Check out Pastor Fisk’s website www.worldvieweverlasting.com for more theological food!
Wednesday, March 30, 2011
Dating and Marriage
Below is a 20-minute video put together by the Rev. Jonathan Fisk, an LCMS pastor, who discusses dating, marriage, and family life. He addresses a number of questions and will certainly give you something to think about when it comes to your own children and grandchildren.
Tuesday, March 29, 2011
Chrysostom: Almsgiving
Almsgiving is the mother of love, of that love which is characteristic of Christianity, which is greater than all miracles, by which the disciples of Christ are manifested.Saint John Chrysostom
4th Century AD
Thursday, March 17, 2011
Saint Patrick's Breastplate
St. Patrick’s Breastplate
I bind unto myself today
The strong Name of the Trinity,
By invocation of the same
The Three in One and One in Three.
I bind this today to me forever
By power of faith, Christ’s incarnation;
His baptism in Jordan river,
His death on Cross for my salvation;
His bursting from the spicèd tomb,
His riding up the heavenly way,
His coming at the day of doom
I bind unto myself today.
I bind unto myself the power
Of the great love of cherubim;
The sweet ‘Well done’ in judgment hour,
The service of the seraphim,
Confessors’ faith, Apostles’ word,
The Patriarchs’ prayers, the prophets’ scrolls,
All good deeds done unto the Lord
And purity of virgin souls.
I bind unto myself today
The virtues of the star lit heaven,
The glorious sun’s life giving ray,
The whiteness of the moon at even,
The flashing of the lightning free,
The whirling wind’s tempestuous shocks,
The stable earth, the deep salt sea
Around the old eternal rocks.
I bind unto myself today
The power of God to hold and lead,
His eye to watch, His might to stay,
His ear to hearken to my need.
The wisdom of my God to teach,
His hand to guide, His shield to ward;
The word of God to give me speech,
His heavenly host to be my guard.
Against the demon snares of sin,
The vice that gives temptation force,
The natural lusts that war within,
The hostile men that mar my course;
Or few or many, far or nigh,
In every place and in all hours,
Against their fierce hostility
I bind to me these holy powers.
Against all Satan’s spells and wiles,
Against false words of heresy,
Against the knowledge that defiles,
Against the heart’s idolatry,
Against the wizard’s evil craft,
Against the death wound and the burning,
The choking wave, the poisoned shaft,
Protect me, Christ, till Thy returning.
Christ be with me, Christ within me,
Christ behind me, Christ before me,
Christ beside me, Christ to win me,
Christ to comfort and restore me.
Christ beneath me, Christ above me,
Christ in quiet, Christ in danger,
Christ in hearts of all that love me,
Christ in mouth of friend and stranger.
I bind unto myself the Name,
The strong Name of the Trinity,
By invocation of the same,
The Three in One and One in Three.
By Whom all nature hath creation,
Eternal Father, Spirit, Word:
Praise to the Lord of my salvation,
Salvation is of Christ the Lord.
(public domain)
Friday, March 11, 2011
Lent: Almsgiving
Almsgiving—charitable giving to those in need—has long been considered one of the three Lenten disciplines of Christ’s people.
Jesus’ words “when you give to the needy…” (Matthew 6:1-4) remind us that faith in Him manifests itself in works of love and mercy. As God has so blessed you, please consider helping someone in need this Lenten season. Below are a few ways to help out members in need, those in the armed forces, and a listing of noteworthy charitable organizations that reach out to this community and around the world.
Gift Cards for Members in Need
Area gift cards in any amount are always welcome to help out members in need. An “Alms Fund” has been established for this purpose. Simply submit one or more gift cards to Pastor Mumme or the Board of Elders, who will distribute them as needs arise in the congregation. Area gift cards sold through our Ladies Aid “Manna” program include: Dominicks, Jewel, Meijer, and Walmart.
Donations for Those in the Armed Forces
Non-perishable food items and small toiletry items are always welcome for the “care packages” we send to members in the Armed Forces. A list of suggested items and a donation container are located in Luther Hall.
Noteworthy Charitable Organizations
To help provide basic human care needs to those in our country and around the world (including relief for the people of Japan who recently endured a major earthquake and tsunami):
LCMS World Relief and Human Care
P.O. Box 66861
Saint Louis, MO 63166-9810
To help provide hot meals and food and clothing pantry needs to those in the northern Will County area:
MorningStar Mission Ministries
350 E. Washington Street
Joliet, IL 60433
To help provide pre-packaged meals for those famished in third world countries:
Feed My Starving Children
6750 West Broadway
Brooklyn Park, MN 55428
For more information about any of these organizations, please check out their website or talk to Pastor Mumme. Each of these organizations accepts donations via mail or online.
Lent: Fasting
Fasting—abstaining from certain foods for a period of time—has long been considered one of the three Lenten disciplines of Christ’s people.
In the Old Testament, fasting was an outward discipline tied to the inward repentance of one’s heart. “Yet even now,” declares the LORD, “return to Me with all your heart, with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning; and rend your hearts and not your garments” (Joel 2:12-13). Jesus Himself fasted for forty days and forty nights in the wilderness following His baptism (Matthew 4:1-2). The first Christians fasted (Acts 13:2-3; 14:23). Do you suppose fasting might serve a purpose for modern day Christians as well?
Jesus once said: “When you fast, do not look gloomy like the hypocrites, for they disfigure their faces that their fasting may be seen by others. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward. But when you fast, anoint your head and wash your face, that your fasting may not be seen by others but by your Father who is in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you” (Matthew 6:16-18).
Notice that Jesus does not say “if you fast…” He says “when you fast…” Twice! With these words, Jesus is teaching us how rightly to put into practice this well established and God-given discipline.
Fasting is never meant to draw attention to oneself. Nor it is meant to merit anything from God. If either of these is our aim, then fasting will do us no good.
So why would a Christian fast? Scripture relates it to a private act of humility and devotion to God (see Matthew 6:16-18 above), and as a means to discipline the body. Disciplining the body reminds us what Christ gave up—His very throne, His very blood, His very life—to win our salvation. It also teaches us—by denying ourselves a basic item like food or drink—not to gratify our every desire. That can be beneficial in our walk of faith. Paul writes: “I discipline my body and keep it under control” (1 Corinthians 9:27). He later reminds Timothy that one of the purposes of God’s grace is “training us to renounce … worldly passions” (Titus 2:11-12). Fasting is one of the ways we can discipline our bodies and train ourselves to renounce worldly passions.
Did you know that the German name for Lent used historically in Lutheranism is Fastenzeit, meaning “fast time”? The spiritual discipline of fasting was always part of historic Lutheranism. In the Small Catechism, Luther teaches us about the necessity of being truly worthy and well prepared for the Lord’s Supper through faith in Christ’s words of institution: “Given and shed for you for the forgiveness of sins.” But notice that he prefaces those remarks with these words: “Fasting and bodily preparation are certainly fine outward training.”
Sadly, the desire by many of our forefathers to fit in with the rest of American Protestantism has led to the disuse of fasting among modern day Lutherans. I think it’s time we rediscover this Scriptural and Lutheran discipline. Not by requirements of the Law, but in the freedom of the Gospel.
God’s Old Testament people fasted. Jesus fasted. The first Christians fasted. Certainly there’s a benefit in fasting for us as well!
For more background information
or some suggestions on how you might fast,
see The Lutheran Study Bible, page 189.
Lent: Prayer
Prayer—speaking to God in words and thoughts—has long been considered one of the three Lenten disciplines of Christ’s people.
This discipline is the one that is most familiar to Christians. Jesus, who prayed for us in the garden and on the cross, and still prays for us at the Father’s right hand, extends to us this invitation: “Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you” (Matthew 7:7). As Christ’s people, it is our privilege to pray to our Father who art in heaven. To thank and praise Him, to petition Him, even to call upon Him in the day of trouble.
Use this Lenten season to be in the Word on a regular basis. Attend the Divine Service on Sunday mornings and the midweek services on Wednesday evenings. Read a daily devotion, like the ones found on our church’s website. Not only will this strengthen your faith and enliven your hope, it will also increase your prayers to the Triune God!
“You did not choose Me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should abide, so that whatever you ask the Father in My name, He may give it to you.” [John 15:16]
Tuesday, March 8, 2011
Sinners Wanted
“May God in His mercy save me from a Christian Church where there are only saints. I want to be with that little company and in that Church where there are faint-hearted and weak people, the sick, and those who are aware of their sin, misery, and wretchedness and who feel it, who cry to God without ceasing and sigh unto Him for comfort and help.” [Martin Luther]Day by Day We Magnify Thee
page 226
Saturday, March 5, 2011
Born This Way?
Holy Scripture states clearly that each and every one of us enters this world a sinner. This inherited “original sin” is the underlying cause of every sinful thought, word, and deed.
“Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me.” [Psalm 51:5]
“I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh.” [Romans 7:18]
“None is righteous, no, not one.” [Romans 3:10]
“All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” [Romans 3:23]
So, should you indulge your sinful flesh since you were born this way? Holy Scripture again provides the answer.
“Put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to gratify its desires.” [Romans 13:14]
“But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. For the desires of the flesh are against the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh, for these are opposed to each other, to keep you from doing the things you want to do. … And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.” [Galatians 5:16-17, 24]
Sin is sin. You entered this world spiritually blind, dead, and an enemy of God. Simply put, you were born this way. Yet, the Triune God did not leave you in your sin and death. On the contrary. He came to redeem and save and forgive you.
“But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved—and raised us up with Him and seated us with Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages He might show the immeasurable riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.” [Ephesians 2:4-10]
Being born a sinner is never an excuse to indulge your sinful flesh. Crucify that flesh. Drown it daily in the remembrance of your baptism into Christ. And then live the new life Christ has given you to live. What ultimately matters is not that you were born this way, but that you have been born again of water and the Spirit!
“Put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires, and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.” [Ephesians 4:22-24]
Now that’s something to sing about!!!
Friday, March 4, 2011
Male Pastors
Because the Scriptures in fact do consider the human race as consisting in two consubstantial forms and therefore consider these two forms, male and female, as of enduring and abiding significance, it is not surprising but rather to be expected that the Bible is not unaware of distinctive spiritual roles which correspond to roles given to masculinity and which correspond to roles given to femininity. It is not to be overlooked, let alone denigrated, that when the Scriptures speak of God or of those who represent Him to the people of God, it does so predominately through masculine imagery. And similarly, it is not to be overlooked that when the Scriptures speak of the people of God and their relation to God, it does so predominately by means of feminine imagery. And here, with our specific purpose in mind, we reiterate the fact that those figures, both in the Old Testament and in the New Testament, who serve as fundamental representatives or types of the redemptive purposes of God in Christ are male figures. There is the figure of Adam, the figure of Abraham, the figure of Moses (prophet like Moses), the kings of Israel, especially the figure of David. There is also the idea of the first-born son, and there is even the figure of the sacrificial, passover lamb which, according to Exodus 12, was to be a male lamb of one year’s age (also: the scapegoat and the goat of the sin offering for the yearly Feast of Expiation were males, Leviticus 16). We mention here also the fact that the Christ himself, to whom all these masculine types point, assumed his human nature in the masculine mode of human being, and we mention finally the fact that Christ chose as his apostles only males.Dr. William Weinrich
It Is Not Given to Women to Teach
Fort Wayne: Concordia Theological Seminary Press, p. 18
Thursday, March 3, 2011
The Totality of Scripture
Scripture is not a bundle of truisms, true stories, and legislations which somehow on their own and apart from the whole can be properly understood and appropriated. Scripture, inspired Word of God as it is, is the prophetic and apostolic witness which norms our understanding of the speaking and acting of God which began in the creation, continued through the history of the Old Testament people, was fulfilled in the incarnate Word, and now in the speech and life of the Church moves toward its appointed end in the resurrection of the dead and the eternal Kingdom of God. The deep reason for the details must be sought in the whole...Dr. William Weinrich
It Is Not Given to Women to Teach
Fort Wayne: Concordia Theological Seminary Press, pp. 9-10
Dive In!
Some of you have been Christians your whole life. Others are relatively new to Christianity. In either case, how do you view the Christian life? Have you immersed yourself in the baptismal grace that is yours in Jesus Christ? Do you splash around daily in the new life He gives you to live? Or are you content dipping in your toes when you need a little spiritual refreshing?
The blessings of forgiveness, life, and salvation Christ gave you in Holy Baptism are as vast and endless as the ocean. In that water you were baptized into His death and resurrection. You died there and were raised to newness of life. And yet, many have become so comfortable in this world and its ways that they want little to do with the new life Christ purchased for them at the price of His very own blood.
Think of it this way. A bunch of kids go to a lake to swim. One of them dips his toes in the water and cries out: “It’s cold! I’m not going in.” Another goes in up to his ankles and says the same thing. Some may even go in up to their knees. Then comes the kid who runs down the dock and dives in head first. It’s fearfully chilly. His blood is pumping. It even stings at first. But in no time his head emerges and he exclaims: “It’s awesome! Come on in!”
This analogy isn’t perfect. For starters, we don’t take the initiative on living the Christian life. Christ does that! But the Christian faith is much like a swim. Many are happy to walk around in the shallow waters of Christianity, barely getting their toes or ankles or knees wet. There they stand, shivering in the cold air of the world they are afraid to leave behind. But that’s not Christianity. Being a disciple of Christ means taking up your cross and following Him day in and day out. To return to the analogy, it means diving in and swimming around in the grace and mercy and forgiveness He provides on a daily basis. Is it cold? Will it sting? Almost certainly. Living the Christian life is not an easy calling. It involves daily crucifying the sinful flesh and living in the baptismal grace with which Christ has washed you.
So dive in. Take the plunge into the river of life. Swim around in His grace. Drink deeply of His mercy. Be a Christian! This is not your own doing, but God’s doing in you. He has already washed you clean and claimed you as His own dear child. Don’t walk away from it. Live as His child!
“There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God, the holy habitation of the Most High.” [Psalm 46:4]
“If anyone thirsts, let him come to Me and drink.” [John 7:37]
“Let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water.” [Hebrews 10:22]
“The Lamb in the midst of the throne will be their Shepherd, and He will guide them to springs of living water, and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.” [Revelation 7:17]
Being a Christian does not mean a life free of trial and tribulation. Yet, you have Christ’s promise that He will see you through those trials and tribulations in the strength of His Word and presence.
Don’t dip your toes into Christianity and then complain it’s not what you hoped or expected or wanted. God Himself says you need it. So dive in. Live daily from every Word that proceeds from Christ’s mouth. Be fed regularly with His true body and blood. Swim daily in His gifts and splash His grace onto everyone you encounter in your various vocations. Living the baptismal life may take some getting used to (the Old Adam doesn’t drown easily), but our gracious Lord will show you over and over again how refreshing such a swim in His sacred flood is.
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