Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Hey, YouTube theologians, Pastor Wolfing here. Q and a podcast. Joined with Pastor Packer as always and a special guest today, President Matthew Harrison of the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod answering your questions. Thanks for sending those questions in.
Pastor Pack. I heard a rumor about you that you've been saving up these questions especially for President Harrison, knowing that he was coming on the show. Is this true or be?
[00:00:26] Speaker B: I can't confirm that I was saving them, but I did, I did try to get like really top notch questions that I thought would be be good for him. So I did try to arrange them so that he, he had good questions.
[00:00:37] Speaker C: Well, let's do it.
[00:00:38] Speaker A: What do you got?
[00:00:40] Speaker B: The first one I think is from your worldwide Bible class this morning. Right, that's where we're going with this one.
Let's see. It's on preaching.
What is something that's lacking in Lutheran preaching today and how can we strengthen it? What are the greatest weaknesses in Lutheran preaching today and what can be done to strengthen it?
[00:01:04] Speaker C: Wow, that's quite a topic. I, I think one thing that that sort of the existentialist Lutherans got right was that the, the word of God is an event. Luther says that God's words are his works.
God speaks and it happens. God speaks and there's light and God speaks human beings into being.
And in the same way, the gospel is the power of God unto salvation.
So a sermon is not information, merely information to decide upon. It certainly is teaching Christ's fullness and all the fullness of his law and gospel.
But it happens when the word of God is spoken to us, we are forgiven, we are condemned by the law, we are damned at that moment by that. Speaking of the word. Here, Luther will say that the pastor's lips are God's very lips. God's words come out of the pastor's mouth so far as he speaks the word of God and it does what it says. And the beautiful thing that it does is it forgives right then and right there. So transforming, freeing, motivating, impelling, comforting, consoling, everything.
I can't emphasize how important it is for us to preach that way.
[00:02:28] Speaker A: It's fantastic.
This idea of the preached word as the efficacious word, I think is so important. No one else has it, right? I mean, the Reformed don't have it. It's information.
The Catholics don't have it. It's, you know, the Word is just an exposition of tradition of whatever the church. So this uniqueness of the Word that is God's word of power that gives and sustains faith is a uniqueness to the Lutheran Church. And so our preaching should also have that kind of shared uniqueness. Is that this confidence that the Lord is working through the Word? That's really great.
Oh, thank you. So second question. How about this? Is there a sin that leads to death?
So that's the question. Is there a sin that leads to death? We have that from the Scriptures. What is that sin and how ought we to understand it?
1 John 5, 16, 17. If any man sees his brother sin, a sin which is not unto death, he shall ask, and he shall give him life that that sin is not unto death. There's a sin unto death. I do not say that you will pray for him. All unrighteousness is sin. Therefore there's a sin not unto death. So can you talk about this idea of sin leading to death and maybe throw in the idea of the blasphemy of the Holy Spirit and the comfort that Christians can have as we think about that?
[00:03:48] Speaker C: Yeah. Well, I would think in that passage in John, he's referring to the sin against the Holy Ghost, where we specifically know that God's Word is true and yet we nevertheless speak against Christ and reject Christ knowingly.
A lot of people worry that they've committed the sin against the Holy Ghost. And Walther often said, well, you know, you haven't committed the sin against the Holy Ghost because you're worried about having committed the sin against the Holy Ghost. So the very fact that you're worried about your state of salvation or your soul's state is ample evidence that you're a believer in Christ.
So I often tell people, get over it. Repent. You're a sinner just like the rest of us. You will never stop being a sinner. Romans 7 is the reality of our lives. The good that I would I do, not that which I don't want, I keep on doing. Who can save me from this body of death, thanks be to God through our Lord Jesus Christ. So sin separates without repentance.
And so this is a daily return to baptism, a daily confession of our sins, a daily forgiveness, and it's a constant struggle. Being a Christian is not being a Christian is not having achieved sinlessness. It's not having arrived at the promised land in this life. It's a daily fight against sin, devil and the flesh. And anybody who's honest is going to tell you the same thing. Don't listen to anybody who tells you it isn't.
[00:05:35] Speaker B: Anything to that. Pastor Wolfmler, I think it's great.
[00:05:37] Speaker A: I think it's Great.
Well, and maybe just to think that this is the awareness of our own imperfection, is the awareness of our own sin itself is a mark of the Holy Spirit. That's the underlying truth of Walter's great comfort there. If you're worried about it, it's because the Holy Spirit is at work at you to show your own sinfulness. It's what Jesus says, that the Spirit will convict the world of sin and righteousness and of judgment. And so that conviction of sin is the Spirit's work.
The hardness of heart which results from the sin that leads to death also destroys that conscience that's worried about sin. It's the seared conscience that Paul talks about in Philippians. So it's a great thing that the concern about sin is worked by the Holy Spirit, but not so that we would fret about it, right? I mean, we have to say, well, what does Jesus want me to think about my sin?
And the answer is he wants me to think that it's forgiven by his death on the cross. I mean, anything less than that is an insult to the Lord's mercy and kindness. So I remember. Okay, here's a story.
President Harrison, this sounds like a story that, that you would tell. Maybe I copied it from you. That there was a guy who, who was telling me that he was convinced that he. His sins weren't forgiven.
And. And I said, hold on. This is amazing. Let me just sit here and think about this. Because. Because I read in the Scriptures that Jesus is the died on the cross for the sins of the world, and that Jesus is God in the flesh who takes upon our sin and our sorrow and all of our troubles so that he can save sinners throughout the world, that his blood is the blood of God which takes away the sin of the world. But you finally, out of all the people ever to live from Adam until this point, have managed to commit a sin that the Lord Jesus can't forgive.
And I just want to revel in that for a bit. And he said, oh, Pastor. Okay, I got you.
[00:07:44] Speaker C: Luther said one time on John 3:16, by the way, which is a verse he repeated repeatedly on the night of his death.
But he was asked, Dr. Luther, don't you wish that it said, for God so love Martin Luther, that he gave his only begotten son. Luther said, oh, that would be horrible forever be wondering if there's another guy out there named Martin Luther.
[00:08:12] Speaker A: Oh, man, that's great.
[00:08:15] Speaker B: And there is. And everyone confuses him with him. So it's probably good that it's his World.
[00:08:23] Speaker C: Yeah, what a.
You know, that's the beauty of a crucifix.
It is law and gospel. Do you want to know, want to know how serious your sins are?
Look at Jesus. Truly this man was the son of God, the centurion at the end of Mark's Gospel.
He's the only human being who gets who Jesus is in Mark's gospel completely. When Jesus is dead on a cross, you want to look at the seriousness of your sins. Look at Jesus on the cross and you want to look at the. You want to know the seriousness of God's grace?
Look at the cross put to death for our transgressions and raised for our justification. Those realities happened 8,000 miles away, 2,000 years ago. Already. The deed is done. Christianity is not about your choice. It's not about your actions. It's not about your living holy. It's not about you deciding for Jesus and then putting sin away in your lives. All those things to some extent are true or false.
False. But Christianity is about the deed done and Christ through his gospel, striking you and bringing you to faith in that. And the more serious Christian you get, the more serious you're going to recognize you're a sinner.
And so that's why, you know, when I see pastors fall or some bad things happen, first thing I always say is, lord, have mercy.
That could have been me so easily.
What a sinner I am. Lord have mercy upon us.
[00:10:01] Speaker A: All.
[00:10:02] Speaker B: Right, our next question.
It's got a couple parts here, but the big question is, are women lesser image of God? Are they not fully in the image of God? And their reason for their question is 1st Corinthians 11:7.
For a man ought not to cover his head because he is the image and glory of God, but the woman is the glory of man. So they say.
In light of the fact that both man and woman are created in the image of God in the broad sense, I know that in the narrow sense, we completely lost this image after the fall. I've read that Augustine interprets this to mean that Eve received the image of God from Adam since she was created from him. But I've also heard that Augustine and many other church fathers believe that men are more a more direct image of God than women.
As I understand it, Augustine linked this to a man's body and believed that materially a woman does not possess the same image of God because she is weaker than a man. Although spiritually and rationally, they are both equal images of God. How do you interpret these views and to what extent do they accurately reflect the attitude of Augustine and other church followers on the issue?
And how have Lutherans historically understood this issue? So at its core is, are women indeed a lesser image of God?
[00:11:16] Speaker C: Well, Brian, take it away.
[00:11:19] Speaker A: It has to be no. I'll start on this. It has to be no. From Genesis 1, when it, when it says in the image of God, he created him, male and female. He created him. That does not, that does not permit any sort of distinction.
[00:11:32] Speaker C: Yeah. Created he, them plural.
[00:11:37] Speaker A: And I think, I don't know. I don't. I'm not familiar with the Augustine stuff. I, I would suggest, I mean, we know that Aristotle and all the Greeks, philosophers had this idea that man was closer to God. And you don't wonder if some of that kind of creeps in there, but it has to creep in against Genesis chapter one. I think that's the key point there.
[00:12:00] Speaker C: Yeah. And you always have, great as Augustine is and was.
You always have his Neoplatonic, a demon spooking about and this ancient idea. I think Platonism is the heresy of all heresies. It's the one that continues. It's one Luther mentions when he says that we are all by nature fanatics, that is, we seek God where he has not promised to put himself.
And somehow women, because they are subject of lust for men, are somehow viewed as some lesser being in some fashion by the fathers or dangerous or eschewed or rejected even by some of them on the more radical stream. So, absolutely, women are completely in the image of God. And they're also spiritual priests and they have a spiritual priesthood which calls them to pray to be saved before God equally, to serve and love their neighbor, to offer the sacrifices of prayer and love and service.
And so, no, I don't buy it.
Women are absolutely indispensable part of God's, the chief of God's creation, humanity.
[00:13:25] Speaker A: I have to. I was thinking about this Titus 2 passage, in fact, a lot this last week, where it says that the older women are to teach the younger women and that the young women are to be teachers of good things, and so that we actually believe that women are all Christians are called in their vocation to be teachers.
So when we say that those passages that forbid a woman from preaching or teaching in the church or administering the sacraments from the office of holy ministry, from the public office, this does not exclude women from the office of theologian. In fact, it's incumbent upon every single Christian to be a student of the Lord's word.
And this is always the. Like the early martyrs Were so many of them were these young faithful women who were.
Were not only catechumens, but also had committed themselves to a life of study of the Lord's Word. It's like Agnes and Agatha, Luther's two favorite martyrs had. Had. Were like proto nuns. They had said, no, I'm not going to get married. I'm going to. My whole life is going to be devoted to prayer and the study of the Lord's Word.
These young women become heroes.
The content of the teaching, it's really interesting. The old men are supposed to teach the young men to be self controlled specifically.
And the old women, well, it says here older. The older women, presbyteria, it's just the feminine word of elder, are to teach the young women to be reverent, not slanderers, not given to much wine, teachers of good things to admonish the young women to love their husbands, to love their children, to be discreet, chaste homemakers, good, obedient to their own husbands, that the word of God may not be blasphemed. And I was thinking to myself, what would it be like if we had this custom of catechesis?
I mean, we have the custom of pastors and parents teaching the six chief parts to the children. But if we had like the custom in our churches of the old ladies teaching the young ladies these things and the old men teaching the young men these things. And it was just part of what it meant to be in the Lutheran Church so that every Christian sees themselves as a teacher of the Lord's Word in these different places.
[00:15:46] Speaker C: Places that's fantastic. It reminds me of Bogart's Hammer of God, where Savonius, who has no idea, he's kind of a liberal dandy. He's learned nothing at seminary.
He goes out in his early pastorate and he's taken to a place in a hovel, a rural hovel that stinks the animals and everything else. And a guy's dying and he's brought to the bedside, has no idea what to do, has no idea what he's doing there. He's still a little bit tipsy from partying the night before. He's still dressed in his clothing that was party clothing. And this elderly woman in this place where Geertz, the narrator, says, they read Luther's apostles up there, Luther's sermons.
And she directs him on how to take confession and give him the sacrament and his dying day.
And that. That is the kind of pious woman I always think of, that I've been surrounded with in my life. You think of Priscilla and Aquila, Priscilla and Aquila pulling Apollos aside and helping straighten him out.
I, I, I remember a wonderful now elderly deaconess who I won't mention. She's lovely, but she would always come up to me. She was very, very solid on the sort of role of women in the church. And she's, she'd come up to me and say, pastor Harrison, I'm in subjective subjection to you. Right, got it.
Yes, yes, absolutely.
[00:17:35] Speaker A: A very active passivity, actually, that has to do with the next question. So this is, can faith be passive when the devil is active? That's the headline. So here's the message. If salvation is by grace alone, how does Lutheran theology understand active faith and participation in the sacraments without falling into synergism? Furthermore, since Scripture presents the devil as actively working to destroy faith, if the devil truly acts, how can human faith be described as purely passive? That language that Luther uses and that's brought into the formula in the Book of Concord, maybe start with that idea of faith being purely passive, and then we'll bring in the.
[00:18:14] Speaker C: Yeah, I mean, this is, this is. Faith is receptivity. It's the faith is the. Our orthodox dogmaticians in the 17th century called the medium leapticon. It is the means of reproductive reception. But maybe understanding the human will in its various stages. This is described by the formula of Concord, I think, in Article 2 on the nature of sin and later in free will.
So man and woman were created with free will, spiritual free will in all matters. They were free to love God. They were free to fall away from God. They were free to choose God and free to reject God.
They chose to reject God and sin. Tragically, they fell into a bond will.
They had remnants of that freedom, and we have it without Christ. Remnants of that freedom. We can determine small things like what we're going to do today or what color socks we're going to wear or where we're going to drive.
But our spiritual wills are bound and dead. We cannot decide for Christ that would. Deciding for Christ would be as ridiculous as Jesus going to Lazarus in the tomb and saying, now, Lazarus, I've done everything I could for you. It's all done now it's up to you.
Decide for me.
Raise yourself from the grave.
It's ridiculous. The power comes from the word of Christ.
Just so. Paul repeatedly calls coming to faith a resurrection. And this faith is a gift of God. Ephesians 2. Lest anyone should boast.
And so being raised from the dead that regenerate will starts to regain its freedom to act.
That's why passages like Behold, I stand at the door and knock are significant. Or Joshua, choose this day whom you may serve. These are passages of Christians who are being posed with the question, are you going to keep being Christians? And as Christians, we have the will, the nascent will, to agree with God, to act in the proper way to believe. And so faith is fundamentally passive, yet regenerate. Faith regenerates the will, and that will is able to cooperate with God.
[00:20:38] Speaker A: Luther will call faith purely passive. And then he will at the same time say, oh, faith is a living, busy, active, mighty thing.
[00:20:47] Speaker C: That's a beautiful passage.
[00:20:49] Speaker A: That's his introduction to Romans. That's the passage that I guess got John Wesley all excited to start the Methodist. Yeah, but. Yeah, that is quoted in our book, also in the formulas. So that faith is already doing good works before it's even asked.
So that the saving part of faith is passive because we cannot save ourselves. Christ is the Savior. He will be the Savior. He. Nothing can be taken from that. But faith that receives that saving gift is also doing lots of other things. Praying and suffering and serving and doing those. It's the active part of faith that doesn't save, but it does fight the devil. And that's the how the Lord then, through our faith.
John says it this. This is. This is what overcomes the world. Your faith. It's an amazing thing. It's the devil. The Lord will soon crush Satan under your feet. That's the promise from Paul.
[00:21:44] Speaker C: Beautiful thing. That busy word that you quoted from Luther is often translated meddlesome. Faith is a meddlesome thing. I forget what the German is there. I should look it up. But do you ever think of. Think of a friend you have who's interested in a certain topic and my dad is interested in old tractors. That's what he grew up with on the farm. I didn't grow up on the farm, but he did.
And whenever you start talking about old tractors, he's otherwise an introvert, but all of a sudden he becomes this extrovert.
And I don't know how many situations I've been in, when the topic comes up, his eyes light up and he just. He's talking a mile a minute and he'll talk for hours with somebody who shares that passion. I think faith is the same thing.
It enlivens us and makes us active and meddlesome and doing as Luther says, doing what needs to be done. Loving people, loving your neighbor, caring for and speaking before anybody has to tell you to do it.
[00:22:47] Speaker A: I found this for more of the full quote here. Faith is a divine work in us that transforms us and begets us anew from God, kills the old Adam, makes us entirely different people in heart, spirit, mind and all our powers, and brings the Holy Spirit with it. Oh, faith is a living, busy, active, mighty thing. It's impossible for it not to constantly be doing what's good. Likewise, faith does not ask if a good works are to be done before one can ask. Faith has already done them and is constantly active.
Whoever does not perform such good works is a faithless man blindly tapping around in search of faith and good works without knowing what either faith or good works are. And in the meantime he chatters and jabbers a great deal about faith and good works. Faith is a vital, deliberate trust in God's grace, so certain that it would die a thousand times for it. And such confidence and knowledge of divine grace makes us joyous, meddlesome, and Mary tears that word and Mary toward God and all creatures.
I used to thought that meddlesome was the same as meddlesome that I was. So you could be a meddler and like that's what faith has got me involved in everyone else's business.
Alas, that I learned it was a different word.
The Holy Spirit works by faith. And therefore without any coercion, a person is willing and desires to do good to everyone, serve everyone, suffer everything for the love of God, and do his glory who's been so gracious to him. Therefore, it's impossible to separate faith from works as it is to separate heat from light and from fire. That's. Or heat and light from fire. That's just such a beautiful quotation.
[00:24:13] Speaker C: It's magnificent.
Reminds me of.
[00:24:17] Speaker A: Yeah, no, no, go ahead.
[00:24:19] Speaker C: That reminds me of Kurt Marcourt, years ago, teaching on this topic. He said faith coming to faith is a resurrection. It's divinely act, divinely wrought, it's a divine act. The man of faith is raised from the dead. He's standing up and imagine him walking along the beach. If he's alive, he's walking, and if he's dead, he's not walking. If he's walking, he's leaving footsteps behind him. And what are the footsteps? His good works can't be any other way. If you're alive, you're walking, your footsteps do not precede you into heaven, your footsteps follow, you are saved, you trust in Christ, you can't help but leave footsteps behind you. And that's a very comforting reality.
[00:25:11] Speaker A: Luther hints at something that Comes up in our confessions over and over, but I hardly hear anyone talking about it. And Melanchthon will use the language of new motions, that there's new affections, there's new motions of the heart, there's a new life that is. That is brought to. To life inside of us. Not so. It's not just the. It's not just the outward life of good works, but there's a. There's an inner life that is. That comes alive by the spirit and by faith as well. Any thoughts on that?
[00:25:44] Speaker C: Yeah, I experienced that most, I think, in my life, particularly when I'm active in reading the Scriptures and prayer.
If I, you know, when I travel on the road, it's much harder to have a prayer life. I've got my office here. I come in, I can kneel down and pray, take a couple pages of Scriptures a day. If I'm on the road, I'm up for some meeting that somebody has scheduled way too early, or up late at night meeting with somebody or who knows what.
And I feel the wane and the strain. Things come along and I'm tried and tempted and disappointed.
But I find if I listen to the Scriptures in my car, if I'm reading the Scriptures, and if I'm praying back to God what he has told me in the Scriptures, that my whole countenance is lifted, my being is lifted, my faith is strengthened. I sense God's grace.
Now. There are many periods when I go through times where I don't sense God's grace at all. But I know it's there because I know the conviction is there. But it's a daily struggle, a daily breathing of in and out of God's word and confessing his word and struggle.
[00:27:16] Speaker B: All right, our next question is a topic that we all know and love because we get asked it all the time.
Can we.
Can we say that they're still Christians when we deny them communion? That's the question we're getting today.
I was reading the Formula of Concord in the epitome. Article seven, affirmative. Thesis eight says we believe. Teaching confession. There's only one kind of unworthy guest, namely, those who do not believe in the same way.
Thesis nine says we believe, teach and confess that no genuine believer, no matter how weak he may be, as long as he retains living faith, will receive the Holy Supper to his condemnation.
How do these relate with our doctrine of close communion? How can we at the same time deny someone from the Supper, yet claim that those we deny are still Christians?
Where do we get this doctrine?
[00:28:05] Speaker C: Well, if you look at the form of conqueror, the German there on no true believers actually recht Gleibega. No orthodox believer will receive the separatist condemnation. The preface to the Book of Concord says, because we use the condemnations against false teachers and false doctrines does not mean we deny that there are Christians in other bodies which are not yet in fellowship with us.
So the Book of Concord starts out right away and says, we recognize Christians.
Luther famously said the fanatics were attacking Rome so much and they denied that any Christians could actually be in the Roman Catholic Church. Luther said, that's like a hunter comes along and Hunter and his brother are walking along and a bear jumps out and the bear's mauling the guy's brother, and the brother pulls up a gun and shoots. And instead of shooting the bear, he shoots his brother.
So Luther said, the Pope is the bear mauling the Christian. Don't go after them so much that you deny that Christ could be there. Christ is wherever the word of God is spoken, wherever enough is there to believe the Gospel. But by the same token, following the Scriptures, our Confessions make a very definite stand, saying no one should receive the sacrament unless he knows what he seeks or why he comes.
That is repeated in our Book of Concord. And that accords exactly with St. Paul in 1 Corinthians 11.
And Paul warns that if we receive this sacrament not believing what's there, we receive to our condemnation, our judgment. The word there is Krino, not Katakrino. It's kind of the lesser form of condemnation, but it's not going to help somebody. And secondarily, close communion is a confession of unity in the faith. So that's why we do it. It's completely biblical, and you just have to grow up.
People can live with differences. I don't know what we are in America, what we're drinking, but we think all faith matters are me and my decision.
I respect people who have differences from me. I know and have met many other Christians in other denominations.
I respect their conviction. I ask that they respect our convictions, my conviction, and I know by faith that we shall be in eternity together with Christ.
That gives us no excuse to ignore the clear word of God and what our precious book of Concord confesses in accordance with that word of God.
[00:30:50] Speaker A: I have this card, so I think Pastor Packer loves it when I do a note card that we. That we. There's two issues when it comes to communion. So one is the worthiness. And we say in the catechism he was worthy and well prepared, has faith in these words given and shed for you, the words for you require all hearts to believe. So to be worthy to commune is to be a Christian who trusts in Christ. But that doesn't necessarily mean we have fellowship.
[00:31:13] Speaker B: So it.
[00:31:14] Speaker A: So Paul talks about. And this is the problem is that in the biblical idea, there's a. There's an altar which is a public confession. So, so Hebrews talks about there's a table that those who eat at the table, the temple, are not worthy to eat up. But Paul talks about the. The fellowship with demons and the fellowship of Christ. And so when you go to an altar, you're putting your name on the doctrine of that altar, the teaching of that altar. And it could be that. That someone is worthy of.
To take the Lord's Supper and yet is not in fellowship with us. This is a Christian. This includes, by the way, all of the children, right, who are certainly Christian and yet are not trained yet and prepared to come to the altar.
We would not say that our children are not Christian because they're not yet communing.
So that there's two different things there that are at work. And.
And it's good to keep them distinct, not separate, but distinct from one another.
So we're not condemning people who can't commune.
[00:32:21] Speaker C: Yeah, I agree completely.
I often say there are three things involved. Number one, what do we receive and for what end?
Is it really body and blood, the same body and blood in some miraculous way that was hung on the cross, shed died, and shed for us for the forgiveness of sins.
And secondly, there's unity in the faith confessed at the altar. We together proclaim Christ's death until he comes. The New Testament unequivocally rejects false teaching in every way, shape and form, and refuses fellowship of false teaching with Christ.
Thirdly, we allow pastoral discretion.
I had a case some time ago where my wife came to me and said, hey, you got to go to my friend's husband. He's dying. He's only going to live for a few weeks and you've got to talk to him. You need to talk to him. I said, I don't want to talk to him. Matt's busy. Matt and Jesus are trying to save the Missouri Synod. Leave me alone.
She, like the persistent widow, kept at me. Finally, I went to see him. He was really in a bad way. They had really suffered terribly in their marriage. He had committed some terrible things.
He had three weeks to live.
And while he was a lapsed Roman Catholic, he despised the Catholic Church with all his might.
I said to Him. You're in luck today.
I said, you have four letters written on your forehead. H, E, double L. And that's where you're going without Christ.
But I'm here to tell you good news.
Christ Jesus came exactly for sinners.
That means you.
Do you believe that the Lord's Supper is Christ's body and blood, as you were taught as a Roman Catholic? He said, yes, I do. Do you believe Jesus words given and shed for you for the forgiveness of sins?
It's the forgiveness of sins. He said, yes, I do. I said, would you like to receive the sacrament? I would.
So I gave him the sacrament.
Then something strange happened.
He got better.
And so what do you do now?
Well, I started catechizing him. My senior pastor finished up, and he joined the church. And about a year later, he passed away. So there are many cases where Lutheran pastors will commune individuals in strange situations like that, and we allow that discretion to pastors.
[00:35:00] Speaker A: Here's another pastoral care question. Oh, you got a follow up on that, Pastor Packer?
[00:35:04] Speaker B: Well, it's related to something I learned from you, that when I was in Pagosa in a resort town, and I still use it here at a larger church, that helps with something President Harrison said earlier about people not honoring, like, what we believe.
I started saying, because you mentioned it to me as something helpful. All the visitors and tourists, we were having to say thank you for honoring our practice here today, which kind of puts it back on them to be, like, respectful, because some people, like, I've had people scream at me, have people yell at me. I've had people just be as rude as you can possibly imagine. Some of the things have, like, shocked me, especially from people who, like, somebody was a. A pastor's daughter, but she was no longer Lutheran, and she, like, thought she deserved it. And I was very kind, but she just, you know, left in. In anger. So we started just saying that after announcing our practice and say thank you for honoring our practice. And that eliminated so many people, like, trying to either just be really mad about it for no reason or just trying to come up and take communion when they shouldn't. That just. That's helped a ton. So if you're a pastor out there and you have a lot of that, that's a great helpful way to put it back on them, to just be respectful for one service. It's not going to. It's not going to do them any harm to be respectful for. For that moment.
[00:36:14] Speaker C: At our parish, we invite those who want to come up for a blessing.
Yeah. We do that.
I just believe that the more interaction children have with a pastor and also others, the Lord's Supper is very attractive. You know, it was Cyril and Methodius who saw the Lord's Supper practiced in Constantinople that really sort of changed them and impelled them as missionaries to Russia. Kurt Marquard always used to mention that case. So there's something. The sacrament is the gospel given and shed for you for the forgiveness of sins.
And so when children come up, I always give them a blessing. The Lord bless you and keep you in his baptismal grace.
And those who come up and cover their chest this way, their breasts, I always put my hand on them and bless and say a blessing that the Lord preserved them unto eternal life. And the Lord does that. That's his word spoken. He promises to do what he says.
And it's very attractive. And people come, and they end up coming again. And they come again, and then they go to class, and then they join.
[00:37:29] Speaker A: We. We do. We'll invite people for a blessing. In this way, I'll say the Lord Jesus desires all people to come to his altar, and so do we. But unity of teaching comes first. So if you're not a member of our congregation or sister church, we ask you to speak with us before the Lord's Supper. But if you're comfortable with it, this is kind of. If you respect our prayer, but if you're comfortable with it, come for a blessing. And a couple of weeks ago, we had a table at the Lord's Supper that was all Blessings.
It was 12 people in a row. Nobody came for the. For the body and blood. Everybody came for a blessing. Whoa.
So. And it's not. And that's actually nice when you see other people coming for a blessing. The confirman's coming, the adult Confirman's coming for a blessing, then the people who are visiting don't feel like they're. They're the only ones that aren't part of this club. That's not the idea at all.
So that's. That's great.
Here's a pastoral care question, Pastor Harrison. This is.
Should grandparents baptize their grandchildren if the parents don't believe? So question goes like this. If a grandparent has a new grandchild and the parents don't attend church or profess much faith, should they encourage them to have the baby baptized?
Okay, number one. And if they don't, should the grandparents baptize them themselves, expecting that the grandparent will have the opportunity to give the child God's word as they grow up?
[00:38:51] Speaker C: Well, I remember one of my, one of our symprofs said baptize the kids. No matter how screwed up the parents are or whatever the situation is, they know this, that the kid needs Jesus.
You don't know what God will do in the future. And I know that it's very significant. We have half of our, half the kids we baptize don't make it to confirmation and half the confirmations don't make it through college to become long term members of the church.
Although when they do get through, get to college and they stay faithful, they retain faithfulness.
I could not fault a grandparent for doing that. I guess Luther said somewhere that if you end up baptizing a child home, just shut up about it and let the child later go to church and be baptized. I think this was a situation of sickness or something. But I don't know, you might have a different view.
[00:39:51] Speaker A: I think it's a hard question. Pastor Packer, you,
[00:39:56] Speaker B: you have to, you
[00:39:58] Speaker A: have to answer this one now. You've been too quiet all I'm letting
[00:40:02] Speaker B: the smart people talk, isn't it? I think it's in Walter's pastoral theology where he talks about if you need the permission of one parent, like right. Like I'm at a school. I think 40% of our kids are members. 60% are non church members. Now not all of those are unchurched. Like even we have kids from other Lutheran churches in the area. Right. But we have a bunch of kids who aren't baptized. Like I can't just go and start baptizing them. Even though some days I'd like to, right, to just get them and bring them and start baptizing them all. I think Walter said somewhere about like gain information of one parent once grandparents, I don't know, that's hard. I had a grandparent in my previous congregation who had done that.
I think she had that twice.
But she actually brought them to church. She would bring them to church and she was the one trying to raise them in the faith. And so in that case it seemed like it, was it ideal? No, I think she baptized them in their bathtub or something. When she's giving them a bath one day, like physical bath and spiritual bath all in one at her house.
So you know, I, I, I think out of her love for them, she was, she did that.
Was it the right thing? I don't know. I didn't, wasn't. I never judged her too harshly for it. I think she desire was best for them and she was striving to actually teach them the word of God. So it wasn't like she just baptized them and like, didn't worry about it. Again, like she was trying to bring them to church and, and raise them up in the faith. So I, I think in that context, I don't know, maybe that's my answer.
Maybe she did the right thing.
[00:41:32] Speaker A: There's.
[00:41:32] Speaker B: There's so much I love for them.
Great.
[00:41:35] Speaker A: So there's so many great things in the background of this question. So, on the one hand, the necessity of baptism, which we teach that baptism is necessary for salvation. Although this beautiful prayer that I think comes from a letter of Luther, and it made its way into the old rite for the burial of a stillborn that says that while the Lord has bound his church to baptism, he hasn't bound himself. And for us to know that the Lord Jesus, who loves that little baby and who died for that little baby, is the one who determined to give that baby to those unbelieving parents.
And yet he doesn't will for them to be unbelieving, but he wills for them to be the parents of the, of that particular baby. And so that authority that the Lord Jesus has given to the parents, we, we want to recognize what is the authority of grandparent versus parent is maybe part of the difficult question.
The desire to baptize the baby points to the deeper problem, which is that your kids don't believe in Jesus.
So it should really fire up the prayers that we have for the children. Now, I don't need to say this. I mean, every parent who has children who have left the church is praying for them constantly, every day. You don't have to be reminded to pray. It's the thing that's on your heart constantly. Constantly. And this knowledge that baptism is not being given by the parents to the grandchildren is further encouragement, I think, given by the Holy Spirit for the work of prayer.
It's good to remember, though, that baptism is not magic. I mean, it is the saving benefit of baptism comes through the word.
And so we want to try to take out the superstitious idea of baptism, which is if it happens, you're somehow magically kind of locked in.
Although we don't want to take away the power of baptism, which is through the word either. So we're trying to navigate those two ditches to stay on the narrow, to the narrow way. I say that if the parents will allow it or even be indifferent about it, then God be praised. Let's have a baptism. If the parents are forbidding it, that is a. That might be a different, a different circumstance.
And then we have to retreat to the place where the Lord wants us to be all the whole time, which is prayer and trusting that he'll do his work to rescue and save us. It's always the comfort for me is always that Jesus loves your grandbaby more than you do.
And we in some ways rest in his love that he's working their salvation, maybe even in ways that we can't see. So those are a couple thoughts.
It's a tricky situation.
[00:44:25] Speaker C: Great answer.
[00:44:28] Speaker B: All right, we're gonna move on to the this is my favorite question for the day, and it's kind of a long setup. I'll summarize this, set up some, but the question is what's the hidden struggle in confessional Lutheranism today? So, so this is, this is a guy coming from an evangelical non denomination Baptist background and he's new to Lutheranism and he's actually hasn't joined yet. He's in the process. Well, I don't know what the date on this is. Maybe he's now confirmed. Well, it was just last month or so, so currently being catechized, so thanks be to God for that.
But he came across Redeemed Zoomer, who was this young PCOSA guy. I don't know if either of you know who he is.
He's trying to reform the pcosa.
He's in seminary right now. Really young guy, but he had a video and so he said this guy, this guy Radim Zoomer had a critique of confessional Lutheranism that Lutherans can appear, refusing to develop least ecumenical, too focused on guarding certain doctrines. And he often says if a church were perfect, everyone would pick that church instead.
These comments shaped some of my early impression. I'd love to hear a thoughtful internal perspective on them since Redeemed Zoomer is an outsider and shouldn't be dismissed without consideration. So his question what is the biggest internal weakness or blind spot within confessional Lutheranism today, not doctrinally, but in practice, cultural or pastoral life that we should be aware of and work to address on a personal level? As someone new to confessional Lutheranism, what would you say is absolutely essential for my spiritual life and what common traps should I be on guard against as I grow in this tradition? So what are our internal weaknesses or blind spots in practice, culture or pastoral life that we should be aware of?
[00:46:20] Speaker C: That's a big question.
I'd like to hear what Pastor Wolfmother has to say before I type.
[00:46:29] Speaker A: Okay. I I It is a beautiful question. I I was I have a theory the other day, and I'm going to use this theory to get to an answer. And my. So here's my theory. I don't know if it's true or not, but. And that is that if, if we Lutherans were to practice the liturgy with joy and warmth, that we would have no worship wars.
And, and I think that's get. Gets to in my, like, my thinking of the problem is, is that for some reason we've adopted the idea that being serious about doctrine means being serious about ourselves, or vice versa. If we're going to take ourselves less seriously, then we're going to take the doctrine less seriously. So that there's this, this strange seesaw that should not be between Orthodoxy and joyfulness, between right doctrine and seriousness.
So that you have on the, and you, and you have these kind of two poles that are pulling on either side of the church. So you have the warm, welcoming side, but the problem is that they diminish the pointed theological distinctions. They sacrifice that love of Orthodoxy for the welcoming of the neighbor. On the other side, you have those strong points, appointed defenders of Orthodoxy, that lack openness or warmth to those who are visiting and coming in. So I think that's what redeemed Zumer feels, that kind of defense of Orthodoxy, it results in a defensiveness.
But there is the other side, even in the Missouri Synod, that openness to others also is a theological openness. So, and it could be, I don't, I don't want to reduce this down to personality, but it could be something there where some people are just generally open and it makes it hard for them to fight for clarity and orthodox distinctions on the other, so that your kind of personality pushes you to be either closed theologically, which is a virtue, but also personally, which is a vice, versus open personally, which is a virtue, but then theologically, which is a vice. And we can't do that. We can't be both Orthodox and joyful and generous at the same time.
So we need each other to work towards that, to press towards a very, very clear articulation of the doctrine. But also knowing that everybody needs this and that the Holy Spirit uses the Church to deliver his comfort and his peace to the whole world so that this light is not under a bushel. That's, it's, it's, it's lifted up. That would be.
That's my thumbnail on that one.
[00:49:15] Speaker C: Wow.
What was the question again?
[00:49:22] Speaker B: Well, I'll add a secondary question. Do you, do you see that, do you think sometimes that as confession Lutherans, maybe what we lack is is joy. Do you think that's one of our at least or it can be perceived that we lack joy, perhaps even if maybe sometimes we don't, that maybe we come across as joyless and that that can be a turn off to people. Do you think that is something maybe we looking at ourselves maybe we need to to work on?
[00:49:48] Speaker C: Well that's a law question and so the answer is always yes.
So do I have enough joy?
True.
I think Pastor Wolf Miller's onto something. I discovered some years ago that the word for joy is a charis word.
It has the same root as grace.
And so the Bible will talk about joy all over the place as a result of grace. Grace, it's a gift, it's given, it's free.
Paul will tell us to even rejoice in our sufferings. And if you know that grace is a gift and it's one of its manifestations in your life is joy, you will know, having gone through trials and difficulties, that you have a profound, deep sense of joy despite everything. My father in law just died at 102. He lived a marvelous Christian life, was a World War II in combat in Europe and everything else.
And I just. All I could think of when he died was this is a joyous sadness or a sad joyousness.
Nothing could rob. Nothing could rob that profound sense of joy knowing that he trusted in Christ and we shall meet again.
And so joy is not like sometimes it's exuberance, but as Luther says, it's not like the froth on the beer.
There's a joy that is deep and drinks deep of a wonderful dunkel, a dark beer that is marvelous.
And I think especially we're challenged today with our context, as American Lutherans always are, with evangelicalism and synergism and different views of the gospel.
But that's why we should not ditch the order of the liturgy, which our churches and our confessions say is so important. It is so important to know that we're starting in the name of Christ. That's the way the church has always done it. In the name of the Father, Son, Holy Spirit. It's so important for us to confess our sins. That's the way the church has always done it. It's so important for the pastor to speak the absolution. That's the way the church has always done it. It's so important to come into worship with the psalms. That's the way the church has always done it. And for a reason.
Are these things mandated as divine Laws? No, but. But we retain these salutary traditions because they lead us to the things that are deep and dark and fulsome, like that dark beer. And they produce a wonderful head of joy.
We don't ditch the lessons. The Osburg confession says we maintain the lectionary. Why? Because it is broad and deep and takes our people into the Scriptures far beyond what any individual pastor might think is important.
We preach Christ crucified.
We deliver the goods. The sermon is the delivery of the goods. I often think that preaching, particularly preaching, should be like George Costanza's father smacking him in the head. You remember that episode where he smacks him in the head? That's my goal when I preach law and gospel, to smack people right in the head. So their eyes are wide open and they're going, what just happened?
Law and gospel, that's what we do. We keep the Lord. We don't mess with the Lord's words in the sacrament. They are the very gospel itself.
So keeping the ordo and doing it with gusto, with the joyous handling of these verities, sacred verities that deliver us from the devil, is very important. I think you've hit on something very important. Very important. Pastor Wolf Miller.
[00:53:55] Speaker A: I'm trying to figure this out, and I don't know exactly, I don't know how to articulate it, but. So I'm working through Luther's Genesis commentary and all the fathers, like Jacob and his exile and his slavery under Laban and his wrestling with the Lord Jesus on the Jabba and all the trouble in his family, and then in Joseph now who's in prison unjustly, and all of this suffering.
This is, for Luther, an articulation of justification by grace through faith, all of it.
And that doctrine is not.
The doctrine of justification is threatened by error, by false teaching, but it's also threatened by suffering, the assault on our hope, and it's threatened by our light. In other words, that the faith is not that doctrine. And justification is not a mental exercise, a purely mental exercise, as if when we articulate it, right, that's enough, like, that's the end of it.
But it is this.
There's something really, there's something much, much more to it. And I think that part of the danger is that we, because we spend so much time training in the right articulation of justification as opposed to the errors, that we think that it is sufficient to articulate it cleanly.
And that misses maybe not the whole point, but most of the point is that it's by faith that we have a clean conscience, not only to stand before God on the judgment day, but also to serve our neighbor and to endure the assaults of the devil and the flesh.
There's something more real to faith in our Lutheran doctrine than comes across in the pure defenders of orthodoxy. I don't know how to articulate that,
[00:55:56] Speaker C: but I often say that Missouri center pastor is not worth his salt until he gets his rear end handed to him by a voters assembly. A few times I've known pastors who've gone through terrible tragedies in their own lives, deaths of loved ones or something, and their preaching profoundly improves.
And this is kind of. This is the theme of Luther's Genesis commentary. Think of the sacrifice of Isaac and how he goes into that. So analyzing what.
What the feelings had been in that incident and what happened that God contradicts himself.
He tells Abraham, on the one hand, this is the child of promise. On the other hand, he says, kill the child of the promise.
He throws Abraham into a terrible contradiction. Luther says. But then Luther says faith reconciles contradictions.
In Jacob wrestling with the angel, Luther says, this isn't just a play match or anything. Jacob really is convinced that he's wrestling with someone who's trying to kill him.
And it's precisely in these deep, dark struggles of life, in depression, which Luther suffered so terribly in the darkness of facing death, death, of trials, of difficulty. Think of St. Paul listing all those difficulties he suffered in 2 Corinthians. Think of the thorn in the flesh. He pleads three times to take it away.
Think of Job. Though God slay me, I will yet hope in him. It is precisely where justification is realized most intensely in those real crises of faith.
And when God seems to be farthest away, he is actually closest to us. We're wrestling with the angel. Like Jacob, we're being forced to.
You know, everybody's opposed to me.
Why am I continuing on this path of fidelity?
We're thrown into all these kind of situations, and it's really the cauldron in which justification lives, is wrought and comes to its fruition and blossoms and grows and has compassion. If you've ever gone through a clinical depression, As I did 30 years ago, you have tremendous compassion for people who are in that circumstance nowadays like you would never have otherwise.
And that is justification lived. As far as I'm concerned, it's great.
[00:58:42] Speaker A: Thank you, President Harrison, for jumping in here and answering these questions. This is really. It's fantastic. Any final thoughts or reflections you want to leave our viewers? Listeners with
[00:58:56] Speaker C: the Lord is in his heavens.
Christ is risen. Hallelujah.
It's a message that strengthens us right through Lent. It's great to be with you. God bless you guys for all you do. And I wish I had a dollar for every time I heard somebody somewhere in the world say, you know, worldwide. Wolfmother, Thanks.
[00:59:21] Speaker A: Oh thank you.
Thank you. Thanks for the work that you do. Thanks for everyone who's watching and listening you YouTube theologians out there. Wolfmeel Co contact is where you can send your questions. You could send a bunch of follow up questions for President Harrison. Maybe we'll see if we can get him back on. This is great. Pastor Packer, thank you. God's peace be with you.
[00:59:40] Speaker C: Thank.
