Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Good news, I guess your voice is back. So, hey, welcome to the Theology Q and A podcast. It's Pastor Brad Wolfmuller over here. I'm Pastor St. Paul and Jesus Deaf Lutheran churches in Austin, Texas, come visit, and I'm joined by Pastor Andrew Packer, pastor of Good Shepherd Lutheran Church in Collinsville, Illinois. Pastor Packer, I heard a rumor about you that you were just asking if I would be a reference for your application to be a ICE field officer. Manager.
[00:00:24] Speaker B: Oh, geez.
Trying to get protesters at my church.
[00:00:29] Speaker A: Oh, man.
What do you think about that whole thing? That's a wild thing. I mean, just this kind of scandal of. Of a mob stopping the preaching of the word of God.
[00:00:42] Speaker B: Yeah. I mean, if you want. That could be our first question. How would. Well, I'll ask you. How would you handle that if they showed up at your church?
[00:00:47] Speaker A: I don't know. I was. I was thinking about it last week. Like, what do you do to this? Because here's the. Here's the big problem is that it brings in.
It brings in this phenomenal degree of uncertainty about what's happening. Like, just imagine if you're sitting in church and then here comes a mob. I mean, people are already nervous enough if, you know, someone walks in with a backpack and they're a stranger or something like this. Like, what are the intentions of this? And you're trying to, you know, manage all that sort, but here comes a mob that's obviously angry.
And what are the intentions? Are there violent intentions here?
How do I respond to that? In proportion? What you'd love to say is, hey, I see you have something that you want us to know. How about this? I'll let you tell us what you want us to hear without yelling. Just. We'll all listen. I'll give you the microphone.
You have five minutes to tell us what you think. And then also, I have some things I think you want to hear. So then you just stay for the rest of the service.
I don't think it goes like that. Right. Because it's not the voice of the Lord, which is speaking peacefully.
It's the mob demonic voice that has to make sure that God's word is not heard. So what do you do when the mob starts yelling? I mean, you almost can't do anything. So I think you say, hey, let's get the kids into Sunday school.
Kind of move things along.
And then you just try to keep everybody safe in the midst of all the uncertainty. I think that's what you do. I don't know.
What do you do?
[00:02:22] Speaker B: I don't know. My first thought was to tell my organist and everyone to stand and sing A Mighty Fortress as loud as we could. Yeah, I mean, I think just sing. If you sing really loud.
[00:02:31] Speaker A: I was thinking about that too.
The part of the trouble is that you just don't know the intentions.
Like, hey, can I talk? Are you guys armed? Are you guys, you know, are you gonna set things on fire or are we just gonna yell at each other? Because if. That'd be fun. If you just let me know what the. What game are we playing here? So if we're just playing the yell at each other game, then you guys yell your chance, and we'll sing A Mighty Fortress and let's see who wins, you know, But I just. I also don't know if you want to. If you're trying to blow things up. So, you know, and.
[00:03:03] Speaker B: Yeah, that's.
[00:03:04] Speaker A: That's part of the trouble.
[00:03:07] Speaker B: My. My organist, we were talking about this. He said he sent me this thing he found. There's a legend that says Chicago stadium organist Al Melgard stopped a boxing match riot in the 1930s by unleashing the full power of the massive Barton pipe organ. Point out all the stops and laying flat on the keys, creating a deafening blast that shattered lights and glass calming the unruly crowd. So upgrade your organ, everyone, and you can have your organist just go for it, and then they'll all leave.
Be your self defense weapon. Oh, no. It is tricky. I thought that church handled it pretty well. Like, they. I think they did exactly what you said, right? They. They stayed calm. They tried to get people out of there. Like, especially kids.
They had some people who were praying during it because they didn't know what's going on. The pastor seemed to remain pretty calm and didn't get baited into a dumb discussion with Don Lemon. He. He tried to proclaim the gospel. Hey, we're here because of Jesus. Like, we're trying to tell people about Jesus. This is why we exist.
Don't really seem to care, but I thought they seem to handle it pretty well in the moment.
I. I do think it's a question, you know, pride conversation we all need to have with our elders and church councils and things like that to sit down and say, all right, if this happens, what do we do? Like, what's. What's the plan?
You know, how do you get people out? You know, especially if they, like, you know, depending. If they surround.
If they come in and, like, surround everyone, then how do you get people out, you know, without causing perhaps more problems. You sell everyone stay calm and sit there. Is there a way to get the kids out without causing more of a problem? Like you said, if you don't know their intentions, that makes it even trickier.
[00:04:40] Speaker A: That's.
[00:04:41] Speaker B: Maybe they're there just to protest and yell at you, or maybe they're there to start a fight. You don't. You don't know.
[00:04:46] Speaker A: Yeah. That's what makes it just so potentially dangerous. And it's part of the kind of the.
It's like this. The danger of this lady who was protesting ice. And then it's like, get out of the vehicle. No, she drives. She gets shot.
[00:05:01] Speaker B: She.
[00:05:01] Speaker A: You have the sense that.
That she had no idea of the danger that she was in. Like, no idea that this behavior would. Would escalate this far.
And I think there's something very naive about the. The protest like.
[00:05:19] Speaker B: That.
[00:05:19] Speaker A: You don't realize how protesting like that puts you at danger, at risk. Like, you go into someone. Like, I just imagine that people. If people tried to come into St. Paul in Austin to protest like that, that it escalates very quickly and very aggressively against you. You end up at least getting beat up and dragged out, or if not, worse, you know, I mean, because you've. You've invaded. You've invaded this space and you've threatened people there, and there are people who want to defend the space. So there's some. There's something very naive about the kind of suburban protest movement that is all. I. I don't know that. It also makes this thing kind of very unbalanced in. In some ways. So.
[00:06:17] Speaker B: Well, I mean, it definitely shows they. They have no regard for sacred space. Right. The idea that. Well, I mean, obviously the first amendment doesn't apply to that. I can't just go.
I can't go to their home and start doing that. Like, they would call the cops on me. Right. Like, it's a. It is a.
It is public worship, but it is a private place. Like, it's not. No one can just come and do whatever they want there.
I mean, just think about if they tried to do that one of the NFL games this past weekend.
[00:06:40] Speaker A: Right.
[00:06:40] Speaker B: Right. Like, they're getting hold out fast. That's right. But the cops will be right on top of that. They wouldn't let it go for a second if they try to disrupt us on the field.
[00:06:49] Speaker A: Right. And you see what happens when someone goes out on the field. It's great.
[00:06:54] Speaker B: They tackle and take them down fast.
[00:06:55] Speaker A: Yep.
[00:06:57] Speaker B: They wouldn't allow it. So the Idea. The idea that you do it, but it's. It's a. It's a defiling of sacred space.
You know, it reminded me, like, the Old Testament, Right. One of the jobs, the Levites was. They were. They were. Were guards. They stood guard to keep people from defiling the holy things. That was literally one of their jobs. Right.
So it's. It's a weird. The whole thing was weird.
[00:07:17] Speaker A: You wonder how it was covered and discussed if it was a mosque or even a synagogue.
[00:07:23] Speaker B: I know it'd be covered.
It'd be called a hate crime. Right? Be called a hate crime. And it would be. They. They'd be saying the protesters were evil and wicked for. For doing it. But because they picked a Christian church, it's going to be viewed differently. Especially because it was like, what did he call them? Don Lemon called them elitists.
Like, they deserve this because basically they're white elitists, and they have this coming to them.
[00:07:47] Speaker A: You know, what's. The devil, though, is always working for God, even if he doesn't mean to. So I just am guessing that the church there at St. Paul will be.
Will probably have more people this next Sunday than it's ever had before.
[00:08:00] Speaker B: That'd be awesome. Yeah.
[00:08:02] Speaker A: And I just. I just think that that's how the Lord probably works things out. You know, the devil's tactics always backfire, so.
[00:08:11] Speaker B: All right, are we ready for our second question?
[00:08:13] Speaker A: All right. Okay. There you go.
[00:08:15] Speaker B: So that was confirming the rumor.
[00:08:17] Speaker A: Oh, that all started.
[00:08:18] Speaker B: Yeah, I guess so.
That all started because you're trying to bus.
[00:08:23] Speaker A: Very.
I thought.
[00:08:25] Speaker B: Yeah, very timely.
All right, so this is actually from a pastor's wife. I know. So, yes, it got bumped up because I know them from Colorado. So she writes she wants a video on pastoral care.
She says, here's why I'm asking. My husband is a pastor, and so often a church member goes into the hospital, never reaches out for pastoral care, even if it would be beneficial, because, let's be honest, it's usually beneficial. We live in a small town, and while he's not on the hospital chaplain team, he knows the staff well. Well enough that sometimes I call him if one of his parishioners is asking for pastoral care, he has not otherwise been contacted, and yet he often finds out about hospitalization secondhand through me or after the fact.
It reminds me of one of my sister's firstborn was in the nicu. It was a high as a terribly, terribly traumatic time in which they desperately needed spiritual care. But to them accessing that need Signaled that things were really bad. They were. And they were giving up hope with that scenario in mind. I think a lot of people don't reach out for pastoral care because they've assured themselves they're going to be fine. And that may be true, but pastoral care is more than last rites.
So what she's looking for is to cover this topic kind of with like, why is pastoral care important when someone's in the hospital? Or not just in the hospital, but, you know, hospital, or maybe they're having a rough time in their marriage or family issues with whatever it may be, why is it important to reach out to the pastor early in those things rather than waiting?
[00:09:50] Speaker A: Yeah, it's a good point. So we want to say these things that every Christian needs, Right? So every Christian needs a church. We were talking about that really, with the first question. Every Christian needs a pastor. That's also important. Every Christian needs Christian friends. These are things that we cannot. We're not supposed to go without. But every Christian needs a pastor. We can't forget about that because especially in this sort of mega church era, which we're hopefully coming out of. But the assumption was that you didn't need a pastor that could be covered with your accountability or your small group or whatever. Whatever, whatever. Every Christian, it's understood, knows the pastor because the pastor has to give an account for every Christian that he cares for, which is a pretty.
You know, that wasn't on the seminary recruitment letter.
Those who teach will be judged harshly. You should come to seminary like you waited to. You kind of buried that verse, you know, until we got hooked in.
But it's true. Every pastor is held accountable for the people that he cares for, which is how God intends it for there to be a ongoing theological care because the word of God is brought to bear in our lives and the Holy Spirit gives us wisdom to do that. But a lot of times it's so helpful when it comes from outside of us. God's word is meant to be. That's the extra nose part. It's meant to be outside coming in so that faith comes by hearing.
And so how can I hear unless I'm preached to? So I need to hear the preaching. And sometimes that preaching is going to be to me and all the Christians, sometimes it's going to be individual and one on one. And so there's times when that's especially helpful near death, especially helpful in the midst of sickness, especially helpful in the midst of traumatic and difficult circumstances, including like, children are struggling or whatever. Really helpful in times of vocational struggle. And this can be at home or at work or whatever. But especially it mentioned marriage problems.
This is. The rule is you. You have to call your pastor before you call your lawyer. I mean, this is the great frustration of pastors is that we get called in to help with marriage difficulties when it's already over. You know, I mean, people are already labeling stuff, and now you're. No long. You know, this is not something that you ought to be ashamed of. Well, it's not something that you should hide, especially from your pastor, who has taken a promise before God in the church to not reveal the sins confessed to him. So that you have a. You have a man to whom you can. To show that sinful side so that the Lord can apply his healing balm, which is what he wants to do, and apply the wisdom of God's word.
So you have a pastor. I used to have a list, a couple of recommendations on this. I had a list of when to call your pastor. And the basic answer is this. If you think, should I call pastor? The answer is yes. In other words, whenever you have the question, the answer, get ahold of that guy and talk to him. If you've got difficulties, if you've got theology questions, I encourage all my members to have just a notebook for when they're reading the scriptures and to just write the questions that occur to them. And then whenever you get to a full page, just come in and we'll talk through it and look at them and have this theological conversation as well. Because the Lord wants the conversation between pastor and people to be a lively sort of thing. We're not meant to be doing all this alone and without help. So pastoral care should be an essential part. It should be a regular part of the Christian's life.
[00:13:25] Speaker B: How do you address. You've heard this. We've all heard this as pastors.
Well, I didn't want to bother you because you're so busy.
[00:13:33] Speaker A: Yeah, I mean, look at us. We're sitting here making YouTube video videos. We've obviously got tons of extra time.
This is. It's a. Don't let the devil tell you that. I mean, all your pasture's too busy. That's what this is the pastor's. This is what the pastor is there for. Now, if you. So I'll tell you a funny story.
There was a dear, sweet lady. She's in heaven. You'll have to meet her. Then she said, she called up one time, she said, pastor, I really need to talk to you. It's really important. And my Calendar was packed and so Friday was day off. But I said, all right, well, let's. If we can meet in the office Friday morning, 9 o', clock, that'll be good. She said, okay. Okay. So we met in the office at 9 o' clock Friday morning. And she said, pastor, I'm worried that you're not taking days off.
That's what I was like, oh, I did have a day off until I scheduled the time for you to tell me that.
[00:14:33] Speaker B: Did you tell her that?
[00:14:34] Speaker A: Yeah, like, well, I did. No, I did not tell her that. I said, thank you for your concern. God be praised. I'm so. I mean, so it is true that the Lord's people, your concern, concern for your pastor and for his, for his workload and all this sort of stuff is great. But he's a pastor because he wants to pastor. That's what he's up to and that's what his vocation and calling is about. And so especially if there's emergency things and if there's not emergency things, you know, to fit those in for a morning cup of coffee or for lunchtime or something like that is really great.
This is just it.
We should have that. We should. I should be able to say it's this little checklist. Do I have a church? I know my church. Do I have a pastor? I know my pastor. Do I have Christian friends? I know my Christian friends. I have those three things. And if I don't have those three things, I'm pursuing them. And by the way, if you. So if you don't have those three things, there's Wolfmuller Co about. Find a church. Click that button, send us your email and your zip code. We'll help you. Find a church has a faithful pastor close by. Everyone needs that. And to be developing those conversations, that's really good.
So this is something. And on the pastor side of things, I think I was talking with my elders. How many hours is right and reasonable for each parishioner to expect to spend with their pastor every year?
And I don't know exactly what that number is. It's not zero, though. It's not zero if it's one or two or four or five, whatever. And then you can sort of multiply that out and figure out how many pastors you need for how many people you have.
So it's on the church and the elders to make sure that there's enough kind of pasture to go around for the con, for the size of the congregation.
[00:16:20] Speaker B: I've found too, that I don't know if you've had this happen, I'm sure you have. I've gotten to the point where people will text me questions, and sometimes they're like, something I can answer pretty easily. Or sometimes they'll be a question where I'm like, hey, you should come in and discuss that. You know, so if. If they're worried about taking up his time, it is easy to send an email or text them or whatever and just kind of say, hey, I have a question about this. And it might be something where the pastor can say, hey, yeah, here's. Here's a quick answer. Or it could be something much more in depth where you're like, hey, we should come in and sit down and talk about that so you can get an answer either way. But you might find out, oh, that's actually more complex than I thought it was or more serious. You know, whenever people send me questions about especially deeper pastoral care, about marriages, relationships or whatever, I always say that's. That's not something we can handle in text. Yeah, let's. Let's get. Sit down and talk about that. But there's lots of other things that sometimes come up that people are just curious about. They'll text me or message me and I can send a quick answer, you know, like, yeah, it's a good question. Here's the answer. So that's what I do.
[00:17:21] Speaker A: People text me and I forward it to Pastor Packer. He knows that's literally what I do.
Not on the text, but on the email.
Hey, Pastor Packer can answer that for you.
[00:17:32] Speaker B: It's a good system.
All right, second question.
How should we treat and. Or give to the homeless needy? How should we as believers understand giving to the poor, especially with growing homeless population? Christ calls us to help, but many of the homeless can be destructive. As well as asking for money or things that require. That require money. I'm confused and just require clarity. Also, is being rich and keeping money to yourself bad? Thank you so much.
[00:18:00] Speaker A: Where was I? I'm going to look up a while you answer. I'm looking up a Bible passage that I was reading this morning.
[00:18:06] Speaker B: I think one of. One of the first things on this issue to understand is she. She kind of alluded to this.
There's different levels of, I think people among the homeless community. One of the big issues is that a lot of people have mental health issues or drug addictions, and there's only so much you can do to help them. I think bringing food and clothing and stuff to help alleviate some of their distress is great, but we Also have to realize that there's a lot of issues they're facing that are kind of bigger than us that are gonna require the town or the county or wherever you live, whatever the system set up to kind of help them and give them, give them help beyond what you can do.
And I also think sometimes people are worried like, well, if I give them this or that thing, they might abuse it.
Okay, they might. But you know, we abuse God's grace every day and he still gives it to us every day very freely. So I don't think that should.
With. We should withhold because of that. We have a woman here in town who does. Her kids go to our school. She does an amazing job helping the homeless. Like, I mean, it is her ministry for her church. So she, she drives a van, she picks people up and brings them to church. She opened this place where they do Bible studies.
The pastor's going to Bible studies with the homeless and she takes tons of food and clothing, all kinds of stuff. Like just really a fantastic ministry they have going. And it's done a lot of good in this area for all the homeless people. So that's a bigger thing though. That's a whole on, that's a full on ministry that this church locally here has taken on. But it's really cool to see how much time they just spend trying to love those people and help them in the ways they can, knowing that they can't address all of the issues as a church.
[00:19:44] Speaker A: Right.
[00:19:44] Speaker B: So I guess that's a. I got the ball rolling. Time for you to take over.
[00:19:49] Speaker A: It's. No, that's really right. That I remember. We used to have this monthly meal we hosted with another church in, in Aurora, mostly for the homeless. It was just a free meal. And so that's people. And I was sitting there, a couple of guys, and I said, and we were talking about, what's it going to take to get off the streets?
And they said, well, we got to be sober.
And I said, well, you know, when's the last time you're sober? And they can't remember.
Said, what do you want to be sober? They said, no, we'd rather live on the streets. I mean, this is, this is a deep, deep problem.
I was thinking about it though, because I'd asked the guys that come to the meal, I'd say, how'd you end up on the street?
And almost every single one of them would point to a workplace injury, like I hurt my foot or I hurt my back or I hurt my. Something like that. And I was thinking to myself, well, if I got hurt, would I be. I would not be homeless.
And the reason I would not be homeless is because of my family and my friends and my church family and all of that. Nobody would let me be homeless.
And so you ask, well, what happened to the family? So I would ask the question, well, you know, where. Where are your parents? What's going on with your brothers and your sisters? What happened to your family? Well, normally, what happened was that there was some sort of addiction that captured their whole lives.
And one of the marks of addiction is that you don't just become an abuser of the substance or the thing that you're addicted to. You become an abuser of the whole world.
And so everyone is taken into service of that addiction. And you steal from your parents, you lie to your spouse, you neglect your. I mean, you. You estrange yourself from everybody who wants to love you because you do not see them.
You can only see them through the lens of your own addiction.
And so you end up destroying all those bonds that are meant to protect us and keep us.
And so then by time, you. You drop the thing on your foot, there's no net. There's nothing to catch you.
So there's no one who will let you come into their house. There's no one who wants to be kind to you because you've stolen from them all or lied to them all or hurt them all in such profound ways that they, for their own sort of preservation, have cut you out.
And so you're right.
One of the ways that the church wants to address this problem is the Malachi 4. He'll turn the hearts of the children to their fathers and the hearts of the fathers to their children, so that we're trying to build that sort of cohesive, healthy orders of family, church, and state so that we can live a life that's not so vulnerable and close to the edge.
So that's where the chief thing goes.
I do think, you know, the scripture says, give to those who ask. And then. So then that makes us face directly the panhandle question.
Like, do we. If someone's panhandling, someone's walking up the street begging, or someone's standing at the corner, does that qualify to that command in Scripture? That person's asking, you know, will work for food or whatever. Or actually, normally it's just, want a handout of cash?
Do I have to? Do I have to give to everyone who asks? There's some wisdom from Luther in this because he talks about the truly poor versus the schemer, the itinerant poor, the thief, basically, who could work but doesn't, or for whatever reason is just standing there taking handouts. And I think it's maybe helpful for us to consider that in most places panhandling is illegal, that what the person is doing is breaking the law and because it's a disorderly activity.
So I think when the Bible is commanding us to take care of the poor, it's mostly to be understood as the poor that we know. In other words, it's not just the stranger, it's the people that we know who are struggling so that the church is especially careful to care for her own members.
And then if you see someone in disastrous situation like the Good Samaritan, someone's lying on the side of the road because they've been beaten or whatever, and we want to be able to go and help where we can if it's a disaster like that. But most of the time to say, who can I serve with the abundance that the Lord has given me? Who do I know that could use some help and I want to serve them and bless them.
I think that's the normal way that the Christian is to think about charity.
And if we notice that we don't have any poor friends, that's something actually, we need to lean into that at church. Hey, this is not some sort of country club place.
[00:24:55] Speaker B: You mentioned addiction. I don't know if you've read it. Maybe our editor can put the link in the video for this. But Ed Welch's Addiction Banquet in the Grave is probably the best book I've read on addiction. A pastor recommended it to me a number of years ago, and I've given it to a number of people who struggle with various addictions and to family members who are dealing with someone who's struggling with addiction. It's just a really fantastic, helpful book that I highly recommend. The other thing I was going to mention talking about homeless, because there's a level of homeless people that don't count as homeless that I think our churches are probably going to see more and more of. Just with. Economically, some things are going to. Like I was reading a story of this woman, this is just a few weeks ago, who her house burned down. I think this is in Atlanta, and I'm gonna have some of the details wrong. So if you look this up and have some of them wrong, I apologize. It's a few weeks ago, but basically her house burned down, but she kept receiving.
Basically, she still had to pay rent because of the way the laws in Atlanta work. And so she didn't know that. So then she goes to apply for another place to live and she has these outstanding debts against her because she didn't pay because the house had burned down. Right.
So now she's living in hotels with her kids and sometimes the car, whatever, whatever works for that night or day. So they don't actually technically count as homeless because sometimes they're staying in a hotel, sometimes have some other kind of closure over them. And so there's a whole lot of people this article was saying that kind of fall in this weird in between category. They're not, they're not quite homeless, not quite destitute like we normally think homeless. And yeah, there's this in this weird in between stage because of maybe they're. The place burned down or they lost a job and are in between things. And so it seems like that's an uner of people that we could probably help even more. Cuz that. That's right. That's not usually involving drugs or addiction of some kind or even it's, it's not involving mental health issues. It's just like life circumstances. Right. Have put them in a bind. It seems like those kind of people, like you said that especially like if we know people that fall into that.
But I think sometimes people are embarrassed to say that they've fallen into that. Right. Even if they might be going through it. It seems like there's a shame to it. And so letting people know the church is there to help you if you're in that bind. I had read one book that mentioned sending out a survey to your church to ask if you would feel comfortable going to your church to ask for help if you were like having financial difficulties. To kind of gauge the level of how much would they feel comfortable coming to you or to the elders or to the. Whoever in the church for that.
That might not be a bad thing to do. Just kind of gauge do people understand that we're here to try to help them even if they're going through financial difficulties? Not that we can make everything right or necessarily fix everything, but how can we, how can we help as a church family, someone who's hurting in our midst. But I think a lot of times people are ashamed to, to mention it. So it might be more around us than we think.
[00:27:45] Speaker A: Yep.
[00:27:46] Speaker B: They just sometimes hide it well.
[00:27:48] Speaker A: Yep. No, I think you're right.
I think you're right.
[00:27:53] Speaker B: All right.
[00:27:55] Speaker A: We're working on, by the way, we're working on a Lutheran version of the 12 steps here. I Was just talking with a guy yesterday and he's doing some great work on that. Like, what does a cross shaped recovery look like? And how can.
[00:28:07] Speaker B: Yeah, that'd be fantastic.
[00:28:08] Speaker A: And I think we're really close to, to kind of launching a pilot group on that because those 12 steps are interesting. You know, there's some profound Christian wisdom in there, but it gets mixed up in a couple of places. But if we can have the catechism mixed in with the 12 steps. And really, in some ways I want to see the 12 steps connected to Romans 5 to 8. I mean, they're all kind of landing in there.
I think that's going to be a really helpful resource for people.
[00:28:39] Speaker B: So I think one of the reasons those 12 step programs tend to work is because you get together with a small group of people who are struggling with the same thing and you're kind of there to. And they have people that you can call, hey, I'm feeling tempted by this. You know, they have people, they have a group of people that are willing to go through it with them and walk, walk through it with them. So like you said, they just had a little more spiritual theological direction and probably be that much better.
All right, you heard it was eschatology and you're taking off.
[00:29:10] Speaker A: That's right. I believe I've been raptured.
[00:29:14] Speaker B: Amillennialism and the current role of Satan from what I've learned about amillennialism is that Satan was bound and cast into the abyss and sealed in it at the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Yet John wrote in Revelation 2 that Satan seat is impergamum.
John wrote this about 57 years after the resurrection. How could Satan be in pergamum and the abyss at the same time?
[00:29:36] Speaker A: Good question. So the key question that leads to this question is from Revelation 20, what does it mean that the devil is bound?
And what are the markers of that? I'm going to pull it up here in the text and we can look at it because.
And then we can go from there. And I think our key is going to be.
The Bible says a lot about the devil, about what he can do and what he can't do now. But I think, I think we'll be able to see it. So let's see. Let me share.
How do I share this?
Aha, here it is. Okay, so Revelation 20. I saw the angel coming down from heaven, having the key to the bottomless. Whoa, where did it go?
Having the key to the bottomless pit.
And he laid a hold of the dragon, the serpent of old who is the devil and Satan, and bound him for a thousand years.
And he cast him into the bottomless pit, the abyss, and shut him up and set a seal on him that he should deceive the nations no more till the thousand years were finished. After these things, he must be released for a little while.
I saw thrones, and they sat on them, and judgment was committed them. I saw the souls of those who had been beheaded for their witness to Jesus and for the word of God who had not worshiped the or his image and had not received his mark on their foreheads and on their hands. They lived and reigned with Christ for a thousand years. The rest of the dead did not live again until the thousand years were finished. This is the first resurrection. Blessed and holy is he who has part in the first resurrection. Over such, the second death has no power. They shall be priests of God and of Christ and shall reign with him a thousand years.
And now, when the thousand years have expired, Satan will be released from his prison and go out and deceive the nations which are in the four corners of the earth.
So that's the text. That's the Revelation 20 text. So I'd ask a couple of questions about it. So number one, the thousand years are begun by the binding of the devil. So we have to ask ourselves, what does that mean? Are there other texts that speak of the binding of the devil?
And when we ask that question, we're like, well, yeah, that's the parable that Jesus tells all the time about the strong man.
And he was ruling his palace and his goods were in peace until the stronger comes along and binds him, and then he loots his stuff.
Okay, Jesus talks about the binding of the devil already in his ministry. Jesus says, John 13, I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven. John says, In First John 5, for this reason the Son of God was manifest that he might destroy the works of the devil.
So we see that the binding of the devil is something that happens in the ministry of Jesus. Now I want to hone in on the why of the bounding of the devil. And I think this is really key. It says, and he cast him into the bottomless pit and shut him up and set a seal on him so that he should deceive the nations no more.
So the binding of the devil is not that he would not act or exist, but the authority that the devil had over the nations is now broken. I think we see this like when we compare Matthew 10 to Matthew 28. In Matthew 10, Jesus says to the disciples, go to the lost nation to the lost house of Israel. In Matthew 28, he says, Go unto all nations.
And what's the difference is the death of Jesus occurs in the beginning. So it's like this oppressive bondage that the nations are under.
The devil's reign is broken by the death and resurrection of Jesus.
Now, this doesn't mean that the devil doesn't exist or doesn't act, but that he does not have the nations in such profound bondage as he did before.
So the key to this, I think the key to the whole understanding is Hebrews 2.
So I want to look at two verses in Hebrews 2. I'm going to go forward first to verse 14, and then I want to go back.
So in Hebrews 2:14, it says, oh, I scrolled them. I don't know how to get around this thing. It's moving too fast.
All right, so here's Hebrews 2:14, it says, inasmuch then as the children have partaken of flesh and blood, he himself likewise shared in the same, that through death he might destroy him who had the power of death, that is the devil, and release those who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage.
Now, there's so much in this text, but at least this Jesus by his death, this is what it says. Through death he destroys him who had the power of death. And if we wonder about this, it's the devil that's who is destroyed by Jesus death. So Jesus death destroys the devil.
That is the teaching of the scripture.
The problem is not the Bible. The Bible is clear top to bottom about this thing. The problem is we say, well, wait a minute, it doesn't seem like that because, look, things are a mess around here.
So I just want to. For that insight, I want to go Back to Hebrews 2:8.
You have put all things in subjection under his feet. Psalm 8, Reflection of Psalm 110.
For in that he, God the Father, put all in subjection under him, God the Son, he the Father, left nothing that is not put under him the Son.
But now we do not yet see all things put under him.
But we see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels for the suffering of death, crowned with glory and honor, that he, by the grace of God might taste death for everyone, so that God the Father in the ascension of Jesus, puts all things under him, including the devil.
But here's the point is, we do not yet see it.
So we don't see the devil's death. We don't see the devil's destruction. We don't see the devil's bondage for us. He roars around, he prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking who he can devour. But we resist him and he flees from us. Which is an amazing passage. The passage from James, Resist him and he'll flee from you. But we. So we have this scripture that tells us that the devil's bound, that he's destroyed, that his kingdom's gone, but we just don't see it.
So this is our understanding. In some ways, it's like the reversal of lightning and thunder. Like you see lightning and then some seconds later you hear the thunder. It's the same event, but it's seen and heard at different times.
So the destruction of the devil is like we hear it first and then on the last day we'll see it.
We just don't see it. Now, how. So to the specific question, how can the devil be bound and in the abyss and also have a temple in Pergamum? Well, any place that's handed over to idolatry is a demonic temple. It's not like the devil just had one spot in Pergamum. It's probably the Zeus temple there in Pergamum, which you. There's the ruins. You could still go visit. It's kind of cool.
But it's any place where the. Where people are putting forth their own works. In place of God's saving word is a demonic temple.
But that doesn't mean that his kingdom is not destroyed and that his word is not going forth to all the. To all realms, to all nations.
[00:37:16] Speaker B: I don't think there's anything to add to that. That's a great answer.
[00:37:19] Speaker A: Oh, thank you.
[00:37:20] Speaker B: You covered it all. Wow.
[00:37:24] Speaker A: I was leaving like five things for you to say. I didn't.
[00:37:28] Speaker B: Yeah, she gave me a heads up.
This is kind of related to that. Another kind of eschatological type question.
Are the saints conscious or unconscious as they await the resurrection?
[00:37:43] Speaker A: I think that people. There's a lot of people that want to say unconscious or it's like a soul sleep or like you die and then boom, the resurrection. I just cannot. I think the more traditional view that there's an enjoyment of the presence of God while we wait for the resurrection is what just matches with the scripture.
So you have the saints under the altar in Revelation, crying out, how long, O Lord? So there's a. And Paul will talk about this. To be absent from the body is to be present from the Lord. I long to depart and be with Christ, not to put off this mortal body, which is not to be naked but to be further clothed. He talked about, in other words, there's a sense that, that when we separate body and soul, that the soul continues to exist in its own soulish way before the face of Jesus. And that's the promise that we have for that intermediate state. So I think that holds best with all the points of Scripture.
[00:38:46] Speaker B: Yeah, I've heard we kind of wake up resurrected kind of thing.
And I've heard it argued that because heaven's outside of time. Right. It's not bound by time, that for them it could be like, like here on earth we, we buried them, but for them it's like immediately they're at the, the new creation.
And that sounds kind of fun and interesting, but I just don't know how you get there from Scripture itself. Like, seems like it's trying to solve something that we don't need to solve. Yeah, I think the revelation class, the revelation passages are the clearest that the saints seem to be not only conscious but worshiping, praying, and even in this, in that one verse that you mentioned, Revelation 6:10, they're lamenting how long, O Lord. So they're definitely active in doing things as souls in heaven, even if that's not their final state. And what that's like, again, because it's outside of time, we don't know. And I don't think we have to know, but I don't think we need to. It also gets weird. And part of that, I think, has been the reaction.
I don't know what you think about this. It seems like we had the, the right correction that sometimes we focus too much on quote, unquote, heaven versus the resurrection of the dead.
[00:40:01] Speaker A: Right.
[00:40:01] Speaker B: The resurrection of the dead got lost for a while, but now it seems like on the flip side, now we want to say there's only the resurrection of the dead and it doesn't really matter that your soul's going to heaven.
[00:40:11] Speaker A: Right.
[00:40:11] Speaker B: Like, almost like an overreaction.
[00:40:13] Speaker A: That's right.
[00:40:13] Speaker B: And so now, now we can't talk.
[00:40:15] Speaker A: About it at all.
[00:40:15] Speaker B: And it's like, no, it's, it's still, yes, we're waiting the resurrection of the dead. That's, that's the end goal. But it doesn't mean the intermediate state's like, awful or we can't talk about it and that we can't say it's a good thing and we can't say they're with Christ and we can't talk about the way the Bible does just because for so long that resurrection wasn't talked about. It just seems to me like an overreaction to, to bad teaching. And now we're trying to overcorrect it because we want everyone to focus on the resurrection of the dead, which is great. Yep. But it's, it's not the only thing the Bible says.
[00:40:44] Speaker A: No, I agree 100%. I had someone tell me that the idea that the bot. That death is the separation of body and soul is a Gnostic idea. Like.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. You have to. If you're it's only body, your body is the only you, is your body, you. And it's. It's kind of, it's.
That's also a strange idea. We do always want to say that heaven is temporal. You know, heaven is only a temporary arrangement until the resurrection, but it is a temporary arrangement that we know a little bit about. And because of that little bit, we say that it's a, it's a real existence and that I suppose it's, it's something of an angelic existence in the sense that we don't have a body and yet we'll be able to think and speak and see and all the things that the angels can do without a body.
How the soul has those capacities to see without eyes and to speak without a mouth, that is well beyond us.
And our souls won't be happy with that because unlike the angels, we were meant to have bodies. And that's what the Lord will restore on the last day in the resurrection.
[00:41:49] Speaker B: Yeah, I think that's a somewhat related question. Right. Like the idea, is the earth completely destroyed and made brand new, or is it renewed?
And I know Lutheran theologians over the years have taken both answers. Like some have gone one way, some have gone other. I've always taken it as renewed because of two things. One, in baptism, you're a new creation. And like you're not destroyed in baptism. Right. You're, you're renewed. Same thing with the resurrection. My body is not completely obliterated and I get a brand new body, I get a resurrected body. So it seems to me that the. All that's connected in that the earth, however, that's going to work. And again, it's like you said, it's above my pay grade. I don't understand how this all works. But the earth will be renewed in a way that it's completely and in some way incorporate what's already here. That again, I don't understand, but that seems to be the idea to me anyway.
[00:42:41] Speaker A: The only picture that we have of it. That is. But it's good for this. It's. It's really in some ways quite beautiful that the only, the only experience we have of it is the resurrection of Jesus.
So just as Jesus was to the old and then is the new as the first fruits of the resurrection. So this is what will happen to us. Certainly our graves will be as empty as the grave of Jesus. Our bodies will be made new, like the body of Jesus.
The destruction that happens like the Peter talks, second Peter talks about this kind of being dissolved in the fire is talking about all that corruption of sin that's being in some ways burned away. So we don't see that in Jesus because he doesn't have any sin that needs to be purged.
His body didn't undergo corruption even after it died and so forth. Psalm 16. So it's a little bit different with this fallen, sinful world. But that's the picture that we have of the new creation is Jesus. And so it's nice to say, well, we don't know exactly how it's going to be in the new heaven and new earth, but it's going to be like Jesus was. Is after his resurrection.
[00:43:49] Speaker B: All right, this next question is, is different.
So.
And it's a little bit longer of a question, I may try to shorten a little bit. But the question is, is speeding a mortal sin? So speeding as in driving your car. So here's the, here's the question.
[00:44:06] Speaker A: And not just a sin, is it a mortal sin?
[00:44:09] Speaker B: Correct. Not just a sin, is it a mortal sin? So he lays it out, right? Moral sins drive out the Holy Spirit. Mortal sins are done willfully and against conscience, and a Christian would never do so. Moral sins are no longer mortal if repented of. And the person trusts in Christ's work. Mortal sins result in eternal damnation. Venial sins do not drive out the Holy Spirit. Venial sins are of weakness and not deliberate. Venial sins are venial because they are repented of and the sinner trusts the work of Christ. Venial sins do not result in internal damnation.
Now it says with those concepts in mind, it's going to apply it to speeding.
Speeding is often done willfully, even without an outside influence like traffic flow. It is often done repeatedly. It's often done with full knowledge, especially when one starts thinking about this issue.
Unlike sexual sins or addictions, it should be relatively easy to just follow the speed limit.
So he says, maybe some people would say it's a minor sin and you shouldn't worry about it.
But he says his response to that is, well, eating a piece of fruit seems pretty minor and it brought about the destruction of the world. So that's his question.
How do you approach that?
[00:45:19] Speaker A: I want you guys to know I'm an expert in this because I taught a Bible study. This is like the first Bible study that I taught in the college Southern Baptist College group where Carrie and I met.
I was a sophomore in college and I taught a three or four week study on speeding and how bad it was. So I'm basically an expert on the topic. But here's what I did not know back then and what I. I mean, I was a pietist. And so, you know, the pietist wants to find some sort of comfort or assurance of their own salvation in their own obedience. So that's the great temptation there. And if I can be obedient in this way, and I can insist on, hey, this is the law. And so it kind of feeds into the scrupulosity of pietism.
But I want to introduce the idea that there are many different kinds of righteousness, okay?
And we normally talk about the two kinds of righteousnesses, the righteousness of the law and the righteousness of the gospel. But that's only two of hundreds of thousands of different kinds of righteousness.
So to be righteous means to be right according to a particular standard.
So there is a certain. There is a. For example, there is an HOA righteousness, right? If you live in a neighborhood that has a. Has an HOA covenant.
There's a certain standard of righteousness which has to do with how tall the grass is and how old the car is and how long it's in the driveway and all this other sort of stuff.
Our hoa, by the way, does not mind if you leave your trash can in the street, but if you put it on the side of your yard, then you get a ticket for that. That is a strange.
Like, I'd rather be on the sidewalk by the side of the house than in the street. But okay, anyway, so there's an HOA righteousness. There's a righteousness that comes when you go to the pool at the hotel that has to do with having glass containers and running and things like this. So there's a pool of righteousness. There's a Boy Scout righteousness. You know, there's an oath that you take to be a Boy Scout and to be that righteousness. There's a civil righteousness that has to do with the laws according to your own state. And I would say that there's even in a. In its own little way. There's a street righteousness, there's a traffic righteousness. And it has to do with how long you park in certain places, how long, how far you follow behind someone, what speed you drive, and all these sorts of things. In other words, there's a whole standard set of laws that govern how you operate a vehicle in public. And those laws, by the way, only apply to the public streets. They don't apply to private streets. I mean, this is a really interesting thing.
So there's a golf course righteousness.
There's a family righteousness. Some things are totally acceptable in my family that you, Pastor Packer, would never put up with around your dinner table. You know, there's a certain sort of standard. Okay, so there's all these different kinds of righteousnesses. Now, the, The.
The right.
And each one of them has a different sort of seriousness to it. I do not think we want to say that every kind of standard of righteousness bear carries with it all the force of the fourth commandment. Okay, so there's a. There's a ceremonial righteousness that comes like when you stand and when you sit in a courthouse. There's a. I mean, you just whatever, wherever you have a standard. You know, you can even have a.
Like a. There's a. The country club righteousness. I was watching some movie and you had to wear. No, no, I was reading a G.K. chesterton Father Brown mystery, and he was talking about some society of something, and you got. You had to wear a certain kind of jacket to be part of the society.
This society had its own kind of righteousness, whatever.
So I don't think we need to equate every single system of righteousness with the fourth commandment that every single law, every single rule, every single standard has the same sort of moral weight as on your father and your mother.
In other words, there's times when not only is it not wrong to disobey the speed limit, but there's times when it's right to disobey the speed limit.
This is the experience of every sort of ambulance. Every day they have an emergency that they're trying to address, and so voomph, you know, down they go. And if you have an emergency that you're trying to address, if your wife is in the car giving birth to your child, you're going as fast as you can without endangering anybody to get there. And that's actually. Right.
Now, does that mean that the Christian should be a speed demon? No. Like Jehu Remember Jehu?
And they could tell it was him because he's like, he drives like a maniac. It's like, ah, it's Je.
So the Christian is engaged in their driving and everything else as a, as a wise moral creature and understanding that the Lord is given the authority to give posted speed limits to the people who are in charge of it. But does that carry the same weight as a, you shall not murder, you shall not commit adultery, you shall not steal. It's a different kind of righteousness.
So anyway, that's all to say that I do not think that for something to be a mortal sin it has to be a divine law.
And I could make up some sort of laws around here and you would say, those are stupid, I'm going to break those. I'm going to be unrighteous according to your standard so that I can be righteous according to God's law or whatever.
That's a long kind of rambling answer, but hopefully that is a helpful framing of things.
[00:51:15] Speaker B: I think it's not only helpful for this, I think it's helpful for a lot of these issues that people struggle with. To put it in those kind of terms. I mean, because he mentions too like, not just when we're going with the flow of traffic, but everyone knows that when you're going with a flow of traffic that it's assumed that speed's okay. In fact, police officers might pull you over if you're going too slow for the flow of traffic. Right. Like there's like kind of these unwritten rules too because it is a man made righteousness. There's a lot of unwritten rules about like if you have ever had a cop in your family. I have, my brother was before, now he's at the seminary. But you know, cops allow like 5 to 10 over often because it's just not, you know, that's not the kind of thing they're worried about. You know what I mean? Like there's so even within that, like there's these kind of extra rules or bending of the rules that everybody kind of knows about. And so we call it like things like going with the flow of traffic because it is its own righteousness. It's not like this dogmatic set thing. Now if you're going way over, obviously the, the cops are going to pull you over, so you're going to have to deal with that. But you had to equate these kind of things with moral sin. You're going to be in a lot of binds in because there's a lot of things like that. There's probably a lot of laws you break every day. I've seen, you know, I'm sure everyone's seen articles on this. There's all kinds of laws in the books that we all ignore all the time because we're maybe outdated or whatever, but they're officially laws.
So if you started going down that path, I think your conscience would be in a bind all the time. I'm impressed that you got carried to marry you after doing a four week Bible study on speeding.
It must have been really good Bible study for that.
[00:52:47] Speaker A: She wasn't listening to what I was saying. She was just captivated by my good looks.
[00:52:51] Speaker B: Mesmerized.
[00:52:52] Speaker A: This is, you know, I've got three tickets in my life and they were all. This is. I think this is so interesting. It was all at the same intersection.
I know exactly the intersection where it was in Colorado. And every. All three tickets were from a camera.
And it was because I didn't come to a complete stop before making a right turn and this intersection. So here's this. If the setup. This is now. Not that I'm upset about it or anything, but it's. But I come to the intersection and, you know, I'm facing this. I'm facing. I need to turn right. The people on that.
On that street had a left green arrow.
So they. So they were turning left and the other people are, you know, turn the other way. So I. There was. I had that protected right turn. And if they would have had. If the city would have put up a green right turn arrow, I would have had a green arrow to turn right. But they didn't have a green arrow. They just had a red light. It was just red because they didn't have enough. It would have had a. So I would come up and I would see that I have that protected right turn. I would slow down and I'd see that I had it and I would go on and the camera would stop. It would flag me for not stopping at a red light and sent me a ticket because illegally, I mean, legally I was. I did that. I didn't stop now. But if any cop was there or like a real person was there, they would have said, oh, yeah, you. You basically have a green turn arrow. We just don't actually have an arrow up there on the thing. They would have understood the situation. But a camera doesn't understand the situation. So the cat. You're guilty, according to the camera. And there I am, I'm like smiling, driving along, you know, turning right and Carrie.
[00:54:33] Speaker B: Ed.
[00:54:33] Speaker A: Carrie gets the ticket because it has a link to show you the video of my violation. And she's like, you've done that three times now. I said, look, I'm supposed to turn right there.
Anyway.
Was I unrighteous because of that? Yes, I was unrighteous, but I think the standard was unright. That's my judgment on that.
[00:54:53] Speaker B: Now we say it sounds like you're trying to justify your street righteousness.
Have your own street righteousness.
[00:55:01] Speaker A: So we just got to know what. According to what standard of righteousness are we. Are we living? And we always are pursuing the law of love? I mean, this is. We can't. You know, look, we goof around about this stuff, but we're always pursuing the law of love.
And.
And sometimes that doesn't mean again that we're speed demons or that we're uncareful, but that we're wise and we're trying to be loving. I remember this is the story of, like, the person that's drowning in the lake, and the kid says, we can't go in because, look, it says no swimming.
Well, that. That's. That. That posted no swimming is not there to stop you from going in to save the person, you know, so we just have to. We just have to keep that always in. In mind.
[00:55:46] Speaker B: All right, I think this is the last question of the day, and it kind of came up recently in a different discussion we had. So I thought it might be helpful here especially we're a few weeks out from Ash Wednesday.
Thought about putting it closer to Ash Wednesday, but then I didn't want it to us to miss the discussion beforehand.
[00:56:02] Speaker A: So.
[00:56:03] Speaker B: In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus says not to disfigure our faces as to appear unto men to fast, but charges us to anoint our head and wash our face that thou not appear unto men to fast. Does putting ashes on our foreheads violate the spirit of this instruction? Certainly. We must not go against conscience. And this question has been bothering me. Thank you for any advice in this matter.
[00:56:24] Speaker A: It's okay to put ashes on your forehead as long as you don't fast when you do it.
Then you won't let people know that's the right answer. Eat with ashes on your forehead. I think there's a difference between.
Here. Here's how I. Okay, here's the serious answer.
And then more on ashes.
I think there's a difference between private piety and public piety.
So it would be very different, I think, if.
If you, for whatever reason we were individually, had given ourselves A fast. And we would then, like, put ashes on our. Have our own individual Ash Wednesday so that now everybody can see how holy I am, et cetera, et cetera. I think when you have a public fast, like Joel calls for, and that's the reading for Ash Wednesday, call of solemn assembly, hold a fast, put on sackcloth and put on ashes.
That when the church is putting on ashes, when the congregation is putting on ashes, that's a different sort of thing. You're participating in something that's bigger than just your own individual piety.
And so I think that's the difference. I think what Jesus is talking about there, especially, like, with prayer, he says, when you pray, don't pray on the street corner, but go in the closet and pray. But he's talking about individual prayer there, not about public liturgical prayer. I mean, it'd be very weird if the pastor was praying for the congregation, but he would go, like, into a little side room so nobody could hear it.
So the Sermon on the Mount is especially talking about this idea that I'm going to lift myself above others by my own individual piety. It's not talking about how I include myself in the congregation, which is practicing a piety together.
So I think in that way, the prohibition about ashes on the forehead doesn't apply when it's a congregational activity.
I think that would be the kind of direct answer to the question. I know I have a lot more to say about ashes and Ash Wednesday, but that's my thoughts. Pastor Packer, you have thoughts on that, too?
[00:58:28] Speaker B: Yeah, I always hang it out at my church. Pastor Will Weeden, I think it was when he was director for worship at the lcms, put out something on this that answered that question.
And I used it as a bulletin insert on Ash Wednesday because I thought it was helpful that.
Do the ashes show anyone you're fasting? The answer is no. The ashes are a mark of death upon us. It shows that we're a dying people and they're in the shape of the cross to show that even though we're dying, we're redeemed by Christ the crucified.
So in that way, it's really not any different than wearing a crucifix in public. Right? Or wearing cross necklace or whatever it is that, you know, or a shirt that says you're a Christian, or, you know, I have a sweatshirt that has this really cool line on it. It says, line of the tribe of Judah. Like, that's not. I think the prohibition's against that kind of thing because no one knows if you're fasting or not. Having ashes on my forehead doesn't necessarily. It can mean I'm fasting, but that's not the point of the ashes. Isn't to declare to people that you're fasting or to be bragging that you're fasting. It's really a mark of death upon you, but it's in the shape of the cross to show that you've been redeemed and you have life in spite of sin and death. So I've always liked that answer from Pastor Whedon, who I thought was extremely helpful way to look at it and to think through it, especially for those whose consciences are afflicted. Like, I don't think there's so many other ways. I mean, perhaps more to the point would be right when people are like, I'm getting off of Facebook for Lent because I'm fasting from Facebook.
So make sure you miss me and make sure you all know that I'm gone and pat me on the back because I'm fasting from it. Like, that seems much more like the kind of, you know, bragging that Jesus is talking about than someone walking around with ashes on their forehead looking kind of honestly to the world silly. Right?
I don't think anyone's impressed when you walk around if you go to the store after church and you have ashes on your forehead. I don't think anyone's like, wow, man, that must be a really pious guy. He's got ashes on his forehead. I don't think anyone's thinking that.
[01:00:19] Speaker A: I, by the way, don't like the ashes on Ash Wednesday.
I never have.
I don't know why it seems this is a different conversation. This is a different point. But, you know, there's all these little sacramentals.
That's what the Catholic Church. So they're not sacraments, but they're like sacramenti. I don't know how many hundreds of them there are that Rome has identified. And so the ashes would be a sacramental. But I think the danger is that we.
That we.
I don't know, because we treat it as something special.
It just smells to me like the old contemporary worship. Like you're trying to create an experience there. And I'm. I always want people to be bored in church. I don't want it to be an experience. That's my cool.
[01:01:02] Speaker B: So here I don't have an issue. But I would say my concern is related to that.
You get way more people for Ash Wednesday than you do Monday, Thursday, typically. Right. I Think most churches, that's probably a general rule. You have a lot more people for Ash Wednesday than the day the Lord instituted his Holy Supper. That's the kind of thing that concerns me. Like, is it because it is this more experiential thing? Like, it's kind of cool to get ashes for them? Like, it's so unique that that's why we go to versus Going because I'm receiving word and sacrament. Well, then why isn't Monday, Thursday just as important to you as Ash Wednesday? That's always been my kind of thing. Like, you get all these people Ash Wednesday and then they don't show up for the rest of the midweek Lenten services. Or a lot of them do, but a lot of them don't. Right. That's much smaller crowds after that for the rest of Lent. And it's like, well, you just got that mark of ashes on your forehead to remind you you should die. Doesn't that want you to. You want to now be in church more often? Don't you want to be here every midweek service? Because you just confess you're going to die and you've been redeemed by Christ and now you want to hear his Word more often? Like, I don't know. That's my concern with it.
[01:02:08] Speaker A: Here's how we do it. I don't know how you do it, but. So we do the distribution of ashes in this way. So it's right at the beginning. And we'll do the confession of sins, and then we'll have people come forward.
So there'll be two pastors or four, just depending on how many we have and on what side. But so you come to the first pastor as ashes. You can stop there if you want. Your ashes you are dust, and to dust you shall return.
It's applied to their forehead. And then they come to the second pastor who puts his hand on their head and gives them the absolution.
So you hear that you're dead, and then you hear that your sins are forgiven. And so you're. If you want the ashes, you got it. If you. But you don't have the. You can't skip the absolute. You can't come up for ashes and then not go to the absolution. You got to get that as well.
So that it's. So that it's not, you know, this isolating thing. How do you guys do it?
[01:03:02] Speaker B: Every place I've been, it's just. I'm basically just following the. The hymnal, like tying it to a corporate confession. Absolution, but that the giving the ashes is just done without. And then there's more of a corporate absolution. So I've. I've actually never seen that done. That's very interesting to me.
[01:03:19] Speaker A: I think I invented it. So I'll oftentimes give the absolution and retrace the cross that's on there.
In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.
That's my own sort of concession because everybody worship. Yeah. I always try to do not ashes. And no one will. No one will have it. We gotta have the ashes. I said, okay, okay, okay. I'll compromise with the ashes if you compromise with the absolution.
That's what seems fair to me. I don't know. It seems fair.
[01:03:45] Speaker B: It does seem fair. And actually I find it very intriguing. So I need to think about it more.
[01:03:49] Speaker A: The ashes. I don't think the old Lutherans did ashes for a while. Although it's called Ash Wednesday, but I don't think the old Lutherans did it. But it's come back because they're like, well, how come you have Ash Wednesday without the ashes?
[01:04:02] Speaker B: So it would be a weird name if it's called Ash Wednesday when there were no ashes.
[01:04:08] Speaker A: The Sunday formerly known as Ash Wednesday.
[01:04:13] Speaker B: All right, that's it for today.
[01:04:14] Speaker A: Thanks for watching everybody for listening. The podcast. All the questions are on the podcast all the time. The we break it up for YouTube so we got one at a time. Although we maybe let us know if you would like to have a YouTube video with all of them. That'd be great. Send your questions wolfmielder Co Contact wolfmother Co events for all the upcoming stuff. I'm gonna head to California in May. I'll be up in Arizona in into February. So got a couple of wandering arounds coming up as well. So that's so that's pretty cool. And thanks again for being part of the fun. God's peace be with you.
