Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Hey, YouTube theologians. Welcome to the Q and A podcast.
I'm Pastor Wolfmuller, St. Paul and Jesus Deaf Lutheran Churches in Austin, Texas. Pastor Packer over here.
Good Shepherd Lutheran Church, Collinsville, Illinois. Oh, someday it'll roll off the tongue.
Pastor Packer, I heard a rumor about you that you were critiquing people's snowmens, that they didn't look enough like Martin Luther going around. Is it snowing out there?
[00:00:26] Speaker B: No, it's. No, we have zero snow. We have 20. We had tornado watches and warnings yesterday, and then some snow came through, but it's not sticking. So, yeah, we're too far south for the snow.
[00:00:37] Speaker A: I'm glad that Pastor Harrison isn't pestering us, leaving us alone. This week we can actually, you know, just the two of us, answer questions. That was great last week. I thought it was.
[00:00:46] Speaker B: We should have grown out some mustaches to honor him, though.
[00:00:48] Speaker A: It was a lot of fun to have him on. He's a good theologian. It's. That's the kind of side of him that unfortunately we don't get to see a lot because he's got to do all this bureaucratic stuff. But it's great to let him loose on some theology questions. So we'll have to try to do that again. But the two of us this week, if. So, if you missed it last week, President Harrison was answering some questions. That's a lot of fun this week, though. What do you got for us?
[00:01:12] Speaker B: First one, it's pretty easy. I think you're going to hit out of the park. What do Lutherans believe about salvation?
[00:01:18] Speaker A: Lutherans are for salvation. They are pro salvation.
[00:01:22] Speaker B: We're not against.
[00:01:23] Speaker A: Enthusiastic, enthusiastic. Thumbs up.
Salvation is four stars.
[00:01:30] Speaker B: We highly recommend.
[00:01:32] Speaker A: That's right, Salv.
This is the. I mean, all the questions of the Reformation, the Lutheran Reformation, revolve around this question of salvation, repentance, faith, the authority of the scripture, how we read the scripture, etc.
So Lutherans believe that salvation is the work of Christ. In fact, I would say that the. The Lutheran doctrine can be summarized in this way, that we confess Christ is the Savior of sinners. Now, for that to be true, it excludes a lot of other things, like that we're the savior or that we help him in saving. We are the saved, the sinners who are saved, and Christ is the Savior. So we confess that salvation is by grace alone, through faith alone, like St. Paul teaches us to confess in Ephesians 2. 8, this famous verse that every confirmand has to memorize. By grace you're saved through Faith and that not of yourselves. It's the gift of God so that no one can boast. So we rejoice that the Lord Jesus is the one who saves us out of his grace. So I had this yesterday in Bible class, I think as clear as I'd ever kind of articulated it. Repentance is a change of mind. And it's a change of mind about two things. The first is that we have to change our mind about ourselves. We naturally think that we are good people, that we are at least better than most. And so you just ask the natural man if you should be condemned to hell. They say, well, no, I should not be condemned to hell because I'm a pretty good person. So we have to change our mind about that and realize that we're sinners who are worthy and deserving of God's eternal wrath. That's the first thing. But then when we think about how bad we are, we then think that God must in fact be mad at us because we're condemnable, because we're worthy of wrath. So the second thing we have to change our mind about is about God, that he's not angry with us, but that his anger is put aside in Christ through the death and resurrection of Jesus, through his suffering on the cross.
And now he smiles at me and he looks kindly at me.
So these two changes of mind are from pride to contrition and from despair to faith.
And this is the Lord's doing, by the Spirit, through the word of God, to show us our sin and to show us our Savior, Jesus Christ.
So this is really, really wonderful that we are then the object of the Lord's love and mercy. We are the object of his atoning work on the cross. We are the object of his affection, continued promises, and his even preparation as he makes a way, a place for us in heaven right now.
This is really great. So this is the Lutheran talk constantly of salvation. In some ways, this is the answer to every question that we get. The Lutheran view of salvation is that the Lord saves us unworthy sinners. He saves us.
[00:04:30] Speaker B: What things would you say distinguish what Lutherans believe maybe from some other church bodies? Like where.
What's going to be different? Because that sounds, I think, a lot of most, hopefully Bible. Even Christians would hear that and be like, yeah, that sounds like that's exactly what I believe. So where do Lutherans differ perhaps maybe on maybe how we receive that salvation or other aspects of that that we might have a different emphasis or different view on than others?
[00:04:57] Speaker A: Sure. Well, so maybe first we can make a distinction between the free will theologians and the bound will theologians. So Lutherans are bound wills, have a bound will theology.
We do not think that our will helps or cooperates in any way in our conversion or salvation. It's the Lord who does it. He works monergistically, not synergistically, so that the will is the object of conversion, not the tool of conversion. So that sets us apart from all the free will theologies. It's interesting that Romanism, Orthodoxy, and basically most Protestants are all free will theologies. And so that's the first.
When we get to the bound will theologies, though, then we have the Lutherans and the Reformed. Those are really the two groups that are there.
And what distinguishes us from the Reformed is we totally reject the idea of a limited atonement, that Christ only died for the elect.
We believe that Christ died for the entire world, that his saving work covers all people, including you and me and everybody who's listening. So we rejoice in the universal atoning work of our Lord Jesus Christ. So it's probably, I'd say that's the way to distinguish it. The first is, are we so sinful that our will also is broken and works only against our salvation, or can the will participate in our salvation? To that question we say, no, the will only rejects God and runs from God until the Holy Spirit converts it. So that kind of sets us apart the first time. And then when we find ourselves in the. In the kind of bound will theology question, it's just us kind of looking at the Reformed and maybe some conservative Anglicans. And then we realize the differences have to do with the atonement, the scope of the atonement, and also, I suppose, the work of the sacraments. The Lutherans are always looking outside ourselves for. For the work of God in Christ. And so the sacraments really do forgive sins. They really do deliver those promises of the gospel.
[00:07:10] Speaker B: If you want to look up more on baptism or Lord's Supper, we've got lots of videos on that, so you can check. Check those out.
All right, next question.
[00:07:20] Speaker A: You're not going to add anything to that?
[00:07:22] Speaker B: No, it's a good summary.
[00:07:23] Speaker A: I don't know.
[00:07:23] Speaker B: There's nothing to add. That was great.
This is. I know it's a topic.
[00:07:28] Speaker A: I'm convinced you that's great.
[00:07:32] Speaker B: This next topic is one. I know you like Jesus ascension. So how can Jesus fill all things if he's in heaven? So Jesus said he was returning to the Father to be at the right hand of the Father and To fill all things. I understand that the right hand of the Father isn't a physical place.
I believe Jesus is filling all things because he said he is. But how are we to think about him filling all things when he bodily ascended to heaven? What does that mean?
[00:07:55] Speaker A: This is great, this question. You know where this question became acute is in the debate between the Lutherans and the Reformed about the Lord's Supper. And we're going to have a. Pastor Packer just told me before we started, we're going to maybe setting up a debate, or at least a. What would you call it? Discussion, a guided discussion between me and an Anglican theologian about the Lutheran view of the Lord's Supper. Because it has to. It has to do with this. Exactly. So the Reformed would say, well, look, the body of Jesus, to remain a body, a human body must be. Must have the things that a normal body has, like constraints on location.
And therefore the body of Jesus must be a located thing. The Lutherans referred to these verses like that he ascended into heaven, that he might fill all things, as an indication that the attributes of the divine nature of Christ were not only communicated to the person of Christ, but also communicated to the human nature of Christ.
And the other earlier text for this. Where is this? I'm just looking for it.
Where Jesus says, no one at any time has seen God. The only begotten God who is in the bosom of the Father, has made him known. I'm looking for it here in the beginning of John. How come I can't find it? But this is the other text that has to do with this idea that Jesus, even though he's on earth, he remains in the bosom of the Father. He is in heaven.
Remember three heavens. So we had the bird heaven and the star heaven, and then the throne of God heaven. And that throne of God heaven is not beyond the stars. It's. It's everywhere. But. But it's a different way of being. And Jesus remains at the throne of God even in his incarnation. But it's when he is ascended that the. All of those divine attributes that belong to him as the Son of God are then communicated through the personal union to the human nature of Christ. So that now the man Jesus is everywhere. The man Jesus rules all things. The man Jesus knows all things, which was true the moment he was incarnate, but not fully expressed. So part of the humiliation of Jesus is that even though he possessed all these divine attributes, he did not in every way and at all times use them.
So he humbled himself so that he could die and suffer and all this stuff. But then at the ascension, he takes up the full use of these divine attributes. Now how that happens, it's this great mystery of the Incarnation. I mean, how is it that Jesus can be both God and man in one person and in that personal union unite these two natures forever is, I mean, I don't even think it's beyond our earthly understanding. It'll be beyond our comprehension in eternity, as far as I can tell. I mean, this is a profound mystery that can only be confessed and cannot be understood. But part of that mystery is that that divine attribute of omnipresence is not just communicated to the person Christ, in which the two natures are united, but also to the human nature of Christ, as that text confesses.
[00:11:09] Speaker B: You know, it triggers like thousands of people every time you use the word mystery, right? All the non Lutherans get mad that happened in discussion on the Lord's Supper. They were irate that we called it a mystery. One guy was irate. We called it a miracle because he said the Bible doesn't use those exact words. And then he said some other awful things about us. And I had to, had to hide him from everybody else because I know he's calling us. Kept calling me blasphemous and I'm like, dude, that's enough.
Part of it is, right, the misunderstanding, because it says the right hand of the Father. And you have to read the Old Testament, right? The right hand of the Father is always like God acting, right? His right hand's always acting to save, to bless, etc, throughout the, throughout the Old Testament. And so where is the right hand of the Father? It's everywhere. So if Jesus is at the right hand of the Father, then he has to be everywhere, right? I mean, that's one of the, like we even confess, right, that God himself, God the Father, does not have a physical body. And so to talk about his right hand, the way the Old Testament does is talk about him acting to save, to redeem, to bless. For Jesus to be at the right hand of the Father is for him to be everywhere, ruling and reigning with his Father, not to, not to confine Him. It doesn't limit him by using that language. It's actually meant to elevate when we're talking about that, not to, not to constrain. I think that's one of those things that people get caught up on and confused about.
[00:12:30] Speaker A: I found the verse I was looking for. It's right here in front of me. So it's John 1:18, which says no one has seen God at any time. The only begotten Son who is in the bosom of the Father, he has declared him.
So that is true of Jesus is the one who is in the bosom of the Father, who's at the right hand of God. That's the. I think that's an equivalent.
Well, it's different, it's a distinction. But it has the same idea though. So that Jesus is always with the Father even as he's walking around on the earth. He's in the bosom of the Father and he's making the Father known. And this gives us a clue also to who was showing up in the Old Testament in the fire, in the angel of the Lord, in the voice that spoke to Moses and it and that visited Abraham, that it was the Son who was making God known all the way through the Old Testament as well. So it's a beautiful passage.
[00:13:23] Speaker B: All right, next one is on proof texting.
Do we misunderstand New Testament quotes?
I was wondering, when the New Testament authors quote the Old Testament, it's usually just a line or two. What makes this different than modern day proof texting?
So how is the New Testament quotes, the Old Testament where they quote a line, sometimes part of a line, sometimes half a verse, whatever. How is it different than what we say when we say we're against, you know, some forms of proof texting?
[00:13:50] Speaker A: I don't know that I want to be against proof texting. Why are we against it?
[00:13:55] Speaker B: Well, I think the thought is sometimes people just take verses out of context, misuse them. I think it's often what they mean when they say proof texting as they're thinking a verse out of context, being misused. And then you hang everything on that. That's often how I think people understand the phrase proof texting. But I agree. I mean, there's obvious, obvious times where we want to say, here's what these texts teach. And that can look like so called proof texting.
[00:14:22] Speaker A: Right.
[00:14:24] Speaker B: If you talk to a Jehovah Witness, that's often what happens. They often are proof texting.
[00:14:27] Speaker A: Right.
[00:14:27] Speaker B: They jump around from verse to verse, pulling them out of context.
[00:14:31] Speaker A: I think proof texting is better than proof opinioning, which is what we mostly do. Yeah, this, you remember this book that I. So we republished this book a couple years ago, Outlines of Doctrinal Theology. Yep.
[00:14:44] Speaker B: I've got one right here.
[00:14:45] Speaker A: And it's, it's just proof text. It's like here's the doctrine and then here's this and what we used to Call these is the Sadie's Doctrinae, the seats of doctrine. And the idea is that, that every doctrine that the Lord would have us know and confess is stated clearly multiple times in the Scriptures and then it's referred to and it's supported by everything that's going around it. So we don't want to take texts out of context and use them apart from how they were understood originally.
That's certainly true. So I mean, I'm trying to think of an example.
I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me, and I put it on the wall by my bench press, you know, and then I get crushed by £400.
Well, I don't know, maybe 400 would be all right. I haven't been out there in a while. But I. So, so I suppose that's not. But I wouldn't call that proof texting. I would call that just abusing the Scripture, taking it out of context, what we call eisegesis instead of exegesis. But we should, we should prove our points from the Holy Scripture. And I think this question is really great, is that that's the apostolic model, especially in, like in Matthew, which starts. The preface, starts with these seven great Old Testament references, or Romans, which is always leading back to the Old Testament or the Book of Hebrews also, or even the Book of Revelation, which is like a. It's like you used the whole Old Testament and wove it together as a thread, as a tapestry. I mean, it's just, it's just beautiful. And we should be doing the same. We should be speaking from the Scriptures.
So I think that this is. I'm going to change the question and say the New Testament gives us the model on how we are to use the Scriptures in our arguments. And sometimes it's just pulling a verse, but referring to the whole thing. Like I think just as an example, that when Jesus quotes the first line of Psalm 22, he's grabbing the whole Psalm in some ways as the background soundtrack of his entire affliction on the cross. It's beautiful. Or when Paul Quotes David Psalm 32 in the book of Romans, he's grabbing the whole of the Psalter and pulling it all together.
I even think that when Matthew quotes Isaiah 7, A virgin will conceive and give birth to a son.
That, that he's grabbing that whole context as well. And that we probably need to. To understand that context of, of how that promise that. That the Lord gave to Ahaz. Ahab.
There was an. It was, it was a blessing to the Faithful, but it was a curse to those who didn't believe. In other words, here the king, as a descendant of David, is waiting for his child to be the Messiah. And, and the Lord says, nope, the Messiah is going to be born of a virgin. You're not going to have anything to do with it. It's not going to be your son. If it's your son, it's proof it's not the Messiah. I mean, so that promise, which is such a. And this is always that nature of the promises, it's a blessing to those who believe, but a curse to those who do not.
And I think this is teaching us rightly how to use the Scripture. So I think we must assume that whenever the New Testament writers quote the Old Testament, they are embracing the text as it was meant to be understood. And if, if our reading of that text in the Old Testament isn't the same as the apostles, then it's because we read the Old Testament wrong. Not, not them.
[00:18:26] Speaker B: I, I like to compare it to. I always tell people, it's like when you hear a song you haven't heard in 20 or 30 years on the radio and you know, like, immediately, like, you know all the lyrics because you remember that song, right?
And the apostles, when they quote the Old Testament, they expect the reader to hear that part of the song and to know its context and to know the rest of it. Like they expect you. When Paul quotes Habakkuk 2, 4 in Romans 1:17, he expects you to know what Habakkuk's about and what he's talking about. When he pulls that out. He doesn't expect you just to be like, oh, Paul just means to focus on this, this half of a verse here. Paul thinks you're going to remember, be like, oh, yeah, Habakkuk, what's that about? And fill in, fill in the gaps. When Jesus prays Psalm 22, right?
It. Matthew assumes you know Psalm 22 and that you're making all kinds of connections to Psalm 22 for the rest of the story too. Even that Psalm 22 ends with resurrection, right? Which is about ready to happen. Like, they expect us to know those things. I think part of the problem is we just, we often don't know our Bibles as well as those who went before us. And so we read it and we get, like, lost. Like, why is he quoting this thing?
This doesn't seem to fit. And we, because we don't know the context and we, we've forgotten all these, a lot of these stories or psalms or whatever. And then we get lost.
[00:19:40] Speaker A: I. I want to push even further. I 100% agree with you. And. And to say, Even like the Habakkuk 2, 4. When. When the Lord says to Habakkuk, write this, like, on a billboard, so that even if you're running by, you can see it. The.
The righteous shall live by faith. That that would have been understood not only by Habakkuk, but also to the faithful who were listening to the preaching of Habakkuk.
So that it's not just that the New Testament understood it how it's supposed to be understood, but they understood it also how Habakkuk understood it and how the faithful understood it when Habakkuk was there preaching it too.
So this idea that there's, like, the words can somehow be separated from the meaning of the ones who are speaking them and the ones who are hearing them, and all this, we have to lock this down a little bit because. Because the looser we are on that, then the more room there is for the devil to kind of sneak in and blur things.
So we gotta. We gotta be tight on this. You were wondering if this book was available for a free download and on the website. It is, Pastor Packer. It is.
[00:20:39] Speaker B: I was wondering. I was about ready to ask.
[00:20:41] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah. Glad you brought that up.
[00:20:44] Speaker B: All right.
[00:20:44] Speaker A: You don't have to. You don't have to give your email. You have to do nothing. You just go to the Wolfmother co and hit the downloads and download the book.
[00:20:52] Speaker B: So that's yours.
[00:20:53] Speaker A: It's yours.
[00:20:54] Speaker B: We want. You have it for free.
[00:20:56] Speaker A: For free.
[00:20:58] Speaker B: All right. Finding grace and toxic relationships. Is it possible?
[00:21:01] Speaker A: Oh, boy.
[00:21:02] Speaker B: So this is one's kind of fun because it references the podcast that Pastor Flammy and I do very sporadically.
[00:21:10] Speaker A: And then you guys have a podcast.
[00:21:13] Speaker B: Exactly. That's what everyone says because no one listens. But anyway, so he can't remember if it was crossing Concord or theology Q and A, but remembers me saying that I don't like the idea of writing off relationships as toxic quickly.
And this person says they appreciate that because they have been dealing with the situation with. With a relative for two years now, and they're trying to find the balance between sin or between grace and compassion and. And rebuke and all those kind of things. And so I'm gonna summarize this because it's kind of. Kind of long.
So their perspective so far has been to be patient and compassionate. Love them whenever we interact with them, even love the family when they're treated as judgmental, but never compromise what Scripture says. We also encourage them to come to church and Bible study. The main question is how do we find the balance between not writing relationships off as toxic and enduring them and then what the Bible says about avoiding such people who practice such things, who value the treasures of this world over the kingdom of heaven.
So how do you, how do we parse all this out? How do we find the balance between grace and compassion? And then sometimes, I guess even like there are times when we have to maybe cut off the relationship. I think we're too quick to do it today. But I mean, it does seem like there's times where we must, as I found out myself. So what do you think?
[00:22:35] Speaker A: There's not going to be like a one answer like you do this and this and this and this. So the only way, I mean, and so what that means, by the way, the way anytime there's a situation like that, you have to have a one on one conversation, especially with your pastor.
So to let him to, to know the kind of context and the situation and to be able to speak with him and pray with him for wisdom. Because that's going to be the main thing in all these situations is wisdom. And whenever, when, whenever we're relying on wisdom and especially spiritual wisdom, we got to really lean on that promise from James chapter one, where the Lord says, if you lack wisdom, let him ask and God who gives to all generously will give to you. So we, all Christians have the promise that the Lord will provide wisdom that's needed, especially as we live in the vocations where he's called us. This is the Psalm 91. He'll send his angels to protect you in all your ways. So we try to stay in those ways. We try to serve faithfully in where the Lord had called us. And when he, when we do that, we know that the Lord will provide the resources that we need for those things. So there's some. So those are the promises that we lean on and we're praying for wisdom. Now to sort of think about it, do we say, what are the biblical constraints that we have in situations where the world would define them as toxic or where like psychology would kind of come in and start to talk about people with personality disorders?
Those personality disorders would be things where a person, the way the person interacts with other people is destructive to those relationships because, but they can't see them. In other words, it's different than other sort of classified mental disorders where people, where people feel the distress that they're in the personality disorders are where people are giving distress and they don't feel it themselves. And, and so how do, how do you navigate those particularly difficult relationships? Here's the first thing and then I'm only going to say the first thing and then I want to hear what you have to say. Pastor Packer, for whatever. But the first thing is to know that we are called to love.
There's no exception on this. I mean Jesus, whenever he even says it in the Sermon on the Mount, when he says you have enemies, here's what I want you to do. I want you to love them, I want you to pray for them, I want you to bless them, I want you to do good to them.
So even if someone is our enemy, we're required to love them.
This is talking not about the demons or spiritual entities, but any people. We don't war against flesh and blood. We're called to love. So then, but then so, so, and this is really nice because I know if there's this person who is destructive or, or whatever, my call to them is to love them.
But I'm also called to serve God.
And so what is the shape of that love that also conforms to the obedience of the Ten Commandments?
So what does love look like in this very, very difficult situation?
What does love look like when someone is abusing me? What does love look like when someone is persecuting and afflicting me? What does love look like when someone is neglecting me even though they're called to serve me or whatever? What does love look like when someone is so wrapped into their own minds that they just bring every single conversation into orbit around their own personality? What does love look like in that situation? And it's, it's hard to know. But at least if we're asking that question, what does love look like, then we know we're asking we're on the right thing. We're disciples of Jesus because they'll know that we're disciples by our love for one another. So that's the first thing is that we're called to love. But the love is often a difficult thing to, to know how to what it looks like.
[00:26:22] Speaker B: Pastor Well, I have a follow up question now since you said that.
[00:26:26] Speaker A: So you're supposed to have now an answer.
[00:26:28] Speaker B: No, I have a follow up question now. So you mentioned abuse, right? So love, I would say so this is part of my answer. I don't think love requires us to acquires us to be loving, but doesn't mean that we have to continue that Relationship in the way it was before.
Especially like if, you know there's various forms of abuse, for example, like, it doesn't mean you're required to stay in that relationship in a way that you keep receiving abuse.
You can still love them, but it doesn't mean the relationship's gonna look exactly like it did. And that can involve, I think, at times having to put boundaries around that relationship. Like, hey, you know, every time you, you come into the picture, like, you do this harm, maybe it's physical, maybe it's psychological, emotional, whatever. There'll be all kinds of various ways this happens. And so, you know, I, I've got to. I've got to limit the time you spend with them or whatever. It doesn't mean you can't be loving. It just means that love may take a very different shape.
And part of it can be sometimes you're protecting your family, right, from the person. Like they're bringing lots of harm into to the situation. So like you said, it gets really complicated really fast. Because how that looks with each situation is going to be very different depending on the relationship, depending on what's going on. But I don't think. I think a lot of people feel trapped.
They think the loving thing to do is just to keep letting whoever abuse them.
And that's the loving thing to do.
And then it often destroys them in various ways.
I do think there's a point where you have to say, man, like, this is. This is bad. I can't let this continue in this way.
And you can do that in a loving way. Actually, I don't think there's.
We see that in the Bible, right?
The Lord disciplines us out of love.
It's not unloving for him to discipline us, right?
[00:28:26] Speaker A: And there's consequences to bad behavior, and we should recognize this. And sometimes if we're, if we are in our vocations, if we have the capacity to give out the punishment for bad behavior, it would be failure of love to not do so. But sometimes we have to say, look, I have to love you at a great distance. I have to love you very quietly.
It is important, I think, that we're always the Christian because we expect the Lord to work. We're always open for reconciliation and even for changes of heart.
We have to assume that people can change, but we don't also be naive about that. And especially when we have a duty to protect people who are under us. Like just say there's some sort of strange, toxic, abusive, oh, I can't use the language. There's some sort of abusive relationship.
And I have the duty to protect my children from this sort of thing. Okay, so you have these conflicting calls to love, and so you're trying to manage all this stuff. Again, it's very complicated, very quickly. But if I know that. Look, the call here is to love, not to hate.
But that, that. That love doesn't mean it. The love might not look like we normally think love looks like.
I think I have five questions that have to run through when. When we have the question, what does my love look like in this situation?
So the first question is, what do the Ten Commandments say? So, and. And here we say, well, love, for example, love does not look like fornication.
That's the, you know, the old. The old high school trait. Hey, you know, if we love. If we love each other, then why don't we go pretend like we're married? Well, because that's adultery and that. So love does not look like breaking the Ten Commandments. Okay, so first question, what are the Ten Commandments? Second question, what's my vocation?
Because my love for the congregation at St. Paul and Jesus death looks different than my love for my children, which looks different than my love for my neighbor. And my love for Carrie is. Is very, very unique. It's singular in that love for marriage. So that the shape of love is very different based on our vocation. So we have the Ten Commandments. We have our vocation, we have our neighbor's need.
So love is always taking into mind our neighbor's need what it is that they need from me, that I can bless them.
How can I serve my neighbor? The fourth thing is my own maybe talent or ability or whatever.
Like, if I'm good at.
So this is why, you know, my love for my neighbor does not look like designing rocket ships. Like, my neighbor might need a rocket ship, but I can love them by not designing one because I don't know how to do it. In other words, there's a way that our own talent and our own gifts also give shape to our love when it comes to these big vocational questions. But then the fifth thing that shapes our love for the neighbor is our neighbor's sin.
And that sin is going to reshape love so that it looks different.
Like, for example, if my children are disobedient, I love them by punishing them. That's not normally what you expect love to look like. But when sin comes into the picture, love starts to look more like a crucifixion.
And that's why the Lord disciplines those whom he loves. Because. Because sin reshapes love. This is why. For example, the normal way I would love my niece is by going to her wedding, unless she's marrying another girl or whatever. Now my love. That sin reshapes my love, and it starts to look different. And so in these cases, it's the sin and the. Whatever, the activity of my neighbor that's reshaping love to where it doesn't look like love, but still is.
[00:32:05] Speaker B: I think that's an really important point, that. That the sin itself, because there are consequences to sin, and so that love is going to be determined by how severe those consequences are. Right? Like if the consequences are severe enough to sever the relationship, it's not gonna look anything like it did before. It's gonna. It's gonna be a very different picture. And yet you're still called to love.
So.
All right, this next one's one we get kind of a lot in. In various forms.
I'm not going to read the whole thing because it's. It's pretty long. But the question is, is this person really hearing from God or is it just their inner voice?
Right. These are.
They use the word, so they have a friend who's Pentecostal. And the idea of rhema, right, because people always like to use biblical words from the original languages when they want to. To justify something. So they believe that they're. They're hearing all the time this rhema, this word of God directly.
But this person wants to know, how do they respond to them?
How do we know if it's God's that's actually speaking to their friend or if it's just their own inner voice talking to them? Or there's other possibilities, right? Like demons.
How. How do we know?
How can we discern when it's God speaking to them versus their own thoughts, versus maybe Satan or demons or something?
[00:33:33] Speaker A: So let's start with a little foundational work. So there's a verse, First Corinthians 2:10, I think is. I'm looking it up here, and I've been trying to. This is a little mystery here, but I think it might be important for understanding that capacity to understand what's being said inside of us.
Let's see. Start in verse 9. So 1 Corinthians 2:9. The eyes not seen, nor the ear heard, nor have entered into the heart of man the things which God has prepared for those who love him.
But God has revealed them to us through his spirit.
For the Spirit searches all things. Yes, the deep things of God.
For what man knows the things of a man except the spirit of the man which is in him.
Even so, no one knows the things of God except the Spirit of God.
Now, we have received the Spirit of the. We have not received the Spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God that we might know the things that have been freely given to us by God. This is a very interesting thing. Now, the first thing that it appears to me is that we have a spirit, the spirit of man.
And that spirit searches the things that are in us so that we know what we're thinking, we know what we're feeling. The spirit is at least. It's more than this. But the spirit is at least that capacity to know the things that are happening in our inner life, to hear the voices that are going around or voice. How many voices are there for you?
You don't want to admit it online. All right, I understand.
So to reflect on that, those things that are happening inside of us, to be aware of that, that's the Spirit. And Paul compares it to the Holy Spirit, who's revealing to us that inner conversation of God himself. So Father, Son and Spirit are in council together, in conversation together. And those things are revealed by the Spirit. Now they're revealed by the Spirit through the prophets and the apostles. So we know the deep things of God through the Scripture.
All Scripture is God breathed, is God spirited.
The Spirit spoke by the prophets. So that these things that we have are spiritual things that are. That are. So that we, we know not only the, the. The. Well, we know, says Paul, the things that God is talking about and thinking. We know the mind of God, we know the mind of Christ. Because of that, we have the scriptures. But Paul makes this analogy that that's also happening inside of us.
So we have this unique capacity to reflect on our own inner life. And it's a spiritual capacity. Now that spirit, that awareness needs to be given discernment because there is an inner reflection that is the reflection of our mind.
There is an inner reflection, an inner voice that is the. That is the voice of our belly.
And there is an inner voice that is the voice of the conscience.
And then there are also external voices that have access to that inner space.
I mean, we all know this because, for example, you could just be sitting there and then you, like, you hear the, you hear something that your coach said when you were in high school, or you remember something that you're.
Your dad said to you when you were growing up. There's a voice that's in there there's always also the Holy Spirit, who's part of that conversation. But the way the Holy Spirit engages in that conversation is through the Scriptures.
So the Holy Spirit will bring into that inner conversation the voice of the prophets and the apostles especially. This is why memorization of Scripture is important, because that. That's. That's. It puts that on the. It kind of pastes those Bible passages on the wall of the heart so that the Holy Spirit can just kind of refer to them. It's one of the reasons why music is so important, because it. It makes it part of that inner conversation.
And it seems like the devil and the demons also have access to that space so that they. So that the devil can throw it into the mind of Judas, for example, to do this or that. And. And the devil especially has an ally in our own sinful flesh, which is there tempting us to various different sins, so he can agitate the flesh in that place. And we normally think that the agitation of the flesh is like the temptation to sin, to greed. Seventh commandment, lust or anger. Fifth commandment, lust or lust lost. Sixth commandment, lust or rebellion, Fourth commandment, lust or whatever. That the devil is sort of agitating our flesh, which he can. But the devil can also agitate our pride.
He can agitate us.
Remember, our flesh also has a.
Our flesh has a theology, it's a pharisaical theology. So he can agitate us to trust in our own good works, etc.
So all of this is swirling around inside of us, and we have access to it because we have the Spirit.
Now this is to say that it's a dangerous situation to assume that whatever I'm hearing on the inner conversation is from God.
That's a very risky proposition. And one of the dangers of Pentecostalism is it just assumes that. It assumes that I need the inner illumination.
And it assumes that God will provide the inner illumination apart from the Scriptures and apart from the external word.
And those are two wrong and dangerous assumptions. And those assumptions, what those assumptions do is they open up that whole inner world to a extra demonic influence. And that might sound scary, but what it means is that it makes you spiritually gullible.
And the devil knows that. He knows that he has access to that, so he will use it in certain different ways.
So the only way out of it, because this is an ocean in there and it's a. And there's tides and there's waves and it's all over the place, the only way out of it is to anchor ourselves to the External word and say here in the Word I know I'm hearing the voice of the spirit and my own inner life, my mind, my heart and my belly and my conscience all have to be serving the external word, not ruling over it.
In other words, the thoughts that I have, the feelings that I have, the determinations that I make, the judgments that I make, all of that has to serve God's word and sit under the rule of God's word for me to be safe. And if any one of those four kind of chambers of the inner heart or inner life, the mind, the heart, the conscience, the belly, if any one of those overrules the scripture, then where we're set sail on a path of uncertainty.
[00:41:01] Speaker B: This is what Luther and our confessions call enthusiasm. Meaning looking for God within.
[00:41:06] Speaker A: Right.
[00:41:07] Speaker B: Versus looking for God from outside. In fact, Luther says he goes so far to say that it's the devil who tries to get you to hear from God apart from Word and sacrament, he's the one who wants you to. And it says two of the biggest enthusiasts in the world. Right. It mentions the Pope and Muhammad. Right? Those are the two biggest enthusiasts because they make things binding, said they heard from God and made all kinds of things binding on people. And we know how that ended up, at least from our perspective, especially with Roman Catholicism and of course with Islam, like saying this is from God and we would say, no, those things are often not, not from God at all, from someplace else entirely.
Now that this question, since actually I didn't plan this, but you went this direction. So this next question ties in really well with that last question.
So has to do with the devil reading our thoughts and putting thoughts into our heads.
So can the devil put simple thoughts into a Christian's mind or can he only do that to non Christians?
I understand that Satan tempts us through external means, but can he implant directly simple ideas, thoughts into our minds?
Right. And so this, this includes what access does Satan have to my mind? Can he read my thoughts?
Or are he and his forces just closely monitoring what we do?
So that's, that's where they're going with this. So it's kind of multiple things here. Can Satan read your thoughts? Can he implant thoughts? Or is he just kind of, you know, I guess reading body language and what you're doing? Like it's all external or can it be internal? You start again to this with the last question. So it's a nice, nice follow up.
[00:42:48] Speaker A: Sure. So here's what I think.
And there's a danger. So just right at Front acknowledge the danger of the question like this is one of these questions, especially when we're talking about the devil and the inner life, it is possible to very quickly go too far.
So we want to try to constrain ourselves to what the scriptures tell us for a number of reasons, but because of the very nature of the question, it attracts demonic activity also.
So to say this, that the devil can put thoughts into the human mind.
And we see it. The clearest example is with Judas, with the betrayal of Jesus. It'll tell us that the devil put it into his mind, he put it into Judas and then eventually the devil captured Judas so that he's putting ideas in his mind and then he captivates him and then controls him so that by time Judas is doing his betrayal work, he's demonically possessed.
The question that we have to ask is, does the devil have that level of access to Judas mind because Judas is not a Christian because he's lost his faith. And is there a different level of access to putting ideas into the mind of someone who is a Christian versus not?
I know we can say this, that for sure, if someone is not a Christian, then the devil is able to put ideas into their mind. That there's no yes that is possible for the Christian. Is it able to happen? It seems like yes, it is, except for it must be as everything in our lives according to the Lord's will.
So that if the. If the Lord wants to let the devil put an idea into our mind, then he can. But again, it's the devil being God's devil, serving God's will. It must be some reason for that. This is one of the big differences between the Lutheran understanding of demonology and most current Christian understanding of demonology. And that is that that the Lutherans understood that there could be some physical and mental captivity to the devil for the Christian, even though there is no spiritual captivity. So the Spirit belongs to God, the Spirit is filled with the Holy Spirit. The devil cannot possess our spirit because we are baptized, but he can have some mental or soul captivity and body captivity. Most Christians today say no, if you're a Christian, the devil has no access to these sorts of things. It's really important for us because it totally shapes the way that we minister to those who seem to have some degree of either mental or physical captivity to the dark forces.
We do not assume that that means that they're not a believer. We do not assume that it means that they're apart from Christ in his saving work, but that the Lord has handed them over at least this portion of their life for some reason, to demonic captivity. But we're ministering to Christians, to our Christian friends.
Now.
The other question, though, is, can the devil read our own thoughts?
And the consistent answer, I think, from our church history, early church and Lutheran history, is no. The devil does not have access to that sort of inner thinking. And yet the devil is such a profound student of human nature that he can often read our own thoughts even better. You know, I'm looking at you and I'm guessing what you're thinking, just because I see the furrowed brow, you know?
But the devil could look at that furrowed brow, Pastor Packer, and tell a lot better what you're thinking than I could. So the devil can't read our inner thoughts. For some people have said this comes from the Pentecostal tradition that that's why we either don't pray out loud or why we pray in tongues, because it becomes a secret communication between us and God that the devil cannot. It's like sending a secret message. But to that I say, why?
Like, why do I not want the devil to read my thoughts? Especially, for example, if I'm praying?
Why do I not want him to know what I'm praying?
What am I afraid of that the devil is going to find out that my thoughts are sinful? I bet he knows that that's not a real secret. But when I'm praying and when I'm preaching and when I'm thinking the things of God that this is actually, when I pray out loud, it's actually a rebuke to the devil. I don't care.
I don't care that you know what I'm doing, because it doesn't bother me. I remember there was. This is a bad analogy, but when I was in high school and we had a football team and we had a pretty dominant team, and the teams that we were playing with would know what plays we were running. They would just see it, and they'd call out the plays that we were running, and we would still get yards on each play. So our quarterback would start to do this. He would come up to the line and he would yell out the play that we're doing to the defense.
And this was like, you know, you're normally supposed to keep it a secret. So you'd catch him off guard, but he would tell him, hey, we're sweeping right, or, hey, we're diving right here. You guys get ready. And we would run the play that he said we were going to run, and we would still this is how it should be our attitude towards the devil. Like, what are we afraid of? The devil has already been conquered. There's this verse in Colossians. I want to hear your thoughts on this while I try to look this up. But it talks about how the demons are learning the will of God through the preaching of the church.
It's an amazing sort of thing.
So the devil can't know the mind of God. The devil can't know the mind of the Christian.
So we gladly confess and pray so that he can know exactly what we're thinking. This is how fearless the Christian is supposed to be in spiritual warfare.
Thoughts on that whole realm there?
[00:48:55] Speaker B: I like the distinction that's often used that Christians can't be possessed, but they can be oppressed, which can include various attacks. Like you were saying, physically, emotionally, mentally, whatever.
I've also, I've used a shorthand from some books I've read. Like Satan can attack our head, our hands and our hearts head, our doctrine, our thinking, right? Especially wants to confuse our thinking about the things of God, Our hands, our duty to God, like serving the neighbor. So there can be physical affliction and then our heart, our devotion, right. Likes to lead our heart astray. So I like to think of in terms of that kind of like, because I think sometimes people just think immediately in terms of possession or whatever, or they really limit the scope of the attacks and they don't realize it can be physical affliction, it can be mental affliction. Especially like we're pretty big at talking about false doctrine being something, right? This comes ultimately from Satan. Like he's trying to confuse our thinking and to lead our hearts astray, to get us devoted to the wrong things.
And I think sometimes people don't pay attention to all those areas and so they. They're caught off guards by those things when they actually happen.
Did you find your verse?
[00:50:03] Speaker A: No. Would you know what it is? Do you know what I'm talking about?
It's. It's not. So Paul will talk about. So here I know I can go to Ephesians. I don't think it's this, but whenever. Whenever Paul talks about the ascension of Jesus, one of the things that he highlights is that Jesus is exalted over the demons, over the devil. So, for example, the same power that's working in us is the same power that was worked in Christ, Ephesians 1:20, when he raised him from the dead and seated in the heavenly places at his right hand, far above all principality and power and might and dominion. And every name that is named not only in this age, but also in that which is to come and put all things under his feet and gave to him to be head over all things to the church which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all. This is a text we were talking about earlier, or a parallel text, but that principality and power and might and dominion is names for the demons and for the demonic ranks. And this is the point that Jesus is over them and he rules so that the Christian has nothing to be afraid of. The devil is being crushed. This is how Paul ends his letter to the Romans. The devil is being crushed under our feet. Not only under the feet of Jesus. He triumphed over them, making a public spectacle them in the cross.
But there's a. There's. Oh, man, I wish I could find it. There's this. This beautiful text where the Lord is making known his will through the church to the demons, so that the demons have to figure out what God is up to by listening to you preach on Sunday, which is amazing. I mean, an amazing sort of promise that the Lord gives.
I'll find at some point.
[00:52:00] Speaker B: You find it, let us know.
All right, this is a. This is an interesting one.
Can anyone share Lutheran faith online?
So this person's a lifelong Lutheran with little formal theological study, but have been contemplating creating an online presence to share Lutheran theology. I know there are many pastors, such as yourself, who teach and preach online in some capacity. There are also a growing number of lay people sharing the faith in this way, some mainly through memes and some in more serious fashion. What are your thoughts on non pastors evangelizing through formal social media pages?
[00:52:35] Speaker A: I think that it's so.
Okay, good question. I think that in the old days we had this nice distinction that the public theologians were the doctors of the church, and so they had some sort of authority that was carried along. And even the parish pastor, who wasn't a doctor, he had authority there in his local congregation. The doctor made someone a teacher of the whole church.
And man, in some ways, I wish we still had that, although I think it probably broke down already in the Reformation, where you had Luther who's like, look, I'm a doctor of the church. And the Pope was like, nah, never mind, you know, and so we don't have that. So the question is, how do we. How do we understand the office of teacher?
Especially in line with Augsburg 14. I don't permit a person to preach or teach. We don't permit a person to preach or teach or administer the sacraments unless they've been rightly called. So what does that right call consist of? To be a public teacher of the church? I think there's a difference between the authoritative teaching in the church versus writing and publishing online and even in books and stuff like that like this. And there's always been a place for the lay theologian to confess the faith, to articulate the faith in a friendly and gentle way that can be helpful to people, but it's not the same as an authoritative voice. For example, the People of St. Paul Lutheran Church are required by God to go to church on Sunday to listen to the preaching that happens there, to learn from the Bible class, etc. They are not required to watch the theology Q A podcast. It's a different thing there. I. And in some ways I hope that, you know, they, they don't ever those. Sometimes people say, hey, I saw your YouTube stuff. I'm like, ah, I'm so sorry.
Packer's great, isn't it? In other words, what we're doing here is trying to be helpful. So we're not the pastors to the Internet. We're throwing out the Lord's Word out there. And if it's helpful for people, that's great. You can take it and use it and it can be helpful. If it's not helpful, then just forget about it. There's no obligation there. There's no requirement, there's no authoritative. The authority is simply from the preaching of the Word. And I think that that's the. Every Christian is bearing the light of the Lord and his name into the world in all their different places. So if you've got a little carved out space on Twitter and you're a Christian, should the Lord's Word show up there? I think so. If you've got a little carved out conversation at work with people, should the scripture and should your confession of Christ show up there? I think it should, and this is great. But it's different than the sort of public preaching and authoritative presentation of doctrine. I think writing is that way too even. That's why I think that like books, for example, written by lay theologians, these are great. If you have something to add to the conversation, then add it to the conversation. But a book is there as a helpful aid to the teaching of the office.
So my two cents, I think the
[00:55:35] Speaker B: only thing I would add is that sometimes people need to be careful how they present it online because some people in those roles almost seem like they're trying to speak on behalf of all Lutherans or Whatever they're trying to represent because they want to build up the platform or whatever, sometimes maybe overstate their authority or their expertise or whatever. I think someone's just honest, hey, I'm a Lutheran layman, and I just want to. I love. I love this stuff and just want to share it with you.
That's great, right? Like, if all the Lutherans were online doing that, that'd be really fantastic. Probably get a lot more people in our churches.
[00:56:08] Speaker A: So we, we do theology according to our vocation. So we say, hey, I'm doing theology as a layperson, which is different than doing theology as a pastor, which is different than doing theology as a theologian. It's different than doing theology as a mother and a mom versus doing theology as a seminarian or a vicar. I tell my vicars, I said, look, you're preaching like a vicar. In other words, you're supposed to preach as a theology student. I remember I was sitting with one seminarian a couple of years ago and what the president of the seminary was sitting right across and he said, can I start a YouTube theology video?
And the president of the seminary said, no. And I said, yeah, of course you can, but you're doing it as a student. Here's what I learned today in class. Here's what I was reading in my text. In other words, if you do it according to your vocation, that's great. So we do theology according to the vocations that God has given us, and praise the Lord for that.
[00:56:57] Speaker B: And then you said, but if you want to get a call, don't do it.
Don't do it.
Stay offline. All right, that's it. We're done for today.
[00:57:08] Speaker A: God be praised. Thanks, Pastor Packer. Thanks to everyone who sent in your questions. Wolfmuller co contact. Keep them coming to the Theology Q and A podcast.
Yeah, keep in touch. Your likes and subscribes are also helpful to help let the algorithm know that these are helpful and also to help in my personal goal to have more subscribers than Dr. Jordan B. Cooper.
[00:57:30] Speaker B: We've had some guys putting in the comments. They've just commented for the algorithm. I love those guys. They're great. That's great.
[00:57:37] Speaker A: Thanks for doing it. Thanks for watching. Thanks for your fun. God's peace be with you.
