My Well-Being Check for the Day

People worry when I have not posted at 5 AM. The virus pushed a lot more people into online so I have classes overlapping instead of waiting for the next one. Long ago, the slow times were great for writing and publishing.

Writing Plans - Subject To Change

Very little is being done with the Scriptural issues, so most of the work will be Biblical.

1. Luther's Galatians Lectures - I am publishing the shorter version with explanations, applying his insights to the false doctrine of the LCMS-WELS-ELCA-ELS. They are all in the same bed, and lovin' it.
2. The American Calvin: CFW Walther - Demythologizing should have started with the fantasies woven by the LCMS historians. A closer look shows Walther to be not the American Luther - but the American Calvin. One of the Bethany Scholars encouraged this by asking about Walther's Election without Faith, the obverse side of Objective Justification.
3. If I do lectures on Moby Dick, or The Whale for Christians, I may write a booklet for it. The book is saturated with Scriptural references and is also a lot of fun, from the first page on.

Thank You Janie Sullivan! - All My Books Are in Dropbox in One Folder

Janie Sullivan is our finishing editor, making the final print version and Kindle Ebook as attractive as possible. She put together this PDF library for sharing free with Lutherans around the world.

This is the one blog address that contains everything we are sharing with Lutherans around the world:

1. Luther's Sermons - more to come.
2. Gems from Luther's Sermons - another gems volume to appear.
3. Lenski's New Testament commentaries - each one.
4. Keil-Delitsch Old Testament direct link - very handy.
5. The books I have written.
6. The link to Alex Satin's Lutheran Library Publishing Ministry - the old classics.

It will remain the main address, but technology changes, and we need backups here and there.

This is the DropBox link to all my books. They are free and public domain. Copy them, share them - no permission required. No fees.

I do not mind at all if you check them out and see if they download for you. I have found that it is best to open each file in Microsoft Edge as a PDF, then save locally. Otherwise it tends to open as a web page, which is more difficult to use.

You can also download straight into your own DropBox storage. I highly recommend DropBox for backups, big files, photos, etc.

 Norma A. Boeckler has designed all our covers and illustrated all the books. She loves doing this, and everyone loves her books.

Virginia Roberts jumped in to help with major editing tasks.

Phone Trivia, Schedule, Upcoming Books

Phone Trivia
We were going to change phone numbers, but decided to try to move it to the fiber optic phone when that is installed. So that will continue to be our phone number (ending in 0066). We intend to downgrade the geezer phone to low minutes, which will save money and give us two numbers to use when needed (seldom).

Worship Services and Greek Schedule

Thanksgiving Eve. 7 PM Wednesday night

Mid-week Services on Thursday at 7 PM - Greek After
The first Mid-week Advent service will be Thursday, November 29th, 7 PM - followed by Greek class. We will do a Greek intro and refresher after each Advent midweek service. Thursdays allow more pastors to attend the Greek class live.

Anyone new to Greek should get Paine's book - linked here. Order now. We will start on John 1 and move to 1 John (sounds like Q?). This helps keep people fresh on Greek until we have a long series in 2018. Gospel of Mark?

Let the Good Books Roll (Laissez les bons livres rouler!)

1. The Gospel of Faith: From the Disciple Jesus Loved, now headed to Amazon and Kindle.
2. Luther's House Postils, not easily available, 3 volumes, color and Kindle only. Two volumes are close to completion, the third is coming along.
3. Calvin Ruined the Protestant Faith.
4. The Ichabod Lutheran Dictionary.
5. A New Book on Creation Teaching in the New Testament - banned in advance by the LCMS.
6. A book similar to John's Gospel, about Justification by Faith alone, Scripture plus brief commentary.

Upcoming Activities - Publishing and Teaching

We do not have all those non-Means of Grace activities to keep us occupied, so here is what the future holds:

1. John's Gospel of Faith - To be finished and published soon.
2. Luther's House Postils - Already started.
3. How Calvin Ruined the Protestant Faith - Planned next.
4. Ichabod Lutheran Dictionary - Started: no more Mr. Nice Guy.
5. Greek class after each Advent service. Consult your Thrivent calendar. May do these Thursdays for pastors who attend.
6. Entire service and sermon in Word files - email list expanding. Those on it will get the Word file each Sunday, Advent, Lent. If you are not getting it and want it, email greg.jackson.edlp@gmail.com
7. The executive secretary, coffee-maker, chairman of the garden sub-committee of the altar committee is doing the best he can. Reminders of forgotten and misplaced items are welcome, if conveyed in a kind, sensitive, and diplomatic manner.

We have talked of organizing a list of good books to study for future pastors and interested laity. That deserves some time and organization. Walther will not be on it - it is a list for Lutherans.

More Luther books are being ordered to be sent this week. Amazon slowed down with a change in their publishing methods.

Learn to identify your predators.

Books Are Being Shipped - The Sermons and the Gems

Below - Norma A. Boeckler, artist. Virginia Roberts, editor.
Above - Janie Sullivan, Christina Jackson, Gregory Jackson.
Out of space at the gallery - Terry and Lori Howell; a Lutheran pastor.


Eight people were the key to getting 9 volumes of Luther, 27 titles in all, out in public at the lowest possible price.

Someone Doubts 27 titles, But Observe

1. The Lenker set of Luther's Sermons, illustrated in color by Norma A. Boeckler, 8 volumes, plus the Gems.
2. Black and white, Economy Edition - The Lenker set of Luther's Sermons, illustrated by Norma A. Boeckler, 8 volumes, plus the Gems. Complete set, shipping and taxes, $70.
3. Kindle Ebooks - The Lenker set of Luther's Sermons, illustrated in color by Norma A. Boeckler, 8 volumes, plus the Gems. Most titles are 99 cents.

 John N. Lenker, Hamma Divinity School graduate, translated and organized other translators to create the eight-volume set.

But Wait - There's More

If all goes well, God willing, there will be one master PDF with all nine volumes included, each volume paginated separately. That will allow for quick, easy searching. Copy and pasting sections would probably go better in Kindle, but this is a 3,000 page library of Luther.

Naturally, this PDF file will be full color. I will stow the Word version in various secure, undisclosed locations, for another generation to use.


Rogue Edition of The Gems Mined from Luther's Sermons

When people want The Gems, they will get the full color edition, which is only $10. However, to promote the Sermons and the full color Gems, I had a black and white edition published for $2.40.

CPAs understand why. If a congregation wants to generate interest in Luther and give people an introduction to Luther, they can get 10 Gems for $24 in black and white. Otherwise, that number would cost $100.

"Why So Many Links?" Someone Forgot To Ask
One of my graduate students taught me Search Engine Optimization. When people click on links, the URL rises on the search engine results.

Also, reviews do the same for book titles. Even if someone checks in at that book's page and says, "This is a good book to read," that will count.

How To Promote the Biblical Doctrine of Luther - Write Reviews

 Reviews, good and bad, add to the visibility of the books.
Here is where the Luther's Sermons can be found.

One person asked how to promote Luther's Biblical doctrine, which is best represented in his sermons.

I said, "Easy. Write reviews for each title. Most of them can be found here. Each review raises the visibility of the book on the social media and therefore on the search engines."

Another worthwhile project is writing reviews about Norma A. Boeckler's works, which are found here - which are in addition to the books she has illustrated for me.

 Janie Sullivan is working with me to finish books for Amazon and Kindle.
The Luther's Sermons on Kindle will soon be free. Then the rest of the books I produce will be free on Kindle - all of them.

Luther's Sermons in Word - So Is the Large Catechism

 The Grand Rapids edition was 8 volumes
and was very reasonable.
CPH chose to sell Luther gee-gaws this year,
like their Here I Stand socks,
and publish Gerhard in an expensive edition.

I finished putting the eight volumes of the Lenker set into Word software - how ironic. Today I will send one volume each to various volunteers who are working on removing scan errors from the set. That is a big help, and I really appreciate it.

I decided to start each volume with a Best of Luther set of quotations, mined from that particular book, ending with the citation. Nothing is more frustrating than seeing a "Luther quotation" with no citation. The main point of the quotations is to get people into the sermons themselves.

Luther's sermons should be read and studied, not overlayed with editorial filters. That would be like a house painter explaining Rembrandt.

The volumes will come out one at at time. I am doing this so a set can be bought at the author's price, which is an enormous discount from the Amazon retail price. They will also be on Kindle Unlimited, so those people can have the set for free as e-books.

Any Lutheran publisher could have done this, because creating low-cost editions of public domain works is often done. Visit a chain bookstore and all the classics are available in cheap editions for a few dollars each. New salacious novels are $25 and more.

I wanted a set that I could read in printed form, so the fonts will be as large as possible. Amazon print books are well constructed. I have been pleased with them and their color covers.

 Now on Amazon and Kindle - The Lost Dutchman's Goldmine."11. Therefore we have here in the Books of Moses the real gold mine, from which everything that is written in the New Testament concerning the divinity of Christ has been taken. Here you may see from what source the gospel of St. John is taken, and upon what it is founded; and therefore it is easy to understand."
Vol 1, Luther's Sermons.

The Large Catechism was once published on its own by Augsburg, and I enjoyed toting that around and reading from it. The Large Catechism is a version of Luther's sermons and expands upon the topics of the Small Catechism.

Start Roses by Pruning Them

We had a long summer last year,
a great time for large, almost flawless roses.
Beneficial insects and spiders ate most of the
rose destroyers, though Japanese beetles did have some fun.

Facebook tells me not to neglect the Creation Gardening Page, so I will feed their software another post. I put the gardening posts on my main page, but the Creation Gardening Page is only gardening and Creation related posts and articles.

 Creation Gardening: By Him Were All Things Made -
Every time you click, a butterfly gets his wings.

 It worked, it worked!

Many plant roses but relatively few prune them. If I could teach people the best activity for roses, it would be -

1. Prune the roses.
2. Prune the deadwood off.
3. Prune the crossed canes away.
4. Prune the spent flowers before they produce seed (hips).\
5. Toss the clippings in the garbage can. Read John 15:1-10.

Frequent pruning encourages more growth above and below ground.

Trimming is a large part of caring for the yard. Frequent mowing at a decent height is very good for grass, but terrible for weeds. The grass cuttings feed the soil and make the grass even denser. Weeds go to seed opportunistically. If the weeds are allowed to seed themselves, they will continue to vex the gardener. But, if the weeds are cut off just when they want to create another generation, they will greatly diminish.

Some of us like to prune. For weeks I would work on the Crepe Myrtle bush, knowing that all the extra twigs and false starts were holding it back. I kept working on the canes until they were no longer trying to twig out. The results showed in a smooth, attractive base and a wild explosion of long-lasting blooms on the top.

I never poison or pull out dandelions. They are perennial herbs, sometimes called lawn nails, and difficult to remove. But why do that? They bring up calcium in their leaves and shed those leaves on the soil. They feed the bees and provide seed fluff for birds' nests. Dandelions also produce the most nutritious leaves for salads, but not so appealing after being soaked in broad leaf weed-killer.

This double red KnockOut looks like a painting.
Usually beneficial insects follow the rose to the vase
and continue working.

Pruning Is a Habit Formed by Its Rewards
The supposed chore of pruning is not so awful when the job is rewarded with beautiful flowers. Leaving the blooms on the roses will mean they will aim toward turning to seed. Cutting and sharing them promotes immediate new growth and more flowers.

Soon a few rose bushes will rotate blooming and giving up the flowers for the vase. More flowers mean color and fragrance in the garden while sharing the roses.

A rose can be cut as soon as the five sepals are open. Four open sepals are not enough. Even if the bud seems closed and not ready, the five sepals that first covered it at will signal when the rose can be put in a vase. Our late neighbor remembered when I told her, "This rose bud does not look like much, but watch it open up in the vase." She was skeptical, but it happened just as I predicted. That gave her more time to admire a single flower as it opened.

Prolific bloomers like KnockOut roses need more pruning to produce more roses. Grandson Alex learned to flick a bloom with his finger to see if petals were ready to fall off. If a flick made some petals fall, the flower was cut away.

 I pruned half the Crepe Myrtle,
so we all enjoyed this second bloom.

How Much Pruning?
I will prune all my roses back at least 50%. The power is in the cane growth and root expansion.

KnockOuts will be pruned back that much, several times over during the season, a tribute to their rapid growth. If we have a long, soaker rain that beats them down (by softening their canes and loading the bushes with water), I will cut the KnockOuts back instead of letting them look like last week's laundry left on the floor.

ICU
If a rose looks bad and sad, cut it way back and pamper it with rainwater. If you have not stored rainwater in a barrel, then store tapwater in a barrel, so the chlorine gas can evaporate out. Pampering means watering it twice a week, not every day until it is dead.

Make sure the rose is well mulched with a combination of cardboard and plant material (grass or shredded wood). Mulch holds water, diminishes water and wind erosion, and stores a mass of decaying matter that ultimately feeds the the roots.

Any grassy weeds around or in the rose bush should be snipped away to keep the invader small and weak. Sometimes a planted nut tree will spring up in the middle of a rose plant. The culprit is probably a squirrel storing his food, or more ominously, assuming his plant will outlive mine.

Roses are royal and must live and grow without competition. Garlic or chives can grow among roses and help them. Other plants - larger and more aggressive - crowd them out (Mark 4) and that is not good for either one.

More Creation Gardening Books Arriving. Goldmine Proofing Luther's Sermons Wording

More copies of Creation Gardening books are arriving. I expect to send Goldmine to the finishing editor by Sunday. She used to live in Apache Junction where the Lost Dutchman's Goldmine can be found - or so a certain number of people hope.

Mrs. Ichabod and I just watched this movie on TCM.
The lesson is clear - gold fever leads to death.

The Lutherans sects in America provide many good reasons why they should be dismantled.

They too have a lust for gold that is never satiated. The LCMS-WELS-ELS got their own goldmine when Marvin Schwan died, and they knew why he turned most of his fortune over to their greedy hands - guilt. Did the oily Planned Giving Counselors discourage him from paying for his sins with enormous grants to their seminaries and colleges? No. If anything, they fanned the infernal flames of his obsessed life. He was a genius at messing up lives, so they ignored that and venerated his money.

One WELS Iago spent his life talking about money, retired, and died faster than a Rosie O'Donnell romance movie.

A WELS program was called "God's Treasures - And Yours." I am sure the emphasis was on "Yours." Since WELS and the Little Sect and Missouri are famous for ignoring Luther, they would never guess that treasure in the Book of Concord refers only to the Atonement.

 The point of the book is that Luther left a legacy of Gospel treasures, but today Lutheran leaders
only mine the fool's gold of Halle Pietism
and Fuller Seminary hucksterism.
They celebrate the 500th with dog collars
and an Emmaus Conference about themselves - not Luther.

 Get Creation Gardening for your Kindle so you can find out
what you are doing wrong - while digging.