Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Hey, YouTube theologians, welcome to the theology Q and A podcast. Pastor Brian Wolfmuller, St. Paul and Jesus staff Lutheran churches in Austin, Texas, joined by Pastor Andrew Packer of Good Shepherd Lutheran Church in Collinsville, Illinois. Pastor Packer, I made up. I mean, I heard a rumor about you that you actually think that the Magi were led by alien spaceship and not by a star.
That's true, isn't it?
[00:00:24] Speaker B: If by alien you mean angel, than possibly. I think the star could have been an angel and we could debate that if you want, but I think it's possible. I. I don't. I'm not like a hundred percent sold. I do think it possibly was an angel though for a variety of different reasons. One, it stops over a house, which a star, if it put ended up over a house, would obliterate it.
You know, if it's close enough to be able to see it over a house.
And angels refer to us stars in various places in the Bible. So I'm going with possibly a star, not aliens. How about that?
[00:00:57] Speaker A: Wow, I was closer than I thought.
[00:00:59] Speaker B: That's my hot take.
[00:01:00] Speaker A: Just confirm it here, Pastor Packer and the aliens, I should bring it up.
You were answering your questions. So what do you got for us?
[00:01:10] Speaker B: All right, this is a follow up to your one on self defense and church security. It's actually from one of my field workers, so I just watched your show, Worker priority.
That's right. They get bumped up, bumped up the chain. He knows somebody.
I just watched a short video responding to the above topic on church security and greatly appreciated your little matrices for determining whether we as Christians are called to submit to resist. With that said, I do wonder if there's a limit to how much we should resist. Specifically, should we resort to using lethal force to defend ourselves or our property or others?
This is especially a question with church security. I understand that because of the way the US Constitution is set up, all Americans have the power of the sword to use in self defense.
But is that a power we should use against unbelievers?
My thought is if someone comes to shoot up my church and I shoot them, I've sent one person to hell as I've ensured that they died in their sin. On the other hand, if I stand by and let them KILL Even all 200 congregants, they have, as far as we may tell, sent 200 souls to heaven, which seems to me like a much better outcome. Basically, is it ever the best option for a Christian to kill someone in their sin?
[00:02:20] Speaker A: Well, so killing somebody is never.
I mean, it's never the best option.
It might be the only option.
But I would say that here is. So what we're talking about is how to wield the sword, because this is what this is the biblical language. And Romans 13 talks about the sword as that basically as physical, coercive authority, I suppose.
And the Lord has given the sword, the office of the sword, to the government and that's executed outwardly by the army and inwardly by the police and judges and things like that. The sword also shows up in, in the home and that's discipline that the parents use for the children.
The sword though, each person has this authority according to natural law, to defend themselves based on this sort of thing. So there's a wisdom that's there, like how much force do you use and what force is necessary? And I would say that you use.
The wisdom would dictate that you use the least amount of force required for justice or for what's right.
So the question is like, if someone breaks into your house, it's like, well, do I have to shoot them or can I tase them, you know, or should I pull out a knife or a baseball bat? You know what you're like now a lot of times you don't have the chance to make those decisions. And, and in some ways you want to match force with force. And. But this is all happening so quick. It's very, very difficult to. But what this is that when we're sitting back thinking this is the question of wisdom, how much force should be used and is it possible, for example, to use non lethal force? And you say that would be, that would be preferred in a lot of ways.
The problem is when it comes to this question of the algebra or the kind of calculation that's suggested, I don't think that's a valid part of wisdom. In other words, should I use less lethal force on an unbeliever because that damns them versus not protecting Christians because their death, it doesn't have the consequences because we know that they're going to heaven. I think it's a pious thought, but it's not there. It's two different. That's a mixing of two different categories.
The There could be a way in wisdom, if we have a lot of time to sort of think about these things, on how we would say, well, let's treat this person in this way, hoping for their repentance, you know, more time in jail, let's pursue life in prison rather than the death penalty or something like that. There might be a way that this Factors in. But in general, if someone is bringing about violence and destruction, the Lord would have that met with equal violence to stop that destruction. That's the whole point of the sword.
So the picture that Luther uses for war or for police force or for whatever is the picture of amputation.
So if you have gangrene on your hand, you cut off your hand so that the death doesn't spread to the whole body, so that when there's death that's there, that death has to be removed so that it doesn't kill everything, so that those. And the same thing with war. So if someone's bringing about death and war, they have to be destroyed so that death doesn't spread to everyone. And if someone's bringing death into a family or into a congregation or into a neighborhood or into a city center or whatever, then the sword has to be applied so that death doesn't spread.
So that is the thing that the Lord would have us think about in those particular circumstances. It's not our job to determine the length of someone's life so that they might gain repentance.
That priority belongs to the Lord.
[00:06:34] Speaker B: Do you think maybe if I change it a little bit, I don't know if this helps or not. You can tell me.
Would you not call the police because they might shoot him?
[00:06:44] Speaker A: Oh, right.
[00:06:45] Speaker B: You know what I mean? Okay. It's given to them to do that. But I mean, if they show up at your church and shoot him, it's still the end result is the same. Right.
In fact, if the police get called and he's still doing that, the end result for him will be. Will be the same either way. That's one of the things I was thinking about when you're talking about that, because it does sound like you said it's a pious thought, like how we want this person to be saved.
I think going back to the previous discussion, which if you haven't listened to or watched, you can look that one up on church security.
As Pastor Wolfinger broke down various things on how we should think about this and how we should approach it, but it does seem like even if you call the police, you're still possibly bringing about his death and possibly Those, you know, 200 Christians in the example in this question, those 200 souls died needlessly because now the cops took him out anyway. But after he had done all of the damage and, you know, took those people from this world and left grieving families and all the destruction in its wake, it's, you know, that's. Doesn't seem like it sounds good on the surface, but the more you dig into it, it's like, where do we really end up with that?
Should this we tell the police? Well, we don't want you to shoot him though. Even though he's shooting everybody up. It just seems a dangerous road to go down if you take that too far or if you see them, you know, or if I came home and I see someone about, you know, abusing my child.
Right. Let's say they're torturing my child and I don't know how far they're going to take that, but as a father, I know I need to stop them from torturing my child. That's my duty as a father. It doesn't matter whether that person's a non Christian, whatever. Like they're torturing my child, that needs to stop and it's my duty to protect them.
Right. I think some of that has to come into play too. We have to think about, as you pointed out before, our vocation, what are we given to do? What is our duty in that situation?
Now, I don't think I've thought about this. I don't know what you think about this.
I do feel uncomfortable as a pastor being up front, like, you know, caring in the pulpit or something.
I'm not sure that's the wisest course of action, but I do think that's, that's different than, you know, church security or someone stepping up and doing it. It just seems a little odd to be up there strapped. I don't know, I don't know how you feel about that because I know, I know that's come up. I know pastors have talked about that.
[00:09:17] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, I, I, so it's this, the whole question about the, the, the, the question about lethal force in the abstract versus in this specifics is also different. I think each person is bound by their own conscience.
[00:09:34] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:09:34] Speaker A: In the, in the way that they, in the way that they, I suppose, take up the sword.
I, I want to fight for, I want to fight for people to have a good conscience, to know that if someone is bringing about death, they have forfeited life, they forfeited their own life, and that the Lord has given the sword for that particular purpose.
Now again, how that shows up, do you arm yourselves at home, do you arm yourself in the pulpit, etc. I think that's, each person kind of has their own conscience in that conversation.
But, and I do think it would be strange to, well, to, to carry a gun, put you into it, gives you an, it's like a vocation in itself, you know?
[00:10:35] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:10:36] Speaker A: If you're carrying. If you're carrying a weapon, you. You have a secondary vocation all the time.
And I do think that I feel like on Sunday morning I have plenty of vocations that are keeping my attention. That vocation would be an added burden.
But I don't want to burden anybody's conscience who thinks differently.
I don't think there's a place for that. There's this. I was reading just some on this yesterday because Dr. Bierman at the seminary has not only written like in that annotated large catechism on the fourth commandment, that self defense, that the only way the sword should be used is in defense of others, not in defense of ourselves.
And he's kind of doubled down on that in an article about guns in church and saying that there should be no place for guns in church.
And he.
Excuse me, he will quote a Luther on this and say that this is Luther's opinion. I just do not think that that is right.
There's so many Luther quotes about self defense being the basis of, like self defense is like the kernel of natural law for Luther. Like, it's that. I can't say that Dr. Biermann's take on this is right or helpful in any way. I think it's pretty. I think it's pretty dangerous in one.
[00:12:12] Speaker B: Spot, perhaps is a part he's. He's thinking about. I haven't read that article, so.
But Luther does say in one spot not to defend yourself unless you think that that person then is going to be a danger to others.
Well, most of the time. Right. A person who is attacking you in that way, like in a church, for example, they clearly mean harm not just to you, but to others.
So it seems on the surface of it to pretty much anyone acting that way towards you is most likely going to act that way towards others. It's very rarely someone who does that is limited to just you. Right.
And I've. Because I've seen that quote brought up sometimes by Luke, by Luther, but that quickly seems like, all right, well, if they're coming after me, they're probably going after other people too.
[00:13:02] Speaker A: Here's something from Luther. This is. Where is this from?
Oh, it's a house postal, this sermon. He says, should some cutthroat come upon me in the forest or a ruffian attack me on the highway with the intention to harm me, and I had no time to seek the protection of the government, must I suffer myself to be injured or Murdered? No.
In such a case, the government permits everyone to defend his person and his life against violence and outrage. For whenever she can lay hold on these villains, she executes them without delay. For this and other reasons, Moses, according to the command of God, prescribed the appointment of several cities of refuge to which the manslayer might resort who had taken life not intentionally, nor for revenge, nor in wrath, but accidentally or in pressing necessity. The civil authorities also followed this rule and recognized the lawfulness of self defense.
But in all other cases, remember that all they that take the sword shall perish with the sword. I mean, it's just.
I don't know. This is kind of obvious that this is a, you know, that this authority of self defense is there. Now, again from our last conversation, there's wisdom that we don't always have to defend ourselves. And especially for the sake of the Gospel, we can allow ourselves. This is one of the advantages of having faith in Christ is we're not afraid to die.
So that letting ourselves be afflicted or tortured or letting ourselves be killed, even for the sake of the gospel, is an option for the Christian, which it's not for the unbeliever, because you're driven by the fear of death.
But still, this is. I don't know, I think this idea that self defense is given to us by God and by reason is.
This should not be something that we're arguing about.
[00:14:49] Speaker B: That's a great quote to end on, I think. Let's go to a very different question. All right. This is about Saul in First Samuel. I've been making my way through the Old Testament and I'm struggling with the story of Saul. Why does God not forgive him when he repents in 1st Samuel 15:24,25. I understand there may still be consequences for sin, but he is cut off completely despite seeking God several times thereafter, such as in 1st Samuel 28:6.
Why does God forgive Jonah for rejecting God's word and command, but not Saul? Also, why would God send a harmful spirit to torment Saul? This does not sound like justice or faithfulness. I'm struggling to understand why God would not forgive him, would turn his back on Saul when Moses, David and other chosen ones also sinned, repented, received punishments, but were forgiven, and maintain a connection with God. I would appreciate clarity on the subject.
[00:15:37] Speaker A: I don't know.
So, I mean, Saul is often paired. You know, there's these two pairs that our Lutheran confessions will use all the time to describe.
Half repentance versus full repentance. Remembering that repentance has two Contrition and faith.
And contrition is that awareness of sin and even despair of self.
Faith is a trust in the promise of the forgiveness of sins.
And they talk about the pairs as the first one had the first half of repentance, contrition, but not the second half, faith.
And the two pairs they use are Saul versus David and Judas versus Peter.
So in the Old Testament, you have this Saul and David pair, and both sin utterly and wickedly. Maybe David even more profoundly than Saul.
Both were sorry for their sin, but Saul did not mix his contrition with faith. That's the way our Lutheran fathers would talk about it. He knew he'd done wrong, but he didn't trust the Lord. And so his life shows over and over and over that he might have regret and even sorrow, but that he lacks faith in the promise. Whereas King David, on the other hand, repents and trusts the promise that the Lord will take away your sins.
The same happens with Judas, who is distraught over what he's done, that he's betrayed the Lord, but he doesn't mix his contrition with faith. He throws the silver into the temple, but he doesn't trust in the mercy of God and ends up killing himself. Whereas Peter betrays the Lord, denies the Lord, but he trusts the promise and is restored.
So that's the distinction that our Lutheran fathers will make. But why the Lord? So, I don't know. Maybe I'll toss it over to you if you want to flesh that thought out a little bit.
[00:17:39] Speaker B: Yeah. I've taught through first and Second Samuel a few times over the years.
And one thing that the text is showing us is that as it compares and contrasts Samuel or Saul and David, as they're comparing and contrasting them, Saul never, from the beginning, from being chosen as king, he never obeys the word of the Lord. He just doesn't do it. Right. He's told to be at a certain place so he can be anointed as king. And he doesn't go there. Right. He goes and hides for a little bit and then he hides a second time. When he's actually present, he continually disobeys. And then if you read 1st Samuel 15, what does he say? I have sinned.
That sounds good. For I've transgressed the commandment of the Lord in your words.
But hold on, that would have been good to stop there. I'm guilty, I deserve. But he says, because I feared the people and obeyed their voice.
This is constantly what Saul does. He sounds repentance, but then it's Always like it's never his fault, it's the people, it's somebody else. He's always blaming others.
So going back to your example of what our confessions do, Saul, according to the text, doesn't ever seem actually repentant. It's always somebody else's fault. It's never his fault. He never says, man, I've sinned against you and you alone, O Lord, and I'm guilty and I deserve punishment, please forgive me. Which is what you see with David, right? David commits murder and adultery, but he's confronted with his sin by Nathan. What happens? He actually repents and, and says, this is what I deserve. Right? We read that in like Psalm 51.
And so when you with David, you have someone who, yes, they sin and they sin greatly, but he actually repents. And then as you said, he actually believes the promises. Whereas I don't ever see an example of Saul actually repenting. The, the more I think the question should be turned on its head a little bit. Why does the Lord give Saul so many opportunities to repent when he continually rejects his word, right? I mean Saul could have been wiped out right from the get go and but God keeps giving him opportunities to repent. He keeps sending Samuel to him for him to repent. And yet Saul keeps resisting the Lord and the Holy Spirit and keeps doing his own thing all the way to the end where, right, he tries to conjure up, tries to conjure up Samuel. And of course there's a debate, was it a demon or was it Samuel? Eileen with Luther towards demon. But either way, right, he goes to a witch to try to have someone brought back from the dead, which is forbidden. And then he bases his own death. He kills himself based on what he heard from that experience.
And so he disobeys again, even at the end of his life, taking his own life because he's afraid of being captured and tortured.
So I always like to ask the question, not why did God not listen to Saul, but why did the Lord, why was he so patient with Saul?
Like he, he could have just wiped him out right away, but he gave him plenty of opportunities and Saul just did not take them. So I, I see it a little differently than, than the person asking the question. I see it more as the Lord was extremely gracious and generous to Saul and Saul kept hardening his heart to every opportunity the Lord gave him to repent.
[00:20:48] Speaker A: Well said.
[00:20:52] Speaker B: All right, the next one is on the fallen death.
We are taught that death is a result of the fallen to sin. But if there was no Death. How could all the people, people ever born, live on our one earth? Was it because God knew he would sin? Let it happen anyway. Why not just stop beforehand?
[00:21:14] Speaker A: Stop what? What do you think? What do you.
Why not just stop beforehand? Why not stop Adam and Eve from sinning?
[00:21:22] Speaker B: You think or I. I think that's the question.
[00:21:24] Speaker A: I do believe so.
So part of this. Part of the answer to this question is hidden in the wisdom of God, which we don't have access to.
What we, I think, can see is that the Lord intended for Adam and Eve to worship like we worship, by faith, not by sight.
So the Lord had to set up a promise of something that they couldn't see, which was death.
So Adam and Eve should have gone to the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and Adam should have been there, as the pastor said to him, to Eve and to the family. Okay, we'll confess our faith.
I believe in death that will come to all those who eat this tree.
I mean, they don't see death. Everywhere they look is life. There's no death at all.
So they have to believe. So the Lord has to give them a promise of something they can't see so they can believe and worship by faith. I think that's the basic idea there.
So the Lord never intended Adam and Eve to die. Now the question is, was that reasonable? Because if nobody ever died, we'd all be crammed in the earth, et cetera. I do think that.
I mean, again, this is hidden in God's wisdom. What the plan would have been if Adam and Eve would not have eaten the fruit, which was God's will. We can't say that it was God's will for them to eat the tree because God says, my will is that you don't eat the tree and that you do not die. So that was not God's will.
So what would have happened if Adam and Eve would have resisted at some point? Would they have resisted the devil in such a. To such a degree that he no longer could tempt them?
[00:23:04] Speaker B: Could.
[00:23:04] Speaker A: Would Adam and Eve have have grown. This was Luther's idea and the idea of a lot of the ancient church, that Adam and Eve would have grown into the kind of a full glory, into a sort of angelic life where they no longer would have needed to farm and eat as much, that they wouldn't have children anymore, that.
That they would have entered into the. To the life that we'll have in the new heaven and the new Earth, where we're neither given in Mary or given in marriage. That they would have come to that glory apart from the incarnation and death and resurrection of Jesus.
Would. Would the incarnation have been part of it? And the incarnation wasn't there to solve the problem of sin, but rather to. To bring Adam and Eve and all their children to the glory of God. We don't know any of these things. I mean, but we have to presume that it was not the Lord's will for Adam and Eve to eat, and it was not his will for them to die. And it's not his will still for any of us to die.
And this is why the Lord Jesus has done what he's done.
[00:24:09] Speaker B: Annoying, I would add, is like trying to figure out population, what can fit on the earth.
Last I checked, and this was a couple years ago, so we may have to update this, but last I checked, you could fit the world's current population in Texas if it had the population density of Tokyo.
So, I mean, there's.
If you have a perfect world where there's no sin, can you figure out a way to fit more people in a way that still benefits everybody? My answer would probably be yes. And like you said, how long would that last before you get to the new heavens and earth? We don't know any of that, so we don't even know if that would have ever.
That would have ever been a problem or what. But you can actually fit a lot more people on this planet than we often.
We often think. And if you live out west, right, you've lived in Colorado. If you live out west, you notice, you drive, you can drive for hours and there's like, nothing. There's like nobody, right?
I've, you know, I've done car drives where I've, you know, been the car four or five hours, and there's like two homes, you know, the whole time. So there's large parts of this earth that are uninhabited.
So I think that's part of the bigger picture too, is that the Earth can hold a whole lot of people, probably way more than we could ever think or possibly imagine, depending on what God wanted to do with it.
[00:25:23] Speaker A: We are in this weird spot we haven't talked about this with.
I mean, if you go back 50 years, there's this huge worry about overpopulation, right? This was. Everybody was worried about overpopulation. And you combine that worry of overpopulation with the technology of birth control, and now all of a sudden we're facing a real crisis that there's not going to be enough people.
I mean, it's a weird thing to think About. But we are only one generation away from no people.
You know, I mean, it's a pretty dynamic system that the Lord has put us in.
[00:26:03] Speaker B: So demographic winter is a real thing. I mean, just there was a. I don't know if you saw this article. It's fascinating. This village in Italy, huge celebration. The first baby born in this village in 30 years.
[00:26:16] Speaker A: Wow.
[00:26:17] Speaker B: People came from all over to see this baby. I don't know if you've ever read or watched Children of Men. If you haven't read the book.
If you're watching this, you've never read the book. You should read the book and then you can check out the movie. But read the book for sure. Especially the ending of the book is fantastic. I don't want to spoil it, but it's really beautiful. It's something passable. Marriage can be a hundred percent agreement on, on the way it ends is just a, a great way to end.
So that's happening in places. A village with no babies for 30 years, that's just, that's almost unthinkable. Right? Like 30 years, that's, that's a long time to have no kids in a, in a, in a village.
All right.
[00:26:55] Speaker A: And I, I think about this, I mean politically, because they're still especially connected to environmentalism.
Like, like ideological environmentalism has, as it's one of its root doctrines, that humanity is a plague.
And I'm pretty sure that idea should disqualify you from any sort of public office or any sort of responsibility. I mean, if you think that humanity is the problem, then that is a problem. But.
[00:27:24] Speaker B: Well, now I have to bring in Chesterton.
[00:27:26] Speaker A: That's a real ideology that's out there. And, and man, we gotta, as Christians think. No, the Lord created the world. The culmination of the Lord's creation was the marriage of Adam and Eve. And in fact the whole six days of creation were just wedding prep days.
And that this all exists, even the stars exists for us according to the Lord's arrangement of things.
So that's a very.
We, we want to be good stewards of the environment precisely because the Lord gives us this world and this universe as a gift.
[00:28:03] Speaker B: Chesterton has the. One of my favorite quotes by him.
There's a lot of favorite quotes by him. But anyway, he says when someone talks about the overpopulation, and this was like over 100 years ago, he says you should ask them how they know if they're not the overpopulation. Because these. Right. If these people really believed what they said they would, they would take care of themselves. You know, like they really believed they were the problem. But they're never the overpopulation. It's you and your kids that are the overpopulation. Something, something to think about.
All right, the next question.
This is on the laying on of hands.
What is the significance of laying on of hands in prayer? Before I became a member of the lcms, I was part of an evangelical church. I remember them laying hands during on people. During special prayer, lay people and or pastors would gather around the person, put their hands on their shoulder or head and take turns praying for them. As a member of the lcms, I've witnessed this practice only at ordinations. As you know, it's done by ordained pastors for the new pastor.
What do you think of this practice on other occasions, for example, after the service for a special prayer done by the pastor and the laity? So is there a place among Lutherans to have prayers, whether done by pastors or laity, to. To lay hands on others, to pray for them?
[00:29:18] Speaker A: There is.
Most of the times that we see laying on of hands, it is connected to ordination in the Scripture or like in Acts 6, they set apart the deacons by the laying on of hands. So it's for setting someone apart.
Acts 8, they laid hands on them and they received the Holy Spirit. 1 Timothy 4. Don't neglect the gift that's in you, which is given to you by the prophecy and the laying on of hands.
I think that's what Hebrews is talking about in chapter six, the basics of the faith, doctrine of baptism, laying on of hands, resurrection of the dead, eternal judgment. That's the office of the ministry. But then Jesus does promise in Mark 16, they'll take up serpents. If they drink anything deadly, it'll by no means hurt them. They will lay hands on the sick and they will recover.
So there is a laying of hands on to bless people. And it does seem like in that apostolic age, those people who had the gift of, of healing or miracles would give that gift by the laying on of hands. And so this comes back now for the practice I think works its way into the evangelical church through the charismatic church, that there's a laying on of hands in connection with prayer for the sick. It's not a bad practice, just like anointing the sick.
Paul talks about that or James talks about that, anointing the sick also with oil.
But the norm for the laying on of hands is the public setting apart of a person into a particular office.
So we see it especially in ordination we see it in marriage, the pastor will put his hands on the head of the Adam and Eve and bless them. We see it in confirmation.
They're given a blessing with the laying on of hands and a particular verse.
They're brought into the office of receiving the supper and being a public Christian.
And in other places where there's blessings or people are set apart for things they're laying on of hands. So it seems like that's the chief purpose in the scripture.
But it doesn't mean that we can't lay hands on people for prayer.
Oftentimes when I'll visit someone in the hospital, I'll put my hand on their head for the prayers and for the blessing. And that's a good, and I think a good and godly practice.
[00:31:37] Speaker B: Yeah.
Even just a practical aspect of sometimes showing the person you care. Right. It doesn't.
I know sometimes we want to. People want to put more theological import, you know, like maybe some kind of power coming from you to them or whatever in some circles. But really even just the idea of putting your hand on them because you care. Right. Like, there's also just that aspect of physical touch and caring, like, hey, I'm here for you and the Lord's here for you too, and I'm here in the flesh. And so, you know, it's like giving, you know, giving someone who needs it, who's sad, like a hug or something. Right. Like that they're sad and they just need to be comforted. And so I think that can be part of it too, without some of the baggage that comes from other groups, which, you know, I've. I've been part of that before. I've had.
I've been at churches where they. They lay hands on you for various things or even like trying to get you to pray in tongues or do other things or whatever it may be. And it can get super awkward and be uncomfortable really fast. But I think if you're.
And I. I'm not sure how many people would feel comfortable with like 10 people gathered around them with their, you know, their hand on them. I can see a lot of people would be really uncomfortable with that. But especially like one on one or in a small group, it seems like you could do it without any issues.
[00:32:54] Speaker A: I remember the first. This just reminds me of the story. The first time I went to minister, I was sent to. I was on vicarage. I was sent to a home and the person had died.
And I remember I went into the home and Jackie was the man's name is the man's name who had died. And he was in the bedroom and everyone else was in the living room. And so I went in and I greeted the family.
And I was like, I don't know exactly what to do now.
So I said, let's go pray.
And we went back into the bedroom and I put my hand on his head, like this seems to be a pretty important thing, to touch the body.
And said a prayer and did the blessing of the body. May God bless and keep these mortal remains to the day of the resurrection of all the dead.
So that this. There's something that is very physical in our prayers. And we see Jesus who does the same. He'll touch people to bless them.
[00:33:55] Speaker B: Yeah, absolutely.
All right, next one's on God's election, which I know is something we've talked about before, but we haven't done it in the new format, so I thought it might be helpful to touch on it again.
Recently, while reflecting on the Bible, I asked myself the following question as a Lutheran. One believes the following two things. One, one can fall away from the faith. Two, we are chosen according to God's purpose before the foundation of the world.
How do you reconcile these two doctrines? Is it a mystery that we cannot explain? Or is there a way to reconcile them? Because if someone once truly believed and then fell away and did not return to the faith, were they chosen before the foundation of the world or not? I have knots in my head. I hope you can untangle them. Thank you. Best regards from Southern Germany, from the beautiful city of Freiburg. Or is it Freiburg? I don't know. To be precise, Freiburg.
[00:34:45] Speaker A: It is a beautiful. It's right in the Black Forest.
We're going to go there on our cruise this next summer.
[00:34:52] Speaker B: Fryberg.
[00:34:54] Speaker A: This. I do not think this can be unraveled.
It's two. These are both true, that we are saved in Christ. We are saved in repentance.
Apart from repentance, there is no salvation. And that it is possible to fall from repentance by willful sin, by prideful trust in our own works, by rejecting the gift and grace of God in one way or another, saying it's unnecessary or unneeded, or so it is possible to, as St. Paul says, to fall from grace. Jesus warns about the seed that falls in the stone and grows and then is withered by the sun. And he says, these are those who believe for a while, but in a time of testing, fall away.
So Jesus says, you can believe for a while and then stop believing.
So the Bible warns, it teaches and warns that it's possible to fall from the faith, but it does not teach us that to undermine our confidence in Christ or in salvation.
We're not warned about falling for the faith so that we could worry about losing our salvation.
I mean, it does create a fear of God. But we're warned about falling from the faith so that we can know that we won't fall from the faith so that we can trust that the promises. The Lord Jesus says, nothing can snatch you out of my hand or Paul's confidence. He who has begun a good work in you will bring it to completion in the day of Jesus Christ, which he says at the beginning of Philippians. At the end of Philippians, he warns about those who fade the shipwreck so that those two things do not fight against each other. The doctrine of elections is to strengthen our faith in Christ, is to support the work of repentance that the Holy Spirit is doing in us, contrition and faith, so that they are not working against each other. But how can it be that the Lord chooses us before the foundation of the earth and that it's possible to lose our salvation? We.
I don't know. There's probably a different dimension of things that we can't put into the calculus to make those two things match up.
Yeah, I don't know.
[00:37:30] Speaker B: I think the reason she has nods in her head is because like you said, we want an easy answer. And what happens when people try to answer it? Right? You end up either with something like Calvinism on the one hand, Arminianism on the other hand, or universalism or all kinds of things. When people try to to untangle this and give a satisfactory logical answer rather than just saying, hey, the Bible says both, the Lord says both, therefore they're both true. And I don't have to fully understand how this all works together.
Right? There's a humility and as Luther says, we bow before the Word and we don't become judged over it. We let it be judged over us. And there are times when we just have to say, I don't fully understand how this can be so just like I don't fully understand how Jesus can be fully God and fully man in one person, or the virgin birth or the Trinity. There's all kinds of things I do not fully understand or wrap my mind around, and that's okay. I just have to submit myself to them and say, this is what God's Word says, therefore I believe it. And I don't have to try to settle it or answer it. I don't have to pretend there's verses of the Bible that don't say both, Right? Because that's what you kind of have to do. You either have to ignore the verses that say you're chosen before the foundation of the world or ignore the verses that say you can fall away from the faith.
If you want to, like, logically solve it all and make an easy pad answer. But the Bible doesn't give us that option. It says both, and both are true. And as we've mentioned before on here, then people get upset with us and say, oh, you Lutherans, you're just playing the mystery card. But I'm sorry, there are some things that are just a mystery.
And to somewhat ironically quote Calvin, right. He says, wherever God's word stops, we should stop.
So we're just trying to follow.
Trying to follow that, right?
[00:39:20] Speaker A: Where.
[00:39:20] Speaker B: Where God's word stops, we want to stop.
And there. There's not. Oh, I don't think you can go beyond that without getting into trouble. Without getting to all kinds of trouble, I would say, and undermining one or both doctrines.
[00:39:32] Speaker A: So I drew a card. I don't know if this card is going to make any sense now, but. So here's the question. Maybe we could just ask, why has the Lord given us this doctrine?
Like, why has the Lord warned us that it's possible to fall from the faith? Well, to strengthen our faith and repentance, not to push us to despair and pride. And the same thing is true for election. Why has the Lord told us about our election? To strengthen our faith, our repentance, not to push us to despair and deprive. Like, oh, I can do whatever I want because I'm elect, or I'll never be saved because I'm not elect. Well, no, the Lord has not given us the doctrine of election for either of those reasons. That's a misuse. The same with the warnings. He's not, oh, I'm gonna lose it, or, oh, look, I've kept it myself. No, it's so that the Lord teaches us. Whoa, that's interesting. So that the Lord teaches.
[00:40:25] Speaker B: You're being transfigured right before.
[00:40:29] Speaker A: Right before. I know I did that.
That the Lord has. He teaches us these things to strengthen our repentance, our despair of self, and our trust in Christ.
So that's why they're given to us.
[00:40:47] Speaker B: All right, next question's on baptism.
[00:40:53] Speaker A: In the book of Acts, always the baptism questions.
[00:40:56] Speaker B: This is a good one. This is about baptism in Acts, chapter eight.
Dear Pastor Wolfmuller, after being raised in A non denominational setting, I was confirmed Lutheran in 2022. Before I became Lutheran, I had a hard time accepting infant baptism, but came to find it a joyous scriptural doctrine in opposition to decision or free will theology looking outward for assurance rather than inward. That being said, I'm curious how a Lutheran understanding of baptism fits with the following passage from Acts chapter 8.
But when they believed Philip, who was proclaiming the good news about the kingdom of God and the name of Jesus Christ, they were baptized both men and women.
Even Simon himself believed. And when the apostles at Jerusalem heard that Samaria had accepted the word of God, they sent Peter and John to them. The two went down and prayed for them that they might receive the Holy Spirit. For as yet the Spirit had not come upon any of them. They'd only been baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus. Then Peter and John laid their hands on them and they received the Holy Spirit. Now when Simon saw the Spirit was given through the laying on of the apostles hands, he offered them money.
Why in this case is the reception of the Holy Spirit and baptism and the name of the triune God apparently separated? In contrast the promise from Peter's Pentecost sermon connecting the two are the events in Samaria, a unique extraordinary case that was only possible in the context of the apostles.
[00:42:16] Speaker A: I think the easiest way to sort that out is that every time we see the laying on of hands in the book of Acts, we understand it as ordination.
So that when they were baptized they became Christians and received the Holy Spirit to confess faith. After all, they can't say Jesus is Lord but by the Holy Spirit, so that already they believed and that that belief is a miracle worked through the word by the Holy Spirit. But they didn't have, they had no office. They had. When it says they, they hadn't received the Spirit, that means they, they didn't have any preachers. So the apostles come down and lay hands on them and set apart a few of them for the office of preaching. And this is why we pray. When someone remember this great when at ordination. This is what Paul says. The gift that was given to you by prophecy and the laying on of hands that the Spirit is given for the office. Also I found this great quote from Luther over the Christmas break where he talks about ordination as a second sanctification, which is really amazing. That's receiving of the Holy Spirit. So remember the, remember the story of the. Of the guy and his son who were watching an ordination and the pastor was up there and all the other pastors gathered around, and they all laid hands on the guy. And they. The church was praying, come, Holy Spirit.
And the Son says to the dead, what are they doing?
And they said, they're giving him the Holy Spirit.
And the Son says, we should have called a pastor who had the Holy Spirit already.
Well, he had the Holy Spirit according to his baptism. But remember, the Holy Spirit comes upon us for the various different offices, and especially for the office of the Word, we have the promise of the Holy Spirit.
So I think that's the easiest, simplest, most straightforward way to understand what's going on in Acts is that they receive the gift of Holy Baptism for salvation.
And then the apostles come and set some men up to be the preachers so that that faith can be nourished in the service of the Word.
[00:44:23] Speaker B: Do you think sometimes, too, in Acts, sometimes the hands are laid on because you have the Holy Spirit going, the gospel going to different people groups now outside of the Jews. And it seems like each time there's a new group of people brought into the church that there's manifestations of the Holy Spirit's presence, because you can't.
If I baptize you, I can't see whether you have the Holy Spirit or not, right? And so to give proof that, hey, they have the same Holy Spirit you do that you Jewish believers have, here's evidence.
Hands have been laid on them, and sometimes they speak in tongues or other things we see in the Book of Acts that happen.
So it seems like that sometimes is part of it as well, is a manifestation of some of the gifts of the Spirit to show, hey, they also have the same Holy Spirit you have.
[00:45:13] Speaker A: That's especially going to happen in chapter 10, right? Peter goes to Cornelius's house and the Holy Spirit comes upon them, and they begin to preach in different languages before they even laid on hands and before they were baptized. And then Peter's like, ooh, you've. You're already ordained. We better baptize you.
I think, though, every time we see speaking in tongues in the Book of Acts, we should just think Office of the Ministry and pastors, and that the Lord. But the Lord is giving those guys the capacity to speak in languages that they didn't know for exactly, because the Gospel is going to all these different places. But I think that if we just say laying of hands is ordination, speaking in tongues as preaching, then the Book of Acts all of a sudden is much more familiar and much less weird to us.
But you're right.
It's these hurdles, right? So Jesus says, you'll be My servants in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, the ends of the earth. And the Holy Spirit has to drag the gospel and these apostles over these hurdles from Judea to. From Jerusalem to Judea, Judea to Samaria. That's Acts chapter eight. Then Samaria to the ends of the earth. That's Cornelius, Acts chapter 10. It's like they're reluctant to be pulled out further. And so the Holy Spirit is showing that he's working out there already now. You guys better catch up.
[00:46:33] Speaker B: So then we should see each of those instances then as a mini Pentecost. Right? Pentecost being redone. They weren't present with the apostles to have that happen. So now as they're being ordained and installed, you have mini Pentecost going on.
[00:46:49] Speaker A: Yep.
[00:46:51] Speaker B: Which then makes it even more fitting that. Right, we sing, sing the hymns we do at ordinations.
Right?
[00:46:58] Speaker A: That's right.
[00:46:59] Speaker B: There's a reason for it.
[00:47:00] Speaker A: That's right. And. And this is. We have this danger just on the idea of the Spirit, that the Spirit.
The Spirit makes us crazy.
And that's. You know, this is the basic idea of charismatic Pentecostalism. The Holy Spirit destroys your self control, which is the opposite of what the Bible says. The fruit of the Spirit is self control.
The spirit of the prophet is subject to the prophet. Paul says.
So this idea that the Holy Spirit comes and destroys self control and makes us crazy and whatever. Whatever is an anti biblical doctrine. It's so anti biblical. But the Charismatic church has succeeded in capturing the. The mind of the church, that this is what it looks like to be spiritual. So that we read the charismatic stuff back into the book of Acts and miss that God is the God of order and that where the Spirit of God is, there's order.
So when the Holy Spirit comes, he's putting things in a right order, not destroy. He's putting things in order so.
So that the Spirit is connected to the office.
And when he puts you into an office, he gives you. The Holy Spirit comes to give you the strength to begin at least to do the duties that. To the office.
And this is the way that the Holy Spirit's working all through the Book of Acts.
[00:48:21] Speaker B: Fantastic.
All right, this one's on the fourth commandment. I say it's easy, but you always get upset when I say it's easy because then. But this one is. I think this. I think, yeah, it's a dangerous word, but I think it is. I think it's pretty straightforward.
[00:48:35] Speaker A: Well, you should answer it then.
[00:48:38] Speaker B: Hi, Pastor Wolfinger. That's not what I'm here for.
[00:48:43] Speaker A: Do you want to tell everybody what you are here for? We determined before we started recording.
Pastor Packer says this, everybody. He says, I know. I'm just here for the good looks.
[00:48:53] Speaker B: That's right. I'm the beauty of the brains.
I'm the Vanna White to your past.
Oh, that's funny stuff. All right.
I even forgot what the question was.
[00:49:08] Speaker A: The easy question.
[00:49:10] Speaker B: Yeah, the easy question. All right.
My mom grew up Swedish Baptist and never attended confirmation classes, though she has been Lutheran for about 30 years now. I am Wells now, but I was baptized LCMS and confirmed els. She asked me once if I knew why Martin Luther in his Small Catechism mentions teachers and the meaning of the Fourth Commandment. Do you know why the fourth Commandment was expanded from being about parents to include teachers and others in authority?
Thank you for your time and I pray of a blessed week.
[00:49:38] Speaker A: Beautiful question.
I would just. I'm going to give a one piece of advice and then let you answer. So the. The. I would really commend the Large Catechism not only to the person asking the question, but to all of us. Because the. The Large Catechism is especially in the Commandments, Luther's sermons and reflections on these sorts of things.
And.
And it's this deeper meditation. It kind of is Luther's own fleshing out of his explanation.
And in the Fourth Commandment in the Large Catechism, he says all authority derives from the authority of parents.
So that Luther understands that the prime institution of humanity is that of parent to child.
That setup is then reflected when parents need help. So if the parents need help teaching, then they give that authority to teachers. When parents need help governing, they give that authority to governing, which means even the authority of the state is derived from the authority of father and mother, which is beautiful. So I wouldn't say that it's Luther like taking the commandment and expanding it to say, oh, parents and also teachers, et cetera, et cetera. But it's actually Luther's unfolding of the fact that authority resides in the parents and that's what's to be honored there.
[00:51:00] Speaker B: Which also looking at current things, right, like how often have we seen, whether it be schools or the state trying to usurp the authority of parents over their children, which has it all backwards, right? The schools exist to assist or should exist to assist parents. The state should exist to protect the home, right? That's like their number one function should be to protect the home.
Could add the church too, right? That there's fear of governance is to protect and watch over and be there in support of those things, not to usurp that authority. I think if everyone read, as you said, Luther's section, large catechism on this. I mean, the whole large catechism really should be read. But even if you just read the Fourth Commandment this week, I think he'd be really blessed and blown away by how he unfolds that. That the home, when we say the home is the foundation building block of all society, it's more than just, okay, you have a family, and that's like, good, and now you need more families in that society. It's that authority itself in a community derives from the fact that parents have authority. And we used to understand this, right. We would say things like, a man's home is his castle because we understood the father and the mother, they had authority over the home, and that was their kingdom, if you will. And that the state and others were there to support and uphold that.
And now that we see the family, or at least secular society, sees the family as what's in the way, and they see the reverse of that, that teachers know better than the parents should have authority over things, that parents ought to. The state knows better than you on how to raise your kids and what to do, and they should have more authority than you. It's just all gotten backwards and out of order. And so it goes back to what you were saying on a different question about God being a God of order and rightly ordering things. When we understand the fourth commandment, it. We see all of those offices expanding out from the home, right? Like it's a flowing out of authority from the home out into the world.
And just different, like concentric circles going out. The further out you get from the home, those things keep building. And the Fourth commandment covers all of them.
So as you said, it's not a. It's not like expanding. It's just rightly understanding where authority starts, how it flows out and how we are and then relation to other authorities. And then also rightly sets limits on authority. Because then we understand that no authority has the right to tell us to disobey God, whether it be parents, teachers, or state or whoever it is. Nobody can step in and do that because all authority flows from God, then through the home, out into the world. If we have that rightly ordered, then everything else falls in place.
[00:53:40] Speaker A: There's so many things to say here. Both the third and the fourth commandment have to do with.
Well, remember how Luther teaches him, we should fear. Third commandment. We should fear and love God so we don't despise preaching in his word. Fourth commandment. We should fear and love God so we don't despise.
So the Lord is after, what is it that we.
What is it that we don't despise?
And that. And honoring is a. Is a. Is a right stewardship of our, despising of our. You know, what is it that we are repelled by what's repugnant to us and what's joyful and honorable to us and desirable to us, what gives us delight. That's amazing.
I was thinking about this, Pastor Packer, the fourth commandment, even if it was still the Lord says, okay, I'm going to give the first commandment of the second table, which has to do with your life amongst other people.
Because the first table of the law has to do with our life towards God, and the second table has to do with our life towards one another. And the Lord says, I'm going to start with the family.
He could have started with the parents.
He could have said.
He could have said, bless your children.
And so he could have given the commands to the moms and the dads for the way that they're supposed to love and treat their children.
But the Lord doesn't do that. When he goes to address us. He addresses us not first as husband and wife or husband or wife, or as parent to children or citizen to a nation. He addresses us first as children of our parents.
That's the prime office that we have. And interestingly, it's the vocation that every single one of us has.
Like you and I are husbands and fathers, but not everybody who's listening is a husband and a father. There's wives and mothers, or there's men who are single and aren't married yet or whatever, but every single one of us has the vocation of child, of having a father and mother, even if they're not alive still.
So this is our prime vocation. And the way that the Lord first thinks of us. And this sets something in place that the sort of the basic Christian life is a life of honoring or submitting or receiving.
Because we're so like, we're almost obsessed with leadership and being the head rather than the body. But the Lord wants us to be much more interested about that calling. To be the body rather than the head.
To be the Christian, not to be the preacher, to be the citizen, not to be the ruler, to be the children, not to be the parents, to be first that which is defined by reception. I don't know. I think there's something really profound about the fourth commandment that, that the Lord starts there, addressing us as children. I don't know what to make of it.
[00:56:55] Speaker B: But it's interesting too, then in that same kind of line of thinking that for most of us, for most vocations, we're under authority, right? Like, most people are citizens, they're not governors, most people are laity in the church, they're not pastors. Like, if you go through, real exception would be being a father or mother. And yet still, even then, like as Luther says, it's not directly to parents, but then by that commandment, parents are bound to raise their children in the fear and admonition of the Lord. Right?
[00:57:29] Speaker A: Right.
[00:57:30] Speaker B: So, I mean, it's a.
It. It's meant to work together, like you said, to teach us humility. Because we all know this.
If a kid is disrespectful and awful to authority outside the home, that means in the home, they're even way more disrespectful, right? Because kids can be themselves at home. Like, they don't have to earn your love. They know you love them. They let their guards down and be themselves even on their bad days. Whereas when they're out in public, kids, you know, they know that if they have to earn the teachers love and respect, they know that the teacher doesn't have to love them the same way mom and dad does. So they're generally going to try to be on their best behavior, generally speaking. Right. Whereas in the home, you can let your guard down. So if you've got someone out in society who's being awful to authority, odds are in the home, it was like a million times worse in every case I've ever seen. And I've been, you know, pastoring at places with schools for a long time, and I've, I've never seen that that pattern reversed where the kid was, you know, a trouble at school. And the parents are like, oh, you know, they're the perfect behaved child at home. And even if they do tell you that, you're like, yeah, I don't, I don't buy it.
They don't. If they don't honor anybody outside the home, I don't think they're honoring you in the home either.
[00:58:47] Speaker A: No, that's really a great point. So this is so that all authority derives from the office of parents.
And that's the key. That's the key idea. And when Luther takes the fourth commandment, he's expand. He's not. He's not expanding it like on your father and mother and also teachers and things like this.
[00:59:06] Speaker B: He's.
[00:59:06] Speaker A: He's actually expanding what father and mother means. I think that's how we should understand it. And that's beautiful. And that is, like you said, utterly needed in our culture today.
[00:59:19] Speaker B: All right. It's a great one to end on.
[00:59:22] Speaker A: Thanks for all the questions. Wolfmuller Co Contact is the way that you can send in questions and you know if you like these videos or this audio. And the easiest way is free to support it is if you leave a review on whatever podcast app that you're listening to the audio on or if you're watching the videos to like and subscribe to it. That's great to share it with people. We love your feedback, but that also lets YouTube know that this is safe to recommend to other people as well. So that's a way to.
That you can help it out. So thanks for doing that as well. Thanks, Pastor Packer, for all your questions. Lord willing. We'll see you next week.
