational possibilities from one pole of trust, courage, hope, and love to the
other of threats of abandonment, inconsistencies, and deprivations, to some
degree the caregiver deposits a fund of basic trust and mutuality. With the
acquisition of language, transition to stage one begins.
Stage One—Intuitive-Projective Faith
Typical of children three to seven years old, imagination produces longlasting images and feelings at this stage. Self-awareness begins. With the
onset of imagination, the child can be overcome by images of terror and
destructiveness. The emergence of concrete operational thinking signals
the transition to the next stage.
18
James W. Fowler, Faithful Change: The Personal and Public Challenges of
Postmodern Life (Nashville: Abingdon, 1996).
19
James W. Fowler (Stages of Faith: The Psychology of Human Development and the
Quest for Meaning [New York: Harper Collins Publishers, 1981]) describes his stages
(and transitions) as hierarchical, non-arbitrary, sequential, and progressive, each of which
integrates all preceding stages into its more advanced structure.
Fowler’s work has held up after years of critique and through interviews with hundreds of subjects. While the theory remains robust, its weaknesses must also be considered. In my analysis, two weaknesses emerge. First, in common with all stage theories,
Fowler’s construct tends to obscure the continuities of the developing self. By focusing on
commonalities among various persons as they pass by developmental markers, Fowler
unintentionally obscures the self, the traveler, the continuing core of personality that
develops. Second, by focusing on a cross-cultural developmental model, the socio-cultural
influences on development are clouded. Regardless of its short-comings, Fowler’s theory
remains the most comprehensive and clearest lens for viewing development in meaningmaking.
20
Fowler defines faith in a manner consistent with Luther’s First Commandment
faith, “that to which your heart clings and entrusts itself,” whether the true God or an
idol. He focuses on the common cognitive structures of human meaning making regardless of their focus.
362
Stage Two—Mythic-Literal Faith
The individual begins to identify with the stories, beliefs, and observances of his or her community. Literal interpretation, reciprocal morality, and the narrative construction of coherence and meaning take center
stage in the individual’s thought life. Reflection is unknown. Transition to
the next developmental stage occurs because contradictions within stories
lead to reflection on meanings. The seeker moves toward a method of
thinking that might resolve these tensions.
Stage Three—Synthetic-Conventional Faith
At this stage, the meaning-maker begins to construct a “personal
myth.” This life narrative tells a story that incorporates one’s past, present,
and anticipated future into a unified image. The unifying image places one
in relation to ultimate reality. This faith lays an identity foundation and
creates a personal perspective. However, the individual meaning-maker
cannot yet maintain an independent view and so is “conventional” and
“conformist.” Authorization for his or her perspective comes from traditional authority figures or from a valued peer group. Dissatisfaction with
the meaning of one’s life accounts or the presence of powerful yet unexplained experiences, moves the meaning-maker to seek out new narrative
resources.
Stage Four—Individuative-Reflective Faith
At this developmental phase, the self forms an identity that stands
independent of the mirrored expectations of others. The individual consciously adopts and holds a personal perspective that enables critical evaluation of the self (identity) and the world (ideology). The strength of stage
four mirrors its weakness. Its strength is found in the excessive confidence of the self in the conscious mind and in critical thought. Its weakness is found in the excessive confidence of the self in the conscious mind
and in critical thought. After some time, the inadequacy of critical rationality to explain the mysteries, the swirl of emotions, the shocks of defeats, the subtleties of relationships, and the ironies of life cause the meaning-maker to transition to the next developmental stage.
Stage Five—Conjunctive Faith
The person has “tasted the sacrament of defeat” and knows in intimate terms the reality of irrevocable commitments and actions. The boundaries of the self become porous and permeable, thus inviting alternative
views to enter into the self ’s world. Conjunctive faith has the capacity for
“ironic imagination,” being able to understand and release the most powCONCORDIA JOURNAL/OCTOBER 2007
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erful meanings of a culture and at the same time to know their relativities
and distortions. Yet those at this stage live between a transformed and
transforming vision and an untransformed world. A very few move to the
radical project of bringing the vision into actuality. These few enter Stage
Six—Universalizing Faith. The seeker actively searches for new narrative
resources in the transitional movements from stage to stage.
According to Fowler, these transitional periods have the character of
dis-ease and disequilibration and are often precipitated by disruptive experiences. For the seeker, the need to alter one’s viewpoint comes to one’s
consciousness “by the awareness that our existing structures are no longer
sufficient for dealing with the shape and content coming to us from our
experience-world.”21 The Holy Spirit may work His alien work in those
fleeting moments of dissatisfaction. Moreover, Biblical narratives of disruption and discontinuity may resonate with seekers at the time of transition, stories like the Paul’s Damascus Road experience, the Prodigal’s return, or Pentecost for the church. Especially during transitions, the seeker
finds and begins to “try on” new narrative plots. Sperry, for instance, was
actively engaged in the search for meaning. In Liz Sperry’s case, the meaning
for her life bound up in her boyfriend failed to satisfy. The stories she had
been telling no longer “fit” her life.
How can servants of the Word teach for transformations? A transitional movement serves as an example of the educational use of Biblical
narratives to foster life transformations in seekers.22 It considers transformative Biblical narrative ministry to college age students as they move
from one stage of development to another. In this example, Biblical narrative ministry takes the form of one-to-one mentoring or small group ministry, although it can easily occur through proclamation and teaching to
larger numbers.
The literature on faith development of college-age students would support the claim that many students begin the undergraduate experience at
or around Fowler’s Synthetic-Conventional Position on the faith development continuum. The referential context of both authority figures and
peer group echo in the student accounts of the influence of mentors23 and
21
Fowler, Faithful Change, 72.
I take up the challenge that Alan Jacobs recently issued in “What Narrative Theology Forgot,” First Things 135 (Aug/Sep 2003), 25-30, with this question: “How can the
Church bridge this gap between the Christian metanarrative and our own individual life
stories in such a way that all accounts are faithful to each other and to God?” (30)
23
C. L. Anderson, “How Can My Faith Be So Different?’ The Emergence of Religious
Identity in College Women” (Ph.D. diss., Indiana University, 1995); L. L. Newman, “Faith
and Freshmen: A Qualitative Analysis of Faith Development of Traditional First-year
Students at a Baptist Institution” (Ph.D. diss., University of Louisville, 1998); M. W.
Cannister, “Mentoring and the Spiritual Well-being of Late Adolescents,” Adolescence 34
(1999): 769-779; C. A. Wells, “Epiphanies of Faith within the Academy: A Narrative Study
of the Dynamics of Faith with Undergraduate Students Involved in InterVarsity Christian Fellowship” (Ph.D. diss., Ohio State University, 2003); M. E. Sanderl, “Catholic Identity and Lasallian Culture in Higher Education: The Contributions of Campus Ministry”
22
364
peer groups.24 Transition to the next stage most often comes through an
encounter with alternative viewpoints that leads to critical reflection on
the relative strength of the viewpoint of one’s own reference group. Those
encounters force the person to look for different narrative materials to
account for the new experiences. One researcher tells the story of “Talitha.”
She related her experience of an encounter with an instructor in her freshman Philosophy in Society course. She wrote a term paper on abortion
and took a pro-life stance. When she received the paper back with a low
grade, she met with the instructor:
So I go there and I kind of like drop my paper in front of her and
say, “What’s this? Why did I get a D-? Would you explain it to me?”
And she is like, “Um, well, oh, see, well.” She couldn’t give me an
answer, she’s like, “Oh, um, you didn’t have enough -um- argument.”
And, I’m like, “Pages three through seven are arguments.”
She’s like, “You didn’t have enough examples.”
And [I’m] like, “Pages seven through nine are examples,” and, “What
more do you want?”
And I’m like showing everything to her that she’s saying, and she
kind of got all upset, and crossed out the D- and gave me a B-. [she
laughs] Yeah, so it is a good movement, but, she graded me down
based on my point of view. She had nothing to back up her reason
why I got such a low grade except for the fact that she didn’t like
my pro-life choice.25
Differences also come in the package of peer relations. This is not the
benign experience of the “different.” Rather it is a being different that draws
opposition. Wells referred to this theme of the university experience as
(Ph.D. diss., Ohio State University, 2003); T. L. Wilson, “Religious Faith Development in
White, Christian, Undergraduate Students Involved in Religious Student Organizations”
(Ph.D. diss., University of Missouri-Columbia, 2004).
24
Anderson; Newman; E. S. Mankowski and E. Thomas, “The Relationship between
Personal and Collective Identity: A Narrative Analysis of a Campus Ministry Community,” Journal of Community Psychology 28 (2000):517-528; L. M. Feeneberg, “The Nature of the Development of Students’ Spirituality at a Private, Jesuit University” (Ph.D.
diss., Saint Louis University, 2003).
25
Henry Corcoran, “Undergraduate Student Development in Meaning-making within
the Context of a Research University: An Examination of a University, a Roman Catholic
Student Religious Organization and Individual Student Meaning-Makers” (Ph.D. diss.,
University of Denver, 2007), my emphasis.
CONCORDIA JOURNAL/OCTOBER 2007
365
being set apart. Their peers forced students in her study to defend their
stand on various religiously connected lifestyle choices. They were thereby
segregated from common peer experiences (e.g., choosing not to go out
drinking, therefore being left alone in their dorm rooms). Being set apart
may very well be the catalyst or precipitating condition that moves students into a transition phase.
As I discuss personal restorying of lives, transitional periods mark the
movement from one story to another. According to Fowler, transitions
require three phases: endings, the “neutral zone” and new beginnings.26
Endings consist of disengagement, the sacrifice of an important relationship of shared meanings with a community; disidentification, a breaking
of old connections that granted personal identity; disenchantment, the experience of the loss of the held constructions of reality, one’s core narrative; and disorientation, the cumulative effect of the other elements of
endings that moves us toward the neutral zone. The “neutral zone” has
been variously described as “experiences of the antistructure,” the “No,
you are not going crazy, but you may be out of your mind” phenomena, and
“experiencing the dismantling or disintegration of a way of seeing and
being in the world, and living through the ragged period of struggling to
compose a new and more adequate meaning,”27 a better fitting narrative
construal. Finally, the transitioning person, the seeker sees signposts that
point the way to new beginnings, the new cognitive structures for making
meaning. Another name for these structures is a new life story.
Let us be clear here. The orthodox church alone holds the genuine,
identity-forming core narrative for what it means to be truly human,28 but
it does not alone offer an identity forming core narrative. Misleading ideological anthropologies offer alternative narratives. Seekers remain vulnerable. Consider the case of “Kevin Solomon.” Researcher Conrad Cherry
tells Kevin’s story:
A senior from Iowa majoring in religion and music, Solomon was a
Lutheran who served as student chaplain for the college choir.
During his first two years at North College [a pseudonym], he was
heavily involved in the [InterVarsity Christian Fellowship] IVF, but
he said, “There got to be a belief clash. They had a more fundamental mind-set than I did, and I was beginning to ask big questions about Christianity and taking religion classes, and I was all
over the map spiritually. They [the IVF] wanted me to stay in one
26
Fowler, Faithful Change, 72-74.
Ibid., 73.
28
In fact, orthodox Christian theology claims to understand the underlying structure
of reality and insists that faith as trust in Christ corresponds to and aligns with that
structure (See R. Bultmann’s discussion the underlying structure of reality in the Theology of the New Testament, Vol. II, NY: Scribner, 1955, 3-92), and R. W. Jenson, “Can We
Have a Story?” First Things, No. 101, March 2000: 16-17).
27
366
place spiritually.” One of his religion classes in particular, Jesus
and the New Testament, moved him beyond IVF. “The course got
me to thinking about the historical Jesus and the different agendas in the New Testament. It added to my confusion but forced me
to open my perspective wider.”29
Shaken from his identity-supporting community, Kevin’s next step is
pregnant with possibilities. He is vulnerable to alternative narratives because he is seeking materials to explain an expanded perspective.
As the summary of Fowler’s discussion of transitions makes clear, the
individual moving through a transition requires godly and Biblical support
at the socio-cultural level—therapy, spiritual direction, or an orthodox community of faith—to “help us pace our reentry and reintegration in a new
stage or place,”30 that is, into a new story. The traditional college undergraduate may well experience the university’s intellectual challenges to
faith and the peer group social challenges of being set apart as precipitating crises that force him/her into the endings phase of transition. The self
seeks safety, settled and comforting relationships, affirmation, models for
the next developmental stage, and signposts for new beginnings. As a community, through our awareness of the needs of the individual in the throes
of transition, we are called by the Holy Spirit calls us to meet those needs.
The Church as Depository of the Christ-Metanarrative
Cynthia Wells shares “Renee’s” story of her transition. In the beginning of her university experience, she compartmentalized God, placing
Him into His “little box.” Renee relates how an experience with the narrative Word in community changed her life:
I’m trying to pinpoint when I started changing…. We were studying about the parable of the sower and I remember that Elaine
was saying something like, “The seed falls on the good soil,” and
“Everyone here probably automatically thinks they’re the ‘good
soil,’ but are you really the ‘good soil?’”31
With the challenge to examine her life, two things became clear to Renee,
namely, that the Christian life means personal development and that “I
wanted people to recognize that I’m a Christian, and I wanted to not be
ashamed of it.”32
As the cultural shift from modernism to postmodernism became ap29
Conrad Cherry, “North College,” in Religion on Campus (ed.) Conrad Cherry
(Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press), 243-244.
30
Fowler, Faithful Change, 74.
31
Wells, “Epiphanies of Faith within the Academy,” 127-128.
32
Ibid., 128.
CONCORDIA JOURNAL/OCTOBER 2007
367
parent, Fowler transplanted his construct from context of modernity’s overemphasis on individualism into an intentionally communal postmodern
context.33 He offers summary ideas about how community and, in particular, a Christian community may function for the person in transition.
Fowler reminds us that communities of faith offer orientation for meaning
through five interwoven meaning strands.34 First, by offering and “embodying” a shared core narrative, the faith community provides orientation to reality.
With the other Biblical narratives, the shared core narrative depicts
the universals of human existence. Through Law, it forces us to look at
the train wreck of our own lives strewn with the disquieting facts of evil at
work in and around us, the reality of our approaching demise, the pieces of
our fractured families, and the shards of our dreams lying among the filth
of this sad world. The Law points out the futility and self-destructiveness
of refusing to forgive. Further, it outlines the waves of pain flowing into
my life because of my refusal to allow God’s grace to break the connection
to my injurer. Then in the Gospel, God sings a new song in the resurrection of Christ. The Law carefully describes our situation. It unlocks the
forbidding secrets of our hearts. Then the Gospel abruptly stops the incessant echoes of bad news about the emptiness of our lives and the judgment
of God. It sets us free. This central story invites the hearer into the Gospel-world of Christ, where Jesus Christ has overcome sin and all its children and in which all who trust Him enter into His victory.
The central word of these narratives not only informs but actually
accomplishes the movement from chaos to order, bondage to deliverance,
rebellion to obedience, accusation to vindication, despair to hope, guilt to
justification, debt to forgiveness, separation to reconciliation, wrath to love,
judgment to righteousness. It moves its hearers from defeat to victory,
death to life, betrayal to restoration, embattled to victorious, old creation
to new, blindness to spiritual sight, moral darkness to light, hostility toward God to reconciliation, sorrow to joy, filth to cleansing, self-righteousness to the righteousness of God, alienation to fellowship with God. The
stories change people! They invite participation in this central narrative of
human experience. They foster virtues, especially mercy, graciousness,
and love. They grant a strong, new identity, a new beginning, a solid new
life. As must be clear, this new story world cannot be limited to an intellectual activity, an imaginative fiction. The narratives claim to be truth, the
truth that addresses and re-creates persons, heads and hearts.
Hearers do not remain alone to work out the meaning of this transformation. The Christ core narrative gathers to form and re-form the Christian community. The gathered and re-formed community tells and retells
33
James W. Fowler, Becoming Adult, Becoming Christian: Adult Development and
Christian Faith (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2000).
34
Ibid.
368
the Biblical narratives that form and re-form the community. This
interactivity of Biblical content and the gathered establishes colonies, specific and local incarnational representations of the kingdom of Christ.35
Where two gather in Jesus’ name, the colony can be found. The servant of
the Word, as representative of God’s community, can offer two dimensions
of personal mentoring ministry: support and challenge.36
Support recognizes “in practical terms the promise and vulnerability”
of the seeker.37 It requires telling the Christ narrative of hope and the
offer of emotional support and reasoned refutations of the alternative defining narratives. Challenge, the other dimension of mentoring, calls for
the “practice of a kind of tough love.”38 As Colleen Carroll observes, “Young
adults are attracted to the time-tested teachings of Christianity because
they contradict the ‘wishy-washy’ mind-set of moral and religious relativism” that pervades a typical secular campus.39 Mentors must boldly declare Christ; call for faith; and seek obedience, commitment, courage, and
sacrifice that issue from a living faith in Christ Jesus, that is, faithfulness
to the core narrative. From the servant of the Word, students find support
and challenge, the two conditions necessary for development of heads and
hearts.
For the seeker, Fowler’s second strand of meaning from the community invites participation in and identification with the core narrative.40
How might Biblical narratives contribute to change? How may they work?
The Biblical narratives invite the hearers to participate in the sacred story,
the shared core narrative. Gerhard Forde describes in the person of Saul,
the persecutor of the church, how humans are drawn into this story world:
What happened to [Saul] on the Damascus road? Discontinuity—
but that is too abstract a word. [Saul-Paul] put it more radically
and concretely: I died there. I was crucified. Everything I was was
wiped out. But I was also given a new beginning in faith and hope.
I was made a new creation in Christ by this shocking act of God.41
What Forde makes concrete in the life of the persecutor-apostle, God intends for all—that all humans would enter into the narrative of Christ
Jesus and at each stage would re-enter the narrative from that new place
in the developmental continuum.
35
See Stanley Hauerwas and William H. Willimon’s thorough and challenging discussion of Christian community in Resident Aliens: Life in the Christian Colony (Nashville: Abingdon, 1989).
36
Sharon Parks, Big Questions, Worthy Dreams: Mentoring Young Adults in Their
Search for Meaning, Purpose, and Faith (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2000).
37
Ibid., 129.
38
Ibid., 130.
39
Carroll, The New Faithful, 40.
40
Fowler, Becoming Adult, Becoming Christian, 93.
41
Gerhard Forde, Theology is for Proclamation (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1990), 75.
CONCORDIA JOURNAL/OCTOBER 2007
369
Biblical narratives also may be applied to a person in the form of confession and absolution. Rather than an initial identification with the Christ
narrative, this means of grace restores the Story to the individual, or from
another perspective, assimilates the account of sin into the core narrative.
Eric Mankowski and Julian Rappaport report, “Confession can be viewed
as a process of resolving an identity crisis that was precipitated by performing a behavior that cannot be integrated into the individual’s life story.”42
Confession becomes a way of synthesizing the event into the Christ
metanarrative. When the erring believer confesses by telling the story to
the servant of the Word, the central Biblical narrative has already absorbed the account into the narrative of the bloody cross and vacant tomb.
The faithful fellow-priest declares that the act has been forgiven by God.
The authors conclude, “As a result of this storytelling, the coherence and
value of the person’s life and identity may be restored.”43 Through absolution, the divine community invites participation and identification again
with the core narrative.
With Fowler’s third meaning strand, the community encourages the
formation of affections and motivations in accord with the core narrative.44
The church takes in hand the formation of the whole person, mind and
heart. Genuine formation requires that a person enter into the narrative
world and participate in the emotions that the Biblical narratives intend to
elicit. The Christian formed by the narrative world, in the moment he
receives undeserved forgiveness, at least sometimes, will enter into the
jaw-dropping joy of the prodigal who witnesses his father’s gracious sprint.
Alternately, that same Christian sometimes will blush with his own decision to race past social convention to extend forgiveness to an undeserving
“son.” The church cannot be satisfied that Christians can recite the facts of
the Biblical stories. God tells stories to move us. As David Schmitt comments, “One who knows that Jesus forgave Peter but does not sympathize
with his compassion in doing that may not actually know the story at all.”45
Emotional formation leads to the fourth meaning strand, the generation of personal moral strengths—persisting virtues. Stanley Hauerwas
and William Willimon describe how the colony image supports formation:
A colony is a beachhead, an outpost, an island of one culture in the
middle of another, a place where the values of home are reiterated
and passed on to the young, a place where the distinctive language
and life-style of the resident aliens are lovingly nurtured and reinforced.46
42
Eric Mankowski and Julian Rappaport, “Stories, Identity, and the Psychological
Sense of Community,” in Advances in Social Cognition, vol. 8 (1995), 217.
43
Ibid.
44
Fowler, Becoming Adult, Becoming Christian, 93.
45
David Schmitt, personal communication, February 16, 2007.
46
Hauerwas and Willimon, Resident Aliens: Life in the Christian Colony, 12.
370
The church as colony means that God has transplanted the divine culture
on this planet through the Word. The culture of the colony expresses the
mutual, interdependent, sacrificial love of the triune God through the colonists’ lives. Hauerwas and Willimon continue:
The church is a colony, an island of one culture in the middle of
another. In baptism our citizenship is transferred from one dominion to another, and we become, in whatever culture we find ourselves, resident aliens.47
They employ the colony image to convey what Jesus announced as the
“kingdom of God” what Peter referred to as “a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for God’s own possession;” and what Paul
depicted as “God’s household.” In part, each of these metaphors asserts
the nature of church as a culture in contrast to, or even in competition
with, the surrounding culture(s). God’s grace characterizes the church alone.
Finally, in the fifth meaning strand, Fowler explains that the community fosters in the individual a sense of personal mission, a vocation of
life.48 The person formed by association with a community that has been
constituted by the core Christ narrative participates in the meanings that
“ride” the narrative. Therefore, community as the carrier of Biblical narrative helped Renee. Elaine, her Biblical mentor, “embodied” the narrative. Renee identified with it and moved through the meaning strands
toward a vocation of life in which God moved out of the box into the center
of her life—where she transitioned from the place of her faith as a distinct
part of her life into an her identity en Christo.
The core narrative and the multitude of Biblical narratives that flow
from and to this central Christological metanarrative may also provide
insight for a student into his/her experience of the alienation from a religiously and morally “compromised” socio-cultural world of the university,
being set apart. They offer a way of negotiating the painful separations
from peers caused by the students’ unwillingness to partake in “forbidden”
activities. They explain how even brilliant professors can and will share in
distorted perceptions of reality, because they, too, partake in human rebellion against God. The narratives resonate with the students’ inner sense
of alienation, feelings of guilt and shame, dread and despair. The narratives also provide connection to God, thus guaranteeing significance to the
community members’ lives. Mediated through the religious community
and spiritual mentors as embodiments of and communicators of the Biblical socio-cultural world, the various Biblical narratives incorporate the
seeker into the Biblical colony. For seeking students, the narratives invite
participation into a Biblical meaning for their experiences. Biblical narra47
48
Hauerwas and Willimon, Resident Aliens, 12.
Fowler, Becoming Adult, Becoming Christian, 94.
CONCORDIA JOURNAL/OCTOBER 2007
371
tives grow minds and hearts. They offer materials to help students plot
their personal experiences and find their identity in Christ.
Conclusion
This discussion of life transformations borrows from the ongoing discussion of the value of Biblical narratives and how, exactly, they function
to change hearers. Some narrative theologians aim at the very place proper
for an investigation of the educational effects of Biblical narratives, “at the
intersection of two fields: the Biblical narrative, with its history of interpretation—and contemporary experience, with its various ways of giving
knowledge of the world.”49 For these epistemologically-minded narrativists,
“to be a Christian means to use the biblical stories as the primary means
of making one’s experience intelligible.”50
Some narrative theologians consider Biblical narratives in terms of
social and psychological transformation because narrative can “create a
structure within which to live while at the same time inviting one to experience the freedom to transcend, to disrupt, to challenge that order.”51
They envision transformation in terms of razing and rebuilding life structures, communal and personal structures.52 Other transformation-minded
theologians focus on personal emancipation in theological narratives in
Christological terms because the narration of His life events causes the
reader/hearer to be “confronted with Jesus directly as the unsubstitutable
individual who is what he does and undergoes and is manifested directly as
who he is.”53 Yet others see the Christian metanarrative as a means for a
49
G. Comstock, “Two Types of Narrative Theology,” Journal of the American Academy of Religion 55, (1987): 690.
50
Ibid., my emphasis.
51
J. C. Hoffman, Law, Freedom, and Story: The Role of Narrative in Therapy, Society,
and Faith (Waterloo, Ontario: Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 1986), 10. See also S.
McFague, Speaking in Parables: A Study in Metaphor and Theology (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1975) and Metaphorical Theology: Models of God in Religious Language (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1982); J. D. Crossan, The Dark Interval (Niles, IL: Argus Communications,
1975) and Raid on the Articulate (New York: Harper & Row, 1976); and M. Goldberg,
Theology and Narrative: A Critical Introduction (Philadelphia: Trinity Press International, 1991).
52
Daniel Levinson, Seasons of a Woman’s Life, (New York: Knopf, 1996).
53
H. Frei, The Identity of Jesus Christ: The Hermeneutical Bases of Dogmatic Theology (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1975), 143, my emphasis. See also Frei, “Theological Reflections on the Accounts of Jesus’ Death and Resurrection,” Christian Scholar 49 (1966):
263-306, and “‘Narrative’ in Christian and Modern Reading,” in B. D. Marshall, ed., Theology and Dialogue: Essays in Conversation with George Lindbeck (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1990), 149-163; and D. Tracy, “Narrative and Symbol: Key
to New Testament Spiritualities,” in Scripture Today: Handling the Word Rightly, D. R.
McDonald ed., (Wilton, CT: Morehouse-Barlow Co. Inc, 1980), 71-87, and “Theological
Interpretation of the Scriptures in the Church: Prospect and Retrospect,” in R. McQ.
Grant, & D. Tracy eds., A Short History of the Interpretation of the Bible (Philadelphia:
Fortress, 1984), 181-187.
372
genuine moral emancipation that “requires a critical distance on oneself
provided by God and cultivated through discipline and new skills that fit
one for a more noble and refined life.”54 Still other thinkers view its transformational potential more generically in terms of providing meaning for
life.55
Yet another group of theologians believes that narrative arose to meet
a didactic need as the means by which the neophyte learns how to feel, act,
and think in conformity with a tradition’s inner dynamics that are far
richer and more subtle than simple propositional language can convey. It
is through “the dangerous memory of Jesus”56 that the possibilities of a
well-lived life take form. Therefore, the tradition seeks to replicate the life
of the Nazarene within each member of the Christian community.
Narrative’s communal and ethical dimensions take center stage for them.57
Beyond initial socialization into the Christian faith, one theologian
asserts that seekers in different positions along the developmental trajectory may require different types of narrative materials. Intriguingly, Paul
N. Anderson argues that the author of the Gospel of John offers a
Christological perspective that is characterized by a dialectic of paradox, a
perspective consistent with Fowler’s conjunctive faith.58 Anderson’s thesis
would support the hypothesis that persons at different positions along the
developmental continuum may require different types of Biblical narratives for their formation or re-formation. Evaluation of that hypothesis
requires more study of how persons at different points along the developmental trajectory actually use the Biblical resources for the restorying of
their lives.
All of these theologians, with their various proposals, struggle with
the fact that one of the Bible’s dominant literary forms, narrative, must
serve genuine life transformative purposes. I have proposed that personal
life restorying in the context of the church may well be a major divine
purpose for “incarnating” much of the Bible in narrative form.
Biblical narratives transform lives. They offer narrative resources for
the restorying of lives. Narratives provide an underlying structure for the
54
Ellen Charry, “The Crisis of Modernity and the Christian Self,” Miroslav Volf, ed.
Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1998): 93.
55
Walter Wink, The Bible in Human Transformation (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1973);
S. Crites, “The Narrative Quality of Experience,” Journal of the American Academy of
Religion 39 (1971); D. Tracy, “Narrative and Symbol: Key to New Testament Spiritualities,” Scripture Today (1980).
56
Tracy, “Narrative and Symbol,” (1980), 75.
57
George A. Lindbeck, The Nature of Doctrine: Religion and Theology in the
Postliberal Age (Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 1984); S. Hauerwas, Character
and the Christian Life: A Study in Theological Ethics (San Antonio, TX: Trinity University Press, 1975); Hauerwas & Willimon, 1989; Tracy, 1980.
58
Paul N. Anderson, Christology of the Fourth Gospel: Its Unity and Disunity in the
Light of John 6, (Tübingen: Mohr-Siebeck, 1996) 142-151.
CONCORDIA JOURNAL/OCTOBER 2007
373
plotting of our lives into the life-giving core metanarrative of the life and
ministry, suffering and crucifixion, resurrection and glorification of Christ
Jesus. They woo us into a new community, a new life, a new relationship
with the Lord of the universe. Bible stories invite seekers imaginatively to
try on a life with God in Christ. Narratives mold communities into outposts of grace. Intentionally, the faithful servant of the Word can teach
Biblical narratives so that the Holy Spirit can grow balanced Christians,
people with heads and hearts.
374
Justified by Works
and Not by Faith Alone:
Reconciling Paul and James
David R. Maxwell
“You see that a person is justified by works and not by faith alone”
(James 2:24). This is the distressing conclusion that James draws from
Genesis 15:6, “Abraham believed God and it was credited to him as righteousness,”1 a conclusion which seems to contradict what Paul teaches
about justification, especially when one considers that Paul cites the same
verse (Gen. 15:6) and concludes, “To the one who does not work but believes in the one who justifies the ungodly, his faith is reckoned as righteousness” (Rom. 4:5). How can two inspired authors draw opposite conclusions from the same verse?
If my experience listening to LCMS sermons and attending Bible classes
is at all representative of what goes on in our churches, then the standard
Missouri Synod solution to this apparent difficulty is that Paul and James
do not contradict each other because they do not mean the same thing by
“faith.” The point is well taken, as far as it goes. The faith of demons
(James 2:19), after all, can hardly be the same as that faith which is credited to Abraham as righteousness. But this solution is ultimately inadequate because it leaves one important question unanswered: What does
James mean by “a person is justified by works” (evx e;rgwn dikaiou/tai) (James
2:24)?
Bible commentaries take two main approaches to this question. Some
simply assume that Paul and James contradict each other.2 Others reconcile Paul and James by showing that they use “justify” (dikaio,w) in two
different senses.3 I will take the latter approach, but I will go beyond what
the commentaries say by bringing evidence from Clement of Rome to cor1
Biblical citations are taken from the NIV but are slightly altered to translate dikaio,w
and e;rgon more consistently.
2
Burton Scott Easton, The Epistle of James, The Interpreter’s Bible, (New York:
Abingdon, 1957), 45; Martin Dibelius, A Commentary on the Epistle of James, trans.
Michael A. Williams, Hermeneia (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1976), 165; Sophie Laws, The
Epistle of James, Black’s New Testament Commentary (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson,
1980), 132.
3
Bo Reicke, The Epistles of James, Peter, and Jude, The Anchor Bible 37 (New York:
Doubleday, 1964), 34; Peter H. Davids, The Epistle of James, The New International
Greek Testament Commentary (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1982), 132; David P. Scaer,
Dr. David R. Maxwell is Assistant Professor of Systematic Theology at
Concordia Seminary in St. Louis, MO.
CONCORDIA JOURNAL/OCTOBER 2007
375
roborate the two different meanings of dikaio,w. Briefly, I will argue that
dikaio,w in Paul means “to impute righteousness” (forensically), while in
James it means “show to be righteous.” Furthermore, I will argue that
dikaio,w carries its forensic meaning when the contrast is between works
and faith, while it carries its demonstrative meaning when the contrast is
between works and words.
The key to understanding the way these two senses play out in Paul
and James is to ask the question, “When was Abraham justified?” For
Paul, Abraham was justified when he believed. Paul asks whether Abraham
was justified by works (Rom. 4:2), and he answers in the negative with the
statement, “Abraham believed God and it was credited to him as righteousness” (Rom. 4:3, citing Gen. 15:6). Justification, then, is used interchangeably with the phrase “credited to him as righteousness.” It is this
forensic crediting of faith as righteousness that is the hallmark of the
Pauline use of the term dikaio,w. Note that this forensic understanding of
justification is operating in a context where the two options being considered are justification by works or by faith.
For James, however, Abraham was not justified when he believed, but
when he placed Isaac on the altar: “Was not our ancestor Abraham justified by works when he offered his son Isaac on the altar?” (James 2:21).4
James furthers states that when Abraham offered Isaac, “the Scripture
was fulfilled that says, ‘Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him
as righteousness’…” (James 2:23). James, then, does not see Genesis 15:6
as a description of Abraham’s justification, but he sees justification as a
fulfillment of Genesis 15:6.
The fact that Paul and James each ascribe “justification” to a different
point in Abraham’s life suggests that each author is using “justify” (dikaio,w)
in a different sense. In Paul, as we have seen, “justify” (dikaio,w) refers to
God crediting righteousness to the believer. In James, however, “justify”
(dikaio,w) means that Abraham is shown to be righteous.
This sense is called for by the immediate context. James’s major concern in chapter two is to fight against dead faith. He does this by bringing
up someone’s objection, “You have faith; I have works,” and retorting,
“Show (dei/xon) me your faith without works, and I will show you my faith
by my works” (James 2:18). In this passage, James is not contrasting faith
with works directly. Instead, he is contrasting an idle claim to faith with
works. The believer is shown to be righteous (“justified” in James’s sense)
James: The Apostle of Faith (Saint Louis: CPH, 1994), 93; Luke Timothy Johnson, The
Letter of James, The Anchor Bible 37A (New York: Doubleday, 1995), 242; Kurt A.
Richardson, James, The New American Commentary 36 (Broadman & Holman, 1997),
140-141; Douglas J. Moo, The Letter of James, The Pillar New Testament Commentary
(Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2000), 141.
4
Moo objects that the justification occurs on the Last Day, not when Abraham offers
Isaac (The Letter of James, 135, 141). I agree that what James means by “justify” does
occur on the Last Day, but I think it is the same sort of thing we see in Genesis 22.
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by his works, while the one making an idle claim to faith is shown to be a
fraud. In Romans, the contrast is between works and faith, while in James
the contrast is between works and words.
The example of Abraham functions as an illustration of what James
means by “justification.” Consistent with his contention in 2:18 that faith
shows itself in works, James does not focus on the point at which righteousness is credited to Abraham. He turns instead to the point at which
Abraham’s faith is shown and asserts that Abraham is justified when he
offers Isaac on the altar (James 2:21). That this act reveals Abraham’s
faith is clear already in the Old Testament, for at that moment, the Angel
of the LORD cries out, “Now I know that you fear God” (Gen. 22:12).
Of those commentators who identify two different senses of “justify”
(dikaio,w), not all of them understand James the way I have outlined. Some
argue, as I have, that James uses “justify” (dikaio,w) to mean “show to be
righteous.”5 Douglas Moo, however, rejects this reading because “show to
be righteous” is not a very common meaning of the word.6 Moo holds that
Paul uses “justify” to refer to “the initial declaration of a sinner’s innocence before God,” while James uses it to refer to “the ultimate verdict of
innocence pronounced over a person at the last judgment.”7 The end result of Moo’s view is that judgment is ultimately on the basis of works.
My argument, however, is that “justify” (dikaio,w) means “show to be
righteous” in those contexts where the contrast is between works and
words, not works and faith. Thus, even if Moo is right that “show to be
righteous” is not a common meaning of “justify” (dikaio,w), one would still
expect to find this meaning wherever works are contrasted with words. To
show how “justify” (dikaio,w) shifts between the two meanings, I offer two
examples from Clement of Rome (d. c. 97). These examples are important
not only because they come from an early church father from the next
generation after the apostles, but because both meanings can be found in
the same author within two pages of each other in contexts which resemble those of Paul and James.8
In the first example, Clement tells his readers, “[Let us] be justified
(dikaioume,noi) by deeds, not words.”9 This statement occurs in the context
of an exhortation to humility in which Clement urges people not to boast,
5
Davids, 321; Johnson, 242; Scaer, 93.
Moo, 135. Note, however, that Johnson provides other examples in Scripture where
justify means “show to be righteous”: Matt. 11:19; 12:37; 1 Cor. 4:4 (Johnson, 242). Of
these texts, at least Matt. 11:19 does not seem to admit of any other interpretation.
7
Moo, 141. Reicke comes to this conclusion as well (34). Scaer also holds that “justification” in James is an eschatological event, but for Scaer, this eschatological event is a
demonstration to the world of the righteousness Abraham received by faith, not the basis
for the final judgment (93).
8
I am appealing to Clement for lexical data about the meaning of dikaio,w. I am not
claiming that Clement holds to what Lutherans would recognize as “justification by faith
alone,” though elements of that doctrine are certainly present in Clement.
9
1 Clement 30.3 in Apostolic Fathers, vol. 1, trans. Kirsopp Lake, Loeb Classical
Library (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1985).
6
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377
but to let their praise come from God and from others. A little later, he
states the same idea in different words: “Let the wise manifest (evndeiknu,sqw)
his wisdom not in words but in good deeds; let him who is humble-minded
not testify (marturei,tw) to his own humility, but let him leave it to others to
bear him witness.”10 In all of Clement’s exhortation against boasting, the
question is not how one becomes righteous, but how one appropriately
shows that righteousness to others. As in James, the choice is between
works and words, not works and faith. In this context, the most natural
reading of Clement is that he uses “justify” (dikaio,w) to mean “show to be
righteous.” Not only does this support the point that he is making in his
exhortation against boasting, but it is confirmed by the fact that he actually uses the verb “show” (evndei,knumi) later to make the same point in a
parallel passage.
In the second example, Clement employs “justify” (dikaio,w) in the Pauline
sense. Here the contrast is not between works and words, but between
works and faith. He states,
We who by his will have been called in Christ Jesus, are not justified (dikaiou,meqa) by ourselves, or by our wisdom or understanding
or piety or the deeds which we have wrought in holiness of heart,
but through faith by which Almighty God has justified all men
from the beginning of the world.11
In the first example, Clement tells us that we ought to be justified by
works. Now he tells us that we are not justified by anything we have done
in holiness of heart, but by faith. Does Clement contradict himself within
the space of two pages? Even if one were to grant the assumption of some
modern commentators that Paul and James contradict each other, it would
still be difficult to explain how these two “contradictory” views could be
found next to each other in the same author. Unless one assumes Clement
is simply incoherent, one must conclude that the views of Paul and James
are not mutually exclusive.
In 1 Clement, then, we have independent confirmation that “justify”
(dikaio,w) can mean two things: “reckon righteous” as in Romans 4, and
“show to be righteous” as in James 2. Furthermore, the factor that determines which sense is intended is whether the implied contrast is between
works and faith, or works and words. Thus, our righteousness before God
is by faith alone, and that righteousness manifests itself by works and not
by idle words about a faith unaccompanied by works. We have a problem
with James only when we assume, incorrectly, that he uses “justify” (dikaio,w)
in the same sense Paul does.
10
11
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1 Clement 38.2.
1 Clement 32.4.
Grammarian’s Corner
Participles, Part VI
We continue with consideration of participles, this time bringing the
matter of time into consideration.
In the July, 2007, installment of Grammarian’s Corner, we worked on
the following sentence:
1. diw,kousi to.n a;ndra khru,ssonta
sonta.
We said that one could theoretically translate it as:
1a. “They are persecuting the man preaching.”
But we observed that a better reflection of its meaning would be one of
the following:
1b. They are persecuting the man, while he is preaching.
1c. They are persecuting the man, because he is preaching.
1d. They are persecuting the man, even though he is preaching.
We also added sentence 2 as an example in the discussion:
2. Mark 1:16a: kai. para,gwn para. th.n qa,lassan th/j Galilai/aj ei=den
Si,mwna kai. A
v ndre,an....
We translated this passage thus: “While he was going along beside
the Sea of Galilee, he saw Simon and Andrew....”
Now, both sentences contain a so-called “present tense” participle. But
note that, while we translated the first “while/because/even though he is
preaching,” we translated the second “while he was going along....” Why
the difference? It has nothing to do with the case of the participle form (the
first being accusative, relating the participle’s action to the sentence’s object, and the second being nominative, relating that action to the sentence’s
subject). It has to do with the time frame of the leading/main verb.
The tense of the main verb places the entire sentence into its time frame,
and the action of the participle is then understood in relation to that frame.
What, then, is the relationship? The “cheap, quick, and dirty” answer,
which works nicely a large majority of the time, is that a present participle
is understood as conveying action at the same time as the main/leading
verb, while an aorist participle conveys action prior to that verb. Thus, in
examples 1 and 2, above, which contain present participles, we translate
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379
the first “...is preaching,” because the main verb places the sentence’s
action in present time, and the second “was going along,” because the
main verb places the sentence’s action in the past. Change those participles to aorist forms, khru,xanta and peripath,saj, respectively, and now the
translation would be “preached” and “had gone along,” instead (e.g.,
“...because he preached” and “After he had gone along....”), with the understanding that the action of the participle has preceded the action of the
main verb in time.1 In the NT, see the following examples of both present
and aorist participles with present and past tense main verbs:
loidorou,menoi euvlogou/men diwko,menoi
3. 1 Corinthians 4:12b: ...loidorou,
avneco,meqa
eqa. (...even though we are [being] reviled, we bless, even
though we are [being] persecuted, we endure.”)
4. Matthew 26:47: kai. e;ti auvtou/ lalou/ntoj ivdou. Iv ou,daj ei=j tw/n
dw,deka h=lqen
qen.... (And while he was still speaking, behold, Judas,
one of the twelve, came....)
5. Galatians 3:3: ...evevnarxa,menoi pneu,mati nu/n sarki. evpitelei/sqe
qe;
(...after/even though you began with the Spirit, do you now bring
[it] to completion with the flesh?)
6. Luke 9:16a: labw.n de. tou.j pe,nte a;rtouj kai. tou.j du,o ivcqu,aj
...euv
euvlo,ghsen auvtou.j.... (And after he had taken the five loaves of
bread and the two fish...he blessed them....)
It should be noted that everything we have said concerning participle
time and the main verb is applicable to attributive position participles, as
well. See the following representative examples:
avpollume,noij
7. 1 Corinthians 1:16: o` lo,goj ga.r o` tou/ staurou/ toi/j...av
mwri,a evstin
tin.... (For the word of the cross is foolishness to the ones
who are perishing....).
8. Mark 3:22: kai. oi` grammatei/j oi` avpo. I` erosolu,mwn kataba,ntej
e;legon o[ti Beelzebou.l e;cei.... (And the scribes who had come down
from Jerusalem were saying that he had2 Beelzeboul....”
Yet, there are critical problems with the analysis just offered, problems that suggest that the “cheap, quick, and dirty” explanation is not the
final word, and to these we will turn in our next GC installment.
1
It is for this reason that the so-called “schoolboy’s translation” of the aorist participle
as “having…” works reasonably well much of the time.
2
Note the translation of the present tense form as in the past, when indirect or
reported discourse is in a secondary (i.e., after a past tense main verb) sequence. This
feature of Greek will be the subject of a future GC contribution.
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Homiletical Helps on LSB Series C—Old Testament/A
—Epistles
All Saints Day
Revelation 7:9-17
November 4, 2007
Is It Well with Our Departed Loved Ones?
Dear Christian Friends:
Were we less formal as Lutherans, this All Saints Day we might be singing
that popular song, “I Love a Parade.” Today, in the church’s memory, all the saints
of old pass in review. Heading the parade, I suppose, are the great apostles: Peter,
Paul, John, and the others. Then follow the martyrs of the early church—Polycarp
of Symrna, last seen, his body aflame, burning at the stake rather than deny Jesus,
his King and Savior. There is Justin Martyr, beheaded rather than compromise his
faith in Jesus by offering sacrifice to heathen gods. And then follow the early
missionaries, men like Patrick, apostle to Ireland, and Boniface, missionary to the
Anglo-Saxons in northern Europe; also Ansgar who brought the Gospel to the Danes,
and later St. Olaf, Christian king of Norway. Then come the great Reformers, men
like Martin Luther, courageous reformer, witness to the Gospel at great cost to
himself and his followers, a man who moved the superstructure of the church off
the crumbling foundation of papal decrees and dogma to the bedrock of the Word of
God, the Scriptures, the apostles and the prophets, and Jesus Christ Himself, the
chief cornerstone (Eph. 2:20).
And who else follows in this train of saints passing in memory’s view? By this
time we may be craning our necks and standing tip toe to see, way down the line in
this parade of the saints, some of the people we knew so well. They are there, we
know, because they died in the faith in Jesus. How are they now? We would like to
know. Is it well with grandmother or grandfather or my beloved husband or wife,
my father or mother, or the child I miss so very much? In a cemetery located near
the southwestern wall of the Old City of Jerusalem, a tombstone marks the resting
place of a young British soldier who died in 1939 as member of the Palestine
Police. He was only 27 years old. The epitaph inscribed on that stone is a message
from his parents in far off Britain. It reads, “Ever loving memory of our dear son,
Ron, always in our thoughts. [signed] Mum and Dad.” Love will not let us forget the
saints in our families.
And, is fellowship possible with these departed loved ones? Certainly not
through seances or superstitious reaching out, nor even by modern attempts to
peer beyond the veil from the testimony of those once regarded medically dead, but
revived and living today. Don’t go down any of those roads. Where then? Where shall
we turn? On this All Saints Day let us turn to the Scriptures, to the Book of
Revelation, chapter seven.
Where are the Saints?
At the outset of our inquiry, it would be well to be satisfied with what the Bible
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says about heaven. Most of us are impatient with the revelation! We have so many
questions. Could God be just a little more generous and tell us more? Probably not.
He does not think so. When Jesus multiplied the five barley loaves and fed 5000
people, the disciples were so taken by the wonder of the miracle that they could not
focus upon Him who was the bread of life. That was unfortunate. We had best not
speculate about the glories of heaven or demand of God more disclosure than He
gives, but simply trust the words of St. Paul. Christ’s own believers shall be glorified in grandeur with which nothing in this age can compare (cf. Rom. 8:18). Let
things be!
But the New Testament adds to St. Paul’s words the testimony of that other
apostle, St. John, who received the revelation of God while on the Isle of Patmos.
John also tells what God wants us to know. Though we are eager to know more, and
many of our questions go unanswered, listen, for John promises, “Blessed is he who
reads aloud the words of the prophecy, and blessed are those who hear, and who
keep what is written therein” (Rev. 1:3). The opening words of chapter four of this
prophecy, the Book of Revelation, read, “After this I looked, and lo, in heaven an
open door! And the first voice, which I heard speaking to me like a trumpet, said,
‘Come up hither, and I will show you what must take place after this.’ At once I was
in the Spirit, and lo, a throne stood in heaven, with one seated on the throne!” (Rev.
4:1-2). John is taken up into heaven in that vision, which he saw by the Spirit of
God. He sees a throne which is the symbol of God and His authority and power. He
sees One seated upon the throne. Then he sees those heavenly creatures, the twentyfour elders seated around the throne, also the four living creatures, believed to
represent all of God’s creation (Rev. 4:4,6).
Read on in this Book of Revelation. In chapter five, St. John tells us more
about that scene in heaven: “And I saw in the right hand of him who was seated on
the throne a scroll written within and on the back, sealed with seven seals; and I
saw a strong angel proclaiming with a loud voice, ‘Who is worthy to open the scroll
and break its seals?’” (Rev. 5:1-2). The scroll and its seven seals represent those
things which shall unfold in the last age. But no one could open that scroll, and
John was moved to tears. He says, “I wept much that no one was found worthy to
open the scroll or to look into it” (Rev. 5:4). Humanity lacks the knowledge to unfold
the future. Nor does that future open by means of the occult. Science, and even
religion, cannot pry open the future. The secrets are not in the stars, nor in your
palms. But one of the twenty-four elders said to John, “Weep not, lo, the Lion of the
tribe of Judah, the Root of David, has conquered, so that he can open the scroll and
its seven seals” (Rev. 5:5b). And who is this Lion of Judah and Root of David? He is
our Lord Jesus Christ. See how He appears in this heavenly scene. John reports,
“And between the throne and the four living creatures and among the elders, I saw
a Lamb standing, as though it had been slain...and He went and took the scroll
from the right hand of him who was seated on the throne” (Rev. 5:6-7).
Read on. Chapter six of the Book of Revelation tells what was in those seven
seals opened by the Lamb for He alone is the Lord of history. It is for Him not only
to predict, but to control, the destiny of the creation and the universe, the destiny of
the world’s people, and especially the future of those whom He has redeemed. That
brings us to chapter seven, where John reports what we have waited to hear, verse
nine: “After this I looked, and behold, a great multitude which no man could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and tongues, standing before the
throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, with palm branches in their
hands” (Rev. 7:9).
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How so They Stand?
Who are these in John’s vision? And who is numbered among them? They are
the saints, that entire parade of believers from Old Testament times, believers in
New Testament times, the Christians, those martyrs, the great missionaries, the
Reformers, and those Christians who were our families and our friends. The power
of Jesus the Lord, crucified and risen again, has brought them there. They were not
left in some lonely grave. In death, they were on their way home. Yes, it is a homecoming for they who are gathering before God and with the Lamb. Every time one
whom we have loved and with whom we have walked the pathways of life departs,
goes forward, and leaves us standing here, our hearts naturally press for answers.
We ask, “What has happened to them? Where are they now? What does this experience mean to them?” What it means to us we already know too well. For us, it is
an experience of sorrow, loss and bereavement.
In Psalm 116, the writer shocks us when he exclaims in the fifteenth verse,
“Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of His saints.” Of all the words we
might ever have used to describe the experience of death, the word “precious” is
probably the last one that would have come to our minds. The passing of our loved
ones is anything but precious to us who remain here. But the psalmist, by faith,
saw the other side. He saw God’s great heart of love, longing and yearning for the
homecoming of one of His redeemed children. We see the home-leaving, the going
away, but with the instrument of faith the psalmist saw the homecoming. We see
the loss; he saw the gain. We see the separation and the bereavement; he saw the
joy and the reunion. We said the “good night” here; he heard the “good morning”
there.
Long ago someone reflected on the experience which we call death,
and spoke of it in these words:
“I am standing upon the seashore. A ship at my side spreads her white
sails to the morning breeze, turns and starts for the wide blue ocean. She
is an object of beauty and strength, and I stand and watch her until at
length she is only a ribbon of white cloud just where the sea and the sky
come together at a point on the distant horizon. Then someone at my side
says, ‘There, she’s gone.’ Gone where? Gone from my sight—that is all. She
is just as large in mast and hull and spar and sails as she was when she
left my side, and just as able to bear her load of cargo to the place of
destination. Her diminished size is in me, but she is not diminished a
fraction. And just at the moment when someone at my side says, ‘There,
she’s gone,’ there are other voices ready to take up the glad shout, ‘Here,
she comes!’ And that is dying.”
A nice story, perhaps, but truly lacking because so much more is said in this
Book of Revelation about our loved ones who died in their faith in the Lord. In
John’s vision, see how they appear before God, standing confident in white robes.
Yes, standing confident, for they surely belong there, robes washed of every stain
and tarnish of sin in the blood of the Lamb who took away the sin of the world.
There is no blemish in them, no sin, no mark or defect in character. They are
beautiful people. And in their hands, says St. John, they hold palm branches. Yes,
the saints, according to St. John’s vision, wave palm branches in their hands to
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383
celebrate their victory. Do you remember that old custom? Formerly in Christian
tradition, they placed in the folded hands of a departed Christian at his or her
burial, a little palm branch, a symbol of faith and hope and victory. And waving
palm branches, the saints are singing, perhaps shouting, “Salvation belongs to our
God who sits upon the throne, and to the Lamb!” (Rev. 7:10). And then the angels
and the twenty-four elders and the four living creatures respond as if antiphonally,
“...saying, ‘Amen! Blessing and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving and honor and
power and might be to our God for ever and ever! Amen’” (Rev. 7:12). Jesus said
there would be joy in heaven over one sinner that repents. Is heaven a happy state
or place? Not just one sinner, but the entire throng of every kindred and people and
nation and tongue, the whole company of those, once sinners, now saints, stirs
supreme excitement and joy in heaven!
Happiness of the Saints
There is much happiness over the saints in heaven, but are they happy, are
they blessed? That is what we want to know most of all. According to what he saw
in that vision, St. John reports that in heaven they hunger no more, neither thirst.
The Lamb in the midst of the throne is their Shepherd. He who came once to bring
life abundantly will guide them to springs of living water, and God will wipe away
every tear from their eyes (Rev. 7:15-17). These expressions are rich and full of
meaning. The saints, well cared for, sheltered by the presence of God, are secure.
The sun shall not strike them, nor any scorching heat—symbols of the hardships,
pain, and affliction that come to believers in this world. None of these sufferings
afflict the saints in glory. Secure, sheltered, cared for, singing praises, serving God
day and night—what is your estimate of their happiness? Do you think that the
saints in heaven ever read the headlines we must read? Do you think that they ever
see the violence and the brutality and the pain portrayed before our eyes one
newscast after another? Do they ever worry about the averages catching up with
them, that one day, serious trouble will befall them? Do they ever feel a twitch of
pain? Do you think that they are ever sad? The saints who have come from great
tribulation now live the victory of those words in Luther’s battle hymn of the Reformation, “And take they our life, goods, fame, child, and wife, let these all be gone,
they yet have nothing won; the Kingdom ours remaineth!”
Can We Fellowship with the Saints?
But a more urgent question lingers: is there any way we may fellowship with
the saints while we remain here on earth? Someone answered that question this
way: faith unites us, and does so even though we are very much conscious of the
great divide between time and death. There is a bond that draws us close to them,
and that bond is our common Lord Jesus Christ. O, we wish to be near the saints,
the loved ones we yet cherish in love. We are homesick for them. To hear their
voices, to know again the touch of their hands, to be in their presence, sitting across
a table, to step out and share life with them—what we would give for just one day
with our loved ones! How we would plan the day, and fill that day with important
and delightful ventures. We would have much catching up to do, so many things to
tell and to share.
Such longing on our part draws us to the place of their rest, to the graveyard, to
the cemetery. But, do you know, if we wish to be close and near to our loved ones who
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died in the Lord, the place is not the cemetery, where only their physical remains lie
at rest. The place to have communion with them, to be close, is here, near to the
Lord at the Lord’s Table. The Holy Communion of the Lord is the Sacrament that
links us to Him and to the saints who celebrate and praise Him. The text in
Revelation tells us that the Lamb is in the midst of the throne, and He is their
Shepherd, caring for them in every way. Today, this same Lamb is truly present
here, the Lamb of God, who gives us heavenly food, His very Body and Blood together with the bread and the wine, for the cleansing of our robes, cleansing from
the marks and tarnishes of sin. With Him, we have closeness of fellowship and
unity with our departed loved ones who are so beautifully cared for and protected in
Him and His presence in heaven. Let us be at this table without fail! Partaking of
Christ and His strength and life, let us be busy serving Him as do the saints,
serving our blessed Lord through the remainder of our lives. It is like getting an
early start, and joyfully so, before our coronation with them in glory.
Conclusion
Is it well with our departed loved ones? A marquee on a church lawn reads,
“Faith is trusting God even when questions go unanswered.” Some things, yes,
many things, we do not comprehend nor understand. From that same cemetery in
the Old City of Jerusalem, there yet is another epitaph on the tombstone of another British soldier who fell as a member of those Palestine Police, again a lad 27
years old. It reads and expresses what we are feeling this All Saints Day about our
loved ones: “We’ll meet again at God’s right hand and then we’ll understand!”
Amen
Richard H. Warneck
Twenty-fourth Sunday after Pentecost (Proper 27)
Exodus 3:1-15
November 11, 2007
The preceding context: Exodus 1 describes the brutal oppression of God’s people
as slaves in Egypt. The second chapter introduces Moses—his birth, adoption,
flight to Midian, and marriage. The final verses of chapter two, however, return to
the theme of Israel’s suffering in Egypt. Their groaning and crying become prayers
to God, and the chapter ends: “And God heard their groaning, and God remembered
his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob. And God saw the sons of
Israel. And God knew” (Ex. 2:24-25). The fourfold repetition of “God” as subject
along with these verbs of attentiveness and empathy create a strong sense of
anticipation in the narrative. All eyes are on the God of Abraham. Certainly He
will not leave His people in such suffering.
Textual observations: As Exodus 3 shifts the scene back to Moses in Midian,
the pericope is peppered with one verbal root: “see” (har). As Moses leads the flock,
the angel of Yahweh appears (Niphal of har) to Moses in a fiery flame (v. 2). Then
Moses turns aside to see (har) this great sight (a noun form of har, v. 3). Yahweh sees
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that Moses has turned aside to see (v. 4). In verse 7, God announces climactically:
yMi[Þ ; ynI[ï -\ ta, ytiyair² " haorï "
I have surely seen the affliction of My people…
Here is an emphatic double use of “see” (har), with the Infinitive Absolute
acting as an intensifier. The final two words of this clause form a sound pair,
heightening the emphasis on this line, and verse 7 continues, “…and I have heard
([mv) their cries from before their slave-drivers; indeed, I know ([dy) their sufferings.” All of this contributes to a strong picture of an engaged, watchful, empathic
God, moved by His people’s sufferings and struggles.
God’s watchfulness is not idle; it flows into a promise of action in verse 8: “I
will descend to rescue them from the hand of Egypt and to bring them up from that
land to a good and spacious land, flowing with milk and honey….”
In verse 10, God announces Moses’ role in His saving plan. While Moses registers his objection (“Who am I, that I should go to Pharaoh?”), Exodus 3:1-15 should
not be preached as the “Hesitant Moses” pericope. That theme emerges clearly in
the next chapter. Here, God’s reply maintains a theocentric focus: “I will be (hy<ha. ,)
with you” (v. 12).
Moses’ hypothetical question “What is His name?” (v. 13) and God’s conclusive
“This is my name forever” (v. 15) bracket the final section of the narrative. In
between, God declares Himself as “I am who I am” (hy<ha. (, rv,a] hy<ha. ,) and connects this
with the divine name Yahweh. Rather than waxing philosophical on “the I Am,” it
may be best to trace this “name” back through the hy<ha. , of verse 12 (“I will be with
you”) to the concrete self-description of God in verses 6-11, especially to all of the
first-person verbs. To these could be added the “I will certainly visit you” of verse
16. Who is this God? He is the God who has remembered His covenant with Abraham,
who has surely seen, heard, and known the sufferings of the people, and who is
about to come down, deliver them, bring them up to a good land—He will be with
them. This is the essence of the name “Yahweh.”
The Exodus context: The narrative is one of three fiery scenes in Exodus: the
burning bush (Ex. 3), the fire on Sinai (Ex. 20), and the fire of God’s glory-presence
in the Tabernacle (Ex. 40: 34, 38). All three scenes include not only fire, but also an
emphasis on holiness and the question of access/approach. Together, they frame
one of Exodus’ great themes: “Exodus cannot be described simply as the book of the
holiness of the Lord, nor simply as the book of the presence of the Lord, but as the
book of the holy God present in all his holiness at the heart of the people’s life, their
provident saviour and friend, who makes provision whereby they, in all their unworthiness, may live safely with him” (J.A. Motyer, The Message of Exodus, 25).
The episode of the golden calf and the ensuing conversation between Moses
and Yahweh (Ex. 32-34) is also a key text in developing this theme. How can God go
about with a stiff-necked and unfaithful people? God’s answer to this dilemma
flows from His mercy (Ex. 34:6-7) and will be manifested in the tabernacle, its
priests, its altar, and its sacrifices.
The burning bush account in Exodus 3 serves to introduce the problem and
highlights the character of God which creates the dilemma in the first place. God in
His fiery holiness cannot be approached by sinners. Yet God in His compassion,
His will to save, and His desire to be with His people cannot remain far off! In
drawing Moses near, even as He warns him about approaching, God reveals in
microcosm His seeing, calling, and being with the sons of Israel…and us.
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Christ and the Burning Bush: In the fullness of time, the Angel of the Lord
came down from heaven clothed not in flame but in flesh. He called prostitutes and
priests alike to follow him. His eyes looked upon the beggars, the blind, the leprous, the demon-possessed, the desperate; He listened to their cries; He knew their
pains. In fact, no one on earth has known the pain of humanity like the Angel of the
Lord. From the mount of the burning bush he declared: “I know their sufferings”
(Ex. 3:7). Yet from the mount of the Cross, He declares: “I know your sufferings, for
I myself have borne them.”
Peter writes: “For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the
unrighteous, that he might bring us to God.” Jesus knows our pains. He has come
down to deliver us. He has brought us to God. Already, we draw near and worship
Him acceptably, with reverence and awe, for our God is a consuming fire (Heb.
12:28-29).
One day soon, the light and momentary sufferings of this life will be laid aside.
Jesus will come. He will gather us from the ends of the earth and bring us into the
presence of God and of the Lamb. He will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire.
And we will not hide our eyes, but we will lift up our heads in joy and look upon the
face of God.
Suggested Outline:
I. Where is God when everything is going wrong?
II. The Story of the Burning Bush.
III. Observations re: the God of the Burning Bush.
A. He sees, hears, knows (vv. 7, 9).
B. He remembers His promises (v. 6; cf. 2:24).
C. He acts to rescue His people (vv. 8, 10).
D. He promises to be with them (v. 12).
E. This is His “name”—how He desires to be known to us!
IV. In Jesus Christ, the God of the Burning Bush has appeared for you.
(A. through E. above as embodied in Jesus’ saving work and Name.)
Thomas J. Egger
Twenty-fifth Sunday after Pentecost (Proper 28)
Malachi 4:1-6
November 18, 2007
General considerations: The ancient Stoics thought of the world as originally
existing in a pristine, perfect, uncorrupted state, which they looked upon as the
Golden Age. Then corruption set in, and the world got progressively worse. When
things became too bad, the universal logos would step in and bring it to an end in a
great conflagration, and a new world would rise out of the ashes of the old. This
process will continue ad infinitum.
This is not unlike the view of many people today who look upon an earlier
period, such as the time of their childhood or young adulthood, as a better, more
wholesome age. The general view is that things are getting progressively worse
politically, environmentally, morally, educationally, etc. Someone has recently projected that if the human race were removed from the face of the earth, the world
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would recover environmentally from its damaged condition and in time return to
an ecologically harmonious, pristine state.
Obviously these views have parallels in Scripture’s picture of the world having
been created in a perfect state with uncorrupted human beings and nature living in
perfect harmony, with no death or deterioration of any kind. Then sin entered and
everything was on a slippery slope to its eventual destruction at the end of time.
Somewhat like Stoicism’s universal logos, God will bring the old and wicked order
to an end and recreate a new and perfect heaven and earth because of the redemptive work of His Son. This is largely the prevailing message of the Scripture readings for the end of a church year. Our text this morning is no exception.
Textual considerations: Malachi is the last of the Old Testament prophets ,writing the last book of the Old Testament before a hiatus of four hundred years between the two Testaments. It is certainly fitting that the Old Testament should
begin with the creation of a perfect world with perfect people and a harmonious
natural order. The first three chapters of Genesis begins with three major and
dramatic events: (1) the creation of a perfect world, including perfect people; (2) the
fall of Adam and Eve and the consequential punishment of death and destruction
of all human beings and the natural order; and (3) the promise of a Savior who
would redeem mankind and prepare the way for the creation of a new heaven and
a new earth.
In our text the Old Testament has come full cycle as a nice transition to the
New Testament. Here we have a counterpart to, or a reminder of, the three events
in Genesis 1-3 in the reminder of the final day of destruction when the evildoers
will be like stubble, set ablaze, and totally destroyed–”totally eradicated” (v. 1)
and “become like ashes” (v. 3). Next, there is the promise of a Savior, with the
promise that the “sun of righteousness” (Christ) shall “arise with healing in its
wings” and tread down the wicked (clearly recalling the imagery of Genesis 3:15).
The promise of a Messiah is continued in verse 5 with the promise of Elijah (Christ’s
forerunner, John the Baptist), who will precede the “awesome day of the Lord,” the
birth of the Christ child. Then in verse 6 we have a promise of renewal or the
restoration of harmony in the human family (“he will turn the hearts of fathers to
their children and the hearts of children to their fathers”). No more Cains killing
Abels or serpents biting human heels. In other words, there will be a new heaven
and a new earth.
Homiletical considerations: The text recalls the three major events recounted
at the beginning of Genesis, which are the three major themes of the Christian
message: creation, the advent of sin and its consequential punishments, and the
promise of a Messiah, reiterated here in verses 2 and 5.
Just as Malachi transitions his readers for the end of the old dispensation and
the beginning of the Messianic age, so the last Sundays in the church year prepare
us to move from the long Pentecost season to that of Advent. This text contains
both the somber strains of judgment and final conflagration and the anticipated
dawn of God’s new order.
The text includes a lot of imagery that can be further developed and integrated
into the sermon. The “burning like an oven” and “shall set them ablaze” can recall
the flaming sword placed at the entrance to the Garden of Eden to keep Adam and
Eve out, the raining down of fire and brimstone, and the New Testament picture of
hell as an everlasting fire or fiery furnace. One of the descriptions of those who will
be punished is “arrogant.” Arrogance or pride is usually considered the real sin
that motivated Adam and Eve to eat the forbidden fruit. The reference to Christ as
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“the sun of righteousness” certainly identifies Jesus as the sinless Son of God who
will bring us true righteousness through faith in His redemptive work on the cross.
“You shall go out leaping like calves from the stall” suggests the new sympathy
that will exist between man and nature–a return to the perfect harmony prior to
the fall. The new harmony between father and children, or parent and child, will
bring to an end the disharmony that began immediately with the fall when Adam
blamed Eve for his sin (I cannot imagine a wife becoming more irate and upset
with her husband than when Adam blames Eve for leading the world into sin) and
when Cain kills his brother. The text ends with the threat of complete destruction
hanging over the human race if they do not repent and return to God through the
work of the promised Messiah.
Suggested outline:
The Three Great Themes of Scripture and the Christian Faith
I. Creation.
A. The original creation was a perfect paradise in which universal harmony
prevailed.
B. The new heaven and earth will be even better than their original manifestation in that sin will not be allowed to recur.
II. Sin and its punishment.
A. Punishments were meted out to Adam, Eve, and the entire created order.
B. The world is still under God’s judgment and we experience those punishments every day of our lives.
III. The promise and coming of a Savior.
A. Malachi and the people of the Old Testament lived in anticipation of the
Messiah.
B. We live and will soon rejoice in the certainty of Christ’s advent and the
completion of His redemptive work, which prepares the way for God’s
bringing into existence a new heaven and earth.
Quentin F. Wesselschmidt
Last Sunday of the Church Year (Proper 29)
Malachi 3:13-18
November 25, 2007
Preliminary Considerations: After 9/11 many Christians throughout the world
questioned the justice of God in Christ. More recently, at the collapse of the I-35
Bridge spanning the Mississippi River in Minneapolis, Minnesota, resulting in the
loss of life and injury, the justice of God remains questioned. Perhaps the issue
that continues to irritate many Christians relates to unbelievers who seem to have
all material things, that is, ‘luck’ going their way. With wars and rumors of war,
pestilence, the murder of families, and the starvation of so many throughout the
world, God remains a just God. He shows no favoritism. Yet those who continue to
spurn His love and justice, serving themselves with their good works and not the
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Creator God, He will as separate the wicked from the righteous. God is a just God.
The context of these verses addresses why Israel waits in vain for the Lord’s judgment and salvation. It is not because of the Lord; it is due to the ongoing transgression of God’s commandments for holy living. In spite of this, those who continue to
live by works believe that they are righteous in the sight of God. As a result,
Malachi shows them their sin of trying to defraud God by their work righteousness.
Yahweh now deals with the impatient murmuring and complaints of His people
toward those whom they believe get all of the breaks in life. As God’s covenant
people, they have done all that the Lord asks in worship and service, yet they do not
see any reward, while those who continue to live their work-righteous life have it
all. This complaining is unjust. According to His time, the Lord God will distinguish between the wicked and those who fear the Lord and walk in His way. As
God’s people who feared and loved Him, they continued to see this apparent injustice by God. As a result, they sat around as we do today and chatted about seeing
the general hypocrisy and wickedness by those who claim to follow God. The Lord
God heard their conversations. And so, a Book of Remembrance was written before
Him. This was a common practice in Persia, Judah and Israel. This book was
written before Yahweh in order that it might lie before Yahweh and remind Him of
the righteous and their deeds of faith. This is not a work of supererogation, but
God’s covenant grace. It is always profitable to serve the Lord by faith alone.
God is a Just God
We live in a world that does not seem fair. The world is not fair. Only the Lord
God of Sabaoth is fair and just. We see many unbelievers, or those who want to
serve both God and the flesh, reap great financial and social rewards. I have heard
many Christians say, “It just doesn’t seem fair. They mock and spurn God and yet
they come away with the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.” And so, we rail
against God at His seemingly unjust approach to those who serve Him. Those who
do evil in the sight of the Lord appear to prosper, while those who serve Him
struggle from paycheck to paycheck. How can anyone reconcile this apparent injustice? God in Christ is the only one on whom we rely for His justice. By His grace, we
know that on the last great Day of Judgment, we will see Him separate the wicked
from those who serve God. God is a just God. God’s justice is not blind.
Outline:
I. God’s justice is not blind.
A. God sees the unbelievers prospering in the world (v. 15).
B. God sees the unbelievers put Him to the test and escape (v. 15).
II. God’s justice is fair and just.
A. The word of God sees and hears those who do not serve Him (v. 18).
B. The word of God sees and hears those who serve Him (13, 14, 17).
Conclusion: We live in a world that does not seem fair and just to those who by
blood, sweat, and tears continue to live from paycheck to paycheck. The saying
goes: “The rich get richer and the poor get poorer.” Where is justice to be found? It is
found in Christ Jesus, who came to seek and to save all sinners from sin, death,
and the power of the devil. His justice is not blind. His justice is fair and just to all.
He will judge all persons by their deeds. Those who live a hedonistic, arrogant life
style, seeking to ‘have their cake and eat it too,’ will be separated from those who by
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faith alone live the life of Christ in this world. Do not despair and wonder why good
things happen to wicked people. God is not mocked. God is a just God. This we know
because He is True God and True Man.
Robert W. Weise
Advent 1
Romans 13: (8-10) 11-14
December 2, 2007
Comments on the text: 1. Two factors mentioned in the text prompt the unique
Christian behavior called for in the text. The one is a command: “Owe no man any
thing, but to love one another” (v. 8). The other is a promise: “Now is our salvation
nearer” (v. 11). The debt of love we owe our neighbor and the imminence of our full
salvation attendant upon the second coming of Jesus deserve from us everyday
conduct appropriate to these phenomena.
2. The dominant metaphor in verses 11-14 is that of time, more specifically
day and night images: “knowing the time,” “it is high time,” “awake out of sleep,”
“now is our salvation nearer,” “the night is far spent,” “the day is at hand,” “cast off
the works of darkness,” and “walk honestly as in the day.” Even the clothing metaphors, “put on the armour of light” and “put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ,” are
consistent with these day and night images since getting dressed is an activity we
associate with waking up from a night’s sleep and getting up for a day’s activity.
3. The day versus night images in this text are useful in providing a fuller
picture of evil. Evil is something we need to awaken from as well as refrain from.
Evil can be passive as well as active. Evil consists of lethargy in respect to good as
well as occupation in respect to evil. Evil is a condition with which we are afflicted,
not just an activity into which we enter. Evil is inside us, not only outside us.
4. The King James rendition, “chambering” (v. 13), is more clearly translated
as “adultery” or “immorality” in modern versions. Yet the archaic expression “chambering” is more specific and more picturesque, depicting not merely the act of
immorality but also its frequent locale—the bed chamber. “Chambering” is an
instance of metonymy, one thing (the location) calling to mind another thing (the
activity) too often associated with it.
5. We recognize in the ear-filling catalog of sins in verse 13 a familiar distinction: sins of the flesh (“rioting,” “drunkenness,” “chambering,” “wantonness”) versus sins of the disposition (“strife” and “envying”). Society—at least respectable
society (such as church members)—tends to regard the former as worse than the
latter. Whereas society often condemns, ostracizes, banishes, arrests, jails, and
punishes those who commit sins of the flesh, it often tolerates, associates with, or
even welcomes those guilty of sins of the disposition. But Paul pulls no punches. He
calls both kinds of sin “works of darkness.” With God there is no distinction. He
who hates his brother is a murderer as well as the person who kills his brother (1
John 3:15). He who lusts for a woman in his heart is an adulterer as well as the
person who seduces her (Matt. 5:28). None of us, therefore, can escape the scathing
indictment of our text.
6. The garment metaphor of verse 14, “put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ,” subtly
suggests that the cure for evil behavior and the power for good behavior lie not in
ourselves but in Christ. Refraining from evil and performing good are not the
products of human resolution and human will power. Virtue is not of our own
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manufacture; it is something from outside us, given to us and placed upon us like
an article of clothing.
7. The portrait of the second coming of Christ on Judgment Day in our text is
the positive correlative to the more negative portrait of that event in the alternate
Gospel for this Sunday (Matt. 24: 36-44), in which there are ominous pictures of
people caught unaware by the end of the world and in which we are urged to be on
guard for that event as we would be on guard for a surprise burglary. But in our text
we are reminded that what is imminent is “salvation,” a pleasant word describing
a pleasant entity. Besides, the text depicts that salvation as an accomplished fact.
“It is finished,” as Jesus said on the cross. Expressions like “Judgment Day” or
“the end of the world” may have negative connotations, but the phrase “salvation
nearer” puts the phenomenon in a more positive light. The phrase reminds us of
the fabulous blessing that comes to us Christians when human life and human
history are over. “The day is at hand” (v. 12) is another pleasant way in which the
text calls to mind our glorious future. Hence, Christ’s second coming is not only
something about which we are cautioned, “Watch therefore” and “be ye also ready
for” (Matt. 24: 42 and 44), but also something for which we are urged to “look up,
and lift up [our] heads; for [our] redemption draweth nigh” (Luke 21:28).
8. The “avoid evil” imperatives of verses 11-14 are sandwiched between two
discussions of Christian love, a generic one in verses 8-10 of the text and a specific
one about the application of that principle to disagreements over the eating of
certain foods and the observance of certain days in the verses following the text
(chapter 14). The point suggested is that Christian behavior consists not only of
the avoidance of evil (negative and passive) but also of the practice of love (positive
and active).
9. “Flesh” in verse 14 refers not to the human body but to the body of sin.
“Flesh” is another term for our sinful nature, what we sometimes call our old
Adam or old man. When Paul says, “make not provision for the flesh,” he is urging
us not to pamper our sinful nature, not to look out for the welfare of our old Adam.
For example, “make not provision for the flesh” means that if you cannot hold your
drinks, stay away from the bar. If you have sticky fingers, do not run for the office of
treasurer. If you are plagued with filthy thoughts, do not watch a beauty contest. If
you consistently lose your temper at bridge, give up cards. The power for carrying
out Paul’s injunction, “make not provision for the flesh,” lies in the words immediately preceding that injunction: “put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ.” Clothing ourselves with Christ’s righteousness will empower our obedience.
Suggested outline:
Paul’s Advent Challenge to Us
I. Recognize that our full and completed salvation attendant upon Christ’s second coming is nearer (v. 11).
II. Recognize that so near and so great a salvation (vv. 12-13), as well as the debt
of love we owe our neighbor (vv. 8-10), deserves everyday conduct appropriate
to these phenomena.
III. Recognize that the Gospel, “putting on the Lord Jesus Christ,” is God’s means
by which to meet Paul’s challenge (v. 14).
Francis C. Rossow
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Advent 2
Romans 15:4-13
December 9, 2007
In our day a challenge of preaching in Advent, it seems, is to avoid celebrating
the incarnation before Christmas arrives. On the Sundays in Advent (Year A) the
key is to look toward the Savior as King (received with joy), as Judge (received with
repentance), as Prophet (the coming of the kingdom of God, a spiritual kingdom)
and, finally, with great rejoicing at the arrival of Immanuel (God with us). On this
second Sunday of Advent, Romans 15:4-13 accents “hope,” which is linked to the
joy at Christmas on the arrival of a Savior and with giving glory to God for his great
gift. Indeed, did not Isaiah look for a shoot to come from a stump (new life, a
spiritual blossoming) as a signal for the nations? Can there be true joy without
hope preceding it? Real praise without hope for something? Hope encompasses all
that Advent seeks.
Romans 15 makes the case for “hope” which Scripture encourages (v. 4) and
with which the Holy Spirit would fill us (v. 13). The preacher will seek to offer the
listeners hope in a Savior who empties Himself of glory and heavenly honor for the
sake of those who can bring no righteousness of their own before God. He will help
the hearers take their focus off purely human celebrations, off material gift-giving
and off any unpredictable factors that the world considers key to a full and wholesome life.
For the believer “hope” (evlpi,da) has godly content. It is more than expectation
of some kind of future, good or bad, or a comfort in time of distress. While it is free
of anxiety (Is. 7:3-9), it is not based on riches (Job 31:24) or the accumulation of
things as our consumer society teaches. Rather it is an expectation of good; it is a
yearning for God’s actions (Jer. 17:7). Indeed, hope is a quiet waiting on God (Is.
30:15; 2 Cor. 1:3). It is faith—the conviction of things not seen (Heb. 11:10)—that
it is God who created all things, that it is good to follow the Lord’s command, and
that is looking to Jesus who endured the cross and now sits at the right hand of the
throne of God. It is a steadfast hope “in our Lord Jesus Christ” because we are
loved by God (1 Thess. 1:3). Hope is linked with faith and with love (1 Cor. 13:13),
for a true giving of self in love results from faith and hope. What then results when
hope “abounds”? We are filled with all knowledge, we have an ability to instruct
one another, and we are an acceptable offering sanctified by the Holy Spirit (Rom.
15:14-16).
Hope is not focused on avoiding anxiety or achieving a sense of security or
finding a preferred happy state of being. It focuses on the bringer of good gifts, the
Lord Jesus Christ, servant of all. It wants to glorify God, as the four quotations
from Holy Scripture illustrate, namely, David’s song of deliverance from his enemies and from Saul, “The Lord is my rock and my fortress” (2 Sam. 22:50), the
psalmist’s call for “all peoples” to praise the LORD because “the faithfulness of
the LORD endures forever (Ps. 117:1), the Song of Moses which proclaims “the
name of the LORD” (Deut. 32:43), and Isaiah’s prophecy of the coming of the “root
of Jesse” (Is. 11:10), the very one who “has conquered” (Rev. 5:5) and who is the
“bright morning star”—named Jesus (Rev. 22:16). The season of Advent then rightly
climaxes in a twelve day Christmas celebration with its glorious music in honor of
the incarnation of the Savior of the world. Our hope rests on Him who comes.
Abounding in hope, we are filled with “joy” and “peace” in believing. Joy is about
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the kingdom of God (Rom. 14:17) and faith (Phil. 1:25). Joy is a fruit of the Spirit
(Gal. 5:22). We can even rejoice in suffering because this produces endurance, and
endurance produces character, and character produces hope (Rom. 5:2-4). So we
take part in a fellowship of both weeping and rejoicing with others (Rom. 12:15; 1
Thess. 1:6). This joy in the Lord colors our lives now; in eternity it will be experienced fully in the presence of our God surrounded by endless hallelujahs.
But hope is also attached to “peace.” Godly peace is more than the opposite of
war; it is a state of well-being, a condition of being whole, a gift of the Lord. Peace
is what God wants us to have as a normal condition (1 Cor. 14:33). “Peace” is
frequently part of a New Testament greeting and of a closing to a Pauline letter.
Simeon, who waited a lifetime for the “consolation of Israel,” has “peace” when
before his death he takes the child Jesus in his arms (Luke 2:29). Real peace is
knowing that we are reconciled with the Lord—all tensions of separation and of
doubt about our future disappear. It comes when our minds are set on the Spirit
(Rom. 8:6). Peace is ours when Christ comes to us, dwells among us, and draws us
to Himself. To abound in hope is to have this joy and peace in Jesus.
Outline:
Waiting until He Comes—A Time of Hope
I. Everyone wants hope.
II. God wants His people to abound in hope.
A. More than “some kind of future,” it is confidence in His blessing.
B. Not worldly stuff, seeking a celebrity image or pursuit of constant “happiness.”
III. Hope rests on faith in Christ (God’s great act of mercy).
IV. With hope come joy and peace.
James L. Brauer
Advent 3
James 5: 7-11
December 16, 2007
Comments on the text: 1. The Epistle for this Sunday (our text) describes Christ’s
return on Judgment Day as something definitely worth waiting for. The OT reading
(Is. 35:1-10) reinforces this generalization with numerous and vivid images, describing both the Messianic age and the completion of that age attendant upon
Christ’s second coming in terms of wilderness and desert areas becoming habitable and productive (vv. 1-2, 7); the absence of ferocious beasts (vv. 7 and 9); the
fearful becoming bold and the handicapped becoming whole (vv. 3-6); and the exiled
returning home and the sorrowful rejoicing (v. 10). Whereas our text is concerned
with the imminence of Christ’s second coming, the Gospel (Matt. 11:2-15) is concerned with the identity of the Christ at His first coming. The “Art Thou He that
should come?” of the Gospel is paralleled (in effect) by the ‘How soon art Thou to
come?’ of our text. Further, John the Baptist’s patience and perseverance in prison
is no doubt one of the models James had in mind when in verse 10 of our text he
points to “the prophets” as “an example of suffering affliction, and of patience.”
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2. The word “therefore” at the beginning of our text invites the question, “What
is it there for?” The answer is that it connects our text to the immediately preceding context (James 5:1-6). In that passage, James describes the cruelty, corruption,
and unfairness of certain rich people. In our text, James turns to the victims of
their practices, urging them to exercise Christian patience. Actually, our text is
connected to the broader context too. The issue of patience and perseverance in our
text is a return to the very issue with which James began his letter (1:2-4). In short,
patience is not merely the theme of this text—it is the theme of James’s letter.
3. “Be patient…unto the coming of the Lord” are the opening words of the text.
Does James mean that we should be patient about people and events in general
until Christ’s second coming (as the word “unto” suggests)? Or does he mean that
we should wait patiently for that coming itself? Is the Lord’s return on Judgment
Day the object of our patience? Verse 10 seems to support the former; verses 7-8
seem to support the latter. Possibly, the question poses a false dichotomy, and the
answer arrived at is a distinction without a difference. Ultimately, James intends
that we do both: exercise patience during the period between now and the Lord’s
second coming as well as wait patiently for that event itself.
4. Like the Word of God itself, the second coming of Jesus is a “two edged
sword” (Heb. 4:12). As welcome as an abundant harvest (v. 7), Christ’s return on
Judgment Day, nevertheless, has also an ominous aspect for those prone to complain and grumble against their fellow Christians. “Behold, the judge standeth
before the door” (v. 9).
5. But the door the judge stands before is not only a door of condemnation, nor
is the Lord who stands before it only a judge. Revelation 3:20 says of Jesus, “Behold, I stand at the door, and knock: if any man hear My voice, and open the door, I
will come into him, and will sup with him, and he with Me.” Here we have a door of
mercy letting in a Savior, not a judge. We point to this Gospel aspect of the door
image not to offset the necessary Law James provides in our text but to realize the
Gospel for which that Law is designed.
6. As more recent translations clarify, “the end of the Lord” in verse 11 means
“the goal or purpose of the Lord.”
7. It is significant that after mentioning the prophets in general and Job
specifically as models for patience and perseverance, James ends up with a reference to the Lord’s pity and mercy (vv. 10 and 11). Models can be helpful. They may
encourage us. They provide specific patterns for us to imitate. But we need more
than models to attain virtue. We need means. God’s pity and mercy as evidenced in
the life, damnation, death, and resurrection of His Son constitute that means.
Only the Gospel can function as the means by which we attain virtue, in general,
and patience and perseverance, in particular.
8. “The Lord is very pitiful, and of tender mercy” (v. 11) echoes Psalm 103:8.
The first part of this assurance emphasizes how God feels about us; the second
part emphasizes how God acts in our behalf. God’s love is never an abstraction. It
always has teeth in it. “God is love” always means that “God loves.”
Suggested outline:
James’s Advent Challenge: Practice Patience!
I. Patience “unto the coming of the Lord” (vv. 7-8).
A. Patience until the time of the Lord’s coming.
B. Patience for the Lord’s coming.
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II. Patience with other people.
A. “Behold, the judge standeth before the door” (Law; v. 9).
B. “Behold, I stand at the door, and knock” (Gospel; Rev. 3:20).
III. Patience in suffering (vv. 10-11).
A. Models for patience: the prophets and Job (vv. 10-11).
B. Means to patience: the pity and mercy of God (v. 11b).
Francis C. Rossow
Advent 4
Romans 1:1-7
December 23, 2007
Lectionary matters: One cannot help but notice that in Lutheran Service Book’s
(LSB) Year A, the Advent 4 readings, except for the Epistle, are the same as those
for Christmas Eve. On further examination we see that the Christmas Eve, Midnight, Dawn, and Day readings are the same in years A, B, and C, employing for
Midnight what had been The Lutheran Hymnal’s (TLH) Christmas Day readings,
for Dawn TLH’s Second Christmas Day readings and for Christmas Day the glorious prologue of John’s Gospel (1:1-14), which is not found in the Christmas cycle of
TLH’s one-year lectionary. (As many may know, the LSB three-year readings follow
closely that of the Revised Common Lectionary, an ecumenical lectionary used by
most North American church bodies—a Protestant version of the Roman Catholic
post-Vatican II three-year lectionary.) The benefit of the LSB Christmas readings
is that they present the Matthew, Luke, and John pericopes every year and place
the Lukan birth account at the Midnight and Dawn services. In the Matthew year,
lest it be omitted when it is not used on Christmas Eve, the Isaiah 7 and Matthew1 link of Old Testament and Gospel also occurs on the fourth Sunday of Advent. What else from Matthew would be used in the “Matthew year” (A), if one does
not want to employ the genealogy in Matthew 1:1-17? Therefore, since Year A
employs Romans as a “continuous reading,” primarily from Proper 3 to Proper 14
(during the post-Pentecost season), the final Advent Sunday in Year A gets a strong
Epistle about the mystery of the incarnation (Rom. 1:1-7). It thus becomes the
distinctive element in A’s Advent 4 readings!
Paul’s incarnational emphasis: The viewpoint of one who is “called to be an
apostle” (v. 1) to those “who are called to belong to Christ” (v. 6) and especially to
“those in Rome who are…called to be saints” (v. 7). For the “called” according to
God’s purpose, all things will work together for good (Rom. 8:28). Furthermore,
they are called to be saints (1 Cor. 1:2). For them, whether Jew or Greek, the power
and wisdom of God come through the preaching of Christ crucified (1 Cor. 1:24). By
that Gospel the called and sanctified are also “kept for Jesus Christ” (Jude 1), for
the Lamb, Lord of Lords and King of Kings, made war against the enemies of the
kingdom and overcame them all. Those who are with Jesus are “called, chosen, and
faithful” (Rev. 17:14). So the story of the divine yet human Savior must go forth
with power proclaiming the risen Christ and drawing all nations to trust, obey, and
honor the Lord and Savior of all.
Features of the gift: Jesus Christ was “promised beforehand” when Isaiah con-
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fronted the idolater King of Judah, Ahaz, who rejected any “sign” from God. Nevertheless, a sign was given that a virgin would bear a son, called Immanuel (God with
us). How was this to be? Jesus Christ was descended from a human king, David.
The genealogy of the royal line—fourteen generations, from Abraham to David,
from David to Jeconiah, from Jeconiah to Joseph (husband of Mary)—is given in
Matthew 1:1-17, which precedes today’s Gospel. But Jesus Christ was also the Son
of God. Matthew 1:18 says Mary “was found to be with child of the Holy Spirit” and
in v. 20, “that which is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit.” This fulfilled the
promise of God given through Isaiah; it was accomplished “in power according to
the Spirit of holiness” (Rom. 1:4). Luther gives strong insight into the mystery of
God’s way of saving and of calling into service when he comments on Matthew 7:14:
How the dear Virgin Mary must have felt when the angel came and brought
her the message that she was to be the mother of the Highest! (Luke 1:26
ff.) Who was standing near her and believed this or that supported her? .
. . Could not God have found any other one for this high work? Yet the only
virgin He called to it was she, a poor, unknown, and despised maiden.
What should the patriarch Abraham have done when he had to move out
of Chaldea (Gen. 12:1 ff.) . . . . [H]e had to say, “I will cling to His Word and
follow that, regardless of whether I see the whole world going differently.”
So also Mary must have thought: “I shall let God worry about what He is
to do with others. I will abide by the Word that I hear, telling me what He
plans to do with me.” [Luther, Martin. Luther’s Works, Vol. 21: The Sermon
on the Mount and the Magnificat , ed. by J. J. Pelikan, H. C. Oswald & H.
T. Lehmann (Saint Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1965.)]
The Lord of the universe, working through signs, wonders, and the word of the
Holy Spirit, “declares” (v. 5) the resurrected victor to be the Son of God. He is the
Immanuel (“God with us”).
Indeed, it is through Jesus Christ that we receive “grace.” Since we have no
claim on the gift, this grace is a quality of God (Gal. 2:2), actualized in the cross and
proclaimed to sinners in the Gospel (Rom. 3:23-24). By grace we are called to be
God’s sons and daughters (Rom. 5:2) and grace received by faith leads to obedience
(cf. the “obedience of faith” also in Rom. 15:18 and 16:26). This is the fruit of the
promise; namely the work of the God-man Jesus and the distribution of the good
news to the nations for the raising up of saints. Immanuel is the most marvelous
gift! Let the days of celebration for him now begin.
Outline:
A Promised Gift: Immanuel
I. The best gift is one on our list and promised to us by someone dear to us.
II. We seek closeness to God.
A. Like the believers in Rome (v. 7).
B. Promised by prophets, for everyone (v. 2, 5).
C. Undeserved, by “grace” (v. 5).
D. Even death cannot destroy the gift (v. 5).
III. God among us—the Gift.
A. Comes through Jesus Christ, fully human yet fully divine (v. 3, 4).
B. Changes us from rebels to obedient children (v. 5).
C. Faith in Jesus—the key and the gift.
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IV. We “belong to Jesus Christ” (v. 6).
A. Loved by God (v. 7).
B. Called to be “obedient” saints (v. 7).
C. Grace and peace are ours already now (v. 7).
V. Give thanks for Jesus, who brings us grace, peace, love, holiness.
James L. Brauer
First Sunday after Christmas
Galatians 4:4-7
December 30, 2007
Notes on the context and the periscope: I read N. T. Wright’s The Last Word, a
useful little book on the authority of the Scriptures, just as I started to prepare
these notes. He begins his chapter “Scripture and Jesus” where this pericope does:
“When the time had fully come, God sent forth his son…” (Gal. 4:4). What was the
purpose? It was to introduce his argument that the story and promises of God to
restore and reign over creation were brought to its climax when, in the fullness of
time, God sent forth His Son.
The words were apt, but it struck me that he saw this passage just as those
who had selected this pericope: as a freestanding summary concerning God and
His salvation through Jesus Christ the Lord. It is neither new nor necessarily
inappropriate to use the passage in this way, but these comments will assume that
one will want to use this pericope as a passage from Paul’s letter to the Galatians.
Paul summarizes his message in the first four chapters at the beginning of
chapter five: “For freedom, Christ has set us free; stand firm, therefore, and do not
again be subject to a yoke of slavery” (5:1). “The yoke of slavery” has come upon the
Galatians by their submission to circumcision, because this submission binds
them “to do the whole law” (5:3) and estranges them from Christ (5:4), who, once
again, has set them free to wait “for the hope of righteousness” through the Spirit
by faith (5:5).
Paul recognizes, however, that the Galatians do not understand submitting to
circumcision and other observances (e.g., “days and months and seasons and years”
[4:10]) actually entails slavery and other negative consequences. So Paul devotes
much of his letter (chapters three and four) to identifying and explaining the consequences of living by works of the Law, not faith in Christ and the promise: living as
slaves, not as sons; living in bondage, not in freedom; living according to the flesh,
not according to the Spirit; living under the curse of the Law, not with the blessing
of the promise. Clearly his hope is that this explanation will lead them to see the
bind they are getting themselves into and then to return to faith, the Spirit, sonship,
freedom, and promised blessing.
Throughout, Paul assumes the goal is to be the sons of Abraham and to be
blessed with and in him (3:7-9). With this end in view, Paul shows the rightness of
living by faith by pointing out, on the one hand, Abraham was justified and blessed
through faith (3:6-9), and on the other hand, those who rely on works are cursed
(3:10). More than this, Paul shows relying on works effectively denies the significance of Christ’s death on the cross. On the cross, Christ redeemed us from the
curse by becoming a curse for us (3:13). Furthermore, Paul establishes that righ-
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teousness is through faith, not works of the Law, by pointing out the Law came 430
years after the promise to Abraham and his offspring; therefore it does not annul
this promise (3:15-18). And so it makes sense to reject the way of Law and works
and instead live by faith in the promise.
Paul then responds to two likely questions. The first is: “Then why was the law
given?” (3:19) Paul says it was added [later] because of transgressions, to be in
effect until the offspring came to whom the promise was made (cf. 3:16). This
answer leads to another question: “Is the law contrary to God’s promises?” “By no
means!” is Paul’s emphatic reply. “If a law able to give life had been given, then
righteousness would indeed be based on the law (evk n,omou)” (3:21). Instead, the Law
serves promise and faith by putting all things under sin, “so that the promise
might be given based on faith in Jesus Christ (evk pisteo Iv esou/ Cristou/) to those who
believe” (3:22). Because of this, Paul likens the Law to a paidagogos, or guardian.
The paidagogos was “the personal slave-attendant who accompanied the free-born
boy wherever he went” (F. F. Bruce, Commentary on Galatians [NIGTC], 182); he
was “a slave employed in Greek and Roman families to have general charge of a
boy in the years from about six to sixteen, watching over his outward behavior and
attending him whenever he went from home, as e.g. to school” (Ernest D. Burton, A
Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Epistle to the Galatians [ICC], 200).
Like a guardian with charge of a young heir, the Law had charge over God’s people
until the age of maturity had been reached with the coming of Christ (3:24). But as
long as one is under the guardian, one is no better than a slave (4:1). “So with us,”
says Paul: “when we were children, we were enslaved to the basic principles of the
world (ta. stoicei/a tou/ ko,smou)” (4:3).
Now we come to our pericope, which explains that the coming of Christ means
that the days of slavery and servitude under the Law had come to an end, and life
as sons had finally arrived. “But when the fullness of time came, God sent forth his
Son, born of a woman, born under law, so that he would set free those under law, so
that we would receive sonship (huiothesian)” (4:4-5). If the time of the Law was
youth, then the sending of Christ marks the age of maturity. If the time of the Law
meant being treated as a slave, then the sending of God’s Son marks the attainment of sonship. Moreover, God’s people now are not only set free through Christ,
but they also share with Christ in sonship and the Spirit: “And because you are
sons, God sent forth the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, ‘Abba! Father!’”
(4:6). Like Christ, we are God’s sons, and like Christ, we have the Holy Spirit.
“Therefore, you are no longer a slave but a son; and if a son, then an heir through
God” (4:7).
To this point, Paul has discussed “slavery” and “freedom” in Israelite terms: of
the covenant to Abraham and of the covenant at Sinai. But Paul then addresses
the Gentile Galatians and their situation. The Gentiles, of course, had not lived
under the terms of Sinai, so they and their forebears had not been in bondage to the
Mosaic Law. Yet, when they did not yet know the living God, they also had been
slaves: not to the Law but to their pagan gods and religions, even if these gods were
by nature no gods at all (4:8). So, in Christ, they also had attained freedom. It
would make no sense that they, whom Christ had freed from their false gods, would
now return to slavery by observing the Jewish ceremonies and traditions.
Notes for preaching: Certainly the message of Paul to the Galatians has the
capacity to speak in all ages and to people in all sorts of situations that trap, bind,
coerce, or oppress them. But the pericope itself might work against this possibility,
because, standing alone, it can obscure the issue and terms of the epistle itself.
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But this feature affords a potential opening for a sermon based on this text.
This pericope is in one way like some Christmas presents: nice, but, to put it gently,
puzzling. “What do you think goes well with this?” “Where do you think we ought to
put it?” “What made you think of this present for me?” This pericope, like these
presents, can leave hearers with questions, including, “Redeemed from what?”
To be sure, this particular pericope invites reflexive answers like this: “Redeemed from sin, death, and the devil.” Certainly Christ has thus redeemed us,
but, like many automatic answers, this one will strike some as abstract, others as
elusive, and perhaps a few as dismissive. But the letter itself provides a more
concrete, more readily grasped, more responsive answer, and the sermon then would
go on to provide this.
This answer might start like this: first, discuss the situation in Galatia—how
the turn to circumcision and other works of the Old Testament Law bound or
obligated the Galatians to keep the whole Law and thereby consigned them to a
curse, not a blessing. Then detail Paul’s response to the question, “Why then the
law?” Finally bring out, as the pericope does, that the coming of Christ means the
freedom from the slavery to the Law, other gods, or other masters, and the attainment of sonship and the Spirit.
After this, continue the answer by relating Paul’s account of redemption to
your hearers. Just as Paul led the Galatians to recognize that Christ had set them
free from slavery both to false gods and to the obligations of the Law, he also leads
us to recognize what Christ has freed us from: worry, guilt, and shame over our good
deeds and good intentions (or lack thereof); other gods, empty spiritualities, agnosticism, or atheism; fears about, or lust for, money, recognition, influence, and health.
These did or could have enslaved you, as they actually do enslave others. But, like
the Galatians, God has set you free from them and adopted you as his “sons,” as his
heirs through your baptism (see 3:26-29).
Then encourage your hearers to guard against falling into bondage to the “basic principles.” The Galatians did without really recognizing it; we might also.
Identify a way in which contemporary Christians give up their freedom and return
to “the basic principles of the world.” Ideally, this way would be something deemed
useful or necessary for Christian life and witness, but actually leads to compromising it: money, the desire to avoid conflict, accepting uncritically the norms,
means, or ends of the marketplace, science, psychology, etc. In short: “For freedom
Christ has set us free” (5:1a); “you are no longer a slave but a son, and if a son, then
also an heir” (4:7); “stand firm, therefore, and do not again be subject to a yoke of
slavery” (5:1b).
Joel P. Okamoto
Epiphany of Our LORD
Ephesians 3:1-12
January 6, 2008
Notes on the context and the periscope: This passage brings out one of Epiphany’s
central themes—the inclusion of the Gentiles in God’s plan and work of salvation.
This theme is central also to Paul’s letter to the Ephesians, and it is expressed
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explicitly in the pericope.
The pericope begins awkwardly, with the subject of a sentence that Paul completes only after a lengthy parenthetical comment. This parenthetical comment,
however, brings out a complete thought, and so this feature poses no obstacle for
preaching.
At this point, Paul has finished explaining the Ephesians’ reconciliation both
to God through the Spirit (“vertically”) and to Israel (“horizontally”). As Gentiles,
the Ephesians had been foreigners with respect to Israel and outsiders with respect to the covenants of the promise. Therefore they had been without hope and
without God (2:12). But in Christ and through his cross, the Gentiles had been
reconciled both to God and to Israel (2:15-16). Now they were no longer strangers
but fellow citizens and members of God’s household with the Jews. Now they had
access through Christ in the Spirit to the Father. Now they were being made into a
dwelling place for God in the Spirit (2:18-22).
The thought that all nations would participate in God’s salvation had been
made known to the Old Testament people of God (for an obvious and useful example, see the Old Testament lesson). But the way in which Israel and the nations
would come together to constitute one people of God had not been made known.
This was accomplished and revealed with the coming of Christ. When Christ came,
the “dividing wall of hostility” made of “the law of commandments and ordinances”
(2:14-15) came down. Christ accomplished their reconciliation. Now they were
being joined together as one people, not only in name but in life and practice. There
were no “separate but equal” arrangements for the people of God.
This way of bringing Jews and Gentiles together is the insight or understanding (sunesij; 3:4) that Paul had into the “mystery of Christ” (musterion tou Christou),
which refers to the redemption and reconciliation that God had always planned
and now had accomplished in Jesus Christ (see also 1:9-10). This redemption and
reconciliation would not only include the Gentiles but include them in such a way
that they and the Jews would comprise one people of God. Paul explains his own
insight into the mystery of Christ this way: “how the Gentiles are sugkleronoma kai
sussoma kai summetoca—the NIV rendering captures the repetition nicely: “heirs
together with Israel, members together of one body, and sharers together—in the
promise of Christ Jesus through the gospel” (3:6).
This mystery had not been made known in the past as it was now (3:5); its full
dimensions had been hidden for ages in God (3:9). Now, however, God had accomplished His eternal purpose in Christ Jesus (3:11). Furthermore, He had made
known completely the mystery of His will to the apostles and prophets by the Holy
Spirit (3:5), to all humankind (3:9), and even to the spiritual “principalities and
powers in the heavenly places” (3:10). And by the gift of God’s grace, Paul also was
made a minister of this gospel (3:7), to preach to the Gentiles the unsearchable
riches of Christ (3:8). And in so doing, he became a prisoner of Christ Jesus on
behalf of the Gentiles (3:1).
Notes for preaching: In this lesson Paul explains and rejoices in God’s plan of
salvation for all people—especially the Ephesian Christians—that now has been
made known in Christ through the preaching of the Gospel. A sermon trying to do
the same would fit this pericope, this occasion (Epiphany), and many congregations in North America (Gentile, that is).
But the distinction between Jew and Gentile that mattered so much for Paul
and the church at Ephesus matters so little to many of us. Part of the reason, to be
sure, is that the situation among Christians changed significantly long ago. Still,
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this shift challenges preachers by making the situation in Paul’s time a matter of
imagination, not personal existence and experience.
Turning this challenge into an opportunity is one way to engage hearers with
this text. If hearers don’t experience this distinction, then try to have them imagine
the situation of the early Gentile Christians like those in Ephesus. To do this, the
preacher might explain why today’s Christians cannot identify with the Ephesians.
For one thing, most contemporary Christians have only a passing acquaintance
with the commandments and ordinances of the Mosaic Law, much less see them as
a “dividing wall of hostility” with other Christians. For another, the question of
“belonging” is barely smoldering in today’s situation; if anything, it is as sociologist Wade Clark Roof has observed: Americans—including Christians—tend more
and more to be “believers, not belongers.” They tend to identify themselves and
their “religiousness” in terms of personal beliefs and experiences, not with institutions like parishes and denominations. More than this, however, many of American Christians do not see the question of salvation bound up with belonging to a
chosen people.
Today’s situation is not altogether healthy. If you don’t appreciate what the
law was and how it functioned, then you run the risk of falling into the trap of the
Galatian Christians: being bound by one form of legalism (a problem with pietism).
If you really think your Christian lives are merely matters of personal belief and
benefit, not in terms of membership in and participation with the family of God,
then you have seriously misunderstood what it means to be a Christian. So, it
could be argued Paul’s message to the ancient Ephesians quite possibly has a lot
to say to us contemporary American Christians.
How does the message of reconciliation in the letter to Ephesians speak today? First, it challenges any sense that salvation is ours by right. Not only is it not
by right because God gives salvation by grace to sinners (see 2:1-10), but also
because He had shown it was for His own chosen people, Israel (see 2:11-22).
Second, it challenges the sense that salvation has to do only with a “personal
relationship with Jesus.” Third, however, it does assure us that God does offer
reconciliation to Himself and to His chosen people in Christ Jesus. Make no mistake about it; this was His will all along. Although it had been glimpsed along the
way, it had been a mystery, but now with the coming of Christ and in the ministry
of apostles and prophets, it had been fully revealed.
Joel P. Okamoto
The Baptism of our LORD
Romans 6:1-11
January 13, 2008
Christians Alive
Looking for what is authentic and genuine in their personal lives, many ask,
“How can I become a better Christian?” Much that passes for “Christian” today is
little more than vague Americana, doing what is expected of every law abiding
citizen. On the surface, such living may appear to be genuine. But it could be a
charade, even hypocritical. Are you looking for more in your Christian life?
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One popular response to this quest is, “Turn everything over to Jesus and ask
God to come into your life!” But not everyone is in such an asking mood. Many are
convinced that God would not set foot in the door, if ever their lives were open to
Him. Another response urges giving up the quest altogether. Why fight it? Christian living? Don’t bother. Besides, in the end God’s grace always exceeds sin. Reportedly, the Russian holy man, Rasputin, held that those who sin boldly and
require the most forgiveness will certainly receive an equal measure of grace and
then some.
Sin freely and comfortably because God will be the more generous toward you.
Really? Right up front in Romans 6, the Apostle Paul takes on such a notion. “Shall
we continue in sin, that grace may abound?” he asks, and in the same breath
answers with a resounding “No!” (Rom. 6:1-2). God gave His Son to redeem sinners, but He did not waste His Son so you and I may continue in sin. Is there an
answer, then, to the question, “How can I become a better Christian?” Yes, the
answer is here, close as St. Paul’s words, but it is a radical answer—and we must
be open to that—as radical as the very death and resurrection of our Lord Jesus
Christ.
I. Death
No one lives better as a Christian until his or her nature suffers a sure and
certain death. Of course, that requires an explanation. No person may become a
better Christian until he or she comes to grips with sin in his or her life. They must
own up to it, and something must be done about it. Have you a program for grappling with sin? We share in Adam’s fall, and our propensity for sin is called “sinful
flesh” in the New Testament. There is no good in it, says St. Paul (Rom. 7:18). You
may call it “the old Adam,” or “old nature.” And, unless it is broken and defeated,
there is no helpful answer to the question, “How may I become a better Christian?”
If you are not asking that question, you may be more seriously enslaved to that
inclination to sin than you realized.
Can you repress the old nature? Can you rise above it by sheer will power and
determination? Can you escape its power and domination over your life? You have
tried these approaches. But the years have taught us the futility of such efforts. A
more radical solution is called for, and St. Paul sets it before us. There is an
expression voiced now and then among disgruntled employees in a company or
among restless students at school. You may even hear it in the church. When people
are frustrated with the central administration of an institution, you may hear it
said, “There is nothing wrong in this situation that a few funerals would not help!”
That is morbid! It should not be said at all, except St. Paul is saying it. What
prevents you and me from becoming better Christians could be resolved by a funeral of a kind! Yes, a funeral for our old sinful nature would be a great help to
living Christianity. St. Paul is not speaking of the funerals cited in the obituary
columns of newspapers. True, death may excuse us from many obligations of life,
but sin is a debt that will not be buried in the grave. Sin follows us into eternity
unless it dies a radical death while we are yet living this side of the grave. How
does this work? Hear the language of the apostle. He states, “...we are buried with
Him (Christ) by baptism into death” (Rom. 6:4a). “...our old man (person) is crucified with Him that the body of sin might be destroyed” (v. 6). “...we have been
planted together in the likeness of His death” (v. 5a). Christ the Son of God became
involved with our sinful nature, not as sinner Himself, but as sin-bearer when He
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laid down His life on the tree of the cross (1 Pet. 2:24). Whether we are in the flower
of youth or in the prime of life or in the crown years of advanced age, there must be
a funeral conducted for this sinful nature. It must suffer the ultimate demise, it
must be united with Christ and it must die in His death on the cross, or else we
may give up seeking to become better Christians!
Radical, so very radical! Tell me, you ask, isn’t there a more civil and convenient way to deal with obstacles and then improve as a Christian? Are there some
other ways to handle the old nature? Think about it. Mostly, if you are sincere about
this matter, you want to repress the inclination to sin, and you think you are
successful, at least most of the time. Yet, the disappointment and the sense of guilt
return to haunt you. Or, you try a different approach. You substitute another pattern of behavior. If you are selfish by nature, you try to be more outgoing and
generous. This works until you go back to the “dog-eat-dog” competition in a world
where survival of the fittest is no game for good hearts and gentle people. So
easily—and predictably—we revert back to selfishness. The “old flesh” wins again.
We learn the hard way the old nature is tough and stubborn. The “old Adam” will
not listen to us. It will not be scolded, embarrassed, restrained, or repressed. It
yields nothing to will power. Neither can we close our eyes in death and be rid of it.
So, we must deal with it. To delay is disaster. There is only one thing to be done. The
“old nature” must die!
Interestingly, it happened that a funeral was arranged for this rebellious sinful nature, the “old nature” which embarrasses you and harasses you and spoils
your best intentions to be a better Christian. Foiled is this “old nature,” pulling you
back two steps for every step forward in Christian living. Yes, a funeral was arranged, and that funeral occurred simultaneously with Holy Baptism. “Do you not
know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into
His death?” pleads the apostle Paul (Rom. 6:3). We are not observers or onlookers
at Calvary, where Christ died for our sins! Don’t underestimate! By Baptism, we
are drawn into the history of those redemptive events. Yes, more than history, we
are drawn into the action of those events, united with Christ. The “old Adam” is
drawn to the cross and zapped real good, crucified with Christ. And that is the final
solution to the power of sinful nature, a solution we could not discover ourselves.
Travelers to Israel, the Holy Land, are deeply affected by the places where
Jesus Christ lived and spoke and ministered to people. Who would not be impressed and deeply moved, standing where the cross stood, bearing the body of the
Lord, who bore in His body our guilt and sin? Or, standing at the sepulchre from
which eternal life sprang for you and me when He rose from the grave. The words
from the Sermon of our Lord flood the mind when one walks the hills above the
towns surrounding the Sea of Galilee.
Still, a more moving experience is to recall, that, yes, “We were there!” in such
a dynamic way, when, in Baptism, by water and the Word, drawn to the cross, our
old sinful flesh died in the redeeming death of the Lord Jesus so that we might no
longer be enslaved to sin (Rom. 6:6). When from the cross our Lord cried out, “It is
finished!” our sinful nature and all of its ugliness were finished, washed up. When
He gave up the spirit and died, our sinful flesh gave up its power and authority over
our life. United with Christ in His death by our Baptism, the “old nature” went
kicking and screaming, because that sinful nature is now truly “crucified, dead,
and buried!” Just as quickly, in that same moment of our Baptism, as St. Paul
recounts, a new person emerges, united in our Lord’s rising, His resurrection, His
life—how exciting in place of the “old nature,” a new person quickened to transcen404
dent, everlasting life by God’s working through the Lord’s rising from the grave.
Summarize: In the moment of our Baptism, the power of sin was broken, the
“old nature” died and was sealed in defeat by the Lord’s death, and we were quickened in that same Baptism moment to newness of life. More than mere improvement, we were transformed for such newness, an action as radical as the Lord’s
rising to life on His resurrection day (Rom. 6:11).
II. Life
Holy Baptism is no trifle! While many Christians are all thumbs when it
comes to explaining their own Baptism and its blessings, St. Paul states clearly
that in this Sacrament there stands tall the cross of Christ, the axis on which turns
the Christian life, the better and improved Christian life. If you are a person not
yet baptized, something can be done about that. But, if you are baptized and
habitually forget your Baptism or neglect it, if you are going through your life
misunderstanding or under-valuing your Baptism day by day, that is to invite back
the free reign of the old nature which makes you a slave to sin again!
This should not be. When that funeral is conducted in Baptism for the sinful
flesh, a birthday happens and is celebrated at the same time, for “...we believe that
we shall also live with Him!” exclaims St. Paul (Rom. 6:8b). Do you share the
apostle’s belief? Are you alive in Christ because the power of sin is broken? To be so
alive may mean to be done with some things of which we are ashamed, as well as
other things of which we have mistakenly become proud. There are places we will
no longer traffic, things we will not do. There are lines drawn and boundaries to be
fixed when we now live with and for the risen Lord!
And the Christian, so alive in his or her Lord through Baptism, is also open to
new vistas of living which he or she had never considered, pathways of love turning
into service to others and bringing fulfillment and joy. With the “old sinful nature”
buried, getting out from under the death of that dominant sinful self, we are free to
soar to new heights, free to get our hands dirty, so to speak, and down to earth to
serve, where previously we selfishly thought we were much too busy and preoccupied to lend a helping hand. With a fresh and new outlook, crowned with a living
hope, baptized into Christ, and putting on His newness, we move through life, our
days many or few, toward a blessed future, what the apostles called a blessed hope
for now, but more important, for the long term, life everlasting (cf. 1 Pet. 1:3-9). We
are certain that, baptized, we shall also live with Him (Rom. 6:8). If this be our
outlook from Holy Baptism, many things are reordered, re-prioritized, even rescheduled. Radical, but blessed, is this newness through our Baptism into Christ.
Is it pipe dream or possibility, this new life in Christ? Some of you are weary of
the battle of life. You say it is too late for change. You are too rigid for something so
radical as death to the “old nature” by Baptism and a new life in Christ and the
power of His resurrection. You cannot teach an old dog new tricks. Agreed, you
cannot teach the “old nature.” Quite true, so very true! But, friend, it’s not about
teaching the “old” you, but teaching the “new” person that you are out of your
Baptism! Yes, the new! The “new” person can learn, as he or she puts on Christ, and
through Him, also righteousness and goodness, even holiness and hope! And you, if
you be a man or woman or youth or child in Christ by Baptism, you are new, so very
spanking new, and equally ready to take on “new” direction and action and life!
Be what you are, be alive as a “new” Christian! It is the apostle’s fervent plea.
The documentary film, Scared Straight, was produced at Rahway Prison in New
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Jersey where life-term prisoners attempt literally to scare the crime out of juvenile
delinquents who have been flirting with serious felonies on the streets. The hardened prisoners are men dedicated to sparing the younger generation the years of
misery and defeat which they endure within the penitentiary. When the authorities
bring these young people to Rahway and take them into that room deep within the
walls of the prison, those prisoner-counselors lean on the young offenders with a
heavy hand. They are so intense, so urgent. They describe vividly what its really
like behind those walls in prison, the crimes there, abounding against person and
personhood. They tell about the abuse and the perversion, the fear, the hopelessness. And all of this in order to plead with young people to choose life and not
death!
Conclusion: Here in Romans, chapter six, the Apostle Paul pleads with you,
Christians today, to reckon yourselves, consider yourselves, dead to sin and alive to
God! Play no longer the part of death! Play the part made for you! Play the vigorous
and beautiful new life! The shackles of sin are broken! Be free in Christ who has
made you free to live the Christian life each day better than the day before. You
may even be prepared to ask God into your life, now that Christ by Baptism has
taken you to His cross and brought you out of the death of sin, alive! Look alive and
live as you are, like you never lived before, alive to God, alive now, and alive for the
long haul, always and forever, alive! Who thus lives his or her Baptism, lives well,
very well indeed! Amen.
Richard H. Warneck
Second Sunday after the Epiphany
1 Corinthians 1: 1-9
January 20, 2008
Sermon Outline:
I. Theme: Thanksgiving.
II. Text: 1 Corinthians 1: 1-9.
III. Body of Sermon.
A. Opening or Capturing Statement Could Be An Illustration.
B. Application.
C. Conclusion.
Opening: On July the 7th, among CNN’s heroes for the week, was a young man
by the name of Ryan. This young man was chosen because at the age of 6, he started
saving money, which was later used in a huge project to provide clean drinking
water for millions of Africans. Ryan who is now 18 years old, also made five African
visits. As I watched the African kids, as well as adults, express through songs their
joy and thanksgiving to God and to Ryan, it made me think without any doubt of St.
Paul’s letter to the Corinthians, 1 Corinthians 1:4, “I always thank God for you,
because of his grace given you in Christ Jesus.” Like the Africans, Paul is giving
thanks to God for us—the heroes and heralds of the amazing Gospel of Jesus
Christ.
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The Word: Thanks or thanksgiving—let us look at the etymology through the
eye of global Christianity within its cultural context.
First: Thanks is our expression of gratitude. It is usually used in expressing
gratitude to somebody because of something. The use of these words, thanks or
thanksgiving, among the Mende people of Sierra Leone is stated, “Ngp sei gbua
ngewo ma biva” translated as “I thank God for you.” St. Paul, surely in an existential form, must have heard the many tribal languages, including the Mendes of
West Africa.
The Context and Culture: Thanks or thanksgiving is used in the form of gratitude, as expressed by our African Christians. Without any attempt to generalize,
I suspect we do not express or say thank you enough, or even the mere “Thank you
Lord,” for each day that we are blessed to witness another day. For St. Paul, coming
out of his Jewish culture, to offer thanks or thanksgiving was an almost inevitable
thing to say or do. Culturally, the Mende people of Sierra Leone, among whom I
worked for many years, would say thanks or express thanksgiving for small or big
things. The simple things we in the West often take for granted, perhaps a good
harvest, rain, or sunshine, are things for which the Mendes would express thanks
in beautiful songs. I recall with great delight how they would spend a week or more
in street dancing in celebration for the birth of a child, the marriage of a sister or
brother, even the joy of thanksgiving for the death, at the ripe old age of 90 or so, of
a parent or relative. Yes, here we see people that are totally given to thanking God
for everything: “In everything give thanks.”
Referring to our text: 1 Corinthians 1:4; Ephesians 1:16; Philippians 1:3; 2
Timothy 1:3. These expressions of thanks or thanksgiving are obviously directed
towards people. First, the thanksgiving was for the Corinthian Christians, and by
extension included the present day saints, in the household of faith far and near.
We must ask the pertinent question: “Why?” Our text alludes to a keyword: grace.
Verse 5 states, “For in him you have been enriched in speech and in all knowledge.”
It stands to reason that these Christians were so deeply in tune with Christ that
it manifested or framed all their manners, internally as well as externally. Like
them, we, the twenty-first century Christians, must likewise be the walking Jesus,
affecting the lives of those whom we meet—in the street, classrooms, restaurants,
offices—with the hands and face of Jesus.
Summary: As I return to my opening statement, the CNN hero was thanked
immensely by the African villagers for providing them with clean drinking water,
which symbolically represented life. Their thanks was primarily to God, from whom
all gifts come. The Mende people are known to be deeply appreciative in the knowledge that all of life—wealth, weather, our lives, family, food and the like—are
God’s. So as people and saints, it is incumbent upon us to express gratitude to God.
Application: Our text, 1 Corinthians 1:4, reminds us always to give thanks to
God. It is fair for us then as Christians to thank God for bringing us to faith through
Jesus Christ. Now then, since sermon application ordinarily has to do with the
“how,” I will suggest three steps in applying the text of 1 Corinthians 1:4. First, I
would speak to us as individuals and within our family life. We certainly ought to
be in the habit of saying thanks to God every day of our lives, for small or large
things in life. Secondly, as sanctified people, in whom Christ is richly and deeply
manifested, through His redeeming life in us, we must with abundant joy share
that joy. Metaphysically and in actuality, as Christians our lives need to express
the love and joy of Jesus always. Thirdly, since through the Gospel we have been
made saints and preachers, and because of what Jesus through his saving grace
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has done, Christians of all races must demonstrate this active gratitude by sharing God’s redemptive message with others.
In conclusion, St. Paul gave thanks for all Christians. It is therefore consistent
to give thanks to God for the heroes of faith, the host of missionaries, our parents,
and pastors, whom the Lord used to bring us to faith.
John Loum
Third Sunday after the Epiphany
1 Corinthians 1:10-17
January 27, 2008
Preliminary considerations: There is “nothing new under the sun.” Sin-nature
is sin-nature and God’s grace is God’s grace. Church divisions and cliques are
nothing new. People seek popularity or jump on the ‘bandwagon’ of the most popular members of the church or want to control church polity. All Christian denominations, including The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod, have dealt with divisions.
Most of these divisions begin with individuals and groups of people who seek an
interpretation of the Biblical narrative apart from its context and then make their
interpretation the “way it is.” Divisions and cliques within churches may cascade
into the denomination and vice versa. When we read about the divisions in the
church at Corinth, and how believers there argued for either Apollo or Cephas or
Paul or Christ, we are drawn into this text because we all have either heard of such
church divisions or been involved in one. Quarreling over church leaders is “nothing
new under the sun” in church politics. Paul hits this issue hard, reminding all
Corinthian Christians they have the same baptismal foundation and identity. In
Christ there is no division or leader. Christ is the head of the church—not Paul, not
Apollo, not Cephas. Most likely, these leaders were not part of this quarreling. We
are all children of God through water, Word, and faith. The subject is Christ Jesus,
not specific people.
The Subject is Christ Jesus
Don’t you love people who seek to create division and cliques within the church
for their personal gain and stature? There is nothing more detrimental to the Good
News of Jesus Christ than people in cliques and divisions who believe they are
God’s gift to mankind or that the Office of the Keys possesses the key to the church
door. In God’s holy Christian church—the communion of saints—there is no room
for those who abuse and take advantage of others by setting up their cliques to
control. St. Paul begins to defuse this in-fighting by pointing to the wisdom of God
in Christ “over and against” human wisdom that generates self-boasting and divisions. St. Paul reminds them they are one in Christ and not divided in leadership.
The common foundational subject is Christ, neither man nor woman.
I. The problem of divisions within the church: mankind is the subject.
A. Creates cliques that center on “human leadership” and not Christ’s leadership.
B. Creates a reliance on human wisdom and not the wisdom of God in Christ.
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C. Creates boasting about “self” and not the Savior.
II. The solution for divisions within the church: Christ is the subject.
A. His Spirit creates unity in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.
B. His Spirit creates unity in mind and judgment of our Lord Jesus Christ.
C. His Spirit creates unity in baptism into our Lord Jesus Christ: one Lord,
one faith, one baptism.
D. His Spirit creates unity in the crucified and resurrected Jesus Christ for
the forgiveness of our sins, salvation, and eternal life.
Conclusion: Divisions and cliques occur in Christian churches and denominations throughout the world. Divisions lead to quarreling and quarreling leads to
the compromise of the Good News of Jesus Christ. The subject of Christianity is
Christ Jesus, His person and work for the forgiveness of sins, salvation, and eternal life. We do not proclaim ourselves or our own leadership to any one. It is Christ
who is the cornerstone of the communion of saints, the holy Christian church on
earth. Mankind is not the subject; Jesus Christ is the subject.
Robert W. Weise
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“On the reading of many books...”
THE SELECTED SERMONS OF NORMAN NAGEL: From Valparaiso to St. Louis.
By Norman Nagel. Saint Louis: Concordia, 2004. 368 pages. Cloth. $25.99.
Listening to the sermons of Norman Nagel is generally an edifying experience.
There were always, however, the vicissitudes of acoustics and distractions to get in
the way of hearing the full Word as preached by the good doctor. In this book we
have the Word in strength and power, told with a freshness and perspective that
remain relevant today. At times there are shades of another famous apologist, C.
S. Lewis, as we encounter some of the messages of Nagel, but with a deeper theological insight and Lutheran character.
Nagel’s style is a useful one, particularly for the academic settings where he
was prone to preach. His style is straightforward. First, he generally employs a
rhetorical hook to get the reader thinking about their own life and context. Then he
consistently and deeply enriches the story by retelling it to make the point that he
believes the Scriptures make. Through this process, he amplifies and highlights
issues relevant to the congregation he faces.
It is in the richness of this telling of the story that Nagel excels, showing that
the Word of God can be related to people with a depth that helps the reader to feast
for a little while with the Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. In some ways, Nagel’s
messages remind me of a menu at a fine restaurant, where one can contemplate
the vast heavenly banquet to come with a dish of some fine appetizers in the here
and now.
The sub-title of the book is a bit misleading as there are several sermons that
date from before his time at Valparaiso. It is also instructive to understand the
development of Dr. Nagel’s thought, and although the sermons are arranged in an
order commensurate with the church year, they are mostly dated as well, and so
could be read in chronological order (a paginated listing in this order would have
been helpful). I found that there was a good deal more dealing with the details of
life and particulars of issues toward the beginning of Nagel’s career, while his later
development is marked by more of a synthetic approach with less effort to address
this or that audience. This may also be due to his shift to seminary preaching.
Some exegetes might object that in telling the story Nagel sometimes does not
rigorously follow the original intent of the author. That would not be Nagel’s primary concern, although this is important to him as well. His sermons proclaim
that there is one Word of many facets, and that Word is Christ as told in the story
of His redemption, and salvation of the world. Nagel makes us aware of the ways
in which God leads His people to salvation and how tragically some refuse the gift.
In this way, the whole of Scripture becomes about Christ and His work, and in this
regard Nagel is very much like Martin Luther. Christ’s work and its application to
the lives of sinners are of primary importance, that they might believe and find
their redemption in Him.
Reading this book is an edifying reading experience, and pastors will find it a
useful resource for exploring some fresh ideas for preaching. I was especially impressed with Nagel’s take on Christmas and Easter, presenting them as great and
joyous celebrations and feasts. Minor festivals, as well as the Sundays of the
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church year, are all included. One could wish for two things in such a volume that do
not appear. It would have been nice if the actual texts that were central to Nagel’s
message had been printed at the heads of the messages, especially so the reader
could ascertain which translation was being employed. One could also hope that as
the presentation of Dr. Nagel is distinctive and part of the experience of hearing
him preach, there could be an audio CD of some of these sermons made available.
There are undoubtedly recordings that could be unearthed, or perhaps the good
doctor would take it upon himself to read some of these messages afresh. Overall
this is a well crafted collection of sermons that would be profitable for study by
pastors and laypeople alike.
Timothy Dost
GOD, MARRIAGE, AND FAMILY: Rebuilding the Biblical Foundation. By Andreas
J. Köstenberger and David W. Jones. Wheaton: Crossway Books, 2004. 448
pages. Paper. $15.99.
By many measures, families are not faring well these days. Andreas
Köstenberger, professor at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary, contends
that the problem is spiritual. In response, he and colleagues David Jones and
Mark Liederbach wrote God, Marriage, and Family to present the Scriptural foundations for marriage and family. They set out to show “how the Bible’s teaching on
human relationships coheres and finds its common source in the Creator and his
wise and beneficial purposes for men and women” (28).
The book covers marriage (chapters 2–4), family (5-6), reproductive and
parenting issues (7–8), singleness (9), homosexuality (10), divorce and remarriage
(11), and family-related qualifications for church leadership (12). It examines the
Old and New Testaments for each topic and then addresses the contemporary
situation, interacting extensively with scholarly literature. It has a section of “Helpful Resources” and a study guide for each chapter. Notes, resources, indices, and
the like make up about 190 of the book’s 448 pages.
The authors hold a high view of Scripture and fall squarely within the conservative camp. They take marriage to be “a sacred bond between a man and a woman
instituted by and publicly entered into before God (whether or not this is acknowledged by the married couple), normally consummated by sexual intercourse” (85).
They affirm the headship of the husband. They reject homosexuality, sexual intercourse outside of marriage, and cohabitation. Birth control is acceptable so long as
it does not cause abortion. Artificial reproductive technologies which do not generate unused embryos or violate the one-flesh nature of marriage are likewise permissible. The authors defend the practice of physical discipline (spanking).
Unfortunately, the chapters are uneven. The authors fall into simply listing
required traits, attitudes, and behaviors for husband and wives; marriages from
the Bible are subjected to thin exegesis to derive lessons for believers. The approach occasionally degenerates into unhelpful casuistry (e.g., when may wives
work outside the home, 74). The authors’ covenantal view of marriage does not
grasp the nature of marriage as a divine institution embedded within our fleshly,
cultured existence, and their Baptist doctrine of conversion leads to talk of “parental discipline and training prior to a child’s conversion” (125). The chapter on
divorce and remarriage gets bogged down in an Evangelical/fundamentalist debate over Matthew 5:32 and 19:19; in fact, the authors seem hesitant to take a
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stand. On the other hand, the chapter on homosexuality provides an excellent
overview of the issue, cogently explaining and rebutting revisionist claims. The
authors offer a commendable plan for resisting sexual temptation (188) and an
insightful discussion of spiritual warfare and the family (162ff.).
All in all, the book is not what one might have hoped. Theological analyses are
sometimes rich but too often thin. The project gets sidetracked by debates among
different segments of conservative Evangelicalism. The book is useful as a handbook that brings together Biblical data and scholarly literature on marriage and
family, but as with many such volumes, one must search elsewhere for deeper
analysis.
David Loy
Bolivar, MO
GATHERED GUESTS: A Guide to Worship in the Lutheran Church. By Timothy H.
Maschke. Saint Louis: Concordia, 2003. 542 Pages. Cloth. $38.99.
Well-written travel guides can be captivating volumes, opening windows into
the life and history of cities and countries throughout the world. Gathered Guests,
written by Timothy H. Maschke, professor of theology at Concordia University
Wisconsin, is just such a travelogue for Lutheran worship, especially as manifested in the predominant LC-MS hymnal of the last 24 years—Lutheran Worship.
Maschke’s book functions as a helpful travelogue for worship within Lutheranism
and the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod. After the preface and the opening chapter which define worship, the chapters of the book can be read as discrete units
exploring—theologically, historically, and practically—the nature, services, context, and issues of Lutheran worship. The confluence of topics which Maschke
identifies flows from his fundamental thesis about Lutheran worship as represented by the book’s title: “God’s gathered guests come together because God calls
us by His Gospel. We are gathered in His name to receive His Word and Meal. We
respond in praise and prayers and works of service. This gathering time provides
us with the power for living and believing. The worship service ends, but our service
continues throughout the week as we live out our faith in Christ in our daily lives”
(13). Although the reader may find Maschke’s mantra that Christian worship is
oriented toward and arises from the gathered guests a tiresome expression, it is
the thematic glue which connects the varied chapters of this textbook on Lutheran
worship.
An untimely misfortune was the publication of Gathered Guests so shortly
before the Synod’s new service book, Lutheran Service Book (LSB), disallowing any
dialogue with the hymnal that will represent LC-MS worship for the next two
decades. Nevertheless, as a Lutheran Reformation historian’s and systematician’s
analysis of Lutheran worship in practice, Gathered Guests provides a lucid outline
and in-depth analysis of the primary contours of the worship practices manifested
in LSB. In particular, the thorough examination of seasonal worship services—
Midweek in Advent and Lent, Epiphany, Ash Wednesday, and Holy Week, including
the Easter Vigil—furthers the great potential for the use of those services which
will appear in the LSB Altar Book. Likewise, Maschke’s chapter on various services of the Word in recent Lutheran hymnals paves the way for the provision of
such a service in LSB.
Although one might question certain organizational decisions, such as placing
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discussion of the church year prior to an examination of the nature of Lutheran
liturgy, the book’s major divisions possess integrity and coherence under these
headings: Dimensions of Worship; Lutheran Liturgy; Worship, Music, and the Arts;
Festival and Occasional Worship Services; Prayer and Reading in Worship; and
Variety in Worship. Throughout, Maschke is at his best when he interweaves Biblical, theological, historical, and practical considerations in advocating his vision
of the most desirable liturgical practice. The chapters on “Art in the Lord’s Service”
(9), “Liturgical Prayer” (17), and “The Ministry of Reading” (19) all provide compelling depictions of consummately planned and enacted worship. Maschke’s list of
principles for choosing liturgical art (159-60) and his analysis of Byzantine Orthodox icons and the iconostasis (162) are trenchant for considering the role of art in
worship.
While a valuable tool for educating on Christian worship and shaping a faithful practice of parish worship planning, Gathered Guests does manifest certain
inadequacies. The book demonstrates an awareness of contemporary worship issues, but neglects to provide a clear outline of the contours of the debate, especially
in the chapter on variety in worship. Although a fairly recent development, it also
fails to denote the differences that have emerged between contemporary/modern
approaches and emergent/post-modern approaches to worship. Such questions must
be engaged through the lens of culture and the church’s inculturation of its worship.
Unfortunately, Gathered Guests fails to address these worship debates through a
well-defined consideration of culture and Christian engagement with it. Such a
consideration is desirable for a textbook for those who will shape Lutheran worship in an increasingly culturally diverse Christianity and Lutheranism. The relationship of culture and worship is part of the broader nexus of the relationship
between the church and its mission in the world. Given the ongoing discussion
about mission and worship in the LC-MS, and the necessity of seeing the church’s
act of worship as God’s mission in Word and Sacrament to the world, the reader
expects a thorough exploration of such issues in Gathered Guests. But that is not
where its strengths lie. Instead, Gathered Guests grounds Lutheran worship in
proper, faithful definitions of what worship is from the rich doctrinal heritage of
Lutheranism and engages the reader at the profound intersection of doctrine and
ecclesial life—the worship of the Gathered Guests.
As an informed guide to those who prepare worship and participate in it,
Gathered Guests provides a readily accessible account of the theological and historical foundations of Lutheran worship, educating those who gather the guests
and those who are gathered.
Kent J. Burreson
TAKE EAT, TAKE DRINK: The Lord’s Supper through the Centuries. By Ernest
Bartels. Saint Louis: Concordia, 2004. 286 pages. Paper. $14.95.
For ten years after receiving a doctorate from Trinity Theological Seminary,
Newburgh, Indiana, Rev. Dr. Ernest Bartels continued to expand his research project
on the Lord’s Supper. With labor of love and a sincere desire to serve God’s people,
Bartels now shares his studies on the history of the Lord’s Supper with his beloved synod. Garnering a vast array of information from a plethora of secondary
sources, Bartels’s investigation has produced what looks like a veritable treasure
trove of theological gems. One senses his meticulous collection of notes in preparaCONCORDIA JOURNAL/OCTOBER 2007
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tion for Bible classes and theological discussions from a variety of sources, including neighboring pastors and popular theological publications which addressed the
issue of the Lord’s Supper. Study questions at the end of each chapter (with answers provided at the end of the book) make this a handy tool for congregational
study.
Organized along historical lines, Bartels’s, first unit of chapters deals with
the apostolic era. Reviewing cursorily the gospel accounts of Christ’s institution
(ch. 1), he brings up various intriguing sidelights to the Supper—the kind of bread
and wine, whether it was Passover or not, why bread and not lamb, and whether
Judas received the Sacrament—along with several opinions on what occurred that
first evening. Interestingly, a whole chapter (ch. 2) is given over to Jesus’ words in
John 6 on the “bread of life,” a passage many Lutherans, following Luther, have
eschewed. Chapter 3 returns to a general overview of the gospel accounts with brief
references to the Lord’s Supper in Acts and the epistles, including Jude 12. What is
missing in this unit is a careful exposition detailing Paul’s corrective comments in
1 Corinthians 10 and 11.
Reporting on how Christians used the Lord’s Supper in unit two, Bartels explains early Christian practices as well as developments among the Eastern Orthodox and medieval Roman Catholics. He shows several coexisting views of Christ’s
presence in the Sacrament as well as the deterioration of practices associated with
the Lord’s Supper (ch. 4). A brief five-page chapter on the Eastern Orthodox Church
(ch. 5) gives some historical context to their position and summarizes their liturgy,
although the particular distinctions from the Roman Catholic Church are unclear.
In a three-part chapter (ch. 6), Bartels explains how the Roman Catholic understanding of transubstantiation developed during the Middle Ages. He also refers
to the unsuccessful attempts by Wycliffe and Hus to reform the Roman sacramental system.
The Protestant Reformation is covered in the third unit. Luther’s understanding of “sacramental union” (ch. 7) is explained very simply, yet Bartels shows how
Luther changed his view from his earlier Roman Catholic training. Zwingli’s “memorial meal” is discussed (ch. 8) along with Calvin’s “spiritual presence.” The
latter chapter (ch. 9) is incredibly short (less than five pages) in comparison to the
other two and would have benefited from more research, particularly Donald
McKim’s insightful writings on Reformed faith and doctrine.
Worth revisiting periodically is the final unit of this book, where Bartels offers
an immense amount of information on how churches of the Calvinist (Reformed,
Anglican, Presbyterian, Congregationalists, and Methodists) and Zwinglian (into
which he places Anabaptist, Mennonite/Amish, Baptist, Evangelical Free, Quaker,
Pentecostal, Adventist, Brethren, and Salvation Army) traditions as well as an
overview of how contemporary Lutherans view the Lord’s Supper. The selection of
groups is curious; for example, he reports on a Hawaiian Pentecostal group (201)
yet ignores larger denominations such as Episcopalians, who only receive one paragraph (178). This chapter (ch. 10) should have been divided, especially since more
than a dozen pages are given over to Lutheran doctrine and practices. The final
chapter (ch. 11) proposing “consensus” is unsatisfying in its non-committal reporting of recent ecumenical activities. In his conclusion, Bartels speaks of a “cacophony
of doctrine and the human attempts to reach consensus without doctrinal agreement” (257) but, thankfully, returns to the salient solution in sacred Scripture’s
solid assertion from our Savior, “This is My Body” (258).
Although this reviewer enjoyed the readability and variety of this informative
414
book, a few frustrations arose. Noteworthy are several inaccuracies, perhaps because there is too heavy a reliance on secondary sources, even when the primary
sources were available. For example, when supposedly citing Calvin’s Institutes on
the Christian Religion, Bartels uses a quotation from a journal article by a
Lutheran author (167). Two pages later, he footnotes the Institutes twice, reporting that Calvin preferred neither red nor white wine and that he called the altar a
table. The latter fact, however, is Calvin merely following Augustine’s own terminology as evident by Calvin’s own citation of Augustine’s Tractate 26 on John 6
(Institutes, Book IV, chapter 17, section 43).
Yet the research involved in this book is certainly daunting. Even small chapters have several dozen notes, and of those not a few have multiple sources indicated in one note. Oddly, the Philadelphia edition of Luther’s writings and Ewald
Plass’s compendium of Luther quotes are used extensively, although three volumes
from the American Edition are listed in his “For Further Reading.” Kretzmann’s
Popular Commentary and R.C.H. Lenski’s commentaries are cited very frequently
for exegetical conclusions. The 1975 edition of the Concordia Cyclopedia is cited
regularly regarding denominational distinctions on the sacraments, yet Arthur
Carl Piepkorn’s four-volume magnum opus, Profiles in Belief, is not adverted to in
even one footnote. Citation inaccuracies are also present; for example, Bartels
quotes Melanchthon, but the citation given is to Luther’s Small Catechism (144,
fn.30).
Needless theological inaccuracies, which should have been removed by the
doctrinal review process, are also evident. When referring to the Lucan account of
the institution of the Lord’s Supper, Bartels misreads the text, asserting that
“Luke reverses the order and says that He first gave the cup and then the bread”
(21). What he fails to recall is that Luke gives a more specific explanation of which
cup Jesus uses, that is, the third cup of the Passover meal, as Bartels reports
earlier, called “the cup of thanksgiving” (18). When citing the Christological basis
for a Lutheran understanding of Christ’s presence, Bartels reports that this follows the Lutheran doctrinal concept of the communication of attributes, particularly the third genus, genus apotelesmaticum (144). In actuality, the Lutheran practice is based upon the second genus, genus maiestaticum, and thus avoids the extra
Calvinisticum (See Pieper, Dogmatics 2:190-197; Sasse, 121). Such research and
theological discrepancies, although minor individually, build up to cause one to
reconsider the usefulness of this book.
Educating the laity in the Lord’s Supper is a commendable endeavor. To that
end, every congregation should have this book in its library as a resource for conversation. While this work may be useful for some parishes, this reviewer hopes that
it will stimulate future research in primary sources which support the general
ideas presented so helpfully by Pastor Bartels. If nothing else, this book can serve
as a stimulation for pastors in the Lutheran Church to discuss the Lord’s Supper
in as much detail as Dr. Bartels has done over the years. Kenneth W. Wieting’s
recent study, The Blessings of Weekly Communion (CPH, 2006), offers just such a
reliable resource.
Timothy Maschke
Mequon, WI
CONCORDIA JOURNAL/OCTOBER 2007
415
DOES THE BIBLE JUSTIFY VIOLENCE? Facets Series. By John J. Collins.
Minneapolis: Fortress, 2004. 56 pages. Paper. $6.00.
Many Bible readers are put off by what they perceive is a justification of
violence and war. In past history, Crusaders, Puritans and abolitionists have all
used the Bible to justify their use of violence. Since September 11, 2001, there have
been some Christians who have seen this disaster as God’s punishment on a “godless” America, while some Muslims believe that the Quran, as well as the Bible,
gave the terrorists the right to do what they did. John Collins, an Old Testament
professor at Yale University, sets out to examine the Biblical texts that deal with
violence to see whether they can ever be used to justify “the killing of others without benefit of judicial procedure.”
Collins first deals with the texts that call for “holy war” against the Canaanites
and other pagan neighbors of the ancient Israelites. He shows that the slaughter of
these pagans was considered to be a ban (Hebrew: herem) or sacrifice to protect
Israel from false worship. He cites Deuteronomy 7:1-6 as a foundational text for
this point of view. This passage, and others like it, takes as warrants for violence
the demand that Israel is to worship only one god, YHWH, and the claim that the
land was given by divine right to Israel alone. At the same time, it should be noted
that Deuteronomy is “one of the great repositories of humanistic values in the
biblical corpus,” which includes being compassionate to slaves and aliens.
Collins points out that the texts that seem to commend violence are not just a
description of primitive practice, but “programmatic ideological statements from
the late seventh century B.C. or later.” He sees the reform of King Josiah described
in 2 Kings 22-23 as supporting the view that Deuteronomy and Joshua were not so
much intended to incite violence against ethnic “outsiders,” but rather as directed
against Israelite “insiders” who posed as a threat to the cultic reforms of Josiah.
Collins relates how the story of Phinehas’ killing of Zimri and his Midianite
girlfriend in Numbers 25 and the violent action of Mattathias and his sons against
the Syrian Greeks as recorded in 1 Maccabees (holy scripture in Catholic Christianity) was later used as justification for a number of violent religious persecutions, e.g.: Oliver Cromwell’s treatment of Catholics in Ireland, the Puritans against
Native American tribes, and the action of the Boers of South Africa.
Next, Collins points out a number of eschatological texts which portray God
Himself or His angels taking vengeance on His enemies. He cites Isaiah 63:3,
Daniel 12:1-3, the Book of Revelation, as well as apocryphal literature like 1Enoch
and the War Scroll of Qumran. What is unique in this literature is a “quietistic
tendency which, in agreement with Deuteronomy 32:35 and Romans 12:19-21,
urges the readers to “never avenge yourselves, but leave room for the wrath of God.”
Therefore, “eschatological violence is properly the prerogative of God.”
In his final chapter, Collins discusses “violence and hermeneutics.” After citing Ecclesiastes 3:3, 8, “There is a time to kill and a time to heal,” Collins says:
“Not all violence is necessarily to be condemned. … Nonetheless, few will disagree
that violence is seldom a good option and that it can be justified only as a last
recourse.” He then goes on to survey some of the attempts that have been made in
interpreting these “violence texts,” ever since the church father Philo of Alexandria. His purpose is “to save the appearances of these texts,” that is, to take them
seriously on the one hand, but, on the other, to read them in the context of the
Scripture passages that urge us “to love our neighbor as ourselves.” In this way,
Collins suggests a strategy of noting the diversity of viewpoints in the Bible and
416
thereby to relativize the more problematic ones (i.e., the “violence texts”). Nevertheless, violence as a model of behavior is not a peripheral feature in the Bible, and
therefore it cannot be glossed over. Ultimately, Collins says, “the power of the Bible
is largely that it gives an unvarnished picture of human nature and of the dynamics of history, and also of religion and the things that people do in its name.” That
said, the Biblical interpreter has to be alert to the fact that in the matter of war
and peace, “appeal to the Bible is not determinative,” as Roland Bainton put it,
because too often people have seen certitude in the Bible where it does not exist,
e.g., when some people at the time of the Civil War thought that the Bible justifies
slavery. Collins concludes: “Perhaps the most constructive thing a biblical critic
can do toward lessening the contribution of the Bible to violence in the world is to
show that (many times) such certitude is an illusion.”
All in all, any reader can only profit from tracing Collins’ thought as he struggles
with this most difficult subject that touches us all and which, in the present age of
terror, is of the utmost relevance.
Merlin D. Rehm
Scarsdale, NY
THE DEVIL’S INBOX. By Barbara Laymon. Minneapolis: Augsburg Books, 2004.
123 pages. Paper. $11.00.
Barbara Laymon has given us a devil for the computer age. The Devil’s Inbox is
a sort of Screwtape Letters for the twenty-first century. Satan, ever ready to adjust,
now uses e-mails instead of letters as his preferred mode of correspondence. On the
basis of my limited experience with the internet, I am not surprised that the devil
would resort to this medium; it seems made to order. There may even be moments
when some suspect that he invented the internet. But both C. S. Lewis and Barbara Laymon would be quick to correct us, reminding us that Satan is incapable of
creation and invention; he can only pervert what God alone brings into being, either
directly or through human agency.
In Barbara Laymon’s version, the senior devil is a female tempter named
Anesthesia who sends e-mails to a junior devil named Termite N. Fester, advising
him how to corrupt and ultimately win for hell’s larder a woman “patient” on earth.
We see Termite tempting this woman at all the crucial points in her life: school,
romance, vocation, marriage, motherhood, and finally death from cancer. Termite
now and then wins a battle, but ultimately (to his own disgrace), loses the war. The
fact that the temptations suggested and applied are ordered according to the sequential phases of the patient’s life keeps the e-mails from being a helter-skelter
collection. Their chronological arrangement, plus the additional virtue of certain
themes tying together successive e-mails, give the book sufficient unity and plot to
qualify it as a novel.
If, as the saying goes, imitation is the highest form of flattery, Lewis has been
flattered endlessly since his astounding success with the publication of The
Screwtape Letters in the century just past. But of all such flattery I have encountered in print, Barbara Laymon’s is the best. She has mastered almost to perfection Lewis’s style and technique, making her book every bit as delightful and
edifying as that of the original interceptor of satanic correspondence. Many of
Lewis’s insights reappear in The Devil’s Inbox: the devils’ disgust at the Son of
CONCORDIA JOURNAL/OCTOBER 2007
417
God’s incarnation; their contempt for God’s alliance with “human vermin”; their
inability to comprehend God’s no-strings-attached love; their anticipation not only
of humans but also of fellow devils as food for consumption; their distrust of each
other resulting in alternating strategies of threatening and kowtowing; their capacity for self deception. There is no suggestion of plagiarism here. Rather, the
confession, “How can the author (or I or anyone) not plagiarize Lewis—at least
unconsciously—once his incomparable insights and style have gotten into our bloodstream?” There is a difference between plagiarism by design and plagiarism by
osmosis.
By definition, the genre of satanic correspondence seems designed more for
Law than Gospel. Yet Laymon, like Lewis, manages to give the Gospel its due. God
is “quite shameless about it, pouring out grace and wisdom at the slightest
provocation....All a human has to do to be in danger of grace is show up [at church]”
(65). “Well, it is true that anyone who wants redeeming has only to ask” (24). “Even
in his last days, when we had [Jesus] right where we wanted him, still we could not
prod him into faithlessness....Somehow we let that opportunity slip away, and just
when we thought we had won: resurrection” (69). It baffles Anesthesia that people
“can actually worship the one who died on a cross in the most outrageous act of
powerlessness the world has ever known” (80). “How typical. [God is] always taking a bad situation and making it better than originally planned” (84). At one point
Anesthesia whines to her addressee, “My job is to give advice. I can’t come up there
and do it for you —unlike the MH” (64, an abbreviation for the comparison of God
to a mother hen in Matt. 23:37; my emphasis).
It is that abbreviation that reminds me of the only disquieting feature of Ms.
Laymon’s otherwise splendid book. To be sure, the mother hen metaphor is a biblical one—and that is good. Nor does the author, as is clear from her preface, have
any trouble recognizing it as mere metaphor. The trouble arises from the fact that
throughout her book without exception—she calls God “MH” or “Mother Hen,”
thereby necessitating all her pronoun references to God to be feminine, “She” and
“Her.” Whether the author’s use of the feminine mother hen metaphor and its
necessary attendant feminine imagery is merely a clever ploy on her part to capture the attention of a contemporary audience—almost as dismissive of biblical
non-inclusive language as it is dismissive of the reality of devils—or whether her
practice is a sop to a feminist agenda to create God in their image, I do not know.
But either way, her practice could, ironically, be one of those satanic strategies that
the book otherwise decries! Given this incessant bombardment of feminine terminology when speaking of God the Father, Son, and Spirit (and these are not metaphors!), the reader might unconsciously reach the conclusion that God is She after
all.
But enough of this. The Devil’s Inbox is a gem, theologically sophisticated and
attractively styled. No clerical condescension intended, the pun is irresistible:
“Nice work—for a ‘Laymon’!”
Francis C. Rossow
OLD TESTAMENT THEOLOGY: Volume One, Israel’s Gospel. By John Goldingay.
Downers Grove: InterVarsity, 2003. 940 pages. Cloth. $49.95.
In this first volume of his massive three-volume Old Testament Theology, John
Goldingay, Professor of Old Testament at Fuller Theological Seminary, focuses on
418
the narrative of the Old- or what he prefers to call the First-Testament. His narrative theology follows the Biblical order of creation and Israel’s subsequent history.
Goldingay combines narrative reflection with systematic analysis, always interfacing with the particular and the general. His goal is to “tease” out of the narrative its theological significance without abandoning the Old Testament’s narrative
way of doing theology. Goldingay does not discuss historical issues, but occasionally there are exceptions, such as his discussion on when and how Israel entered
the land of Canaan. The book concludes with chapters on New Testament narrative theology and the relationship between theology and history.
Throughout the book Goldingay demonstrates that he is a penetrating exegete. Several examples will suffice. Pain was to characterize a woman’s relationship with her children and a man’s relationship with his work (Gen. 3:16-17, atsabon,
noun). In Genesis 6:6 that pain (atsab, hithpael verb) also characterizes God’s
experience. Goldingay’s response? The curse of sin also lands on Yahweh (cf. Gal.
3:13). The certainty of Yahweh’s giving the land is underlined by the move from
yiqtol verbs (Gen. 13:14-17) to a qatal verb (Gen. 15:18)–not now “I will give” but “I
have given,” or better “I hereby give.” This is Yahweh’s performative utterance. He
is not merely promising to do something but is actually doing it. He is acting like a
king in a position to make a grant of land to a subject. The book of Joshua begins
with the fact that “Moses, my servant, is dead” (Josh. 1:2). Only after his own death
is Joshua termed, “Yahweh’s servant” (Josh. 24:29). Moses is still “Yahweh’s servant” (seventeen times in Joshua), even after his death. Joshua’s job is to help
ensure that Moses’ job gets done in the way the people enter the land. Goldingay
also provides insights on a macro level. For example, the idea of meeting Yahweh
as a dangerous and frightening deity is largely absent in Genesis. Exodus, however,
complements Genesis. Jesus’ unthreatening coming as a human being parallels
Yahweh’s appearing in Genesis, though Jesus’ acting with divine power provides
an awed reaction like that at Sinai (e.g., Luke 5:8).
A major thread that unites much of the book is Goldingay’s contentment to
allow diversity and ambiguity. Put another way, he resists the temptation to systematize too much and withholds answers when there are none. This is because, in
large part, he believes there is much that is wild and untamed about the theological witness of the Old Testament that church theology does not face. Goldingay
delights in pointing out ambiguities that abound in the Joseph narrative. When
Joseph reaches the heights of the Egyptian power structure, he turns all of Egypt
into a slave state. Later Israel would have to pay a high price for this decision! And
Joseph only rarely speaks of God and never speaks to God in the narrative. Nor
does God appear to Joseph or speak to him. Another ambiguity Goldingay points
out is that in Deuteronomy 7, Moses first tells Israel they must slaughter the
people in the land (Deut. 7:1-2). Then he tells them they must not intermarry with
them (Deut. 7:3-4). Finally, in Deuteronomy 7:5 he instructs Israel that the way to
deal with the people in the land is to destroy their places of worship and their
images. How do these three instructions fit together? The book of Joshua, similarly, presents unresolved tensions. The people are obedient, but they are not; they
take the land, but they do not (cf. Josh. 13:13; 15:63; 16:10; 17:12-13). At the end of
his discussion on the pre-exilic history, Goldingay summarizes his reading of these
texts with these words: “The stories offer a range of insights on possible interpretations of events but rule out any inference that they offer formulas by means of
which history can be infallibly explained or the outcome of events by predicted”
CONCORDIA JOURNAL/OCTOBER 2007
419
(643). The Old Testament has its own ambiguous quality, and Goldingay refuses to
try to tame what is untamable.
It came as a surprise to me that a book published by IVP was so full of
positions often associated with critical scholarship. For example, Goldingay interprets Genesis 1:1-2 as denoting Yahweh’s salvation of the world from chaos and
that this, once for all, demonstrates Israel’s conviction about the world’s ongoing
security. “If the bad news is that the victory God won at the Beginning does not
mean the end of metaphysical conflict, the good news is that the victory God won
then can be oft repeated” (74). Goldingay also reads the Pentateuch as a post-exilic
document designed to address the needs of Persian Yehud. “Perhaps the common
critical theory is correct that the exile is the setting in which much of the First
Testament came into being” (697). It follows that he believes that the patriarchs
worshiped the Canaanite god El and that it was only with Moses (Ex. 6:3) that
Israel was introduced to the name “Yahweh.” Furthermore, Goldingay follows the
growing trend of Old Testament theologians who embrace open theism. “God’s not
knowing everything is thus another aspect of the gospel” (137).
With these reservations in mind, the strength of Goldingay’s work is that he
allows the Old Testament to stand as a work with its own integrity, but he also
makes numerous connections with the New Testament. And Goldingay is equally
adept at interpreting exegetical minutiae as well as the Old Testament’s larger
narrative. Preachers and teachers will find Goldingay’s book to be an engaging
companion for their task of proclaiming Israel’s Gospel. It is written in a way that
is accessible to students wanting an introduction, but there is plenty for the further education of even senior Old Testament theologians. Goldingay helps us all
learn more about the Old Testament to the end that we more faithfully proclaim
the Gospel of Jesus.
Reed Lessing
420
Books Received
Arthurs, Jeffrey D. PREACHING WITH VARIETY: How to Re-create the Dynamics
of Biblical Genres. Grand Rapids: Kregel, 2007. 239 pages. Paper. $15.99.
Bateman, Herbert W. IV (ed.) FOUR VIEWS ON THE WARNING PASSAGES IN
HEBREWS. Grand Rapids: Kregel, 2007. 480 pages. Paper. $29.99.
Bauckham, Richard. JESUS AND THE EYEWITNESSES: The Gospels as Eyewitness Testimony. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2006. 504 pages. Cloth. $32.00.
Berding, Kenneth. WHAT ARE SPIRITUAL GIFTS?: Rethinking the Conventional
View. Grand Rapids: Kregel, 2006. 368 pages. Paper. $16.99.
Blenkinsopp, Joseph. OPENING THE SEALED BOOK: Interpretations of the Book
of Isaiah in Late Antiquity. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2006. 312 pages. Paper.
$25.00.
Chisholm, Robert B. Jr. A WORKBOOK FOR INTERMEDIATE HEBREW: Grammar, Exegesis, and Commentary on Jonah and Ruth. Grand Rapids: Kregel,
2006. 306 pages. Paper. $21.99.
Davids, Peter H. PILLAR NEW TESTAMENT COMMENTARY SERIES: The
Letters of 2 Peter and Jude. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2006. 380 pages. Cloth.
$34.00.
Dramm, Sabine. DIETRICH BONHOEFFER: An Introduction to His Thought.
Peabody: Hendrickson, 2007. 258 pages. Paper. $19.95.
Elowsky, Joel C. ed. ANCIENT CHRISTIAN COMMENTARY ON SCRIPTURE:
New Testament IVa, John 1-10. Downers Grove: InterVarsity, 2007. 421 pages.
Cloth. $40.00.
Follis, Bryan A. TRUTH WITH LOVE: The Apologetics of Francis Schaeffer. Wheaton:
Crossway, 2006. 220 pages. Paper. $15.99.
France, R.T. THE NEW INTERNATIONAL COMMENTARY ON THE NEW TESTAMENT: The Gospel of Matthew. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2007. 1233 pages.
Cloth. $60.00.
Fry, George C. and Joel R. Kurz eds. LIVELY STONE: The Autobiography of Berthold
von Schenk. Delphi, NY: ALPB Books, 2006. 152 pages. Paper. $12.50 plus
shipping.
Fuller, Russell T. and Kyounbwon Choi. INVITATION TO BIBLICAL HEBREW: A
Beginning Grammar. Grand Rapids: Kregel, 2006.634 pages. Cloth. $49.99.
Gathercole, Simon J. THE PRE-EXISTENT SON: Recovering the Christologies of
Matthew, Mark, and Luke. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2006. 356 pages. Paper.
$32.00.
Gibbs, Jeffrey A. CONCORDIA COMMENTARY: Matthew 1:1-11:1. Saint Louis:
Concordia, 2006. 548 pages. Cloth. $42.99.
Glockner, Matthias and Albrecht Döhnert. TRE: THEOLOGISCHE
REALENZYKLOPÄDIE: Gesamtregister Band I: Bibelstellen, Orte, Sachen.
Berlin-New York: Walter de Gruyter, 2006. 693 pages. Cloth. 213.08 (Euro).
Glynn, John. COMMENTARY & REFERENCE SURVEY: A Comprehensive Guide
to Biblical and Theological Resources. Grand Rapids, Kregel, 2007. 380 pages.
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Greidanus, Sidney. PREACHING CHRIST FROM GENESIS: Foundations for Expository Sermons. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2007. 536 pages. Paper. $30.00.
Gritsch, Eric W. THE WIT OF MARTIN LUTHER. Minneapolis, Augsburg Fortress, 2006. 142 pages. Paper. $7.00.
CONCORDIA JOURNAL/OCTOBER 2007
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Grudem, Wayne. COUNTERING THE CLAIMS OF EVANGELICAL FEMINISM:
Biblical Responses to the Key Questions. Colorado Springs: Multnomah, 2006.
284 pages. Paper. $14.99.
Howe, Bonnie. BECAUSE YOU BEAR THIS NAME: Conceptual Metaphor and the
Moral Meaning of 1 Peter. Boston: Brill, 2006. xxii+402 pages. Cloth. $181.00.
Johnson, Marshall D. PSALMS THROUGH THE YEAR: Spiritual Exercises for
Every Day. Minneapolis: Augsburg Fortress, 2007. 394 pages. Paper. $14.99.
Juern, John. PATIENT PARENTING: Raising Your Kids in the Shadow of the Cross.
Milwaukee: Northwestern Publishing House, 2006. 102 pages. Paper. $12.99.
Koester, Robert J. GOSPEL MOTIVATION: More Than “Jesus Died for My Sins.”
Milwaukee: Northwestern, 2006. 192 pages. Paper. $13.99.
Kuske, David P. COMMENTARY ON ROMANS 1-8. Milwaukee: Northwestern
Publishing House, 2007. 460 pages. Cloth. $38.50.
Kysar, Robert and Joseph M. Webb. PREACHING TO POSTMODERNS: New Perspectives for Proclaiming the Message. Peabody: Hendrickson, 2006. 240 pages.
Paper. $19.95.
Lathrop, Gordon W. THE PASTOR: A Spirituality. Minneapolis: Augsburg Fortress,
2006. 142 pages. Cloth $20.00.
Lawrence, James. GROWING LEADERS: Cultivating Discipleship for Yourself and
Others. Peabody: Hendrickson, 2004. 276 pages. Paper. $16.95.
Lessing, Reed. CONCORDIA COMMENTARY: Jonah. Saint Louis: Concordia, 2007.
452 pages. Cloth. $42.99.
Limburg, James. ENCOUNTERING ECCLESIASTES: A Book for Our Time. Grand
Rapids: Eerdmans, 2006. 155 pages. Paper. $14.00.
Lutze, Karl E. AWAKENING TO EQUALITY: A Young White Pastor at the Dawn of
Civil Rights. Columbia: University Press of Missouri, 2006. 164 pages. Cloth.
$30.00.
Lutze, Karl E. A LOT ON MY MIND, LORD. Valparaiso: Orchard House, 2005. 112
pages. Paper. $18.00.
Maier, Paul L. EUSEBIUS: The Church History. Grand Rapids: Kregel, 2007. 368
pages. Paper. $15.99.
Meilaender, Gilbert. THE WAY THAT LEADS THERE: Augustinian Reflections on
the Christian Life. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2006. 184 pages. Paper. $16.00.
Öberg, Ingemar. LUTHER AND WORLD MISSION: A Historical and Systematic
Study. Saint Louis: Concordia, 2007. 522 pages. Cloth. $49.99.
O’Donnell, Kevin. INSIDE WORLD RELIGIONS. Minneapolis: Augsburg Fortress,
2007. 192 pages. Cloth. $24.00.
Partridge, Christopher, ed. INTRODUCTIONS TO WORLD RELIGIONS. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2005. 495 pages. Cloth. $45.00.
Pieper, Francis. Translated by O. Marc Tangner. THE CHURCH AND HER TREASURE: Lectures on Justification and the True Visible Church. Saint Louis: Luther
Academy, 2007. 297 pages. Paper. $21.95.
Pless, John T. HANDLING THE WORD OF TRUTH: Law and Gospel in the Church
Today. Saint Louis: Concordia, 2004. 128 pages. Paper. $12.99.
Pless, John T. A SMALL CATECHISM ON HUMAN LIFE. Saint Louis: LCMS
World Relief and Human Care, 2006. 107 pages. Cloth. $14.99 (Adult version)
$9.99 (Youth version—sold in packs of 10 for $9.99).
Richards, W. Larry. READ NEW TESTAMENT GREEK IN 30 DAYS [OR LESS].
Berrien Springs, MI: Breakthrough Books, 2006. 192 pages. Paper. $24.80.
Richter, Eldor W. (Rick). THE QUR’AN AND THE BIBLE—A COMPARISON.
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QandBcom@wideopenwest.com, 2006 [Second Edition] Lakewood, CO: Church
Press www.churchpress.com. 143 pages. Paper. ($15.95 value) $9.95.
Ross, Allen P. RECALLING THE HOPE OF GLORY: Biblical Worship from the
Garden to the New Creation. Grand Rapids: Kregel, 2006. 592 pages. Cloth.
$35.99.
Scifres, Mary J. and B. J. Beu (eds.). THE ABINGDON WORSHIP ANNUAL 2008.
Nashville: Abingdon, 2007. 278 pages. Paper. $20.00.
Seymour, D. Bruce. CREATING STORIES THAT CONNECT: A Pastor’s Guide to
Storytelling. Grand Rapids: Kregel, 2007. 138 pages. Paper. $12.99.
Smith, Ted. A. THE NEW MEASURES: A Theological History of Democratic Practice. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2007. 340 pages. Cloth. $85.00.
Steinbronn, Anthony J. WORLDVIEWS: A Christian Response to Religious Pluralism. Saint Louis: Concordia, 2006. 272 pages. Paper. $16.99.
Sunukjian, Donald R. INVITATION TO BIBLICAL PREACHING: Proclaiming
Truth with Clarity and Relevance. Grand Rapids: Kregel, 2007. 375 pages.
Cloth. $29.99.
Sweetman, Brendan. WHY POLITICS NEEDS RELIGION: The Place of Religious
Arguments in the Public Square. Downers Grove: InterVarsity, 2006. 256 pages.
Paper. $19.00.
Thiselton, Anthony C. 1 CORINTHIANS: A Shorter Exegetical & Pastoral Commentary. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2006. 336 pages. Cloth. $30.00.
Tsumura, David Toshio. THE NEW INTERNATIONAL COMMENTARY ON THE
OLD TESTAMENT: The Book of 1 Samuel. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2007.
720 pages. Cloth. $50.00.
Wilken, Robert Louis (trans. and ed.). ISAIAH: Interpreted by Early Christian and
Medieval Commentators. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2007. 618 pages. Cloth.
$45.00.
Wilson, Mark. CHARTS ON THE BOOK OF REVELATION. Grand Rapids: Kregel,
2007. 136 pages. Paper. $21.99.
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Index to Volume 33
Since our page numbers are consecutive within a volume, the following key shows
the page number for each reference.
Volume
Volume
Volume
Volume
33,
33,
33,
33,
Number
Number
Number
Number
1—pages
2—pages
3—pages
4—pages
1-108.
109-240.
241-340.
341-432.
Articles, Editorials, Grammarians Corner, Homiletical Helps, Theological
Observers, and Theological Potpourri
Authority, Authorship, and Apostolicity as a Part of the Johannine Questions: The
Role of Papias in the Search for the Authoritative Author of the Gospel John
(Tasmuth), 26-42.
Dying to Love: God’s Judgment of Jonah, Jesus, and the Baptized (Lessing), 9-25.
God and His Human Creatures in Luther’s Sermons on Genesis: The Reformer’s
Early Use of His Distinction of Two Kinds of Righteousness (Kolb), 166-184.
Human Embryo Freezing and Disposition: A Scientific, Legal, and Theological
Overview (Wiese), 256-284.
Justified by Works and Not by Faith Alone: Reconciling Paul and James (Maxwell), 375-378.
The Ministry of the Church in Light of the Two Kinds of Righteousness (Arand),
344-356.
The Office of the Holy Ministry (Departments of Systematic Theology), 242-255.
A Synthesis of Narratives: Religious Undergraduate Students Making Meaning in
the Context of a Secular University (Corcoran), 357-374.
A Translation and Analysis of Martin Luther’s 1528 Catechetical Sermons on the
Lord’s Supper (Moldenhauer), 43-60.
A Two-Dimensional Understanding of the Church for the Twenty-First Century
(Arand), 146-165.
The Two Kinds of Righteousness!: What’s a Preacher to Do? (Saleska), 136-145.
Upsetting the Status Quo: Preaching Like Amos (Lessing), 285-298.
Why the Two Kinds of Righteousness? (Arand, Biermann), 116-135.
Editor’s Note (Wesselschmidt, Schumacher), 110-111, 342-343.
Grammarians Corner (Voelz), 61-62, 299-301, 379-380.
Homiletical Helps:
Advent (Rossow, Brauer, Rossow, Brauer), 391-392, 393-394, 394-396, 396398.
All Saint’s Day (Warneck), 381-385.
Christmas (Okamoto), 398-400.
Epiphany (Manteufel, Graudin, Okamoto, Warneck, Loum, Weise), 63-64, 6465, 400-402, 402-406, 406-408, 408-409.
Transfiguration (Graudin), 65-66.
Lent (Kiehl, Gerike, Gerike, Manteufel, Kiehl) 66-67, 67-68, 69-70, 70-72, 72.
Palm Sunday (Castens), 73-74.
Easter (Castens, Oschwald, Dost, Dost, Raj, Wesselschmidt, Raj), 75-76, 76-
424
78, 78-79, 79-80, 185-186, 187-188, 188-190.
Pentecost (Adams, Carr, Peter, Adams, Carr, Rowold, Peter, Wesselschmidt,
Burreson, Rowold, Marrs, Wollenburg, Wollenburg, Hartung, Hartung,
Maxwell, Marrs, Becker, Becker, Kolb, Schmitt, Kolb, Egger,
Wesselschmidt, Weise), 190-193, 194-196, 196-199, 199-203, 203-204,
204-205, 206-207, 207-209, 209-211, 211-212, 302-303, 303-305, 305306, 306-308, 308-309, 309-311, 311-313, 313-314, 315-316, 317-318,
318-320, 320-321, 385-387, 387-389, 389-391.
Reformation (Maxwell), 322-323.
Theological Observers:
Berger: The SP as CEO, CFO, CPO, COO…, 112-115.
Theological Potpourri:
Raabe: Thinking About the Church: A Response to Richard John Neuhaus,
Catholic Matters, 2-8.
Authors of Articles, Editorials, Grammarians Corner, Homiletical Helps,
Theological Observers, Theological Potpourri
Adams, David L., 190-194, 199-203.
Arand, Charles P., 116-135, 146-165, 344-356.
Becker, Wallace M., 313-314, 315-316,
Berger, David O., 112-115.
Biermann, Joel D., 116-135.
Brauer, James L., 393-394, 396-398.
Burreson, Kent J., 209-211.
Castens, Kyle D., 73-74,75-76.
Carr, William W. Jr., 194-196, 203-204.
Corcoran, Henry A., 357-374.
Dost, Timothy P., 78-79, 79-80.
Egger, Thomas J., 385-387.
Gerike, Henry V., 67-68, 69-70.
Graudin, Arthur F., 64-65, 65-66.
Hartung, Bruce B., 306-308, 308-309.
Kiehl, Erich H., 66-67, 72.
Kolb, Robert A., 166-184, 317-318, 320-321.
Lessing, R. Reed, 9-25, 285-298.
Loum, John S., 406-408.
Manteufel, Thomas E., 63-64, 70-72.
Marrs, Richard W., 302-303, 311-313.
Maxwell, David R., 309-311, 322-323, 375-378.
Moldenhauer, Aaron, 43-60.
Oschwald, Jeffrey A., 76-78,
Okamoto, Joel P., 242-255, 398-400, 400-402.
Peter, David J., 196-199, 206-207.
Raabe, Paul R., 2-8.
Raj, A.R. Victor, 185-186, 188-190.
Rossow, Francis C., 391-392, 394-396.
Rowold, Henry L., 204-205, 211-212.
Saleska, Timothy E., 136-145.
CONCORDIA JOURNAL/OCTOBER 2007
425
Schmitt, David R., 318-320.
Schumacher, William W., 342-343.
Tasmuth, Randar, 26-42.
Voelz, James W., 61-62, 299-301.
Warneck, Richard H., 381-385, 402-406.
Weise, Robert W., 256-284, 389-391, 408-409.
Wesselschmidt, Quentin, F., 110-111, 187-188, 207-209.
Wollenburg, David W., 303-305, 305-306.
Book Reviews
BODIES AND SOULS, OR SPIRITED BODIES? By Nancey Murphy (Geisler),
337-338.
COMPENDIUM LOCORUM THEOLOGICORUM EX SCRIPTURIS SACRIS ET
LIBRO CONCORDIAE, LATENISCH—DEUTSCH—ENGLISCH. By
Leonhart Hütter (Kolb), 222-224.
1 CORINTHIANS INTERPRETED BY EARLY CHRISTIAN COMMENTATORS.
By Judith L. Kovacs (Kloha), 84-87.
DEAR DR. JANZOW: Australia’s Lutheran Churches and Refugees from Hitler’s
Germany. By Peter Monteath (Stolle/Barnbrock), 238-239.
THE DEVIL’S INBOX. By Barbara Laymon (Rossow), XXX.
DOES THE BIBLE JUSTIFY VIOLENCE? By John J. Collins (Rehm), 233-234.
EERDMANS COMMENTARY ON THE BIBLE. Edited by James D. G. Dunn
(Lessing), 91-92.
THE EMERGING CHURCH: Vintage Christianity for New Generations. By Dan
Kimball (Maschke), 217-219.
EMERGING WORSHIP: Creating Worship Gatherings for New Generations. By Dan
Kimball (Maschke), 217-219.
THE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF CHRISTIANITY VOLUME 4 (P-Sh). Edited by Erwin
Fahlbusch, Jan Milic Lochman, John Mbiti, Jaroslav Pelikan, and Lukas
Vischer (Rowold), 106-107.
THE END OF WORDS: The Language of Reconciliation in a Culture of Violence. By
Richard Lischer (Rossow), 229-231.
EVIDENCE AND TRUTH: Foundations for Christian Truth. By Robert J. Morgan
(Rossow), 331-334.
FEAR, ANOMALY, AND UNCERTAINTY IN THE GOSPEL OF MARK. By Douglas W. Geyer (Trapp), 92-94.
FOOD FOR LIFE: The Spirituality and Ethics of Eating. By L. Shannon Jung
(Brauer), 81-82.
FORTRESS INTRODUCTION TO THE PROPHETS. By Rodney R. Hutton
(Ashmon), 328-330.
FROM JOSHUA TO CAIAPHAS: High Priests after the Exile. By James C.
VanderKam (Rehm), 221-222.
GATHERED GUESTS: A Guide to Worship in the Lutheran Church. By Timothy H.
Maschke (Burreson), XXX.
GOD, MARRIAGE, AND FAMILY: Rebuilding the Biblical Foundation. By Andreas
J. Köstenberger and David W. Jones (Loy), XXX.
GOD AND WORLD IN THE OLD TESTAMENT: A Relational Theology of Creation. By Terence E. Fretheim (Lessing), 235-327.
THE GOD YOU HAVE: Politics and the First Commandment. By Patrick D. Miller
426
(Rehm), 99-100.
HOSEA, Series FOTL 21A/1. By Ehud Ben Zvi (Lessing), 327-328.
HOW ON EARTH DID JESUS BECOME A GOD?: Historical Questions about
Earliest Devotion to Jesus. By Larry W. Hurtado (Gibbs), 214-217.
INSPIRATION AND INCARNATION: Evangelicals and the Problem of the Old
Testament. By Peter Enns (Lessing), 224-226.
INTERPRETING BIBLICAL TEXTS: The Prophetic Literature. By Marvin Sweeney
(Lessing), 220-221.
INTERPRETING THE PSALMS: Issues and Approaches. Edited by David Firth
and Philip S. Johnston (Lessing), 231-233.
ISAIAH: God Saves Sinners. By Raymond C. Ortlund and Kent Hughes (Lessing),
227-229.
JEREMIAH. By Louis Stulman (Lessing), 100-102.
THE LORD’S PRAYER: A Text in Tradition. By Kenneth W. Stevenson (Gibbs), 226227.
LUTHER ON WOMEN: A Sourcebook. By Susan C. Karant-Nunn and Merry E.
Wiesner-Hanks (Maschke), 96-98.
MARK: Images of an Apostolic Interpreter. By C. Clifton Black (Trapp), 82-83.
THE NEW FACES OF CHRISTIANITY: Believing the Bible in the Global South. By
Philip Jenkins (Ji), 324-325.
THE NEW INTERNATIONAL COMMENTARY ON THE OLD TESTAMENT:
The Book of Proverbs Chapters 1-15. By Bruce K. Waltke (Rowold), 94-96.
THE NEW INTERNATIONAL COMMENTARY ON THE OLD TESTAMENT:
The Book of Proverbs Chapters 15-31. By Bruce K. Walkte (Rowold), 94-96.
NEW TESTAMENT COMMENTARY: Exposition of the Book of Revelation. By
Simon J. Kistemaker. (Elowsky), 89-91.
OLD TESTAMENT TURNING POINTS: The Narratives that Shaped a Nation. By
Victor H. Matthews (Lessing), 234-236.
PREACHING: An Essential Guide. By Ronald J. Allen (Rossow), 338-339.
PREACHING AND TEACHING FROM THE OLD TESTAMENT: A Guide for the
Church. By Walter C. Kaiser, Jr. (Lessing), 87-89.
THE PROPHETIC LITERATURE. By Davie L. Petersen (Lessing), 102-104.
REFORMING MARY: Changing Images of the Virgin Mary in Lutheran Sermons of
the Sixteenth Century. By Beth Kreitzer (Maschke), 104-106.
THE SELECTED SERMONS OF NORMAN NAGEL: From Valparaiso to St. Louis.
By Norman Nagel (Dost), XXX.
SHOW ME GOD: What the Message from Space is Telling Us About God. By Fred
Heeren (Zimmerman), 98-99.
SYMTH AND HELWYS BIBLE COMMENTARY: Ezekiel. By Margaret Odell
(Lessing), 335-336.
TAKE EAT, TAKE DRINK: The Lord’s Supper through the Centuries. By Ernest
Bartels (Maschke), XXX.
THEOLOGY IN A GLOBAL CONTEXT: The Last Two Hundred Years. By Hans
Schwarz (Ji), 213-214.
WHATEVER HAPPENED TO TRUTH? Edited by Andreas Köstenberger (Rossow),
236-237.
CONCORDIA JOURNAL/OCTOBER 2007
427
Reviewers of Books
Ashmon, Scott A., 328-330.
Barnbrock, Christoph, 238-239.
Brauer, James L., 81-82.
Burreson, Kent J., 412-413.
Dost, Timothy P., 410-411.
Elowsky, Joel, 89-91.
Geisler, Carol, 337-338.
Gibbs, Jeffrey A., 214-217, 226-227.
Holst, Robert, 330-331.
Ji, Won Yong, 213-214, 324-325.
Kloha, Jeffrey J., 84-87.
Kolb, Robert A., 222-224.
Lessing, R. Reed, 87-89, 91-92, 100-102, 102-104, 220-221, 224-226, 227-229,
231-233, 234-236,325-327, 327-328, 335-336, 418-420.
Loy, David W., 411-412.
Maschke, Timothy, 96-98, 104-106, 217-219, 413-415.
Rehm, Merlin D., 99-100, 221-222, 233-234, 416-417.
Rossow, Francis C., 229-231, 236-237, 331-335, 338-339, 417-418.
Rowold, Henry L., 94-96, 106-107.
Stolle, Volker, 238-239.
Trapp, Thomas H., 82-83, 92-94.
Zimmerman, Paul A., 98-99.
428
A Concordia Journal Readers’ Survey
Dear Reader,
We invite you to respond to a few questions about the Concordia Journal, the official periodical of the faculty of Concordia Seminary. The faculty
wants to make the CJ the best resource we can produce, a valuable resource to help you in your ministry and your continuing theological study.
Your responses to this survey will help inform our efforts to serve you and
the whole church.
You may respond to this survey in one of two ways. You may complete
the questionnaire form below and return these pages by mail to: Concordia
Journal, 801 Seminary Place, Saint Louis, Missouri 63105, USA. Or you
may complete the questionnaire online at www.ConcordiaTheology.org, by
clicking on the “Concordia Journal Survey” button and then answering the
questions directly on our website.
In addition to the specific questions below, we invite your comments
and suggestions about the Concordia Journal or any other aspect of the
theological publications of the Concordia Seminary faculty.
Please indicate how you read the various sections of the Concordia
Journal, using the following scale:
1 = I never read this portion of the Concordia Journal.
2 = I glance at this portion sometimes.
3 = I read this portion sometimes.
4 = I usually get to this portion eventually.
5 = I always read this portion right away.
1. Theological Observer/Theological Potpourri (generally short commentary pieces)
1
Never
2
Glance
3
Sometimes
4
Usually
5
Always
2. Articles (substantive pieces of theological scholarship)
1
Never
2
Glance
3
Sometimes
CONCORDIA JOURNAL/OCTOBER 2007
4
Usually
5
Always
429
3. Homiletical Helps (textual studies and sermon notes)
1
Never
2
Glance
3
Sometimes
4
Usually
5
Always
3
Sometimes
4
Usually
5
Always
3
Sometimes
4
Usually
5
Always
4. Book Reviews
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Never
2
Glance
5. Books Received
1
Never
2
Glance
One possibility under consideration is to move some material from the
print CJ to an online resource. Please indicate, for each of the various
portions of the Concordia Journal, whether you would be more or less
likely to read the material online. Use the following scale:
1= I would never read this material online
2= I might read this material online, but prefer the print version.
3= I am equally likely to read this material online or in print.
4= I prefer to read this material online, but might read the print version.
5= I will definitely read this material if it is available online.
6. Theological Observer / Theological Potpourri (generally short commentary pieces)
1
Never
online
2
Prefer
print
3
Either
one
4
Prefer
online
5
Always
online
7. Articles (substantive pieces of theological scholarship)
1
Never
online
430
2
Prefer
print
3
Either
one
4
Prefer
online
5
Always
online
8. Homiletical Helps (textual studies and sermon notes)
1
Never
online
2
Prefer
print
3
Either
one
4
Prefer
online
5
Always
online
3
Either
one
4
Prefer
online
5
Always
online
3
Either
one
4
Prefer
online
5
Always
online
9. Book Reviews
1
Never
online
2
Prefer
print
10. Books Received
1
Never
online
2
Prefer
print
11. What other professional or theological publications do you read regularly?
12. Listed below are four different ways of describing the main purpose
and mission of the Concordia Journal. These do not necessarily describe what it is now but rather offer statements of what it can and
should be. Which of these statements do you think would best orient
the CJ in a direction that will serve the needs of its readers? (Please
choose one.)
___ The CJ combines theory and practice of ministry to serve as a
resource for Lutheran pastors in the LCMS and beyond.
___ The CJ is published to provide theological stimulation by presenting challenging articles from the cutting edge of scholarship.
___ The CJ promotes a discussion of Christian faith and life on the
basis of the theology of the Lutheran Confessions.
___ The CJ helps to cultivate and encourage Lutheranism around the
world, and to promote greater understanding between Lutherans
and other Christians.
___ The CJ advances the engagement of Lutheran theology with the
latest issues in contemporary theological studies in North America.
CONCORDIA JOURNAL/OCTOBER 2007
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13. How often should the CJ appear? (Please choose one.)
___ Every month.
___ A bit more often than at present: every other month would be
good.
___ Four times a year is about right.
___ Two or three times a year would be enough.
___ No opinion.
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432