Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: What my wife said.
[00:00:01] Speaker B: Hey, YouTube theologians. Welcome to Q and A Theology Q and A podcast with Pastor Brad Wolfield. That's me, Pastor St. Paul and Jesus Deaf Lutheran churches in Austin, Texas. Also joined by Pastor Andrew Packer, pastor of Good Shepherd Lutheran Church in Collinsville, Illinois. Pastor Packer, I had a rumor about you, and that is that.
How did this rumor go? It had something to do with the cloud seeding and the recent storm that you were posting about that on Twitter is that.
[00:00:27] Speaker A: I don't know anything about any of those things, so I would be the wrong person to ask.
[00:00:32] Speaker B: Okay, if you say so.
[00:00:34] Speaker A: Although Candace Owens. Ice isn't melting, so that's something.
[00:00:38] Speaker B: The. The lack of evidence is proof.
That's how I take it. You got some questions for us today?
[00:00:45] Speaker A: I do.
All right, this is the first one.
The topic is God won't give you more than you can handle versus God won't tempt you beyond what you are able. Which one is it?
Which I guess is the short version. She doesn't want us to use our name, so I don't know if I want to get into all the details. That may give away too much.
Basically, they had a traumatic thing happen in their family, and she went to the church, including sound like some elders basically said it was something with a child. So it was pretty serious stuff.
And she's basically told, God won't. God won't give you more than you can handle.
But they didn't offer to help in any way. So that's kind of set up for her. Question is that she just kept getting kind of these cliches from people. God won't give you more than he can handle.
What is the other one? This too shall pass.
Those kind of things, you know. So people are giving cliches rather than actual help.
Like I said, there's a lot here, but I don't want to give away the person's identity since they're asking us to keep it anonymous. So basically someone going through a very difficult time, this time involving a child. But it happens to people in various situations. And Christians saying things like, God won't give you more than you can handle, or this too shall pass, rather than actually helping.
So the ultimate question that she led off with was, God won't tempt you beyond what you're able versus God won't give you more than you can handle. Which one is it?
[00:02:23] Speaker B: Yeah, so there's kind of a lot there.
Here's the text. I'll start in 1 Corinthians 10, starting with verse 12 therefore let him who thinks he stands take heed lest he fall.
No temptation has overtaken you, except such as is common to man.
God is faithful who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able.
But with the temptation will also make the way of escape that you may be able to bear it.
Now, to understand this in context, I mean, we read it. It is possible to fall and through temptation. In fact, when Jesus talks about the parable of the sower and that seed that goes out and falls amongst the stones, and then it grows up quickly, but then in time of trouble, the sun comes out and it withers and it dies. And Jesus says, these are those who believe for a while, but in time of persecution fall away. They stop believing.
So that temptation from the devil is coming to us to tempt us to fall away.
So when it says no temptation has overtaken you except that which is common to man, God is faithful who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you're able.
What it's not saying is temptation will never destroy your faith or temptation will never cause you to fall.
But what Paul is saying is that we're not allowed to think, well, I can't stand either that this temptation will necessarily destroy me, that I don't have the strength provided through the Lord's spiritual resources to endure the trouble that's coming my way.
So there is a real danger in the midst of trouble and temptation. It's good to remember that God doesn't tempt anyone. I'm going to draw a picture. I'm going to toss it back to you, draw a picture and then come back. God doesn't tempt anyone.
The Lord tests us.
The problem is in the middle of the testing or temptation, you can't tell the difference. It seems like it's the same.
But God brings testing and the devil brings tempting. God does it to strengthen our faith, hope and love. The devil does it to destroy our faith, hope and love.
But when you're in the middle of it, it's very difficult to discern the distinction. But what Paul is doing is saying, do not think that when you're being pressed by affliction, suffering and temptation that the only way out is through sin. That's not the case. The Lord always provides another way out. Through that, you so remain. So it's a call to faithfulness in the midst of the, of the pressure cooker of this life.
[00:05:09] Speaker A: I always tell people when they ask me that of course God gives you more than you can handle, like that's what he's doing all the time. That's what a test is, right? God gives you more than you can handle, so he can test you to strengthen your faith.
If he didn't give us more than we could handle, then we would think we could do it all in our own strength, our own ability, and we wouldn't be driven to him. That's kind of Luther's whole prayer, meditation, suffering, right?
We suffer, we go through affliction, and we're driven back to the Lord, back to prayer, back to meditation, and then back to suffering all over again. So I think it's obvious that God constantly gives us more than we can handle. That's what tests are.
And then, as you said, the devil is tempting us, though, to destroy our faith. And also the way of escape, generally, the way I've explained that, I think it can be, you could say much more than this. But at a very basic level, the way of escape is turning to Jesus, right? Looking to him. That's the way of escape rather than looking to yourself, looking to take things in your own hands, especially in a sinful way. Paul's talking about there. But ultimately the way of escape is looking to Jesus.
[00:06:13] Speaker B: Here's my chart. So testing and tempting. So God, out of love, tests us to strengthen our faith, hope and love.
The devil, out of hatred and animosity, tempts us to destroy our faith, open love and tempt us to despair, shame and other great shame advice. But when you're in the middle of it, you can't tell the difference. And imagine Job, the devil, bleh. And the Lord. And Job says, the Lord gives, the Lord takes away, Blessed be the name of the Lord. So even when the devil gives it, we receive it from God.
Now it seems like this question also, though, is it's talking about what's the responsibility of a local congregation to help people in time of need.
But maybe even, maybe more important, what to do when I go to the church for help, expecting that help and it doesn't arrive, how do I handle.
[00:07:03] Speaker A: Being.
[00:07:05] Speaker B: Not served by the church in the way that I expected and in a way that I even think is right biblically and so forth. How would you respond to that question?
[00:07:15] Speaker A: There's a couple things. One, I think it's a good reminder that as a church body, we've looked at that with some other questions too, but the church body, we should see ourselves more as a family and like, be asking ourselves, how can we help? I think sometimes, maybe in defense of people who just give cliches, sometimes I Think cliches come from a place of they don't know what to say, they're not sure what to say, and so they say something that they think sounds spiritual or whatever, you know, sounds like. Sound like good advice, but it's often hollow for those who are really suffering.
So I think sometimes they mean well. It just comes across very poorly. But then beyond that, I think sometimes people don't know how to help. And so there's a couple things. One is we need to be better at asking, what do you. What do you actually. What would actually be helpful?
Right? And sometimes I think, and I know I've done this far more times than I probably want to admit, sometimes we put it back on them and say, let us know what you need.
When really, like, we need to be more specific, like, what practical things can I do to help you? I think sometimes we say, let us know. And sometimes they're so overwhelmed, they're not sure.
Not sure what to tell us either, or they feel like they're being blown off. You know, even if you mean well, they can often feel like they don't really want to do anything. They're just kind of throwing it back on me. So I think that's one part of it is be careful with the answers you give to people who are really suffering.
Don't give trite, cliche answers.
Sometimes just listening is a really great thing for someone who's suffering that much. Like, listen to what's going on. And maybe in listening you can actually find a way, like, say, hey, you mentioned this. Is this something you need help with? Or how could the church help with this particular thing?
And maybe not every church or every person is going to be able to help with that thing. But maybe the church can help find someone, or if the family's struggling financially, help find people they can pay to help with additional care or things that they need. Because sometimes there's situations, I've been in situations where what the family needed was additional medical care that, you know, other members can't provide.
It needs to be more than what we can help with.
[00:09:24] Speaker B: There's, you know, these passages that talk about the different spiritual gifts that the Lord gives are oftentimes neglected by Lutherans because they've been sort of hijacked either by the charismatic church or by the church growth movement that wants to do, like, these spiritual gift inventories and things like that.
But I do think that the church as a body, like you said, is that the Lord distributes different gifts to different people, and we need to pray for those. So sometimes we need to pray that the Lord would give people the gift of hospitality and the gift of service are two of these major gifts.
And that people would recognize that they are equipped by the Spirit to do this in an exceptional way. So that all Christians bear the fruit of the spirit. Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faith on the self control. But then the Lord will give an extra measure of.
Of generosity or faith or care to someone and that we want to honor that gift and there'll be places that they can serve and to know that the pastors can't do all of this. There's a couple things I'm pretty bad at, and I need the Lord's people who have different gifts than I have to be able to go and serve in these different ways, too. So.
So as individual congregations, we need to, I think, pay attention to the different gifts that people have so that we don't think, well, that's beyond our capacity to help and serve there. We got to hand them on to the professionals or something like that.
[00:11:09] Speaker A: Yeah, it's just hard. I was reading her whole post here. It's very, very sad and tragic, everything that happened to them.
Like, it's a lot as far as, like, what they had to go through and what their family went through.
And I would just encourage Christians, too. One, I think part of it is trying to get to know your fellow, you know, fellow church members to get to know them, because it's easier for people to come to you and ask for help if you know people. And it's easier for people to, I think, help you out if they actually find out more than just like, I don't know, we kind of ask people, how are you doing? Everyone just says, you know, fine or whatever. Like, if we're just having very superficial conversations and don't really know what's going on in each other's lives, it makes it very difficult to really jump in and use the gifts God has blessed people with to help. Whereas if we can know more, then we can connect people with those who have those gifts and let them use them in a way that serves and builds others up.
I'd like to see.
I think it's just kind of a changing our way of thinking sometimes about how we think about church, but where the church isn't like an additional thing added on to our life, but it becomes kind of the center of lots of things. Right. So it's kind of at the center of our life, which also means then we're all there trying to help support each Other much more than we typically do. Rather than showing up to church and just leaving.
Right. We're like, we're in each other's lives so we know what's going on so we can actually love and support and help each other.
But it's a. That's more of an old mindset versus the new one where we just show up, get what we need, then we leave. So that's part of how I'd approach that.
[00:12:48] Speaker B: Good.
God be with you. Tough question.
Oops.
[00:12:53] Speaker A: That.
All right, next one.
Speaking of tough questions. We're just going from tough question to tough question. Okay, this is. They're looking for a Christian view of how the United States killed natives in order to build our country.
[00:13:08] Speaker B: Whoa.
[00:13:10] Speaker A: I appreciate and Enjoy your website YouTube channel. I'm grateful to be a fairly new member of an LCMS church. Formerly a long time ELCA church member. I've long struggled with how God sees us history. We murdered natives to establish our constitutional republic.
Thank you for your answer.
[00:13:27] Speaker B: I do not know.
I know this. So, okay, murder is bad.
The Lord does not desire anybody's death.
That.
Okay, so that's. That's baseline. We are the. The Lord says the kind of basic form of human government after the flood is that the Lord said if you kill somebody, you forfeit your life. You're put to death. Because. Because we were created in the image of God so that original creation in God's image has this durative moral and ethical effect. We're not supposed to kill.
Jesus also says there will be wars and rumors of wars, nation will rise against nation. And so this is how it is with the world from the very beginning. I mean this is now, you know, Cain and Abel all the way to the end.
There will be wars.
And I think that is not only true of European nations, it's true of every nation.
So before the Europeans showed up on North America, there was wars and rumors of wars between the various different Native American nations that were there. I don't know a lot of the history I should because I'm of the southwest down here in Texas and then New Mexico and Colorado. So there's all these great Native American nations that were around here and some of them much more warring than others.
But there was. There was already wars happening in the context. And when the United States, when the people arrived, they.
That kind of war continued with on a new battlefront. Now it wasn't always marked by war.
And one of the. One of the heritages of the Lutheran Church of Missouri Synod and I think this is Fairly unique in North America, at least in the United States, is that there was a huge emphasis on mission work to the Native American population. And some of those, especially the men that came from Wilhelm Lea, were like specially trained and equipped and they were doing a lot of missionary work, which is great. I mean, God be praised that that was happening. But there was wars and at least from my kind of simple understanding of history, it wasn't as if there was this kind of sort of peaceful nation and then it was conquered by another. That the Americans kind of entered into this war and had the advantage of advanced technology which made it tough for the Native Americans who were here. Now do I think that was right?
I can't, I can't say that was right. There's a lot of sins in the history of the United States. Of the United States. What I can't, I. What I can't do is say that those sins are in some ways any worse.
Like if, if there would have been, you know, if there was a. If the imbalance of the technology would have been the other direction. I think the wars would be the other way. And maybe, you know, the Europeans are driven off or all killed or whatever. So that there's these kind of ugly stories in the history of every nation and it, I don't know, we just, we become the inheritors of this, of this violence for good or for ill.
I don't know. You have thoughts on that?
[00:16:55] Speaker A: Yeah, I was thinking about actually the, the end of the movie Apocalypto. I don't know if you remember that movie.
There's a lot of humans. It was one of Mel Gibson's movies with a lot of human sacrifice in it. And then at the end, I think it's the Jesuits or whoever show up on, on ships. And that's kind of like the end of the movie. Like him trying to show the gospel being brought to those lands where there's a lot of violence. So I think on the one hand we have to acknowledge that as you said, there's a lot of war and violence, even human sacrifice and things going on like before a lot of these things happened. On the other hand, I don't know enough about every, every situation where these things were involved. I think you could look back at history and certainly see times when the United States certainly did wrong to Native Americans.
Whether it was through the way they forced them to move from one place to another. Right. The so called was that the Trail of Tears is often brought up. There's other events where you can maybe look at certain specific things and say, yeah, certainly that was wicked and shouldn't have been done.
But I think that's just part of the honesty of looking at your own history. Right. There's been a lot of debate in the last few years about American history and teaching American history, But I don't think we should be afraid of looking at the bad parts and saying, hey, that was bad. That was wrong. We shouldn't have done it that way. We should have done better.
We didn't. And so how do you go forward with that?
So it's a much. I think the question actually is a very deep, complicated question because you'd have to look at a lot of different things and say, okay, well, in this instance, the soldiers were attacked and were defending themselves. So perhaps it was, you know, what we would define as a just war or just cause. And then other times you might look at it and say, well, this particular incident wasn't just. It was unjust in the way that this was handled. And so we need to call that out and say, yeah, that was wicked. That shouldn't have been done that way. And as you said, we have a history of sending missionaries to those places. And it's interesting, too, because I lived near two fairly large reservations in Colorado, and both of them are marked by a lot of sin and depression. And I don't even say spiritual, like demonic oppression and activity like.
And there's not a lot of churches on them. In fact, in the one where my friends, a pastor on the Navajo reservation in New Mexico, there's only one lcms church on the whole reservation. It's the size of West Virginia.
Right. So the reservation itself is massive. And we have one LCMS church. So there's still, even now, today, a lot of work to be done in evangelizing Native Americans and getting the gospel gospel out and supporting people that are doing such things, which, I mean, if you want to talk about what, you know, how do we view it? Well, now I think our duty is right to still same thing, show love and mercy, compassion to these people on these reservations, because often there's a lot of hardship there. But then even more importantly, like, trying to get them the gospel into those places like we've been doing for quite a while, going back to Vilhelm Lea and all that he did.
[00:20:14] Speaker B: It's. It's like, unfortunately, like, history is presented to us in such a way. It's like, well, you have to be either, like, completely opposed to settler colonialism or, like, all in with manifest destiny. It's like Well, I mean, history is always a more complex picture than that. And, but I don't want it to be so complex that we can't have any, well, any heroes and that we can't have any pride in our own nation. I think we have to be able to say that, hey, this experiment in ordered freedom that is the United States is helpful and helpful for the gospel and helpful for human flourishing even in the midst of all of its wickedness, etc. You know, so I, yeah, so I suppose that's my thoughts on this, which are very incomplete and uninformed in a lot of different ways. So no doubt we'll get some good comments on this, on this question, on this video.
[00:21:21] Speaker A: The next one's a little easier maybe.
[00:21:25] Speaker B: Let's see.
[00:21:26] Speaker A: We'll find out in a second. It's about baptismal sponsors.
[00:21:30] Speaker B: Oh, yeah.
[00:21:30] Speaker A: All right.
[00:21:31] Speaker B: That's back in the lane, I think, a little bit.
[00:21:33] Speaker A: Yeah, it's a little bit more on topic for us. How shall Lutheran baptismal sponsor react when the parents of the child are seeking a divorce?
[00:21:41] Speaker B: Oh, wow. Okay. Never end.
[00:21:45] Speaker A: How should a Lutheran baptismal sponsor react when the parents of the child choose to leave the Lutheran Church to attend a different denomination?
[00:21:54] Speaker B: So.
[00:21:56] Speaker A: You'Ve got a child you've stood up for and said, hey, with the help of God, I'm going to seek to help them grow in their faith.
But now perhaps the parents get divorced and then, and then even in this case, the parents left the Lutheran church, are now attending a different denomination. What's your role as a sponsor still? Like, how do you, how do you encourage them when, when you'd like to see them come back to maybe a more solid church?
[00:22:22] Speaker B: Yep, yep, yep. So the, the first role of a sponsor is to pray for those children that they sponsor. And that's an ongoing, perpetual sort of thing. And the Lord, and to know that the Lord hears those prayers. And maybe we should say this. A baptismal sponsor is a made up thing. So it's not in the Bible, it's not commanded in the scriptures. It's just a pious custom.
And so it's good. We should, we should take advantage of it. But it's not, it's not required in the scripture, so it's good to remember that. But the sponsor wants to pray for the children also.
The assumption is that because the parents are the ones who asked you to sponsor the child, then you have a relationship with them as well.
But that relationship, I don't know, maybe you could try to press this. Hey, I'm your Kid's baptismal sponsor. Maybe that gives you more authority than, hey, I'm your friend. But either way, we have to come with the authority of the Lord's Word.
And what we're trying to do is to speak the Lord's word in such a way that it can be heard both the law and the gospel.
So we're praying for this wisdom to speak the law, which is, you can't not go to the body and the blood.
You can't not go to the forgiveness of sins. Whatever church you're going to is a step away from the things that the Lord wants to give. And always this is. Remember the key question about the denominations. How do we think about the different confessions and denominations in a sanctified way? And the question is, what does Jesus want to give to me?
And the Lutheran contention is that every other confession takes away something that Jesus wants to give or give something that Jesus doesn't want to give.
This is the reason why we're so kind of insistent on being Lutheran, is that Jesus wants to give his body and his blood. He wants to wash away sins through baptism. He wants to forgive sins through the absolution. He wants law and gospel preached. He wants us to be rejoicing in our salvation by grace through faith, apart from works so that we don't boast.
And every church in one way or another takes away the gifts that Jesus wants to give. Okay, so it's a sadness when someone goes from being Lutheran to something else because they're not getting what Jesus has given or they're grasping for what is not given.
So we're dealing with them as friends in this way and trying to figure out how to speak the Lord's word as clear as we can. I remember talking to some friends who they left the Lutheran church and they went to a non denominational church. And I said, don't you miss the gift of the Lord's body and blood for the forgiveness of sins?
And they said, we have communion once a month here at our new church. And I was like, yeah, but remember what the pastor says there? He says it's just a symbol. They said, well, we know better. Like, we're going to go to the non denominational church and get the Lutheran sacraments there. Come on, come on.
So I think the relationship is probably more towards the friends, at least until the child grows up. And then your activity as godparent in some ways is dependent on the goodwill of the parents. Like if they're like, hey, we're fine, if you send them the Catechism, and you send them a hymnal, and you send them the Lutheran study Bible, and you send them all these Lutheran things, and you're trying to kind of steer them in this way and giving these gifts. That's great if they give you that access. But I don't know, you might be cut off in that way as well. So we're trying to do what we can to move people in the right direction. I think this is also part of our expectation in all of our conversations with people who are close to us, family and friends, is like, they're over here and we're over here, and we want them to be with us.
But the main thing is that they're not moving away from us, they're moving sort of towards us. So our main thing is that, what's the vector? What direction are we headed? And we want to be kind of moving closer together if we can.
[00:26:25] Speaker A: And I think part of this is you just do the best you can. But you have to understand, like, you have. One, you're not the child's parent, so you have a lot less say than you probably want to in those cases. Right. And two, as you just mentioned, you can only do so much as the parents are going to allow you. So you can obviously pray, which is something you can do regardless of what the family wants or thinks. But then beyond that, like, do as much as you can, but realize there's going to be limits, that there's. There's only. I always tell people all the time, I'm sure you tell people this when they come in to see you as well. Like, you can't control how someone else is going to respond or react to something. You just do what you believe is right. And then you.
You're just gonna have to roll with the punches and see how it goes. There's only so much we're able to do, especially in those situations. So you can pray for the child. Hopefully you still send them gifts to encourage them in their faith, do those kind of things.
But prayer is going to be the most powerful thing there. And if you're able to, if you're close enough that you can talk to the parents about it.
Especially that, like you said, with going to a different church body or maybe leaving the faith altogether, it gets trickier with divorce. Hopefully there's at least one parent that still wants to raise the child in the faith that you can work with to that end.
[00:27:36] Speaker B: Do you remember this? You drew something, this sin triangle thing that I drew a couple. Did I show you this thing where like this difficulty of.
So like, okay, look, God hates divorce. That's what the law says. But then you got all the folks here that are struggling to keep their marriage together and wondering if divorce is a possibility.
And then you got people who are on the other side of this thing that are divorced either according to their own will or not. And they're either despairing or happy about it or whatever they're trying to. Like, how do I. So, so we have this like clear word of God and this has to do with the marriage promises. But then you have the, you have the kind of on the ground wrestling with the thing and how you preach about this up here is heard differently depending on the circumstances. Whoa.
It's a transfigured on the circumstances that people are in where they are. And this, and this makes it really tricky. So like, okay, I'm the godparent of a family that a couple that's been divorced. What am I going to, where, what am I going to do? Well, a lot of it depends on how they are relating to their own sinfulness. And you're trying to say, okay, what are there ways to reconcile? This is always the first thing. Are there ways to reconcile and get the couple back together? If that's beyond reconciliation now, how do, how do they remain sanctified and faithful as single parents? And what does that look like? If it's not possible to be a single parent, then what does it look like in when other people are added and there's another relationship that's there? And how do we do that in an orderly and sanctified way? It's like you're just, you're just, it's going to be a mess no matter what.
So you're, you're trying to, you're trying to make things as, as sanctified and in accord with God's ordering of the world as you can.
And, and so you're kind of, this has to do with this assessment and where people are and how to, how to hopefully bring, continue to preach long gospel or bring long gospel to them for their own salvation and the, and then the clarity of the Lord's word.
[00:29:47] Speaker A: All right, we're going to move on to the next one.
[00:29:50] Speaker B: This has been a, we just given us quite a run here, Pastor Packer.
[00:29:55] Speaker A: Who puts these questions in order. That guy should be fired.
All right.
I am a 21 year old Christian who has grown up and the Baptist church my whole life. Over the last couple of months I've been questioning some basic Baptist beliefs that most mainline Churches in America believe the role of baptism, the presence of Christ in communion, etc. I've been watching your videos along with other Lutheran creators and I believe that I may have found a home in Lutheranism. I know that we receive salvation through grace alone. It's not an act of man's freedom.
This is true. I wanted to know how would a Lutheran view Romans 10:9 and Romans 10:13.
So Romans 10:9, that if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised him from the dead, you'll be saved. In Romans 10:13, whoever calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.
From the surface it appears as if these verses are some sort of formula for salvation or an act that is required.
[00:30:51] Speaker B: I want to read the whole thing in context. This is really helpful because Paul is fighting against the idea that we're saved by works.
So this is this beautiful contrast of law and gospel. So starting in, well, I don't know, I want to start in Romans 1:1. But let's see, let's start in chapter 10, verse 4.
Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes.
So there the contrast is with law and, and works versus promise and faith and belief.
Verse 5. For Moses writes about the righteousness which is of the law.
The man who does those things shall live by them. But the righteousness of faith speaks in this way. Don't say in your heart who will ascend into heaven that is to bring Christ down from above, or who will descend into the abyss that is to bring Christ up from the dead. What does it say? The Word is near to you, in your mouth and in your heart. That is the word of faith which we preach.
So the word of faith, that's the promise of the Gospel, the forgiveness of sins. It's in the mouth of the preacher and it's in the heart of the hearer that if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus, so that's the preaching and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead. That's the believing you will be saved.
For with the heart one believes unto righteousness, so that's the hearing of faith. And with the mouth, confession is made into salvation. Now I think that confession is also the confession of the believer who says, I believe in Jesus Christ. But it's especially the confession of the preacher. The Scripture says whoever believes on him will not be put to shame, for there's no distinction between Jew and Greek. The same Lord is over all and rich to all who call upon him. For Whoever calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.
How then shall they call upon him in whom they have not believed?
And how shall they believe in him whom they have not heard?
And how shall they hear without a preacher? And how shall they preach unless they're sent as it's written? How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the gospel of peace, who bring glad tidings of good things.
Not all have obeyed the gospel. Isaiah says, lord, who has believed our report?
So verse 17, the key faith comes by hearing, hearing by the word of God.
So what Paul says is salvation is not a matter of our doing and working, but simply a matter of our believing and trusting.
And so those two things stand in contact in contrast. Now the real question here is, well, is my believing and trusting an act of the will or something that I must do? And that's the great problem is that evangelicalism built on this sort of layer of revivalistic theology, evangelicalism makes the will, the deciding, the believing an action.
It's what separates me from the unbeliever is that I've given my heart to Christ or I've accepted him, or I've surrendered my life to him, or I've. Whatever we say, as Luther has taught us from the Scriptures, I believe that I cannot by my own reason or strength believe in the Lord Jesus Christ or come to Him. The Holy Spirit's called me by the gospel so that we understand that this faith, this belief, is not only not an act of the will and not a work, in some ways it's the anti work, it's the laying down our work, it's the giving up our work.
It's just the accepting of the promise which is worked by the Word through the Holy Spirit. So that faith comes not by my will or my choice. That faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God. So when the Word is preached to me, faith is created in the heart and that faith holds onto the promise. Did I say that clear enough?
[00:34:41] Speaker A: I think it's a great summary. I was just going to add, if you have faith, you will confess, right? Because it seemed like they were struggling perhaps with a little bit with that. Like it's saying, it sounds like I must do this thing, but it's more like, well, if you have faith, you are going to confess that Jesus is Lord. Like, if you're able to speak in any way, that's just part of what you're going to do, right? It's like one of the fruits of faith is that you will definitely confess that Jesus Is Lord. That's what you're believing.
You're clinging to him in faith. And so of course you're going to confess that there's not a. You can't have one without the other. It's like the debate of faith and works. If you have faith, you will have good works. If you have faith, you will confess. These things all go together beautifully. So hopefully that helps our, our Baptist friend who's on the road to Lutheranism.
[00:35:27] Speaker B: One of the problems is so the Baptist, the revivalists, the free will theologians see that we are converted by our will. Maybe, but the Holy Spirit helps. But it's our will that converts us. We understand that it's our will that's converted so that the Lord speaks his word. And now our will goes from a resistant, hardened, unbelieving will to a heart of flesh, a believing, trusting heart that, that receives the Lord's goodness and mercy and clings to his promises. So. So the will is not the tool of conversion, but the object of conversion. And that seems to be helpful to under, to kind of help frame it up.
[00:36:09] Speaker A: All right, this next one's on Old Testament judgment.
[00:36:12] Speaker B: Oh, boy.
[00:36:15] Speaker A: Why is it that the Lord's.
This is a. This is a loaded one too.
[00:36:22] Speaker B: You were in a mood when you were collecting these questions.
[00:36:25] Speaker A: I'll tell you what, you know, I, I pick ones that, that interest me and that I think would be fun. So fun to watch you answer. That is. All right.
Why is it that the Lord's judgment in the Old Testament seems so subjective and unequal at times? Moses unable to enter the promised place land and Saul has the kingship stripped away from him. Yet David commits adultery and murder and Solomon worships false gods. Yet the Lord maintains his promises for that household and lineage.
Other examples would be Elisha and the bears, Onan's death, those killed looking at the Ark, etc. Feels perhaps the punishment does not fit the crime.
Understandably, the wages for sin for all of us is death. But it's hard to grapple with the why.
Any insight or helpful read material recommendations? Greatly appreciated.
I could add another one because this is one one of my teenagers asked.
Another one would be David conducts the Census and then 70,000 people die for his sin.
Right? They didn't have anything to do with it. They weren't complicit in it.
And yet The Lord took 70,000 of them for his sending it David again adding to the thing, adultery, murder, also he's punished, but he doesn't die for that sin. 70,000 others do.
So there's another one to add to your list.
[00:37:50] Speaker B: Here's my best answer. I think Paul is reflecting on this in First Corinthians 10.
So he says, brethren, I don't want you to be unaware that all our fathers were under the cloud, all passed through the sea, all were baptized into Moses, and the cloud and the sea all ate the same spiritual.
All ate the same spiritual food, and all drank the same spiritual drink. They drank of that spiritual rock that followed them, and the rock was Christ.
That's amazing, actually. But with most of them, God was not well pleased. Their bodies were scattered in the wilderness. These things became our examples to the intent that we should not lust after evil things as they also lusted, and do not become idolaters, as some of them were. As it's written, the people sat down to eat and drink, rose up to play. Nor let us commit sexual immorality, as some of them did. And in one day 23,000 fell.
Nor let us tempt Christ, as some of them were tempted and were destroyed by the serpents, nor complain, as some of them complained and were destroyed by the destroyer. Now, all these things happened to them as examples, and they were written for our admonition upon whom the ends of the ages have come.
And that is actually the preface to the text that we were looking at at the very beginning. Let him who thinks he stands take heed, lest he falls.
So Paul says. He just tells us, this is all written down for you for an example. So it happened because this is the Lord's judgment. But it was written and recorded for us so that we would have an account of how God deals with these things.
And we can look and see that in some places the Lord is so much more patient than we think we would ever be. And in some places the Lord is so less patient than we would ever be. And in this way, it's reminding us that our ways are not his ways and his ways are not our ways, that he's much more offended by some things than by others.
I do think the Lord will sometimes give an example of punishment to remind the people that their fear belongs to him, to remind us that our fear belongs to Him.
And then sometimes he'll give examples of mercy. Almost always the examples that we have are of his mercy and his long suffering and his kindness.
But, yeah, I think this is. I think that's the answer to the question.
It was for us to really.
The reason why these are all written down is so that we could sit here and think about it. We could think about, like, A census doesn't seem like that big of a deal. But man, oh man, was God upset about it? Why was he so upset? What did it indicate?
And it indicated an idolatrous trust in man rather than faithful trust in the Lord and his Word. So we can reflect on these things in that way.
It's also good, though, for us to see that at least every time there's a big punishment, like the flood, for example, or the destruction of the Canaanites. But under Joshua, there's a long time of preaching and patience before.
So the Lord preached through Noah for 120 years before the flood came and was warning and warning and warning, and seems like he even delays it 20 years before it comes. So to give the people a chance to repent, there's 400 years of warning and warning and warning for the Canaanites until they don't repent and then they're judged. So it seems like the Lord is always sending warnings before his judgment. And, and he's. And he's.
He's. He is always patient and long suffering, even when his patience runs out and there's judgment that follows.
[00:41:34] Speaker A: I. I think the question in some ways is maybe asking the wrong, wrong thing in the sense that I actually, I don't think I do. I should put it this way. I think the punishment fits the crime, like time and time again. Now, sometimes we may not always understand it, but several examples here, like Moses did not honor the Lord before the people. He was angry, and he acted out of anger. And he did not honor the Lord in front of the people as he was supposed to, as their leader. Now I get it, because when he strikes the rock and so speaks to it, he's been dealing with these people for at that time, it's like it's at the end of the 40 years. So he's been through a lot. So I get his short temper there and I get what he does, but he completely dishonors the Lord in front of the whole congregation of people.
So he's told, you don't get to enter the promised land because you, you did not honor me in sight inside the people. Saul had the kingship stripped from him because again, he was disobedient. He didn't, didn't honor the Lord time and time again. David, even though he was, should have been killed for adultery and murder. That would have been the punishment under the law.
God spared him for the sake of everybody else because he's the one through whom the promised Messiah was coming, right? So him being spared wasn't so much for. For David's sake.
It was, it was really for ultimately our sake. It's also interesting there, right, because the child of that adultery dies in his place. Like he has a child die in his place. Which is what the whole Bible is going to be about, is one of David's descendants dying in everybody's place.
Solomon, too, gets punished in various ways tied to his sins. Elijah and the bears is interesting because those kids were mocking. I don't think they're like little kids. I think they're like, you know, young men or whatever, but they're mocking one of God's prophets.
And, you know, they shouldn't have been doing that. And they found out quickly that you don't mock God's prophets in his words. And they suffered horrible deaths owning too, like. And the people that looked into the ark, they were told time and time again, don't touch the ark.
It's not for you to touch. It's. This isn't how you carry it. You're not to put it on a cart. And I mean, even David was scared after that, right after Onan's death, or I guess Onan. I'm thinking of Uza, not Onan. Scratch that.
Onan too, though, he was supposed to honor his brother, right, and raise up a child for him.
And the Lord said, this is really wicked. Like, you're not, you're not taking care of your family like you're supposed to. And then I was thinking about Uzzah in connection with David touching the ark, because I think about the ark one, there's but. And all those things, it seems like the Lord had warned them repeatedly in his law, like, you do these things and you'll be punished. And the punishment does seem to fit. Fit the crime. In fact, I would say time and time again in the Bible, the punishment always fits the crime. Now, we may not always understand it, like 70,000 dying for David's census. Like you said, there's a lot to take in there.
However, it doesn't mean those 70,000, just because they died, it doesn't mean like they went to hell if they had faith, right? So it doesn't mean like they were sentenced to hell for David's sin. It just means they suffered earthly consequences because of David's sin. So it does seem like time and again the Lord's punishment does fit the crime. And often it's very closely tied to the punishment's absolutely closely tied to the sin they've committed. And the Lord brings it upon their heads what they've done and what he's warned them about. So that's, that's one of the ways I, I think, can help work through that. A lot of times it is, I think, going back to what you said, we just don't really think sin is all that serious.
And so when. Because God's merciful all the time and doesn't just strike us down for. For various sins, we tend to not take them that seriously. And when he actually does do it, we're like, oh, well, that seems excessive. When, like, really, that's what we should get all the time. And he's just merciful most of the time. And so we. Then when he actually does it, we're like, oh, that seemed like a lot, Lord. Like, why would you do that? And he's like, are you kidding?
I've spared you a thousand times for all these things you've done, but this time you crossed a line, and I needed to show others that you have to take this seriously.
[00:45:38] Speaker B: I think that's right.
The first thing that the scriptures want to teach us is the fear of God.
And all of these accounts are teaching us exactly that the fear of God, hey, there's. There is a punishment for sin, a right punishment for sin. And we might not think it's fair, but because we're sinners and we don't want the punishment.
[00:46:02] Speaker A: All right, this next one is really, really easy, so you're welcome.
[00:46:07] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:46:08] Speaker A: It is, I promise. All right.
Reading the Bible front to back. If a person is trying to read through the Bible in a year or two, is there a good guide to recommend that will guide you through that so you can understand it?
There you go. You're welcome.
[00:46:22] Speaker B: Thank you. I appreciate that. This is really good. I've been thinking a lot, actually, about this idea of the whole Bible church and that we need to be whole Bible Christians and we got to get the whole thing. And so this is a good, really good goal. If you read three chapters a day, I think you get through it in a year. Right. Or maybe in, like, you have one chapter to read extra or something like that. So if you, if, if you have that pace and you keep that pace, that's really great.
We had this. Were you involved in the rightly divided project, Pastor Packer, back in the day?
[00:46:54] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:46:54] Speaker B: Yep. And we did commentaries, little introductions, and devotional thoughts on, I think, every chapter of the Bible.
If you look up rightly divided Bible on Google, you can still find it. I think I was looking at the other day, and there's like three Three chapters that we didn't do, like the last chapter of Malachi and the last two chapters of Revelation or something like that. Like, we were so close to the end before we collapsed from exhaustion. But this is a little.
A bunch of Lutheran pastors wrote little introductions to each chapter of the Bible and we were blogging about that. So that's a resource. And I think even on that website is my suggested Bible reading plan hasn't sort of the prophets interspersed with the histories and has the New Testament in four cycles. So it's Matthew, Paul, Hebrews, Mark, Paul, James, Luke, Paul. It kind of splits up the New Testament. So you're splitting up the Gospels in the book of Acts a little bit.
So those are really great as well. There's lots of resources to understand it. I think this, the. The most accessible, simple sort of commentary that gives you, like the Bible notes online is the Kretzman Commentary.
It's little study notes for each verse of the Bible. It's like the kind of notes that you would get in the bottom of a study Bible. And the Kretzman project is also online, so that's all those resources are free and available. And it's good to remember that the Bible is not meant to be understood on the first time through. I mean, you read it and you read it and you read it and you get more and more and more. Just the other day I was reading through the end of Isaiah and I was thinking to myself, I've. It's like this is so much. There's so much here, so much more clarity here that I'm getting when I'm reading through it this year than it was when I was reading through it a few years ago, just because of some more understanding of the context and everything. And so we're always growing in our.
In our understanding of the Lord's Word.
So that's also good to know that when you read through it, you're going to be back here again. You're going to cross this land again, you're going to walk over this path again. So the next time you come back to it, it'll give even more to you. And this is what Luther always talks about with the Scripture. There's always more life, there's always more light, there's always more there. Every time you come back to it, it's giving more gifts.
You're very quiet for some reason.
[00:49:27] Speaker A: Study Bible has a lot of good notes on there, and you can get that. The app is like $10 a year now. So if you just wanted the Notes on your phone and you didn't want to buy a big study Bible, you can get those notes. It also has a reading plan in there. I think a one year and a two year reading plan. I generally recommend with reading plans not to just try to go like straight through the Old Testament and straight through the New Testament. Like I always recommend read some from the Old Testament and some from the New Testament every day because I find people give up if they're just reading the Old Testament. Like they seem to get bogged down. So if you're doing three chapters, you could do two from the Old, one from the New and that'd give you a pretty good pace through things.
There's tons of different ways to read the Bible.
Ben Mays has a doctor Mays has a list of that he gives of. How does he say it if you've never read through the Bible before? Basically like read these chapters first and so he gives you some Old Testament. He gives you some New Testament and tells you basically read the harder books later.
So he gives you an interesting list. And I've sent that to some people over the years.
[00:50:29] Speaker B: Oh, that's cool. So it's like first time through, do this, these chapters.
[00:50:34] Speaker A: Yeah, yes, yeah. Do it this order. And it's, it's kind of a, you know, it's key sections of the Old Testament and then most of the gospels in the New Testament and then going back to some of the harder parts of the Old Testament is really basically what it is.
So key chapters from the Old Testament and then New Testament and then go back to the Old Testament. And that's also I think can be a helpful way to do it. I think people would be surprised if they just read the Bible more. My number one recommendation to people to make that easier is to get a single column Bible.
If you don't have a single column, single column Bible, it's worth the investment.
There's lots of readers editions out there now, but lots of people when I've recommended to that to them, they've come back and said it changed the way they read the Bible. Because you have a two column Bible. I think for a lot of people it feels like a textbook. Right. Most books you read are not in two columns. But if you have a single column Bible and especially some of the readers editions that make the verse numbers and chapter numbers really small, it feels just like a normal book and you end up reading more and reading more more easily than you would have before.
So it's very helpful if you're not used to doing that. It can make a huge difference. So get one of those. You can get them on Amazon for really cheap or you can go to evangelicalbible.com and get a really nice Bible. So depends on what you want.
[00:51:55] Speaker B: I've been doing this lately because I've been thinking through the whole Bible thing. So when I'm. When I'll sit down and I'll read a psalm to start and I think this is good, just one psalm and start in reading through and then. And in fact, what. So here's current plan. This is my current best plan. So I'll read a psalm.
But now what I'll do is I'll read the psalm that I read yesterday just as a kind of quick review and then I'll read the new psalm for today. So I read this morning Psalm 7 again and then dug into Psalm 8 with a pencil and kind of making some notes and circling the kind of cross references that I know are referent.
And then I'll go to the. Where I got my marker in the Old Testament. So I'm. I'm somewhere in Jeremiah and I'll just read and I'll try to get into the flow of what's going on. So I'll back up a paragraph before getting. Pick up where I left off last week. So this is. I'm scooping back to try to get the flow and I'll read through a chapter and then if I'm. If I'm right there in the sort of in the flow of it, I'll just keep going and read four or five or six chapters kind of to get the big bigger chunks and then trying to do the same in the New Testament. I was working on Luke a couple of weeks ago and Luke has big chapters more than any other. So I would just kind of scoop up the last few verses, the last chapter and then read the chapter and then look at the next few verses kind of that. So one chapter in Luke. But then I flipped over to Galatians and just read the whole thing. Just this morning I read the first four chapters of Ephesians just to try to, to not break it up to kind of get the flow of it. And that's really helpful because you, you, you're getting the, the sense. And so I think we read the Bible in some ways like because we got those chapters that are there that are convenient and helpful, but we kind of, that's like our portion size like a chapter. And in some ways it's, it's. It's fine, but it needs to also, I think to hone in on smaller portions, like just spend a couple of weeks on one verse and then bigger portions. Try to get whole books in just a few sittings so that you capture the whole sense of it. You don't forget what happened earlier. And you're putting it all together as an argument.
This is also really helpful. Like, you know, Paul starts, he says, christ rescued us from this fallen world. And he ends, you're a new creation. And this kind of like verse one, the first few verses and last few verses are connected to one another.
And if those are split up, you read the first one on Monday and you read the last one on Saturday. You forgot already. So it's nice to try to get them in big chunks too.
[00:54:29] Speaker A: I also think with that, take advantage of listening to the Bible, like when you drive because if you do a lot of commuting, there's a lot of books of the Bible you can do in 15, 20, 30 minutes, especially in the New Testament, but also some of the minor prophets like you'd be so. And it's different to hear it read to you versus you reading it. It'll. It'll make you hear it differently. So that's another way to take advantage of it. I still use daily Dr. Grant Horner's method, which a lot of people don't like. But.
And I've modified it some. So I leave. I read 11 from 11 different places in the Bible in the morning. 11 different books.
[00:55:04] Speaker B: And then.
[00:55:05] Speaker A: And then I like to use the charity of daily prayer in the evening and do some other things throughout the day. But I like Dr. Great Horners because it keeps me bouncing around. It helps me see connections between things I would have never seen before.
But I agree with you that you also need to take time though to do chunks, like whole books at a time or lots of chapters in a row so you can get the sense of things.
I don't think there's a wrong way to do it. People just need to do it more than we do.
Make time for it.
[00:55:35] Speaker B: I really like that, Ben. If you send that link, maybe we can put it on the description too because like when you sit down to do it, like go, here's a quick pass. Like, yeah, big, you know, let me give you this. And it's going to get you like 10% of the Bible, but it's going to be the important tempers. And then let's fill in and fill in and fill in. I think that's really cool. I can't listen for whatever reason When I'm driving or walking or whatever, I'll try to do audio Bible and I just, just cannot stay focused. I'll try to speed it up, I'll try to slow it down. And a lot of people like that. I, I, maybe if I was taking notes or reading along as well, but I, I have, I have trouble, but I'm, I'm kind of jealous of people who can do that.
[00:56:16] Speaker A: All right, this next one's from a new Lutheran.
[00:56:19] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:56:20] Speaker A: I've recently began my journey of faith in Christ. I'm very find the Lutheran church very appealing. Two questions.
If Luther emphasized the importance of sola scriptura in reading the scripture without any philosophical guide, then why do you use Luther as your guide so often?
That's a question we get quite a bit. And two, how can I navigate the Lutheran Church synods and find one that I like? I am conservative leaning and I appreciate tradition and sacraments. That's why I'm drawn to the Catholic and Lutheran churches.
[00:56:51] Speaker B: Great. So on this first question, so when we say sola scriptura, this is not saying that there's nothing else in all the world. I mean, if we were sola scriptura, we wouldn't be doing a Q and A podcast. Why would we say anything at all? It's important to know that even the most strict Lutheran idea of sola scriptura does not exclude the preaching of the Word. In fact, this is a key thing.
The Word is meant to be preached. It pleased the Lord through the foolishness of the Word. Preached to save those who would believe is how St. Paul says it in 1 Corinthians.
So that the Word is always preached, the Word is always taught. And one of the great gifts that the Lord gives throughout history is teachers of the church.
So Luther himself was so pleased to receive the great teachers of the church, he would always be interacting with them, quoting them, rejoicing in them, correcting them, rebuking them, being disappointed. He was interacting with those teachers of the church, the great fathers of the church. And we do the same with Luther, who just happens to be one of the most gifted of all Bible teachers, not only in his biblical insight, but also in his ability to say it in a way that captures your attention.
It's an amazing thing to read Luther and how it does not feel like it's 500 years old. I mean, there's an amazing liveliness to his imagination and to his teaching. And so we praise the Lord as a teacher, but it's always underneath the Scriptures.
So one of the great gifts of The Lutheran Church. And this is. Ooh, Pastor Packer, this came up. This is part of our. Unfortunately, part of our political conversation in the Missouri Senate.
Is that part of our Lutheran identity, if you'll permit me to use that terrible phrase?
Part of our Lutheran identity is that we have a generous view toward the history of the church.
We have a optimistic view of the church fathers. It's not a dismissive or pessimistic view of them. So we rejoice in the history of the church. And so rejoicing in Luther is part of that.
I've thought that it's a disadvantage that we have Luther because if you like, you got the Christopher Wordsworth gospel commentary, right?
And Christopher Wordsworth was, 130 years ago, Anglican theologian. And he's got. And you read through his commentary, and he just has church father after church father after church father commenting on all these texts. It's amazing. You say, why don't we do that?
Maybe Wordsworth was. I mean, it's part of his uniqueness. But it's also because the Lutherans look back in church history and we have this huge figure standing in the way.
So, man, I'd love to quote Augustine, but Luther said what Augustine said, but he just said it better.
So, like, Luther sort of is blocking our view. It's like, hey, you make a better door than window. Luther. You're. We can't even see the church fathers because you're such a monumental figure.
Oh, well, I mean, we can rejoice in that and then also read Wordsworth, who can see he has enough angle, he can see around Luther to get a better view of the history of the church.
But this is why sola scriptura doesn't mean that there's no other voices that we hear and honor. It just means that there's no other authoritative voices that we hear and honor.
[01:00:05] Speaker A: I read a book years ago, I think it was by Keith Matheson, I want to say, but it was before I was a Lutheran. He distinguished sola scriptura from solo scriptura. The idea that we're not saying it's only the scripture that we read or that we hear from.
We're saying, as you said, that scripture is the ultimate authority. As my tab's coming out, too.
We're saying scripture is the only authority. It's the ultimate authority. So scripture is not all by itself.
It's isn't a conversation with the church fathers and all those over the years and our confessions and various things, but it's the ultimate authority over all those things, but it doesn't mean we're, you know, who is a Lutheran against heavenly prophets. Right. That. That mocked those that had that idea of just getting zapped by the Holy Spirit. That. And it's like, why. Why do you have preachers at all? Right. Asking those groups, why do you even have a preacher? If. If you really just believe that the Holy Spirit is going to zap you directly, then why do you even have a preacher?
[01:01:04] Speaker B: There is.
[01:01:05] Speaker A: Oh, sorry, I don't. I was going to say. So I think that's a very different view than, like, what Lutherans are trying to say or those who actually understand sola scriptura as scripture being the ultimate authority and the foundation of all that we do.
And those teachers that we look at, we want them to point us back to the Word. We, we like Luther because he points us back to the words. Right. We like John Chrysostom and Augustine because they point us back to the Word. Like, we want to look at people that point us back to the Word and help us understand the Word better, not who take us away from the Word. That would be my distinction there.
[01:01:37] Speaker B: So this is that. That euphemism, which I think is helpful. Luther is helpful when he points us back to Christ. And therefore Luther is helpful because he points us back to Christ. I mean, he's always doing this in his preaching and teaching. There's also, though, there's a warning for Lutherans here, and that is that we ought to be able to prove our doctrine and point by point and every point in the whole body of doctrine from the Scripture itself.
So we have to always go back to the Scriptures. And sometimes we get lazy in that and we just, we go back to the catechism, we go back to the Confessions, and we want to be able to go back to the Scriptures and show it. And so whenever we have a theological assertion, we say, can I defend that from the Scriptures?
And we have to be able to always do that. And also in our preaching and our teaching and our pastoral care, this is all grounded in the Scriptures themselves. So that's good.
[01:02:28] Speaker A: And their second question was about what synod. So I know you have on the website a church finder like you, and you have people that help people connect with churches. So maybe, maybe the best thing for them to do would just be to write in and connect with that and you guys could help them find a church.
[01:02:46] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, maybe it'd be good to sort of sort out the Alphabet soup of all the different Lutheran churches.
[01:02:50] Speaker A: Sound.
[01:02:51] Speaker B: So here. Okay, so here's the major thing is that 150 years ago, textual criticism, higher criticism, ran through all the major churches and split them. Well, captured some, split others. So this happened in the Presbyterians and the Methodists and the Episcopalians and the Catholics just embraced it. And you can't tell because they weren't paying that much attention to Scripture anyway. But it happened to the Lutherans. And so the big first sort of apparent division that you find amongst the Lutherans is you have the progressive Lutherans, and that would be all those that are clustered around the elca, Evangelical Lutheran Church of America. You'll see it when you visit their websites. I mean, they'll have their flags posted. They will make sure that you know who they are, that they're accepting and affirming and et cetera, et cetera. And this means that they have embraced a version of textual criticism.
Here's the root of this. That says that the Bible contains God's word, but the Bible is not God's word. And what that distinction does is it means that our human reason or our human whatever can look at the scripture and make a determination. That's what God said. And that's not.
And so if the Bible says something that would make us odious to culture, like women can't be pastors, well, that's probably not what that means. And so you have women pastors. If the Bible says things about chastity or about marriage or about man and woman, and that makes us odious to that particular kind of strain in the culture, this is oversimplified. But that's the idea. Well, that's not. We can't be constrained to that in the scriptures.
So you'll see that the ELCA and affiliated churches are not what. How the writer described himself as conservative. They are very progressive and fallen over themselves to get more and more progressive. I heard this story. There's some crazy story in the ELCA about like there was some transgender bishop who was. Had to discipline lady priest for cultural appropriation on Cinco de Mayo or something like this. And it's like, how is this like a Babylon Bee headline? You can't even like, make this stuff up. It's how.
Anyway, so the ELCA is not evangelical or Lutheran or really a church. And they're. And I don't think they like America. So they've, they've. They've got four labels that I don't think they, they like. And I was going to.
We were working on this idea of trying to figure out how to get the ELCA to drop the name Lutheran. Because it's a huge pain when people hear that we're Lutheran and we think that we're that kind of Lutheran. And my best plan was to just point out to them that Luther was a white man so that they would just have to reject him out of hand and probably take the name Lutheran out of their name. And I was trying to figure out how to get that on their agenda at the convention, but I haven't sorted it out yet. So anyway, that's ELCA. Now on the conservative side, like the Lutheran churches that believe that the Bible is inspired and inerrant and infallible and efficacious and sufficient and clear and all that, you have a number of confessional Lutheran church bodies. Missouri Senate, LCMS is the biggest. The next would be the Wells Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod, the Evangelical Lutheran Synod, the old Norwegian Senate, the ELS is also in that group. And those are all confessional Lutheran churches. The AALC is kind of hanging on barely to that group.
And those, all those churches are going to be solid Bible, but not every congregation, but those church bodies are going to be solid, biblically grounded, confessionally oriented church bodies. So those are good. Now you have a few that are kind of sitting in the middle, like what the NALC and the lcmc and they're kind of break off groups from the elca. When the elca, there's different, you know, straws that broke the camel's back. So when they started, when they made this agreement with the Episcopalians that all their ordinations are gonna have the laying on of hands, then the, like the NALC says, I think that's that straw that broke that camel's back. I don't know all the history exactly. Lcmc, similar sort of thing. They're like, we can't go for this. And so they're kind of in between.
The question to ask is do they practice close communion? In other words, do they care enough about the doctrine to say that it makes a difference?
And most of those churches in the middle do not. Which means that they're just, they're, they're in the ELCA vortex. They're, they're kind of being sucked along behind them. So they're not as progressive, but they're heading that way.
[01:07:30] Speaker A: And then they have women as pastors too.
[01:07:32] Speaker B: Both of those NALC I do believe. So I don't, I don't think the LCMC does, but maybe I could be wrong about that.
So you have to check. But that they're just like, in some ways they're like the ELCA, like 30 years ago or 20 years ago. That's my, that's my uncharitable opinion. I mean, God be praised that those churches were able to recognize that the ELCA was doing something wrong.
But at some point, like the scales fall off and you're like, they're not doing something wrong, they're doing everything wrong.
And then on the other side, you have a bunch of micro synods, which are all very interesting. Some independent Lutheran churches, some served by very faithful, wonderful congregation pastors and congregations are really great. There's just kind of little uniquenesses about each of those. I'm, I'm real sympathetic to all those guys, but they're, they're so small. They are in a very difficult position. And especially what happens when you get so small is like, it's this idea is like I'm, I'm, I'm the only one who's really Lutheran and I'm not even sure about myself. And so you break off all these, these families fellowship things. And I don't think that that's what the Bible wants. The Bible wants us to be able to have a communion of congregations. So I think when we recommend congregations for people who say, you know, contact us and find a church, we're looking first for faithful LCMS congregations. And then we also will look for Wisconsin and ELS congregations in the area and recommend those too.
I really love those guys and I hope that we'll be able to get all together again sometime soon. And what's the old synodical conference? So I think that's the, that's the Alphabet soup of the Lutheran denominations. What a mess we've made.
[01:09:19] Speaker A: That's not the best note to end on, but that's where we're going to end.
[01:09:23] Speaker B: We started on a. Can we just review the questions that we had today?
This disastrous situation, Poor family of like a church giving cliches. And then talking about the United States treatment of Native Americans and then talking about how to handle being a baptismal sponsor to a family that got divorced and left the Lutheran church. And then that was a nice question from Daniel about free will. And then the question of why God isn't fair in his Old Testament judgment.
And then the Lutheran soup.
Wowzers.
Pastor Packer, good show. Hey, if you're watching, by the way. Oh, you know, you are a YouTube theologian here, watching this video on YouTube and you say to yourself, how, Pastor Wolfman, how do I know if I'm a YouTube theologian? Well, if this is your first time on the channel, you're not. But if this is the second time you're becoming one and this is the third, you're in. And how you. That means what? Just like and subscribe? That's how you indicate your. Your YouTube theologian.
If you're subscribed, you're a YouTube theologian. That's that. Maybe that's the thing. Patrick Packer, thanks for the questions. Thanks everyone for sending them in. Wolfmother co contact is how to send some more. We'll talk to you soon. God's peace be with you.
