United Methodist Church Bracing

 

United Methodists lose a fifth of US churches in schism driven by defiance of LGBTQ bans

The Book of Concord Series. The Nature of Confessions of Faith.

 

The Book of Concord can be viewed backwards in time. In 2023 there are ordained Lutheran pastors - and other denominations - who ridicule and broadcast their contempt for the Christian Faith. Those blasphemies come from a history of resisting expressions of faith in Jesus Christ, 

• the Son of God, Savior, 
• born of the Virgin Mary, 
• miracle worker and teacher, 
• who cured lepers and the blind, 
• bore the cross, died for our sins, 
• rose from the dead, and ascended into Heaven.

Another six-fold creed is found in 1 Timothy 3:16,  a passage used and abused by those who claim the entire world was absolved of all sin and saved the moment Jesus rose from the dead, truly the dogma of the Devil.

KJV 1 Timothy 3:16

16 And without controversy great is the mystery of godliness: 

1. God was manifest in the flesh, 
2. justified in the Spirit, 
3. seen of angels, 
4. preached unto the Gentiles, 
5. believed on in the world, 
6. received up into glory.

This verse is both hymn and confession, concise and poetic, in complete harmony (concordia - Latin, harmony) with the Scriptures.

Confessions of faith die in the darkness, as the popular pundits say, so people reject the apostates, go back to the Scriptures, and enlighten their generation.

The Book of Concord, 1580, is the result of Lutherans working together to repudiate false doctrine and clarify the use of the Scriptures. The Book of Concord was signed and published 50 years after the Augsburg Confession risked the lives of Evangelicals by stressing the truth of the Bible against the destructive dogmas of the Church of Rome.

Hebrews - Daily Verses.

 

 

KJV Hebrews 6

9 But, beloved, we are persuaded better things of you, and things that accompany salvation, though we thus speak.

10 For God is not unrighteous to forget your work and labour of love, which ye have shewed toward his name, in that ye have ministered to the saints, and do minister.

11 And we desire that every one of you do shew the same diligence to the full assurance of hope unto the end:

12 That ye be not slothful, but followers of them who through faith and patience inherit the promises.

13 For when God made promise to Abraham, because he could swear by no greater, he sware by himself,

14 Saying, Surely blessing I will bless thee, and multiplying I will multiply thee.

15 And so, after he had patiently endured, he obtained the promise.

16 For men verily swear by the greater: and an oath for confirmation is to them an end of all strife.

17 Wherein God, willing more abundantly to shew unto the heirs of promise the immutability of his counsel, confirmed it by an oath:

18 That by two immutable things, in which it was impossible for God to lie, we might have a strong consolation, who have fled for refuge to lay hold upon the hope set before us:

19 Which hope we have as an anchor of the soul, both sure and stedfast, and which entereth into that within the veil;

20 Whither the forerunner is for us entered, even Jesus, made an high priest for ever after the order of Melchisedec.

Explanation

Scholars enjoy debating whether the Apostle Paul - or someone else with the same name - wrote Hebrews. Paul signed his letters, but Hebrews is not signed. Luther suggested that Apollos might have written Hebrews and yet the Reformer also referred to the author of Hebrews as Paul.

We often use or hear the phrase "labor of love," which is found only in Paul's 1 Thessalonians 1:3

and in Hebrews 6:10.

1 Thessalonians 1:3 Remembering without ceasing your work of faith, and labour of love, and patience of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ, in the sight of God and our Father; 

Hebrews 6:10 For God is not unrighteous to forget your work and labour of love, which ye have shewed toward his name, in that ye have ministered to the saints, and do minister. 

Another Pauline trait in writing is to follow critical passages with a genuine expression of encouragement and affection, as we see in this passage from Hebrews 6.

We should also note the reference to Abraham - the Father of Faith - definitely related to Justification by Faith. The patriarch's name appears about 27 times in the New Testament.

As Luther wrote, people turn Moses into the Savior and Jesus into the Lawgiver. One would never know from modern Fuller-trained "Lutheran" leaders that Calvin is their heart-felt teacher, their theologian, their burning light.

Let us all repeat this piece of wisdom from C. Peter Wagner, which his Lutheran followers have failed to understand.

Daily Luther Sermon Quote - Trinity 6 - Third Sermon. "And There Is Quite a Difference Between Enduring Pain, Weeping And lamenting, And Seeking Revenge, Or Entertaining Hatred And Envy."

 

Click for -> Complete Sermon for Trinity 6 - Anger and Its Signs, Third Sermon

23. So we assert that Christ here is not preaching on the office which is God’s, nor on love, but on each person’s own and individual wrath, proceeding from our heart and will, and directed against the person of our neighbor: — this wrath is to be wholly done away with and be put to death, no matter if the injury and injustice done to us hurts and pains. To illustrate that John the Baptist was so shamefully slain, that Christ was nailed to the cross, that the holy martyrs were so cruelly put to death, all this did not pass without the weeping and lamentation of pious hearts; for we do not have, nor should we have, hearts of iron but of flesh, as St. Bernhard says: Dolor est, sed contemnitur; it is painful, but must be borne and overcome. And there is quite a difference between enduring pain, weeping and lamenting, and seeking revenge, or entertaining hatred and envy.

24. Now God wants this commandment: Thou shalt not kill, understood to mean so much that no one is to be angry. For by nature we all are liars, born in natural sin and in blindness, not knowing how to be angry, nor seeing how depraved our nature is, to-wit. , that it is not able either to love or be angry aright, since in both it seeks nothing but self and selfish ends.

Since now by nature we are so corrupt, it is forbidden and annulled both to love and be angry as a human being, in which our nature would seek its own ends. On the other hand, divine love that “seeketh not her own” but that of one’s neighbor, is enjoined, and an anger that is zealous not for his own but for God’s sake, whom it behooves either to punish transgressions against his commandments, or out of a spirit of love, and for the good of our neighbor to help him.

25. The Pharisaical holiness, however, does not act thus; but as it has no love for one’s neighbor but only wishes to see self honored and praised and served; so too it cannot but rage and rave against the truly pious persons, and still pretends not to have sinned against the commandment in question. Just as Christ was treated by the Pharisees and high priests, who delivered him to the judge Pilate to be offered upon the cross, and still they did not want to be accounted guilty, but to eat the pascal lamb and remain holy.

26. Hence the Lord strikes a fresh blow at all the Pharisaic holiness and righteousness, denying them every particle of grace and the kingdom of heaven and condemning them to hell-fire, as having an unrighteousness doubly wrong in God’s sight and corrupt to the very core. Therefore I say, says God: “Whosoever is angry with his brother;” I do not say, He only that slays with his hand, but if you have anger in your heart, then you are already worthy to be condemned by the judgment; for such wrath originates only in man’s inborn malice, which seeks either its own revenge and wantonness, or its own honor and gain. But God does not want you to seek your own honor and right; but let him seek and demand it who should, and to whom he has given authority, namely, the judge and executioner, who are not looking after their own but God’s affairs, for otherwise they would not be permitted to execute or punish anybody. But see to it, says he, that you personally do not grow angry, but so completely control your anger that, be it in official duty or not, it does not proceed from the heart.