Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Hey, YouTube theologians, welcome to the Theology Q and A podcast. Pastor Brian Wolfmuller of St. Paul and Jesus staff, Lutheran churches joined by Pastor Andrew Packer, Good Shepherd Lutheran Church in Collinsville, Illinois. Pastor Packer, I heard a rumor about you. Your favorite color is yellow.
[00:00:19] Speaker B: If it's the Steelers yellow, then sure.
[00:00:22] Speaker A: Okay, go with that.
[00:00:24] Speaker B: Not the yellow they had on last night. That was ugly.
[00:00:27] Speaker A: I didn't pay any attention to any football at all all weekend, so who knows what happened?
[00:00:34] Speaker B: I should not have paid attention.
[00:00:36] Speaker A: Okay, we're answering your theology questions. You can send them in at Wolfmuller Co contact. We're down to. Oh, look at this. 142 plus 36, 178. We're almost to the end, so you gotta feed that list there.
Send us your questions. What do you got for us, Pastor Packer?
[00:00:54] Speaker B: First one is, would you explain Luther's axiom? Prayer, meditation and affliction make the theologian.
[00:01:00] Speaker A: Ah, that's a beautiful. That's like a setup question. That's like a question. It is. I was trying to help you out sin in myself.
This comes from the introduction to Luther's German works. So at the end of Luther's career, they were kind of collecting his Latin works, his German works, and asked him to write introductions to it. I think it's in his introduction to German works. He says he just shouldn't be collecting his works. Like, the only thing he wanted to hang around was the small catechism and bondage of the will.
That's like it. But anyway, he talks about. He uses that occasion of the introduction of the German works to talk about how a theologian is made. And he begins by doing sort of exposition of Psalm 119 and says that we learn from Psalm 119 that there's three ways that a theologian is prayer, meditation, and affliction, or temptation, tentatio in the German anfectung. It's really beautiful because what Luther is contrasting is the medieval triad of ascent, prayer, meditation and contemplatio.
Contemplation. That's where the soul merges with the divine and you're sort of swept away and lost in the wonder of it all. And Luther says that the direction of our study is not heavenly, but actually the Lord plunges us down into this life of trouble where we're serving our neighbor and its heart.
I think that this is probably best demonstrated in his exposition in Genesis where he's talking about the church Father. So this is a plug for the worldwide Bible study where we've been for two years studying the life of Jacob with Luther and all of this affliction and all of the suffering that Jacob is enduring. Luther says this is because he's a Christian and this is how the Lord deals with us. He plays rough with us.
So prayer is to speak to God and to ask him for the things that we need. And it's not an accident that Luther starts with prayer because prayer opens up the Scriptures. We pray that the Lord would speak to us in His Word. And then meditation, which is where we read the Bible, but don't just read it. We study it, we think about it, we consider what's going on there. We rejoice in it. There's a lot that happens with.
With that meditation. And in fact, the meditation informs our prayer. And then that throws us into this Christian life of serving the neighbor, serving the Lord and being troubled by all of that, being in some ways afflicted by all of that.
And that's where we really become theologians. Luther says when he's explaining this, at some point he says that the devil is the best seminary or something like that. The devil is the best theology professor. Because when we're in that squeeze, when the devil is troubling us, then we have to rely on the Lord's Word.
It forces us to let go of ourselves and our own ideas about things and trust in the Lord and in his mercy. So those three things, prayer, meditation and affliction, is what makes a theologia beautiful. So you can read it.
I bet you if you just put prayer, meditation and temptation. Wolfmuller. I bet I've got a couple of blog posts about it. Dr. Kleinig has a really nice article that he wrote about it. There's a Way, but I imagine I can't remember doing this, but I bet you I grabbed that introduction text and put it out there on the Internet somewhere, so.
So you can find that there. That's really good reading.
Yeah.
[00:04:54] Speaker B: Dr. Kleinig has a great article for. I think it's for seminarians on. On the role of these things in a seminarian's life. I sent it to my brother recently who started seminary, so I sent it to him earlier this summer. We're also. This is our midweek Advent theme this year is Prepare.
Prepare the way of the Lord with prayer and meditation and through suffering.
So it's going to be our focus for Advent midweek services here at Good shepherd is going to be on this very thing. Just because it is so important, like praying to receive the word, meditating on the Word and then suffering. Right as the devil tries to steal the word from us is really ultimately, the goal is he suffers us and causes us to go through suffering so he can take God's word from us and steal it from us. So then we have to go back in prayer, meditation and suffer some more.
[00:05:45] Speaker A: There's really something here about what we expect the Christian life to be.
I remember I was talking to Dr. Schultz, who said that really the biggest problem that he sees in the church is that we failed to teach Christians, and therefore the world, how to lament, how to suffer rightly.
And we've gotten into this idea in the church that being a Christian, I don't know, makes your life better. It alleviates suffering, it makes less suffering.
This is not the goal of Christianity.
It doesn't answer the problem of suffering, and it doesn't help us escape suffering. In fact, when we see, for example, Jesus being baptized, and then immediately the Holy Spirit drives him into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil, say, boy, I wonder if he would have been baptized if he knew that was going to happen. Well, of course, this is it. But this for us, you know, we're baptized into this life of affliction, into this life of struggle, into this life of trouble.
And that's because that. Because we're Christians. That's what the. That's what the Christian life is.
But I don't know, we have wrong expectations. And so we're not, I don't know, geared rightly, in some ways for this Christian life. So this little oratio, tentatio meditatio is really helpful in reminding us what the life of suffering is.
[00:07:10] Speaker B: We had our Bible study yesterday. I was teaching on Genesis 35 and 37. No offense to skipping Esau's genealogy there in 36, but in 35, right. Jacob Buries the idols under the terebinth tree at Shechem. So I was asking the class, what are the idols? And I was asking specifically for, like, us as lutherans in America, 2025, what among us are the idols? And people listed a bunch. And I kept saying, there's one I wanted them to say, but no one said it. And that's comfort, right? Comfort for us is one of the biggest idols because we don't want to suffer and nobody really wants to suffer. But if we ask someone, you know, here's our choices, comfort or suffering, we're going to choose comfort.
The problem is when we're put before the test and it says, choose comfort, even though you have to reject some part of God's Word or not. Speak up for God's word or not. Do what God's called you to do.
And then we choose comfort rather than suffering and doing the right thing.
[00:08:09] Speaker A: Right.
[00:08:09] Speaker B: That's when we run into that problem. And that's. We have an aversion in our sinful flesh to any kind of affliction or suffering. And we think. I was Talking with my 8th graders about this this morning.
Right. Sometimes we think if there's any suffering or affliction, that must mean God is angry with us or God doesn't love us or doesn't care about us. And so we think it must be the worst thing in the world that we're suffering. Whereas the promise in the Bible is those sufferings are being used by God to conform us to the image of his son. Romans 8. Right. So God's using them for our good. And as Luther says, if we didn't have affliction, if we didn't have suffering, we would abandon Christ like those afflictions, those crosses, those. They drive us to Jesus rather than away from Him.
[00:08:53] Speaker A: I'm thinking of the Luther 7 marks of the church in his.
Is that councils in church on the councils in churches.
And he has these seven marks of the church. And the last mark of the church that he has is the Holy Cross, the holy blessed cross. That means the life of affliction is not only a mark, not a mark that God has abandoned us or forgotten us, but the exact opposite. It's a mark that we belong to the Lord.
So when you want to look for the Christians, you just look for the beaten, you look for the wounded. You look for those who are being hounded by the devil. And that's a mark of the Christian church. And for us individually, this also. It serves in this way as well that Jesus, when he claims us as his disciples, he marks us with a sign of the Holy Cross on our forehead, upon our heart, upon our lives, so that we take up our cross and follow him.
That's what the Lord has done. That's what the Lord has given. So it's not a sign of his abandonment or his anger, but actually a sign of his love.
[00:10:01] Speaker B: All right, good. Easy setup question for you.
[00:10:03] Speaker A: Yeah, that was nice.
[00:10:07] Speaker B: This is an interesting one.
It's about evangelism.
In evangelism, are we witnessing or are we confessing?
And then they said they added a note here.
They're a lifelong LCMS member.
They remember the witness, mercy, life together of sinning. But they read Fire and Staff by Clement Preuss.
And they've Been persuaded to use the word confess versus witness.
And so now they're struggling with what's a better term here? Are we witnessing? Are we confessing?
[00:10:45] Speaker A: What do you think is the difference?
This will be.
I don't know the answer. I want to think about it a little bit, but I think that's the first question is like, what would be the difference between witnessing of Christ versus confessing Christ?
[00:11:00] Speaker B: I think it probably does come down to how we're going to define terms.
I don't know if witness. If they're thinking in terms of eyewitness, and maybe they prefer confess because we're. We weren't eyewitnesses. I'm not sure. They don't. They don't explain that part. And I haven't read. I haven't read Fire and Staff in a long time.
I don't see a huge difference between the two.
So I'm not right. We're called to make the good confession. But if you make the good confession to others, aren't you witnessing to others? Like, that's. I see them kind of melding together. So I guess I would need to see more clearly what the distinction would be between confessing something and witnessing something in their minds, like how they're seeing it. But I don't see a huge split there.
[00:11:52] Speaker A: I don't either. But this is a good chance to talk about evangelism anyways. But maybe. So I would like to try to make a difference between the two. I'd say that a witness would be like an official sort of courtroom or legal place.
So when Jesus says, you'll be my witnesses in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, that means that they're going to be called forth to give a testimony of something. Right? So Jesus gave the good witness before Pontius Pilate. That's how he's discussed in the Book of Revelation. So it's kind of that when you're called upon to give testimony to something that you saw or that you know about, to give evidence for something, then that's the witness. And in that way we do. I mean, when the Christian is called upon, this is how that great apologetics verse in Peter works. It says, be ready to speak of the hope that's in you whenever you're asked.
So when that confession or witness or testimony is called forth, is invited, is asked for by the world, then we give it. And this is one of the reasons why the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church.
Because when Christianity is put on trial now, you don't have to go Knock on doors, you're just standing before the judge, and you are in that way required to confess Christ and the hope of the resurrection. It's beautiful.
Jesus says in Matthew 10, if you confess me before men, I will confess you before my Father in heaven. If you deny me before men, I'll deny you before my Father in heaven. So I would see confession as a more general approach.
So witness would be sort of like a technical term for some sort of legal context. Confession is just what the church does.
We bear the name of Jesus. I think that's a beautiful way that Jesus gives this office to St. Paul, and he says, you will bear my name before the Gentiles.
So he says, you're going to go out there and wherever you go, you're going to carry my name with you. And this doesn't mean, like, we've got Jesus like on the back of our shirts, like a jersey or something like that.
It means we belong to him. We're part of his family.
So wherever we are, we bring the Lord Jesus with us. In fact, that's that idea of the monstrance. Did you. Did you ever come across this idea that the Christian is the true monstrance from Luther?
[00:14:19] Speaker B: No, I don't remember reading that.
[00:14:21] Speaker A: This is a cool. You'll like this one. So Luther's going after the Catholics and the Corpus Christi thing, you know where they get the monstrance is the little tab or the tabernacle, where the consecrated host would rest in the chapel, where the people would go and they would venerate the host, or they would have acts of devotion before the body and blood of Jesus. So it's the Catholic position. And then in the Corpus Christi, they would take that consecrated host and put it in a monstrance and march around town with it once a year.
And that the idea is you're bringing this consecrate, this body of Jesus around all these things to sanctify all the places where it goes well.
So the Lutherans stopped all that nonsense because Jesus didn't say take and adore or take and march or take and whatever. He said, take and eat, take and drink. So we want to limit ourselves to the Lord's word. If we want to derive the comfort that he gives, we want to stick to the word. Okay. But then Luther says that the Christian, when we take the body of Christ, when we eat the body of Christ, when we drink the blood of Christ, we are now carrying his body around with us. So we become the living monstrances.
So that wherever we Go. We're sanctifying that place. We're bringing Jesus and His Word and his kindness into that place.
So we bear the name of the Lord. And I'd say that more general application is the confession of Christ.
I was in Puerto Rico this week, and one of the things they wanted to do was a little series of videos on evangelism. And so I put forth this thesis that everything you need to know about evangelism you learned in the small catechism.
And so in the Ten Commandments, which is not just the do's and don'ts, but God's ordering of the world and his wisdom for life.
And in the Creed, which is not just three sort of randomly disconnected sections of belief, but actually the whole story of the cosmos, from creation to fall, the redemption to restoration, and how we fit into this grand story.
And from the Lord's Prayer, which is not just seven disconnected petitions, but actually the Lord describing for us everything that we need, everything that he wants to give his full life and how we obtain it. And then baptism, which is to be born from above. And the Supper, which is the goal of all of the spiritual activity on earth that we're gathered to the Lord, his body and blood, with his church and with confession and absolution, which gives us the gift of repentance and faith.
There's such a comprehensive understanding of the very heart of God and of history and of right and wrong and everything in the catechism that when we learn the catechism, we're ready for these conversations. So, good. So this is basically the Christian work of evangelism, is just going about your business with God's wisdom rolling through your mind and praying and looking for opportunities to speak the name and kindness of the Lord to the people that are around us. This is fantastic.
[00:17:28] Speaker B: Seems like if you're doing that, making a good confession in that way daily, then there's a good chance you'll end up being a witness in that technical sense that you said. Right. If you're constantly doing that, there's a good chance someday you may get pulled before authorities to be an official witness and have to give a statement, your testimony about what is true. But only if you've been making a good confession. If you haven't been right, you're not gonna be prepared for that.
[00:17:52] Speaker A: Yeah, here's one more.
[00:17:54] Speaker B: Intimately connected.
[00:17:55] Speaker A: I think one more thing I want to add to our work of evangelism. And it is that the Christian ought to be thinking about having a good conscience, and not only for ourselves, that we would have a good conscience through faith and love. So we have a good conscience with God. By faith, we trust the blood of Christ and the forgiveness of sins, and we have a good conscience toward each other because we understand our vocation and we're trying to love people now that love, good conscience is always incomplete. The faith, good conscience is perfect, okay? But we're working to have these good conscience in these two ways. But we're also paying attention to the consciences of the people around us.
And that gives us a lot of opportunity to bless people and. And to speak to them about the love of God in Christ.
So the Christian act of evangelism is thinking about this when we're listening to people or talking with people.
You have a bad conscience, you have a hardened conscience. You have a seared conscience, you have a troubled conscience. We're listening to the conscience now. You might not just say that to someone who comes up to you and you're talking like, oh, I can tell you have a bad conscience.
I don't know if that. I mean, maybe it's the right thing to say. We pray for wisdom, but to know that the Lord has sent us there with this word that gives a good conscience, if we can be mindful of that, I think a lot that is really great for confessing, witnessing whatever it is that we are doing. When we bear the name of Jesus.
[00:19:34] Speaker B: To the world, it seems like perhaps we don't realize how just how messed up people's consciences really are.
Right? Especially if maybe if you have the joy of the gospel and you have a good conscience before God.
I think sometimes maybe it's hard for us to really understand or grasp how much people's consciences are really struggling. Because I think we tend to think today that people don't really wrestle with stuff or that their conscience isn't bothered, which would be what? Like a seared conscience. But I don't often find it to be the case. It seems like people are often struggling.
They just don't know what to call it or what to do with it because they don't have language for it anymore. Right? They don't know sin, they don't know guilt. They don't even understand half these things. So a lot of people, like you said, we're talking to, they're wrestling with these things and they don't have a framework for it. And so for the Christian to be able to step in and say, hey, it sounds like you're struggling with this.
Here's the solution to that thing, you're Struggling with wherever their conscious is at can have a profound impact just in getting them to think in different terms or opening the door for them to think in different terms.
[00:20:42] Speaker A: Here's Ephesians, chapter 2.
So I'll start at verse 11, but I'm really aiming at the end of verse 12.
Paul says, Remember that you once Gentiles in the flesh who are called uncircumcision by what is called the circumcision made in the flesh by hands, that at that time you were without Christ. Okay, so Paul's actually calling the Gentile Christians in Ephesus to remember when they were not Christian. Like, don't forget about what that life was like before you were saved, before you were born again, before you were baptized.
At that time you were without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world.
Now that's. So Paul's main point here is salvation by grace alone, and especially how that tears down the wall between Jew and Gentile. But he throws this in here that we meditate on how it was before we knew God, how it was before we were sick. This is amazing. And he says, at that time, you had no hope.
Now, for us Christians, this is important for us to remember is that if you do not know God, you are hopeless.
You have no hope. Now, you might not know that you're hopeless, but you probably do that there's a hopeless. And that Christians, because we're so used to hoping, there is so much hope constantly. We're hoping in the life to come. We're hoping for the resurrection, we're hoping for heaven. We have all this. We're abounding in hope. We have more hope than you know what to do with.
But that the non Christian has no hope.
It's almost like, do you remember going to your friend's house and he had a trampoline?
And in the backyard, and you're like, whoa, you have a all. Anytime you want, you can jump on the trampoline. And he's like, oh, yeah, I haven't done it. You're like, what if I had a trampoline? I'd never leave that trampoline.
Nothing bounces at my house.
And he's gotten so used to it that he doesn't even marvel at the fact of it.
Imagine walking into someone's house and there's just hope laying around everywhere, and you've got none of it.
What are you doing with all this hope? I mean, this is what the Christian has to offer the world.
And Paul says, you can't forget that. You can't forget the things that you have now that you did not have before.
So this is a big thing for Christian evangelism, is that we're calling people to life and faith and hope and love and all of these gifts of God which are unavailable apart from his word and promise.
[00:23:37] Speaker B: That's a good note to end that on.
Let's go to the next one.
This is one. I hear this come up in different ways, probably especially in regards to Matthew 28.
But this is a more general question. He didn't bring that one up specifically. How do we know when a specific statement of Jesus to the disciples applies to all Christians or when it applies only to the church pastoral office?
[00:24:06] Speaker A: That's great.
So remember that we have this in the Book of Acts, this distinction from seminary. Like, what's prescriptive and what's descriptive. In other words, what's telling us what happened and what's telling us what to do? Some passages are obvious, like when Jesus gives the Lord Supper, and then he says, do this often in remembrance of me. And then we see it happening in the Book of Acts. So that's a pretty nice sort of test. Like, if Jesus commands it, and we see it happening in the Book of Acts, great. Same with baptism. Go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. And then, boom, right into the Book of Acts, we see everyone being baptized.
There are some passages, like I would always ask my Roman Catholic friends, like, why, when Jesus gave Peter this blessing to look after the other disciples, why did that create an office? Why couldn't that have been just a Peter? And they said, we don't know.
Because that's that question. Like, does this institute something the same with foot washing?
Some people see foot washing as an institution. That should be part of the, like, liturgical practice of the church. And we look at it and we say, no, what Jesus was doing, he was instituting the office of service.
And in the particular way that that is sort of shows up, then you do it. Like, if people need their feet washed, then you wash their feet. But there might not be the need for washing feet. There might be need for service in other places.
So it's a great question. I think it's probably one of these things where we have to almost take it case by case and kind of dig into it and say, what do we see in the words of Jesus?
What do we see in the practice of the church in The Book of Acts.
How has the Church understood it too? That's also going to be a helpful barometer in this question.
But I think it, I don't know.
I think I want to be slow to make a rule through which we can kind of like a meat grinder that we can run every command from Jesus through to see if it, if it's prescriptive or descriptive. Do you have thoughts on that?
[00:26:27] Speaker B: No, I was just going to say context, context, context. Right. Like, rather than trying, like you said, to take them as a whole group, whatever it is, and say all of these. If it sounds like this, it must be this, or it sounds like this, it must be this.
Look at them individually and look at the passage. Look at the context of the passage. Who is he talking to?
How does it appear later? All of those things are going to be key to evaluating each and every one.
I agree with you. I think there's a real danger in trying to make a blanket rule and then try to apply it. Because often, so many times in the Bible we try to do that, then we quickly find exceptions. Hey, this doesn't fit this category like I want it to.
Now what do I do with this? And then you just either ignore it or you don't know what to do with it.
Right. Good rule of exegesis for the Bible is what's the context? And if you look at each of Jesus statements in that regard, then I think it becomes a lot easier. I mean, there's always, there's going to be some, right, that are always going to be maybe more difficult than others.
There's. Even when you read the Church Fathers or others on some passages, they'll be like, we don't know exactly what Jesus is getting at here, or we don't know how to apply this today, or whatever it may be. But so it doesn't mean it'll solve every problem, but at least give you a good, good way to approach them and try to figure it out.
[00:27:42] Speaker A: It's good in this realm too to remember that we're not the first people to have to ask these questions. So not that again. What you just said is right, that there's some sort of authority that the Church Fathers would have over history. But it is helpful to see that they've walked this path and sorted these things out.
[00:28:00] Speaker B: Right.
[00:28:00] Speaker A: You mentioned Matthew 28. What is the question? How do you think this applies to that text?
[00:28:06] Speaker B: Well, I often hear the question, so Matthew 28, right? The great Commission, go, therefore, make disciples of all nations.
This one often comes up when someone will say, well, this wasn't given to all Christians, this was just given to pastors.
I hear that come up quite a bit.
And sometimes I'll come up in conversations, right, related to the last question about evangelism, that Christians are never commanded to evangelize as individuals. Like the pastors are commanded to go and make disciples, but individual Christians are not. And so that's why when I read this, I was wondering if they were getting at that one, because that's one I hear brought up probably the most.
So what would you do with that one? Matthew 28, is it just for pastors or is it a command to the whole church that includes pastors and the laity?
[00:29:01] Speaker A: So Jesus gives the like, all authority in heaven, on earth has been given to me, therefore. And I so just even there, just to like sit in amazement and think that the disciples are listening.
All authority in heaven and on earth is your, what are you going to do with it?
Like, you know, if I came to you and like, hey, Andrew, someone just gave the theology Q and a podcast a 20 billion dollar grant and you're like, whoa, well, we should get, you know, what are you going to do with it? Like, this is like, Jesus, are you going to bring an end to all pain and suffering? Are you going to bring world peace? Are you going to end poverty and sickness? What all authority in heaven and on earth? What are you going to do with it? And he says, okay, now here's what I want you to do with it. I want you to teach and baptize.
And it seems like a weird thing to conclude from that. Like, that's all you want to do with all authority. But this means, this is a great reminder for us that every baptism is the divine authority of the Lord Jesus Christ, who has all authority by being the Son of God and now receives it again from the Father as the crucified God and risen God man, that he gives all of that, he places all of that authority in that water, and he places all of that authority in the Word when it's being taught. This is a kind of mind blowing sort of thing. So baptize in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit and teach everything that I've commanded you. And look, I'm with you always to the end of the age. So he rules and reigns all things for the sake of the church. That's the end of Ephesians 1.
So here we see the Lord's authority showing up in baptism and teaching. Now the Lord institutes the office of the Holy Ministry.
He puts men into the office so that there's someone to baptize and teach. And we as Christians are the recipients of that in the gift of baptism and in the gift of teaching.
But it's not like the church has nothing to do with this.
It's not just that the church is the recipients of baptism, but the church now carries that divine name where into all the world, so that other people are also coming to be baptized. And the Lord's word is put in our hearts and in our minds not so that it would stay buried there, but so that it would bear fruit.
So the whole church is a confessing church. Now, where does. In the office of public ministry. These things are being done and the Lord ensures that they keep being done in that way.
But it's not like, I don't know, like Paul preaches to Lydia in Philippi, and she believes. And then she's like, well, now you better go and talk to my other family so that they. No, she goes and tells it to her family and then they come and be baptized.
The woman at the well in Samaria, can you imagine? She goes and she starts to tell them everything that Jesus did.
So that the Christian who has received the grace of God cannot not speak of it and cannot also have this longing that everyone that they know and love would also be known and loved by Christ and know and love him too. I mean, it's just, you can't. You can't separate these two things. Now there is something where, like the church growth movement has inherited the pietistic despising of the office, right?
So one of the marks of pietism is it diminishes the office, the Holy Office, the office of preaching, office of the ministry. And so I think we have this kind of kickback, a sort of light sacerdotalism that says that sort of resists that pietistic minimizing of the office. I don't need anybody between me and God or whatever. Well, okay, you don't. But the Lord wants a man to stand there and tell you that he loves you. How, you know, how are you going to fuss about that? Like, what? What in the world is wrong with it? Someone left church on Sunday.
There were other Pentecostals very offended that I was forgiving sins. I was like, well, there's a lot of things that I do that you should be offended about. But that's like the least.
That's like the thing you should be happiest about.
You know, like, Jesus wants me to sit here and tell you the thing that he tells you also by the Spirit, that your sins are forgiven. You're gonna.
[00:33:28] Speaker B: Sheesh.
[00:33:28] Speaker A: But anyway, so I see the kickback, but I think it's kind of ridiculous. Like, we all rejoice in these gifts of baptism and the word of God and the teaching. Every Christian's a theologian. And it's impossible for it's impossible for a Christian not to pray, not to confess, not to speak the Lord's name.
We proclaim his death till he comes. Even when we come to the Supper, the Lord is enlisting us into making this public confession of our faith in Christ.
[00:34:03] Speaker B: All right, we're going to move on to the next one.
This is on the inspiration of Scripture.
Their question is 1 Corinthians 7. St. Paul says what he is saying comes from himself, not the Lord.
[00:34:17] Speaker A: That's interesting.
[00:34:18] Speaker B: How do we. How do we hold on? Understand this is still inspired scripture.
Surely Scripture does not openly contradict itself on this. So how can Paul say, I'll reword this. How can Paul say in a part of the Bible that we say is inspired, that it's not from the Lord, but from himself? And then we still sit here and say, well, it's inspired because it's from the Lord.
[00:34:43] Speaker A: So the Lord inspired Paul to let us know that this was his own opinion.
Like, is that. Is it a. Is that a.
I want to know. So I want to. I want to think about why this is a hard question. Like, why the person who's asked the question is, like, struggling with it. And it could be because our doctrine of inspiration sort of flattens out all the words of God, and it shouldn't.
I mean, for example, I just want to think of there's words in the Bible that are not the words of God, but it's given to us as Holy Scripture. Oh, here's an example. The sermons of Job's friends.
[00:35:32] Speaker B: Yeah, that's what I was just going to say. Job's friends.
[00:35:34] Speaker A: It's false doctrine.
So we don't say, oh, this is like non inspired, inspired words. No, the Lord inspired Job, the prophet Job to give us this whole thing. And in that, we have words that are against the word of God. Wrong words of God to contrast the words of God.
But there's even more there, because not all of the words of God are created equal. You were just talking about before you skipped the genealogy of Esau in the text. And it's there. It's inspired by God, but it's not.
So we need it. We need to study it as we Understand, in the Scriptures, it's there because the Holy Spirit wants it to be there, and yet it doesn't kind of carry equal weight with it all. So, like, in the context of the whole thing, it gives us this understanding that this is what the Lord wants us to have. But he doesn't just. It's not like he wants us to have like this word as the. Like, I don't know.
All scriptures are God breathed, okay? There's a. Like, I don't take the word all and say, okay, now I got the word all, and that is an inspired word. And then scriptures. And now I got the word scriptures. And it's understood in the whole context of the Lord communicating with us. So when Paul's saying, hey, I have some advice that I want to give to you, I want you to think about it this way. But this should not be understood as divine advice from the Lord. Just my idea about things that in my mind, strengthens the understanding of the inspiration of all the rest of the letter. In other words, Paul wants us to understand every other word that he wrote as a word from the Lord, and that's how it should be taken.
But I'll do that sometimes in my own preaching. And I don't know, Pastor Packer, if you do this as well, but I'll say, okay, now look, I've got a thought about this. This is my own thought, but it's just from my own Wolfmuller imagination. Take it or leave it. Probably leave it.
But it's not from the Lord. But here's what the Lord has to say.
So I don't know, in my mind, it sort of strengthens our understanding of the inspiration of the Scripture. You got ideas?
[00:37:53] Speaker B: Yeah, we also have examples of that, like first and Second Kings, who, I think Jeremiah wrote. Right. Seems very clear. There's sections of that that he took from, like, official court records about how much money came in. Right. How they built things. Like there's all kinds of information that seems like it'll even quote, right? It'll even say, hey, the rest of this information is found in these other books that we don't have anymore. And so it seems in places he. He copied some information down.
Well, does that mean it's not inspired? No, it just means that God had him use these records and put it in there. And so now it's part of the Bible. But like you said, in addition to that, this idea that not everything's of equal weight or importance, like it's all the word of God and it's all Given to us. In that sense, it's important. But, yes, I skipped chapter 36 of Genesis because I didn't want my people to sit through me reading, you know, hundreds of names of Esau's descendants, which I didn't think was going to edify them as much as skipping over to Joseph. And, you know, what's going on with Joseph and his dreams and how he's treated by his brothers. There's a lot more they could glean from that than from Genesis 36. Not that Genesis 36 has no importance, but for my people today, not as important. And like you said, there's times when, as pastors, we say, hey, this is how I understand this, but it's not binding on your conscience. Understand exactly. In this way. You could also understand it this way. There's a debate on how to understand this passage, and you give them their opinion. And to think that Paul can't do that as an apostle, that, like you said, it adds credence to it because he's not trying to say that every opinion he has is on the same level as what the Lord's given him to write. And just because he includes it in the same letter doesn't negate it. It just means you're going to read it differently, and that's okay.
But I do think there is that danger. We want to flatten everything out. It's just like the common misunderstanding of sin among Christians today, right? Like, because all sins, damn. We want to make all sins flattened and as if they're identical. So we can't say one sins worse than the other. No, that's. That's silly.
Same thing here. Just because it's all the word of God, it's all inspired, doesn't mean some parts aren't more important or even more beneficial for the Christian today than other parts.
Like that's, you know, some part like that. Not, for example, all the genealogies in the Bible are immensely important to following the line of the Messiah, but they're not nearly as important as far as studying for the Christian today as they would have been for the Jew who's waiting for the Messiah.
You know what I mean? Like, they're waiting for that anticipation, keeping track of everything now that he's come.
They're important and we're glad to have them because it shows how historical everything is. But it's not nearly as important to us as it was to those waiting for him to come. Now we have him, and those don't carry as much importance.
[00:40:49] Speaker A: I suppose it's Something similar with the instruction for the sacrifices.
And that would have been very important if you're a Levitical priest. But now it's great that we have it. It's pointing us to the sacrifice of Christ, but it's. It has a different level. And I think I want to come back to this, that the very fact that Paul says it is very helpful for us because he's saying now this little part here you should take as my opinion. But that means how do we take all the rest of it as not Paul's opinion?
So that also itself is very, very helpful to teach us how we should read Paul and all of his letters.
[00:41:33] Speaker B: This one, it's going back to.
This is kind of a controversial one. So I saved the best for later. Okay, so this one, the question is, should we bless Israel? So I don't know if you saw the Ted Cruz interview with Tucker Carlson.
When did this question come in?
Yeah, back in June.
So he said that he became a setter because in Sunday school he was taught that God blesses those who bless Israel.
And so basically his point was we have to politically be on the side of Israel if we want God to bless us.
And by Israel, he means, right, Modern nation of Israel, that's Israel, apparently, that he believes God is talking about in Genesis, where Abraham's told that, right, it's going to be bless him. And then told constantly throughout Genesis about God blessing Israel, God taking care of Israel, and that you're to bless. Those who bless Israel will be blessed, those who curse will be cursed. And so he wants to know, is that the correct understanding is that what we're to walk away from Genesis with is that if we bless the modern state of Israel, that we'll be blessed.
[00:42:45] Speaker A: Genesis 12 is the first conversation that God has with Abraham. And I think there's eight conversations between God and Abraham that are recorded in Genesis, which is pretty amazing. That's a lot of conversations. But from chapter 12, I will bless those who bless you. I'll make your name great. You will be a blessing.
Through you, all the nations of the world will be blessed.
That promise to Abraham, we want to realize it's a threefold promise. God promises him the land, and he promises him lots of children, and he promises him the Messiah. And that's the point of those promises. The land and the people are for the Messiah. So that when the Messiah has come, those other promises, the land and the people have come to their fulfillment, their fruition.
Now, what could have held on with the land and people promises? We'll never know because they rejected the seed. They rejected the Messiah. And so the Lord sent Emperor Titus to flatten Jerusalem and the temple. 70 A.D. august 10, by the way, that's the day that that all happened.
But it doesn't matter because all those. This is how the New Testament constantly talks about this. All those who have faith are the children of Abraham. So Paul calls the church the Israel of God.
That's the end of Galatians, right? The very end of Galatians. You are the Israel of God.
So that we understand Israel now, not in geopolitical terms.
They were in the Old Testament for the sake of this Messiah to be born, but no longer. We understand Israel to be all the people of God throughout all the world who confess Christ.
This means that we're able to look at Israel now, the Modern Nation State, 1947.
And as a political entity and not as a theological entity.
We completely reject the dispensational idea that the formation of Israel in 1947 is a fulfillment of biblical prophecy. There is no promise of that. There's no. All the promises of God are yes and amen in Christ, not in Israel.
And we have to be so clear on that so that there is no spiritual blessing promised to those who bless the modern political state of Israel. That is a misreading of the scripture. Now, can the nation be a friend of our nation and can helping them help us and vice versa? Probably.
That's what would be my politics on this. But it's not. It's politics. It's not theology.
And we have to resist this idea of. This dispensational idea of splitting up the plan of God.
The dispensationalists talk about how God has an earthly people and a spiritual people, and the earthly people are Israel and the spiritual people of the church and the whole rapture structure. The idea of the rapture is God has to get his heavenly people out of the way so he can go back to dealing with his earthly people. That there was a pause in the prophetic timeline of Daniel's 70 weeks when Jerusalem was destroyed. And.
And now at the end, it'll be restarted again for the seven years of the tribulation in which the temple will be rebuilt. And all this.
This is not the Bible. And reading the Bible in that way, it's like putting Vaseline in your eyes and trying to read the New Testament.
It obscures everything that Paul's talking about. That middle wall of partition that's Torn down, Ephesians 2 is rebuilt by the dispensationalists so it's fine to think about Israel and it's fine to like Israel. It's great. It's great. But it has to be a political opinion, not a theological or prophetic conclusion.
[00:46:30] Speaker B: I actually tell my congregation when I talk about this, there's two ways of reading the Old Testament that get you to very different conclusions. One is, do you see Israel as the center of the Old Testament or do you see Jesus as the center of the Old Testament? If you see Israel as the center of the Old Testament, everything's just about them and not ultimately about Christ, then you're going to read it very differently than if Jesus is the focal point. If it's all about the Messiah and everything that happens is about the Messiah and the coming of the Messiah and that he's a fulfillment of everything of the Old Testament.
That changes your entire way of reading the Old Testament and quite frankly, the New as well. If Jesus is at the center of your reading of Scripture.
And now I guess I've seen this online recently that they call this replacement theology because you're replacing Israel with the church. It's like, well, Paul in Romans 9 says not all Israel was Israel. That's always been about those who have faith in the Messiah. So the New Testament literally tells us that this isn't replacing anything. It's the way it's always been. It's always been about those who have faith in the Messiah. From the beginning, from the Garden of Eden to till the end of the world. It's always only been about ultimately those who have faith in the Messiah and about Jesus.
Israel is.
The dispensational thing you mentioned too, is frustrating because it's.
The church is like plan B. Like plan A didn't work, so I gotta throw the church in there. It doesn't really matter because it'll be out of the way again soon.
But here you are, you get a little bit of time and then you're gone.
And then we'll get Israel back, which is always God's plan A rather than. Well, the church has always been God's plan A. And the church has been around since the beginning. And reading the entire Old Testament light of Christ in the church rather than just reading it as the nation of Israel, it fundamentally changes everything. And the sooner people realize that, the easier this kind of stuff will be.
[00:48:24] Speaker A: What if we called replacement theology grafting theology, which is. Which is also from Romans, what Paul talks about.
[00:48:30] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:48:30] Speaker A: Romans 11, 9, 10, 11, where it says the natural branches is removed and the wild branch is grafted in. Well, that. I guess that's replacement theology, but it's this, this is your point is it's the same tree and it was always happening. I mean, when you look in the Old Testament, the Lord made Israel a nation of priests for the world. And Paul has to say, here's a. Here's a mystery that was hidden and now revealed, and that is that God had a plan to save the nations. But like, how is that hidden when the very first thing the Lord says is through you, all the nations will be blessed. And when Paul wants to prove it in, In Romans chapter 9 and 10, he quotes all these Isaiah passages that it was always the Lord's plan to include the Gentiles in the church. And he. And he. And so, you know, here's Tamar, here's Rahab, here's Ruth, here's. They're not only included in the church, they're included in the family tree of the Messiah.
So the Lord was always raising up Israel for the purpose of the saving of the world.
And all along it was about faith in this promise. That's probably why the Lord has so much of the genealogy of Esau, because even though from Esau the Messiah will not come, but for the descendants of Esau, the Messiah will come.
In other words, they're not the from, but they are the for.
And all of the Lord's work is for, is for the whole world.
This dispensationalism kind of drives me crazy. I'll try to remind someone, remind me in the thing and I'll put a link to a little essay I wrote. Dispensationalism, what and why not?
And it kind of outlines this nonsense and provide scripture to. To go up against it.
[00:50:26] Speaker B: I'll give you an easier one that won't. Don't get your blood boiling so much.
Good morning, Pastor. I've listened to quite a few of your podcasts. I've learned so much about Lutheranism. And since I'm a brand new LCMS member, if it had not been for you, I might not know anything. Thank you. I was baptized in the Baptist church many years ago. Since the Baptists only see baptism as symbolic, is my baptism still effectual for my salvation?
Also, I've struggled for years with doubt about my salvation, but now I'm more at peace. Thank you so much. Blessings in Christ. So the Baptist baptism still effectual?
[00:51:02] Speaker A: I think this is actually. I mean, I think this is a hard question. This took me like three or four years at seminary to figure out, like, why do we say that the Baptists don't really have the Lord's Supper, but they do have baptism.
But here's the answer. The efficacy of the sacraments is bound up to the Word, the Word, the Word, the Word and the word that the Lord connects to. Baptism is not the word of baptism.
It's the confession of the Trinity.
So when Jesus says, go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, he has said that any baptism done in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit done in the confession of the Holy Trinity is a true, valid and efficacious baptism.
That means that every Orthodox baptism, every Roman Baptism, every Lutheran baptism, every Baptist baptism, every Methodist baptism, no matter what the Church says baptism does, it is a true baptism.
So that when someone's baptized in the Baptist Church, even though they think that their baptism is their own work, it's not. And even though they think that baptism is their own confession of their faith, it's not.
And even though they deny that baptism forgives sins, it still does.
So the efficacy is there if that baptism is in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
That means the efficacy is not there if there's a denial of the Trinity. So this would be like in the cults, the Jehovah's Witness and the Mormons.
Also in oneness Pentecostalism that denies the doctrine of the Trinity.
Also, unfortunately, in very progressive and feminist churches that also deny the doctrine of the Trinity by this mother daughter wisdom nonsense.
[00:52:55] Speaker B: Sheesh.
[00:52:57] Speaker A: So in those places where they've abandoned the doctrine of the Trinity, baptism is not efficacious.
Excuse me, but in every place where the Trinity is confessed, their baptism is working.
Forgiveness of sins, adoption, putting on Christ, death and resurrection, spiritually overcoming death in the devil, all of those things are there even if the people who are being baptized don't know about it. How wonderful is that? So you don't need to be re baptized. There's no such thing as rebaptism. There is baptism and let God be true and every man a liar. There's only baptism.
Now why this is not the case with the Lord's Supper. Like why there's not an equal thing. Like people in the Presbyterian Church get the body and blood, we say no because the Lord has connected the words of the Supper to the institution of the Supper.
So the efficacy of the Supper is bound up to the words. This is my body given for you. This is the blood of the new Testament shed for you for the forgiveness of sins.
So the churches that deny those words have the reality of what's being given in the Supper and probably for their own good. I think it's almost in some ways the Lord anticipated all of the theological chaos that would unfold in the church. And he's like, all right, I'm going to build baptism in such a way that almost everybody gets it because it's benefit, pure benefit, and I'm going to design the Lord's Supper that those people who would be harmed by it don't get it.
So that, you know, because there's danger in taking it unworthily, not discerning the body, so that most Christians actually never receive the Supper. Well, maybe not most. A lot of Christians never get the Supper. And it seems like the Lord has designed it that way for their own good. Now, that's my speculation why the Lord made that difference there. So just like St. Paul, that's just my own idea, but that's why the difference of the efficacy of baptism is broader than the efficacy of the Supper.
[00:54:52] Speaker B: I think that's a helpful distinction. I think it's a helpful way to think about, especially distinguishing part of it is right. We Lutherans make this argument that we don't flatten out the sacraments so that everything about this two is exactly the same.
Sometimes people that don't understand where Lutherans are coming from want to just talk about the sacraments as like, everything together. And we're always careful to say, well, we got to talk about, let's talk about baptism as baptism and Lord's Supper as the Lord's Supper, because they're not identical and not everything about them is identical. So we need to take them on their own terms and discuss them.
And usually people, when they're debating us, don't want to do that. They often just want to say this about the sacraments or whatever. Right? So when you make that distinction, then they don't know what to do with that because in their mind, well, it's all just the same. It all has to work exactly the same. It all has to be exactly the same. And they don't want to distinguish between the institution of baptism, institution of the Lord's Supper as two separate things, two different things. We're talking about two different ways that God is, yes, giving us a sacrament, but they're not, not one to one correspondence between the two. They're not identical.
And so we have to make that distinction to be able to talk about these things. And oftentimes people Just don't understand that we're trying to make that distinction. And so we. We lose them because they just want to talk about everything being identical.
[00:56:11] Speaker A: Perfect.
[00:56:12] Speaker B: Especially Baptist, because they. They do see them both.
Right. In very similar terms. So for them, they do link them together in a way that we don't.
Because in their mind, they're both doing it for. Doing ordinances is usually what they call them. Right. Something we're doing for God. And so because you're doing it for God, they just both fall into the same category and that's how we'll talk about them.
[00:56:34] Speaker A: Yep, perfect. Hey, great questions.
You want one more? You got one more quick one.
Let me see.
[00:56:42] Speaker B: Let's check this out.
Oh, you've probably. Well, this is an easy one. I think you've dealt with this probably before because you've been teaching through Genesis.
I was listening to a podcast by Reverend Dr. Christian Preuss, and he said that Cain and Abel were twins.
His reasoning and comments are very interesting. We are your thoughts on this.
I know you've been going through Luther on Genesis, and so you know, Luther also believes there were twins, which is probably where Dr. Price got that.
We do have a lot of twins in the. In the. In the Bible. So what are your thoughts on Cain and Evil being twins?
[00:57:20] Speaker A: I don't have any thoughts at all about that.
I don't know. What do you think?
[00:57:28] Speaker B: I think it makes a lot of sense.
I. It's kind of. It's like that Paul thing. Right. In my opinion, based on everything else that's going on in the Old Testament with twins, it seems to be a constant theme.
It makes a lot of sense to me that they would indeed be twins because then you've got the Jacob and Esau story. There's just a lot of stories that seem to be dealing with a lot of similar themes. Now, if they're not twins, you still have a lot of those similar themes. But I think Luther's right in speculating with a godly imagination holy speculation that most likely Luther thinks that they were probably twins. And I think he's right on that. But if they weren't, it doesn't really affect the reading of the text a whole lot. It's one of those things that's very interesting to me, and I think it's interesting the way it ties in into the other stories. But if it's not true.
Right. No one's salvation is hinging on whether or not Cain and Abel are twins or not.
[00:58:25] Speaker A: There is an importance. So I think this is.
We can't miss, though, that Cain is still the older. So Cain is born first and then Abel, correct?
[00:58:35] Speaker B: Yes, absolutely.
[00:58:35] Speaker A: And that plays a huge part of the story, that Cain is the one who inherits Adam's vocation of farming, gardening, and Abel is the one who inherits the not.
I mean, I guess Adam was also in charge of all the animals, but.
But Abel is the one who's looking after the sheep, which would have had pretty limited helpfulness, right? Like this is before the flood. So they would not have eaten the sheep or the animals from the herd.
So they would have used them only for, well, I suppose, clothing and sacrifice.
Right? So the animal had the blood to be shed and that wasn't part of the sacrifice that the Lord had instituted. So.
So there's a way that Cain has pride in his primary vocation and he reads that into the institution of divine service and he redoes the worship service.
So he's offering the clean first fruits of the field rather than offering the blood of the sacrifice. And he shows his faithfulness, I think, not only personal faithfulness, that he doesn't trust in God, but from this pride of place that he tries to offer his own works, these good holy works for the Lord. And Abel is offering the blood, which is.
[01:00:03] Speaker B: Do you think then, because I often hear argued, and often by Lutherans, that Cain wasn't wrong for what he offered as a sacrifice.
It was the lack of faith in offering it. But I agree with you that I think his lack of faith is shown in that he doesn't offer the right thing because the sacrifice shows from the beginning I deserve to die. But that animal is taking my place, right? And then it's burned up. I deserve hell, but that animal has taken my place, right? It's a substitutionary thing.
And so.
And I think there's a good chance perhaps that they're offering these in front of the angel with a flaming sword, right? Because what do they need to get? Where do they want to get back to? They want to get back to paradise with God and they've been barred from that. And Cain doesn't understand one what to offer because of his lack of faith. He doesn't bring the right thing. And yes, he doesn't bring it in the right way. He does lack faith, but he misses what he's supposed to bring because of his pride and arrogance. I agree completely. Often hear it said, though, that, oh, he just. What he brought was fine. He just didn't have faith. And I'm like, no, he missed both. And that was the Big issue with him.
[01:01:13] Speaker A: I think that's right. We don't want to take away that he didn't have personal faith. But that lack of personal faith shows up in dismissing the institution. Because we already saw the contrast of the field and the flock in Adam and Eve with the fig leaves and then the animal skin.
So that contrast now is brought to Cain and Abel. So when you go to worship at the altar, there has to be blood. The life is in the blood.
And whatever Abel's faithful, Cain's faithlessness shows up in his disregard for the command to offer blood.
This idea that it's pride, I think is the thing. I don't need blood.
Look, I've got pride of place or whatever. I'm just going to offer my best and that'll be even better.
So he despised the institution, the command of God in that way.
And, and then everything kind of fell from, you know, unrolls, unravels from. From that point on, Abel has this. Even though he has humbler position and the humbler role, and he hasn't inherited the family farm. He's out. He's not living in the cities. I mean, that's the big thing about the farmers versus the ranchers, right? The, the farmers can have a. Have a house and a barn because the fields are right there, but the ranchers wandering around to wherever the animals need to go. And so there's already this humility in the shepherding. That's always kind of this theme that runs through the Bible, the humility of shepherding because you don't have a homeland of your own.
And this idea that Cain despises Abel, the wanderer, because Abel has no ranch, no home, no place to settle, no barns, and yet it's the Lord who accepts this, the humble offering of blood.
Yeah, I think that's what's really going on there.
So that's why the curse of Abel also. Sorry, the curse of Cain makes sense.
Well, that he has to wander. Right.
He has to become a shepherd in a way. It also has to do with the blood crying out.
So the blood of animal cries out for mercy. The blood of Abel cries out for vengeance, so that the blood is speaking. And this runs now through the sacrifices of all the Old Testament, every page of the Old Testament stained with the blood of the lamb, until at last the Lord Jesus, the true Lamb of God, comes and takes away the sin of the world.
[01:03:50] Speaker B: That's a great one to end on.
[01:03:52] Speaker A: Thanks for all your insights, Pastor Packer. Thanks for everyone sending in your questions to the theology Q&A pot. Look, we have a name now.
We have the new fancy setup.
Sheesh. We're going places, Pastor Packer. You know, I don't know if you knew that. We're going places here.
[01:04:10] Speaker B: We'll see where we go.
[01:04:12] Speaker A: What are those places? Wolfmother. Co to send in your own questions because we're down to 142 now. Keep that basket overflowing with abundance. Press down. Overflowing. Pastor Packer loves it.
And we will talk to you soon. God's peace be with you.
