Episode Transcript
[00:00:01] Speaker A: Hey, YouTube theologians, Pastor Wolf Mueller here with Pastor Andy Packard joining me for your answering your questions. So send those questions to. I guess you got. Well, I don't know, send them Pastor Packer, you know how to get a hold of them, but you can put them on the website. I'm just finding them all in the junk mail now. Pastor Packer, how are you?
[00:00:18] Speaker B: I'm doing all right. How are you?
[00:00:19] Speaker A: Good. I heard a rumor about you and that is that you moved out of Colorado into the midwest because you love the smell of growing corn. True.
[00:00:29] Speaker B: That's absolutely true. I couldn't live without it. Do you want to hear something that's funny, though? And this is actually, this is true. Uh, one of my, one of the guys from here transferred to Corey University, Nebraska, and he was sitting at a lunch table with some pre seminary students and one of them said they heard a rumor about Pastor Packer, like out of nowhere. And my. And the student says, hey, that's my pastor.
[00:00:54] Speaker A: Oh, man, that's great.
[00:00:56] Speaker B: Look. Look at what you've done to me, I think. And a weep.
[00:01:00] Speaker A: I was at the issues conference and like, hey, I heard a couple rumors about Pastor Packer. It's going to be like a, you know, like Chuck Norris. It's a meme, I think. That's right.
[00:01:11] Speaker B: His, his are usually positive, though. Okay, first questions on Bible translations.
It's kind of long, so I'll kind of summarize it. Um, she is asking, so God wants us to share the gospel with others and share the word of God with others. And as we engage with neighbors, friends, immigrants, international students, and develop relationships with them, want to share God's word and have them eagerly read it for themselves. She mentions that the ESV can be quite difficult to read. Um, but she's heard some lutheran pastors say basically only should be reading the ESV. Other people have mentioned to her the contemporary english version Bible, others, the new living translation as easier to read. She also brings up, you know, there's also children's bibles and things like that. So she wants to know our thoughts on what Bible translations we recommend for people and how we can determine those kind of things.
[00:02:03] Speaker A: I'm just looking at this. Have you heard of the simplified King James?
[00:02:09] Speaker B: No, I'm not familiar with that one.
[00:02:10] Speaker A: I am.
I'm just looking it up here to see how I don't. So, um, there, here's the main thing is that the Bible has to be. Hmm. Maybe. Let me take a half step back. The Bible is made to be taught, unfolded meditated on. In other words, it's not, it's not meant to be engaged with like, hey, I'm just reading it now. I understand it. It's a, it's a, it's a different kind of text. It's not like a John Grisham novel.
I actually don't know if I've ever read a John Grisham novel, but I'm guessing it's not like, it's not like that.
It takes some time. And so any edition of the Bible that's helpful is going to be.
It's going to be difficult. It's just going to be difficult language, difficult structure, difficult, whatever. We just ought to know that going into it, there's a danger in trying to make the Bible too easy to read or too simple, because then we're just, what we're dealing with is not the Bible. Now, for what we've done, though, here at St. Paul, and this is just a new thing that we're trying. And I think this is an interesting experiment we do have for the kids who are 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th grade. We have the story Bible and then the second kind of Bible reader, and it gives the summaries of the stories there. It's not the text, but it's the text summarized. And they start studying the text of the scriptures when they get into fifth grade. And I, and I did that on purpose because I think one of the things that happens is that when we are, when we're going through school, you have a book that's at that level, and then you go on to the next year and you leave that book behind, you go on to the next level. In other words, we have all these readers that are kind of by grade or capacity or whatever.
The danger that I think is when we start the Bible really, really young, the text itself, that we just think it's a kids book. So I want to actually give the kids books to the kids. Of course, we're memorizing scripture, learning scripture. But then when you start cracking open the Bible itself, it's when you're a little bit older and you're understanding that this is now my book for the rest of my life. This is the text. So I don't know if that's going to be helpful or not. So I think some of those Bible summaries and kids bibles are very, very good tools to use, and we use them and I recommend them. But I think the biggest advice is, hey, we're going to be working to understand this text of the scripture. And that's not a translation issue. That's an actual study. Digging into it issue.
[00:04:50] Speaker B: I do think there are some. Sometimes some issues with. I do agree that sometimes the ESG. I think it's hard. Like, sometimes I joke that it's the Yoda translation because sometimes some of the verses sound, I don't know, odd with the desire to be literal. Like, sometimes English doesn't flow well. That's why. I mean, my favorite Bible to read for myself is the new King James Version. I think it does a good job of balancing like, the. The reliability plus, like, making it beautiful to read and easy to read and. And easy to memorize. Things like that. I often, though, I give to. A lot of people have never read the Bible before or our new christians. I have often, and I still do give out the new living translation since it's a more of a thoughtful thought translation. And I'm often impressed when I check it against, you know, other translations or the Greek or whatever. And I'm like, oh, that's when I first read through it, I was like, wow, this is actually pretty good. I mean, like all translations, I think all of them have their issues and downfalls, but I do find that one a little bit easier to read for those who maybe struggle with, like, the ESV. But then of course you have some translations, like, what is it called? The passion translation? Is that what it's called? I can't remember. I think that's.
[00:06:00] Speaker A: I don't know. I've never heard of that.
[00:06:02] Speaker B: It's like really super heretical and bad. So you have to avoid ones like that. But there's a lot of respected translations out there that. That maybe are a little bit easier to read for someone who maybe English isn't their first language or maybe they've never readdez anything like the Bible before. And so I think this can be a good place to start. I really think the new King James is pretty accessible for a lot of people, but the name King James in the middle often scares, you know, people away. Just that.
So I often go with the new living translation, but there's others out there that I think are still decent or good translations that aren't ESV. So I don't think we're like bound to only recommend the ESV to people. But like you said, that there is a danger sometimes people make. Try to make it too easy. Then you lose a lot. I mean, like the message Bible, which I don't know if he ever really intended to be used the way some people use it almost seemed like more. Maybe it was more of a devotional kind of exercise, almost more of a commentary, but I don't know, that one is not helpful. When you start getting to some of these paraphrases, then I think you get into trouble of they are teaching by how they paraphrase. And so if they paraphrase it wrong, then they're teaching wrong.
[00:07:18] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:07:19] Speaker B: So you get some real dangers with that. So I think there's room for.
[00:07:23] Speaker A: Do you know what text is behind the new living translation? If they're using the, like, the critical text or if they're going.
[00:07:29] Speaker B: It's a critical text, as far as I know. Yeah.
[00:07:35] Speaker A: I had a project years ago where we were trying to take the King James and just clean it up. So I was on that project and it was. We're just trying to take the, like, archaic words out and all that sort of stuff.
And I remember that yesterday, and I think we worked on. We had like seven chapters finished or something, because we wanted to put in the public domain, so there'd be kind of a modern thing to ready to go. And then we found the world English Bible, which was something like, same thing. Yeah, but it's a little bit different. It uses a different text. So then yesterday I was thinking, I wonder if just the. If this could be a grunt work AI project, if you could just have it give modern punctuation and paragraphs to the King James text and highlight archaic words so you could go through and crank it out. And anyway, I was just. I was thinking about that, because when.
[00:08:30] Speaker B: Do we do that?
[00:08:31] Speaker A: Ten years ago or something?
[00:08:33] Speaker B: That was a long time ago. There is an Oxford. Oxford.
Is it? Oxford? One of the publishers out of England does have a paragraph formatted King James version that does update the formatting and does replace some words, though not all of them.
It is a little more updated.
I can't remember what it's called, though, but that one is slightly updated, but it's nothing. It's not going to still not be as easy to read, perhaps as like a new King James or something like that.
[00:09:04] Speaker A: So, anyways. All right, did we get to that question? I can't trans.
[00:09:08] Speaker B: I think so.
[00:09:09] Speaker A: Okay. What's the main thing is that you. The Bible takes work.
That's the. I think that's the. So we just know that it's going to. I mean, it takes work, you and I. It takes. We look at a verse.
We've been doing this our whole lives now, since we were babies. Uh, we've been studying the original languages, and still it's like, ah, I got to work on this text. So, um. Good.
[00:09:33] Speaker B: All right, this next one's on, uh, despair.
Should a person take the name Christian when to the best of their knowledge, they've received the forgiveness of Christ through the cross, yet in view of the suffering and sorrow God has apportioned, them in this life, have no desire for eternal life, and would be content with annihilation at death?
[00:09:54] Speaker A: Well, the answer. That's a tough question. The answer is, if a person is baptized, they ought to call themselves Christian.
And if despair and hopelessness have so captured their heart, they should recognize that that is the result of the fall and the temptation of the devil and that the Lord has better things for them. In other words, I can sin also in my desires, and hopelessness would be a form of sinning in my desires. And the Lord Jesus can forgive even that.
One of the problems with despair is that you stop wanting forgiveness, right? You stop wanting anything. It's like you're whatever, that part of you that wants stuff, even wrong stuff, is just kind of asleep.
So it feels very. It feels very empty, like there is no. No passion at all. But the answer is, if the Lord Jesus has baptized you, you belong to him. You are a Christian. So I think that's. I. That's as I think I want to say it just that simple.
[00:11:11] Speaker B: Well, and it seems like, well, first off, I recommend to the person that sent this in to, like, go receive pastoral care and counseling, like, in person, you know, like, right away. And don't put that off. But also, it's like the question of, like, looking forward to, with hope, you know, eternal life, when suffering feels like it's keeping on, on you here. Like, I think sometimes when someone's just trying to survive, right, that that makes it hard to even consider eternal joy because it just doesn't feel like that's even possible with what they're going through right now. So I think that's why sitting down, talking to the pastor, having the words and promises of Christ put into your ears and hearing it from them and what Christ is doing for you even in the midst of your suffering and having that conversation with him about those things and the things that are causing you to despair and discussing with him those issues of your suffering so you can get, hopefully, a better perspective and a right perspective on those things now and then, I think the other stuff kind of takes care of itself, right? Like, if you can get past the despair and the sorrow and the suffering, that as you hope in Christ, you can get to the point where you don't look at eternity as, like, awful thing with Christ, but rather a thing to be treasured and enjoy, but may take time to get there. But I don't think you should stop calling yourself, like you said, a Christian just because you're struggling with something like that. Um, lots of people struggle with doubt and despair and maybe give no thought whatsoever to eternal life on a day to day basis. You know, it's not like some people just don't give it any thought. So I think it's something to be worked out with a pastor carefully and slowly.
[00:13:01] Speaker A: Yep. I think that's really, really good advice. And.
And to know, too, that our.
Our being Christian is the Lord's doing. And he. And he. And he'll claim us, and he. And his promises and gifts to us are beyond our asking or imagining. And so we're ahead. We're able. That means that we're able to repent of feeling the wrong way about things. We just had this last Sunday, this beautiful mark nine text, where the man says, lord, I believe, help my unbelief. This is. And this is what it means to be a Christian. In fact, how about this? For we were thinking about this during the sermon that Philip melanchthon defines worship as faith fighting despair, in the treatise against the power and primacy of the pope. And if that's what worship is, then you're like, well, that. That describes me. Faith fighting despair. Well, that's true worship. That's what it means to be a Christian. So you are not far from the kingdom. You are in the. I mean, that is in the kingdom that. That faith fighting despair.
[00:14:08] Speaker B: I mean, even the fact that they're reaching out saying they're struggling with this is evidence that they're still. That they know that this is a wrong way to think. Right? They're struggling with it. They're. They haven't just given over to it, but they are. They're battling it. They're just feeling like they're losing that battle at the moment.
All right, last one for today.
This one's about the passing of loved ones who are not believers.
Um, I have a loved one who passed away recently. According to him, his faith was weak or non existent. What are some effective ways that we as Lutherans can come to grips with the loss not only of the livest of our unbelieving loved ones, but also the loss of their eternal rewards?
And also, this is a kind of part two question. Also, I've heard it said that we Lutherans can pray for judgment how should we do this safely without risking our souls or causing our brothers to stumble? When is it a sin to withhold forgiveness?
[00:15:04] Speaker A: But tell me more about that. Do you know what that's asking about? Like, what it means? Praying for judgment.
[00:15:10] Speaker B: I'm not sure exactly.
[00:15:12] Speaker A: Is that like.
[00:15:13] Speaker B: Maybe it's imprecatory psalms, perhaps?
[00:15:15] Speaker A: Yeah. I have an enemy, so I'm praying that the Lord would exercise vengeance on them, and I'm not forgive them? Something like that.
[00:15:23] Speaker B: I would take it that way.
[00:15:25] Speaker A: There's two different questions. I might.
[00:15:27] Speaker B: Yeah, they're very different. Yes.
[00:15:28] Speaker A: Let's take that second one first. I think the key instruction on this is Paul in. In Romans 13, where he quotes, deuteronomy 32, leave room for wrath. In other words, if someone sinned against me, it's not me to make that right. The Lord has not given me the office of making it right. He promises to do it himself. Vengeance is mine, and he's put authorities in place to do it.
The emperor doesn't bear the sword in vain. So I can pray and leave room for the Lord to exercise his wrath.
If I need to do something like call the police or file a report, I do it. But I'm not the one who's exercising vengeance.
And in that leaving room for wrath, that also leaves room for mercy, so that I can look at the instructions that Jesus gives on how I'm supposed to treat my enemies. It's fourfold. To love those who hate you, to pray for those who spitefully use you to do good to those who hurt you. I can't remember the other one. I mean, so pray, do good, love and bless. Bless those who curse you. That's the fourth one. So that. So that I know that if I have an enemy, my calling from the Lord Jesus is to love. Bless. Pray, sir.
So I gotta pray now? That's not so easy. But that's what Jesus says. He says, look, the pagans love the people who love them back. That's why I'm calling you to a different kind of love. That looks like a crucifixion. It's the loving your enemies. And that's what it means to be a Christian. So we are governed by those words. And the imprecatory psalms are there to leave room for wrath. Because what we're doing in the impregatory psalms, I suppose that falls under the category of praying for those who abuse us, is you're praying that the Lord would bring his wrath upon them, but you're leaving it up to him to determine when and right. When is the right time to bring wrath. You're not going to do it yourself. And we have to be ready for the Lord to turn the hearts of our enemies and to that. And that's really this, the prayer for evangelism, that the Lord would turn the heart of our enemies so that they would be one with us and we should, and we could be reconciled to them, and we would worship God together at his altar.
Thoughts on that one? Before we switch to the hard no.
[00:17:40] Speaker B: I think the only thing I would add is I. I think sometimes I think it's Luther. I can't. I think it's in the large catechism, but I don't remember exactly right now where it's at, where basically the prayer kind of is, right, like, lord, convert them, and if not, put a stop to what they're doing to your people. Right? Like, um, our prayer first is that they would be converted, that they'd be saved, and. And if that's not going to happen, we like praying for it, for them to be stopped before they harm, you know, others. I think it's, again, you're leaving in God's hands, not taking vengeance to your own hands, but you're still putting it in God's hands, but you can still pray for them to be converted. Like, that's our ultimate goal and hope, and that's happened, right? Like, Paul himself was. Was one who's persecuting the church of God and yet was converted, and then the great things for God. And we have lots of stories throughout church history of the persecutors of God's people being converted and then going on to. To take the gospel to all kinds of places after that conversion. So it does happen. So even while we're praying that we shouldn't think, oh, well, God's not going to convert these people. Look how, like, how awful they are. Or even if you've looked at stories the last few years of, like, ISIS members who get left because they're injured and ISIS just abandons them, and the very christians from the villages that they came to, like, destroy, take them and bandage up their wounds and take care of them, much like the story of the good Samaritan. And these people often convert because they're like, man, my friends left me here to die, and you people who are trying to kill you, you took care of me. So we shouldn't think that's impossible. We should pray for it. And then we can also ask God, if it be his will, to bring an end to that suffering.
[00:19:21] Speaker A: Wow, that's amazing.
Um, this second question about the death of seeming unbelievers. So, uh, let's maybe do some background on hell here, because this is one of the worst doctrines of the scripture and the. I mean, terrifying doctrines. It's the doctrine of eternal judgment.
Francis Peeper says of it that the Bible does not give us the details of hell. It only tells us enough so that we know that we don't want to go there. I mean, so we don't. So we know that there is an eternal death for those who do not belong to Christ. And that's a reality. And that people will suffer that reality. And that should be part of our motivation that our family and loved ones would trust in Christ.
No Christian should like the idea of God's judgment because God himself doesn't like it. I mean, he desires for all people to repent and to come to salvation. He sent his son to bear the sins of the entire world so that all people could rejoice in the Lord's mercy and his kindness. This is just so important for us to know that the Lord does not desire the death of the wicked, but that he should turn from his wicked ways and live.
And so our despising of condemnation is out despised by God. Like, as much as we don't like hell, we know that Jesus doesn't like it even more. So we're not supposed to to like this idea that people can die and go into judgment. So we want to. So I think that's the first thing. But the second thing is that there's a sneaking. There's a thing that sneaks in there, and that is that we don't think that we deserve it or anybody deserves it. So we think that hell is too severe a punishment for how bad we are. And this is an indication that the depth of our own sin is hidden from us. So we imagine condemnation like we're standing on the edge of a pit and the Lord comes along and pushes us down into the pit. Jesus says, I did not come into the world to condemn the world, but those who do not believe are condemned already.
So that we start in, in the pit, and the Lord Jesus comes down and rescues us out of the pit, which is to say that as impossible as it is for us to know this in with any sort of natural capacity, we all deserve to die and go to hell. Hell in that way is what is right for every single person so that there will be on the last day a praise of goddess for his work of condemnation. And I think it'll even be in the form of agreement with those who are condemned. This is, in fact, what I deserve. Now, again, that doesn't mean that we like it or that we even accept it in this life, we're always striving for faith in those that we love, that they would trust in Christ. Now, when it comes to the specific thing about how does a Christian deal with the death of someone who all their life denied Christ, denied the faith, denied the promises of the gospel, I think we rejoice that it is not our job to judge. That's the Lord's job. And I do not think it is a sin to hope. But there is a difference between hope like, boy, I hope that the words spoken throughout his life hold the Holy Spirit used to grab him at the last minute. But I have no evidence that that happened versus the hope that we have when the Christian dies, that the Lord brought them through death to life eternal. So I never want to say to someone, hey, you can just, without any doubt, know that they've had gone to heaven or that you have no doubt that they've gone to judgment in hell.
We can hold on to that hope that the Lord was able to bring them from death to life even at the last minute. But we don't have any way of. We don't have anything to grab onto for that hope.
And so we are hoping and praying, but knowing that what the Lord does is good and that salvation, our salvation, is completely undeserved and completely a matter of the Lord's mercy and kindness.
[00:24:11] Speaker B: I don't have anything to add to that. It's a beautiful summary of it. I think it's one of those things that we should break our hearts. Sorry.
[00:24:19] Speaker A: If you guys just want to call in your questions, just call Pastor Packer. That'd be great. We could do a live phone recording.
[00:24:26] Speaker B: It's funny, as my phone almost never rings, and it's rung now three times during this recording. So, yeah, I think that's a really beautiful summary. I think it's one of those things, like you said, like, it should bother us, like, it should, um. It should weigh heavy on our hearts. It should be something we care about, and it's why we proclaim the gospel. It's why we try to get it out there. So that is what we'll have to do. And as I do that one more time, is it's probably time to end.
[00:24:52] Speaker A: Yep. Well, let's do it. Thanks for your questions. God be praised. Please send them into. If you go to Wolfmeal, co contact. You can send them in there and then I'll find them three months from now in my junk mail and forward them to Pastor Packer and then we'll, we'll be on it. You can put questions on the comments to this video. That's also great. We're hosting a young adult conference October 11, 1213 here at St. Paul Lutheran Church, 2024. So if you're 18 to 35, come and join us. We're talking about grounded, a really, really old faith. So what it is, what's the advantage of having a faith that's connected all the way back to the garden of Eden and everything else in between? Well, think about that. In the memory of the church, we'll have some time to worship. We'll sit around the campfire and do Q and A and that sort of stuff. So that's October 11, 1213. If you're 18 to 35, join us for that. Otherwise, we'll see you next week. God's peace be with.
