|
|
|
|
|
|
|
ICHABOD, THE GLORY HAS DEPARTED - explores the Age of Apostasy, predicted in 2 Thessalonians 2:3, to attack Objective Faithless Justification, Church Growth Clowns, and their ringmasters. The antidote is trusting the efficacious Word in the Means of Grace. John 16:8. Isaiah 55:8ff. Romans 10. Most readers are WELS, LCMS, ELS, or ELCA. This blog also covers the Roman Catholic Church, Eastern Orthodoxy, and the National Council of Churches.
Friday, July 15, 2022
The Complete Church Postil of Martin Luther, Lenker Edition - And Much More. Lutheran Library Publishing Ministry. Lutheran Librarian Alec Satin.
Why Is Calvinist News Promoting the Stephan-Walther Cover-Up and the Westcott-Hort Bleck Bible?
Various publications, starting with Zion on the Mississippi, have shown that
- CFW Walther and his hyper-Pietistic circle obeyed Bishop Martin Stephan 100% and
- stayed quiet about Stephan's harem of young women.
The Walther cult created a riot by lying about Stephan's mistress confessing her sins, after one of them gave a sultry and provocative sermon. They later admitted that sermon-confession story was made up. She was loyal to Stephan to the end of his life.
 |
| Stealing all of Stephan's money, land, books, and personal belongings made the Walther cult rich and influential. |
 |
| Walther never departed from the Objective Justification he learned from Stephan. CFW made sure his puppet Pieper became the new professor at Concordia Seminary. |
How is CFW Walther worthy of having his Pastoral Theology promoted by anyone?
Dr. Walther Maier was a scholar and a pastor. He created media evangelism with his powerful radio sermons. He taught the opposite of Herman Otten, CFW Walther, and Phil Hail.
 |
| I had to check the caption - this is actually Matt the Fatt Harrison. Who is minding the store when he is enjoying his synod-funded meals? |
 |
| His royal OJist, Richard Jungkuntst, PhD, was 100% loyal to OJ, Seminex, and the alternative campus shared with that bunch, ultimately ELCA. |
 |
| This is the tombstone of Ed Preuss, OJ scholar still honored today by OJ nitwits. He joined the Church of Rome. Does this start to sound familiar? Richard Neuhaus, another LCMS hero, another OJist, became Father Neuhaus and lectured his fellow alumni on becoming Catholic. |
 |
| Otten published this, but he did not believe it. The Preus brothers leaned on their Norwegian Pietism to pump up Objective Justification, which happened to be the theme of Seminex too. The Missouri Synod genuflects to Rome daily, rejecting and repudiating the Chief Article - Justification by Faith - and drop-kicking the inerrancy of Scriptures. They love their Westcott-Hort: just ask CPH, CN, and other dens of thieves. |
Berkley Center - Georgetown Jesuit University - New Wartburg ELCA Seminary President
 |
AREAS OF ACADEMIC RESEARCH
|
Comparative Theology, Constructive Systematic Theology
specifically Feminist Theologies & Liberation Theologies, Buddhism, Hinduism,
World Religions, Animal Theology, Literature & Theology |
 |
| Louise Johnson was an earlier Wartburg president. She lost a lot of weight and gained an honorary doctorate from the college, which may explain the lopsided smile. |
Profile, Pronoun Pratfall
"This individual is not a direct affiliate of the Berkley Center. They have [she has] contributed to one or more of our events, publications, or projects. Please contact the individual at their [her] home institution.
The Rev. Dr. Kristin Johnston Largen is a professor of systematic theology at United Lutheran Seminary. Her focus is on comparative theology with Buddhism and Hinduism and 21st century theology, specifically feminist and liberation theologies. She is the editor of Dialog: A Journal of Theology, and her most recent books are Finding God among our Neighbors, vol. 1 & 2 (2013, 2017)."
 |
| Luther was mocked at Wartburg ELCA Seminary, where students added the fish-hat and cope. |
Thursday, July 14, 2022
Yet Another Jesuit! - Maybe He Is the General of the "Conservative" Lutheran Jesuits - John F. Johnson, PhD from St. Louis Jesuit University
 |
| John F. Johnson, got his PhD from Jesuit St. Louis University, because he thought his Concordia St. Louis ThD was useless outside of Missouri. He sports the lopsided smile so familiar in the Olde Synodical Conference. |
I visited Johnson in his office at Concordia, St. Louis, and got him to start raving about how great the adulterous Karl Barth (Swiss theologian) was. He saw I was not on his wavelength and immediately switched to another topic. He discussed having a ThD from the LCMS was worthless outside of the LCMS, so he earned a PhD at St. Louis University to be more marketable in academics. No wonder Missouri was so eager to make Johnson a higher education leader.
Guided by our enduring Jesuit mission, we offer our nearly 13,000 students a highly rigorous and deeply transformative education that helps them develop into bold, confident leaders. Rated among the nation’s top research universities, SLU boasts 15 graduate and undergraduate programs ranked among the top 50 in the country by U.S. News & World Report.
I could not find David Luy on LinkedIn so I just googled his name + Lutheran. That brought up the page from his previous job at Trinity Divinity. He got his PhD from the Jesuits - Marquette! All roads do lead from Rome nowadays. I need to build a gallery of Jesuit PhDs:
- John Sparky Brenner - WELS professor at Mordor, Dean of GA Hazing Rites.
- Jack Kilcrease - Our Lady of Sorrows Convent School (a nominal LCMS guy trained in ELCA yet born in a WELS parsonage).
- Gregory Schulz - LCMS ex-professor, C.U. Mequon.
- Karl Fabrezius - LCMS pastor.
- David Luy - NALC Seminary.
- Charles Cortright - Wisconsin Lutheran College, WELS.
- John F. Johnson
- Erik P. Ankerberg
Not one of these Lutherans would admit knowing that I exist, and I know four of them one way or another (fewer is better).
Maybe if I wore all black and always played word games with the truth...
Ten+ Pages of Why We Should Read and Honor the King James Version of the Bible
 |
| Facsimile edition (exact copy) of the King James Version of 1611. Pages of support for the KJV can be found here a a free book. |
Compton’s Encyclopedia,
Online Edition
"One of the supreme achievements of the English Renaissance came at its close, in the King James Bible...It is rightly regarded as the most influential book in the history of English civilization...the King James Version combined homely, dignified phrases into a style of great richness and loveliness. It has been a model of writing for generations of English-speaking people."
Wednesday, July 13, 2022
Four Hours of Music for Sleeping - Faux-Lutherans Also Asleep.
Others Are Alert and Awakened
Classical music is like brussels sprouts, ignored and avoided for no reason.
The Lutheran world is like this drought. Nothing much is expected when the forecasts insist on too much sun and too little rain for the future. Many people are watering just to keep the plants alive, and they catch glimpses of the hardiness of Creation.
Rainwater is a precious commodity now. Name With-Held likes to kid me about my rain-barrels, poised to catch every drop from the roof. They are bare, except for a few dead leaves and two filled with stored water for safer watering.
One inch of rainfall will green up the grass, revive all the plants, and give animals a chance to drink and bathe, often in the same water.
I am starting to see genuine expression of love for the King James Bible. I read a little about its history each day. People write to me about their long-held love for the KJV.
One author answered why Moby Dick - a strange novel - continues to be praised in American literature. The novel expresses the music and poetry, the grandeur of the King James Bible and Shakespeare. Our English language comes from only two sources - the almost anonymous scholars of the KJV and the Earl of Oxford, pseudonym - Shakespeare.
Today's children are sheltered from both and will largely grow up discussing social media stars, ignorant of the skies above them and the libraries abandoned but close by them.
Quality has a way of lasting, because that is a property of God's Creation.
“In this world, shipmates, sin that pays its way can travel freely and without a passport; whereas Virtue, if a pauper, is stopped at all frontiers....
“...being an anointed pilot-prophet, or speaker of true things and bidden by the Lord to sound those unwelcome truths in the ears of a wicked Nineveh, Jonah, appalled at the hostility he should raise, fled from his mission, and sought to escape his duty and his God by taking ship at Joppa. But God is everywhere; Tarshish he never reached. As we have seen, God came upon him in the whale, and swallowed him down to living gulfs of doom, and with swift slantings tore him along ‘into the midst of the seas,’ where the eddying depths sucked him ten thousand fathoms down, and ‘the weeds were wrapped about his head,’ and all the watery world of woe bowled over him.
“Yet even then beyond the reach of any plummet- ‘out of the belly of hell’- when the whale grounded upon the ocean’s utmost bones, even then, God heard the engulphed, repenting prophet when he cried. Then God spake unto the fish; and from the shuddering cold and blackness of the sea, the whale came breeching up towards the warm and pleasant sun, and all the delights of air and earth; and ‘vomited out Jonah upon the dry land;’ when the word of the Lord came a second time; and Jonah, bruised and beaten- his ears, like two sea-shells, still multitudinously murmuring of the ocean- Jonah did the Almighty’s bidding.
“And what was that, shipmates? To preach the Truth to the face of Falsehood! That was it!
“...Delight is to him, who gives no quarter in the truth, and kills, burns, and destroys all sin though he pluck it out from under the robes of Senators and Judges. Delight,- top-gallant delight is to him, who acknowledges no law or lord, but the Lord his God, and is only a patriot to heaven. Delight is to him, whom all the waves of the billows of the seas of the boisterous mob can never shake from this sure Keel of the Ages. And eternal delight and deliciousness will be his, who coming to lay him down, can say with his final breath- O Father!- chiefly known to me by Thy rod- mortal or immortal, here I die. I have striven to be Thine, more than to be this world’s, or mine own. Yet this is nothing: I leave eternity to Thee; for what is man that he should live out the lifetime of his God?”
Moby-Dick; or, The Whale
by Herman Melville
Chapter 9 - The Sermon
Fuhrman Has the Key to Food Craving.
No More Dessert Zombies
.jpg) |
| I saw that look when we ran out of chocolate cream-filled berliners. "YOU ARE OUT? When will you have more?" |
The overall Eat To Live argument is sound, because Joel Fuhrman replaces the processed salt-fat-sweeteners of the American menu with the old-fashioned greens, beans, and fruit of common sense nutrition - God's Creation.
Some have asked, "What about craving food?" I got to know that while dropping down to 195, after being at 224 and higher. At 195, I would grab a bag of kettle corn (sugar, salt, fat, high glycemic popcorn) or crave PBJs (sugar, salt, fat, bread). In a few days the scale screamed 198, or did I?.
I realized I hated salad dressing - not plain fresh spinach, which is crunchy and good, loaded with nutrition, a super-food. Now I am eating spinach early in the day, no matter what, and eating a huge crisp apple as dessert several times a day.
1. Packed full of vitamins
It is a challenge to find other plants that can compete with spinach in terms of the range of valuable vitamins and minerals they contain. For example, spinach is an excellent source of calcium, magnesium, and iron. It also serves as an excellent source of vitamins A, B6 and C and niacin and folate. This is far from a complete least of all the important elements that spinach brings to healthy bodies. Another significant fact about spinach is that it has a very low amount of fat.
2. As good as a gym for muscle building
The cartoons illustrate how eating spinach causes Popeye to develop huge muscles on his arms. The physical transformation of spinach eaters lacks this drama in real life, but the cartoonist's association between spinach and muscle building is not simply a whim of fancy. Spinach contains a compound called Factor C0-Q10 that has muscle-strengthening properties. This could help those arm muscles develop, but scientists find that it is especially beneficial for the heart muscles. C0-Q10 is already in use for certain heart disease treatments.
3. The vegetable that helps improve vision - lutein - tomatoes have it too
If you ask people to name a vegetable that is good for eyesight, the carrot is the one they are most probably going to mention. Folk tradition contains the belief that carrots help you see in the dark, but maybe spinach has comparable properties. Researchers have discovered that it contains lutein and other elements that protect against vision loss. There is scientific evidence that eating spinach can stop the progress of the Age-Related Macular Degeneration (AMD) that damages the vision of the over 60's age group.
Returning to pure spinach salad, I have now gone down from 198 to 191, with craving stopped by spinach, fruit alone, or spinach and fruit. Pineapple is a superb late night dessert and not loaded with sugar. Oranges are just as delicious. Ripe pears, papaya, blueberries, and other fruits are always available in variable amounts.
Sugar-grease-pastry desserts actually numb the mind. I know, because I observed so many dessert zombies come into the donut shop and ask for donuts, Danish rolls, cookies, fudge, and peanut brittle - that hollow, vacant eyed, possessed look.
The cost is never an issue for the dessert zombie. Restaurants thaw frozen desserts from a service, so they talk about "getting it ready," which means warming it up. 😁 Desserts cost many times what the meal does, if people just take a look at size, cost, and value per ounce.
Panera bread is another example: sweet bread and desserts to attract - salads for virtue signaling.
Since good foods are medicinal, we should carefully consider, with a doctor's supervision, over-the-counter remedies. I stopped daily Benadryl (allergies, sleep inducer) when I saw that it increased blood pressure and eye pressure. Blood pressure went down and sleep was easier. I slept better and no longer have antihistamine hangovers.
Tuesday, July 12, 2022
Unsolicited Email - The King James Version
 |
| We had to forego the leather binding and gold-plated hardware, but The King James Version is illustrated by Norma A. Boeckler, full color. |
I would like to receive a copy of The King James Version you offered in a post. My address is:
_________.
I enjoy reading your posts every day, and your sermons every week. Again, you have helped me learn so much, even though I've been a ---S teacher and ---S since birth.
So, thank you for all your good hard work! You are a good, faithful servant!
***
GJ - I regret to inform you that I only send out two at a time, one to read and keep, one to give away. No charge.
If I have missed anyone from the list, please let me know at greg.jackson.edlp@gmail.com
Everyone Together - Repeat - The Meaning of Polls
The meaning of all polls - in one easy lesson.
1. Published polls are purchased to influence people - they have no factual value. Example - Fuller Seminary loves the polls it buys from the Barna Group - Barna's "Robbing the Egyptians" is a term lovingly repeated by David Valleskey, originally from Augustine. WELS cannot even make up their own slogans.
2. Private polls are intended only for the entity paying for them. They are not published but may be hinted at.
What did we learn today, class?
Answer - "Every published poll in the media has enormous potential for laughter."
 |
| "But we were robbing the Egyptians! We spent millions of your money to revolutionize our shrinking, abusive sect. Cut us some slack!" |
Monday, July 11, 2022
The Triumph of the Weak and Despised,
The Doom of the Vindictive Bullies.
The garden is quite the battleground, and so are the gardening spaces along the fences and behind the house.
Weeds love rich soil and take over as soon as they can. I caught a squirrel burying his food under a rose bush. Someone asked, "Why would they do that?" I said, "Sunshine, water, and a prickly guard will allow his future nut tree to be firmly established and possibly take over. If I pull the weed tree I will uproot the rose."
However, the bully plant will show its colors and find itself snipped into exhaustion.
I am reading a classic book about the Roman Catholic persecution and slaughter of Huguenots, Vaudois, and other Protestants. From the beginning, Christianity has grown through those paradoxical methods. At the same time, the establishment of the visible church has meant the deadening and final apostasy of many prosperous church bodies.
The great and wise among Protestants in America and England sought to ditch the KJV and replace it with their Revision of the KJV, which lasted as long as the Hula Hoop.
The current KJV-Never crowd includes WELS-ELDONA-ELCA-LCMS-ELS. They may politely disagree with the Message, the various Livings, but they heap scorn on the masterpiece of all translations, the KJV. To prove their feigned nobility, they treat the KJV with silence, lest a sarcastic face-plant leave them looking like the fools they are.
William Tyndale was not only a brilliant translator, but he also associated with the Lutheran Reformation, printing many of his English Bibles not far from Luther's stronghold. He was murdered for his crime of translating, but soon after, the KJV of 1611 was established by another fluke of history (or was it?)
That Bible became the Scriptures of the English speaking world - the British Empire and the American Republic.
Sceptics of the past and present - like Mencken and Harvard - acknowledge that nothing compares to the KJV.
Gardens grow in beauty because the gardener watches for the weeds and gently nurtures the new plants. In one place I look up at the mighty Joe Pye Weed and wait for the butterflies, hummingbirds, and bees to arrive. In the back I hope for the same plants, new and starving for rain, to survive the scorching sun and establish its roots.
American denominations have nurtured the weeds and rooted up sound doctrine wherever they can. Bishop-for-Life Jim Heiser was frightened of Waldo Werning's power (ha!) and did not publish a review of the great phony's work. Why? It was well known that WW would pursue his critics out of the LCMS and beyond.
I challenged the lying Waldo on the phone and quoted him as a Fuller agent - from the notes I took in my DayTimer. He flew into a rage but he died a Facebook friend.
Lots of "conservative" Lutherans have disowned and shunned me. They like to rage anonymously against me, and they respond in horror to what I publish in my own name (not afraid of their Father Below). They give me time and energy to work with those few, those happy few, those band of brothers who find a common cause in the Word of God.
Tyndale and Luther - Or Westcott and Hort?
 |
| Apparently not - but wave some Thrivent money at them and they will nod back - "Yes, ma'm, right away. What were your pronouns?" |
 |
| "We never could have accomplished so much without that curious, shadowy stranger who encouraged, praised, and supported us." |
Sunday, July 10, 2022
Graduation, 1972. Waterloo Lutheran Seminary,
Now Much Smaller as Martin Luther University Seminary.
The faculty from this photo have passed away, except for Richard Crossman (Unknown), who became the next seminary dean or principal. Crossman was a Tillich fan who took 20 more years to finish his doctorate. Crossman retired, replaced by a lady dean.
 |
Ulrich Leupold, PhD, was the dean and New Testament professor before Delton Glebe became dean, making the curriculum all about counseling. Leupold died of a degenerative brain condition. I told him where I planned to go and he gestured happiness with his shaking hand. The faculty and students encouraged me - in their own way. Another Leupold taught much earlier at Cap Seminary, Columbus, Ohio (Loy, Leupold, Lenski). |
 |
| This building included Waterloo Seminary's chapel, a few seminary rooms, and the MSW program. Now it is mostly a counseling training center with a few seminary students and fewer seminary faculty. |
The Fourth Sunday after Trinity, 2022
The Fourth Sunday after Trinity, 2022
Pastor Gregory L. Jackson
Permanent Video here now.
The melodies are linked in the hymn name.
The lyrics are linked in the hymn number.
The Hymn # 452 The Son of God
The Confession of Sins
The Absolution
The Introit p. 16
The Gloria Patri
The Kyrie p. 17
The Gloria in Excelsis
The Salutation and Collect p. 19
The Epistle and Gradual
The Gospel
Glory be to Thee, O Lord!
Praise be to Thee, O Christ!
The Nicene Creed p. 22
The Sermon Hymn #528:10-15 If God Himself Be For Me
A Simple Guideline
The Communion Hymn # 308 Invited Lord
The Preface p. 24
The Sanctus p. 26
The Lord's Prayer p. 27
The Words of Institution
The Agnus Dei p. 28
The Nunc Dimittis p. 29
The Benediction p. 31
The Hymn # 651 Be Still My Soul
Prayers and Announcements
- Kermit and Maria Way, Pastor Jim and Chris Shrader, Callie, her mother Peggy, and her father Calvin, C.
- The doctor gave Lynda Roper good news.
- Esther Estrada will arrive in Minnesota on July 20th. Glen Kotten and Esther will be married on July 23rd.
- Norma Boeckler's son has experience with church broadcasting and has ideas about the sound.
- The Bible Book came out last year, and a much improved The King James Version, the newest book, is reaching new people. Email if you or someone else wants one or two.
KJV Romans 8:18 For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us. 19 For the earnest expectation of the creature waiteth for the manifestation of the sons of God. 20 For the creature was made subject to vanity, not willingly, but by reason of him who hath subjected the same in hope, 21 Because the creature itself also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God. 22 For we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now. 23 And not only they, but ourselves also, which have the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body.
KJV Luke 6:36 Be ye therefore merciful, as your Father also is merciful. 37 Judge not, and ye shall not be judged: condemn not, and ye shall not be condemned: forgive, and ye shall be forgiven: 38 Give, and it shall be given unto you; good measure, pressed down, and shaken together, and running over, shall men give into your bosom. For with the same measure that ye mete withal it shall be measured to you again. 39 And he spake a parable unto them, Can the blind lead the blind? shall they not both fall into the ditch? 40 The disciple is not above his master: but every one that is perfect shall be as his master. 41 And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye, but perceivest not the beam that is in thine own eye? 42 Either how canst thou say to thy brother, Brother, let me pull out the mote that is in thine eye, when thou thyself beholdest not the beam that is in thine own eye? Thou hypocrite, cast out first the beam out of thine own eye, and then shalt thou see clearly to pull out the mote that is in thy brother's eye.
Fourth Sunday After Trinity
Lord God, heavenly Father, who art merciful, and through Christ didst promise us, that Thou wilt neither judge nor condemn us, but graciously forgive us all our sins, and abundantly provide for all our wants of body and soul: We pray Thee, that by Thy Holy Spirit Thou wilt establish in our hearts a confident faith in Thy mercy, and teach us also to be merciful to our neighbor, that we may not judge or condemn others, but willingly forgive all men, and, Judging only ourselves, lead blessed lives in Thy fear, through Thy dear Son, Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with Thee and the Holy Ghost, one true God, world without end. Amen.
A Simple Guideline
KJV Luke 6:36 Be ye therefore merciful, as your Father also is merciful. 37 Judge not, and ye shall not be judged: condemn not, and ye shall not be condemned: forgive, and ye shall be forgiven:
Basic to the Bible is the revelation that God is merciful. The parallel qualities follow adding to the initial powerful statement - Be merciful. Why? Because God is merciful, not judging, not condemning, but forgiving.
As Lenski points out in his unique, grammatical way, be merciful does not mean be merciful once, but be continuously merciful, always merciful. Lenski, Luke, p. 372.
This relationship can be found in another form in John 15, Jesus as the True Vine. He is continuously bearing fruit, so we as, as the fruit of the Vine, obtain those qualities from faith in Him. That is the way we obtain grace, through faith in all the work of Jesus Christ but primarily in His Atonement, Resurrection, and Ascension.
The Gospel-dominant emphasis in the Bible is often ignored or misunderstood. Our human temptation is to dwell on the Law and merge the Law and Gospel together, as if we cannot be forgiven unless we are perfect.
The opening of this passage is also teaching us that we should be as forgiving toward others as God is toward us.
38 Give, and it shall be given unto you; good measure, pressed down, and shaken together, and running over, shall men give into your bosom. For with the same measure that ye mete withal it shall be measured to you again.
This passage has been promoted by hucksters like the one who had a money machine. He worked on cruise lines long ago. He had a machine that converted ordinary dollars into $100. As I recall, he sold many copies of this machine, which was engineered to work that way.
Verse 38 is a remedy for those who cannot let go and forgive, who will not help others, who have no time for others, who want to keep everything for themselves, including their time.
Instead, when we give - of ourselves and what we have to share - we should have no fears about God giving to us far more than we give to others. What we share goes out and comes back in other forms.
Many times I have built up Lutheran, Biblical book collections and given most of them away, so others can enjoy them and gain from them. Lately I have received a lot of those titles back, while mailing three boxes away for free.
Money and time are like roses, which grow more productive when shared with others. That is often missed by visitors. They are pruned so they can be even more fruitful, John 15.
Time is our most precious commodity because it is extremely limited, day by day, and in the long view (which gets shorter all the time). God wants us to share time with others because those moments may be the last ones we have.
If shunning worked for the betterment of mankind, we would be in Paradise now. America has so many classes, levels, and types of shunning, to enforce a code no one can comprehend, that many fear using the "wrong" word or going to the "wrong" gathering or having the "wrong" opinion.
39 And he spake a parable unto them, Can the blind lead the blind? shall they not both fall into the ditch?
Many are completely blind spiritually and are praised and protected as great leaders. One can follow their landings in the ditch, followed by their disciples (whom they made) who are just as blind. I will not mention Fuller Seminary and their blind followers (think of the $100 machine).
For example, Westcott-Hort created their own Greek New Testament (GNT), snipping and clipping and pasting with glee. Today's modern scholars of the GNT realize that 160 years later, they still only have the Westcott-Hort GNT (in effect), whose theories have been completely destroyed as wrong, delusional, and a massive joke. The "modern, scholarly" GNTs continue to blind new students while the majority of Bible readers stick to the Byzantine, Majority Text and the King James Version.
40 The disciple is not above his master: but every one that is perfect shall be as his master.
We should always keep in mind that everything in the Bible is about Jesus the Son of God. I had a class quiz on each special happening in the Exodus , calling on confirmands - Burning Bush, the bronze serpent raised up, blood on the doorposts, the lamb without spot, bread from heaven, etc - one student said when I asked him about one event - "I am not sure but the answer is probably Jesus."
This is a verse about Jesus. We should strive to be like Jesus. The fruits of the Spirit in Galatians 5 are in several cases the descriptions of Jesus - meek and lowly, etc.
KJV Matthew 11:28 Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. 29 Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls. 30 For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.
KJV Galatians 5:22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, 23 Meekness, temperance: against such there is no law.
And the Beatitudes are based upon Christ Himself.
Everything is conditioned upon keeping Jesus Christ as our center, our foundation, and "our hero" as Luther wrote. Someone who wants to change, dilute, or reject the Gospel (and there are many) will have disciples like them, who are the little Antichrists follow their master, their Father Below.
41 And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye, but perceivest not the beam that is in thine own eye? 42 Either how canst thou say to thy brother, Brother, let me pull out the mote that is in thine eye, when thou thyself beholdest not the beam that is in thine own eye? Thou hypocrite, cast out first the beam out of thine own eye, and then shalt thou see clearly to pull out the mote that is in thy brother's eye.
This is always where we need to start when examining the faults of others. In the Age of Woke, we have much more blaming, shunning, and demanding repayment for mistakes made, even if the slight is imaginary.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)