Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Hey. Hey, YouTube theologians. Welcome to the Q and a podcast. I'm Pastor Brian Wolf Mueller of St. Paul and Jesus deaf Lutheran churches in Austin, Texas, joined with pastor Andrew Packer of Good Shepherd Lutheran Church in Collinsville, Illinois. Pastor Packer, I heard a rumor about you, and that is that you've changed your camera angle from our recording so that it doesn't show your growing collection of Joel Osteen books.
[00:00:23] Speaker B: Oh, those are right over there.
I can try to angle it better so you can see him better.
[00:00:29] Speaker A: Sorry, we're answering your questions here on the. On the show. So what do you got for us, Pastor Pac?
[00:00:35] Speaker B: This one's about justification.
[00:00:37] Speaker A: Do you know why this show started? Is because I didn't want to answer all the email questions, so we started a YouTube show to answer.
[00:00:43] Speaker B: I think that's right.
[00:00:45] Speaker A: So send in your questions. That's great. Okay. Justification. I'm ready. I've heard about that.
[00:00:50] Speaker B: Are you. Are you sure? Is it a one time thing or does it reoccur or can it be a reoccurring. Can it be a reoccurring thing or process?
So that's what I want to know. Is it a one time thing or is it a reoccurring thing, process?
[00:01:06] Speaker A: I don't think so. It's not. It's neither. I think I want to answer none of the above in the sense that it is not a.
The death of Jesus is a one time thing. So the winning of the forgiveness of sins occurs once for all. But that winning of the forgiveness of sins is brought to us in the word, and the spirit works through the word, both to show us our sin and to show us the kindness of Christ, and that believing the promise and having the righteousness that God gives in the promise is justification. It's a one time thing in baptism because you're baptized once. So baptism is a one time thing, the sacrament of justification, that you're brought into that, into that mercy and kindness of God. But it's happening all the time, through our lives, through repentance and faith. Every time we hear the absolution or believe the gospel, that justification is being brought to us.
But it's not like a progressive thing, like we're getting more justified because we are completely justified. Our sins are completely forgiven. The righteousness of Christ is completely imputed to us.
And so it's not like we can grow in justification, like we can in sanctification or wisdom or whatever in these other spiritual gifts, because there is nothing to add to the sacrifice of Jesus.
There's nothing more to take away that he hasn't taken away. So I suppose that we're tempted to think that either we're in, this is the kind of conversion doctrine of the evangelicals.
Repentance is a one time event and it never happens. And then you're kind of locked into God's mercy.
Or on the other hand, we sin and we lose it and then we confess and we're brought back into it. And I don't think either one of those is true. We are under the umbrella of the Lord's kindness. And it's more than we're constantly being reminded of that. It's simply that we're actually being.
We're constantly being brought into that promise by the Lord's word. I don't know if that's. I don't know how would you. Well, tell me where I'm wrong about that or you take a shot at it.
[00:03:36] Speaker B: Well, I was going to follow up with a question because I think the question comes out of, and is related to what we talked about, I think was just the last video about forgiveness and about how a lot of churches, a lot of christians think they need forgiveness once, right, and then they don't need it anymore. And so they don't really live in forgiveness, but they, they move on from it. And I think the confusion comes because they hear things like, well, you just said it, right, that, uh, in baptism all our sins are washed away. We're completely justified in Christ. We have his righteousness. And then on the flip side, we turn around and say, but you still need more forgiveness of sins through the absolution, through the preaching of the word, through the Lord's supper. And so I think that perhaps is where some of this, uh, tension, people's thinking comes in, or some of the confusion. So maybe you could help, help them by explaining, uh, if we're justified in Christ, we're already forgiven in him, we have faith in him. Then why does jesus keep giving us the forgiveness of sins in all these other ways? Right? So why is he doing that in a beautiful way?
[00:04:40] Speaker A: He just can't help it. Like that's he is. When he describes his kingdom, it's always this bounty. Remember Jesus talks about, like, being poured into your lamp and spilling over. And it's. So there's an, there's this kind of, this abundance of mercy and kindness. And I think that troubles us because I've been trying to articulate this for a few years now and I think I'm getting closer, but I'm not quite there. Yet. But I'll tell you where I'm at now, is that the evangelical mind, this might have to do also with the reformed mind, this kind of way that they think theologically, here's we're not saved by. We're saved by grace and faith, not by works. And it hears that exclusion of works, God be praised, and that exclusion of works becomes a reduction, like, so that you're trying to reduce everything, so that salvation is oftentimes put down to the lowest common denominator.
But all I need to do to be saved is believe in Jesus.
You'll hear that all the time, which I suppose is true, but why would you even be talking about all you need to do to be saved? Like, what made you think that that was a good, healthy conversation to have? The conversation should come from the other side, is, what does jesus want to give? And the answer is he wants to give me the forgiveness of sins all the time, over and over again, so that the Holy Spirit is always showing us our sin and. And how it's offensive to God, and then showing us the kindness of God in Christ in the gospel and bringing us to this gift of repentance so that in repentance we can rejoice in the kindness and promises and love of God. That's what the Lord wants for us.
So there's an attempt to separate law and gospel, or maybe it's this way. There's an attempt to separate works from salvation that becomes a sort of a theological reductionism. And that's also where, like baptism, the Lord's supper, the absolution, all get swept away because baptism can't save. Because I'm busy trying to make sure that there's nothing except for, like, a simple faith in Christ, right? Like I believe and I'm saved. And anything more than that, like baptism saves, forgiveness, comes in the supper. The absolution is a gift of grace, forgiveness and justification, etcetera. All that has to be swept away in order to preserve grace alone. But grace alone is not reductionistic. It excludes works, but it does not exclude the saving works of God. It excludes our efforts, but it does not exclude the effort and the suffering and death of Jesus and all the gifts that he wants to give. I know that's kind of a long.
I'm pressing towards a concise way of articulating that. I don't know if I did it or.
[00:07:45] Speaker B: I guess, throughout Paul, I was going to say just throughout Paul, rather than trying to narrow it down too much, but right. The idea throughout the Bible is that we are saved. We are being saved, and we will be saved. Right. Like, we're saved when we believe and then. But belief isn't like a past tense thing. Faith isn't just that one time thing that you mentioned earlier, and it's done. Like, we keep on believing, like it's present tense. Like, if I believed then and stopped right now, well, I've rejected the forgiveness of sins, right? If I today say I'm not going to believe anymore, I want nothing to do with Jesus and abandon all of that, then I've rejected the forgiveness of sins and walked away from that. So it happened in the past. It keeps happening because faith keeps receiving the gifts, which is why he keeps giving the gifts, right. Because faith keeps receiving them. And then in the end, we'll have the fullness of that when we stand before Jesus. So I don't know if that helps simplify it at all or. Yeah, here's the complexity.
[00:08:41] Speaker A: No, no, I think that's right. So here. Here's the. And this made reminding me of this, that, like, if you were to go. If I were to ask you, hey, are you married? And you would think back to your wedding day, and you say, well, I was married. On what day were you guys married? What's your anniversary? I should jot this.
[00:08:58] Speaker B: 20Th. August 26, the day before my birthday. That's how I can remember. Pro tip, guys get married the day before your birthday. And you'll never forget the dates.
[00:09:05] Speaker A: All the guys are taking notes. So. So you wouldn't say, hey, you know, Destin and I got. I was married August 26 in the year. Let me guess what year you were married. Hold on, 2007.
[00:09:18] Speaker B: No, earlier.
[00:09:19] Speaker A: 2005.
[00:09:21] Speaker B: Two weeks before. A very important event in the world.
[00:09:24] Speaker A: 2001.
[00:09:25] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:09:27] Speaker A: Really?
So you wouldn't say, oh, yeah, man, you guys have been married for a while. Carrie and I got married in 99. I thought you were. I just think of you as that much younger.
So you say, well, I was married. But that's. That's not how you say it. No, you say, I am married, so that it was an event that changed the state of things. The same thing. If someone says, well, are you baptized? You say, well, I was baptized when I was a baby. No, I am baptized. And I suppose it's the same thing as true. With justification, I am justified.
There might have been an event of justification, which was my baptism and also my hearing the absolution, and also my believing the gospel this morning. But I am.
It's a definition. I'm a child of God. That means my sins are forgiven. They're cast, they're put away.
[00:10:19] Speaker B: Yeah. It's an ongoing reality that we live in, which, again, I think goes back to our previous discussion about forgiveness. Like, it has to be an ongoing thing that we keep receiving the gifts we live in, justification. We don't, we don't look back as a past, merely a past event, but something that's an ongoing thing, not a process, perhaps, like they were asking, but it's an ongoing reality that we live in, perhaps would be a better way to say it.
[00:10:42] Speaker A: Yeah. Yep. Yep. Good.
[00:10:46] Speaker B: All right. Perhaps related to that in some ways. Well, it's always related to that, I guess. Um, is perfectionism a sin?
There are a lot of contemporary preachers that seem to urge christians to be perfect, and they certainly seem to have their share of Bible verses to back it up. Is there a way this can be misunderstood and applied wrong? Or now that we are christians, are we supposed to be always on the up and up in terms of following God's law? Is chasing after perfection actually sinful?
[00:11:15] Speaker A: That's an interesting question.
I want to. So I want to start thinking about it with the verse that, I don't know where it is, but I think it's in Hebrews, chapter ten. It says, he has perfected once for all those who are being perfected.
Do you know that verse?
Yeah.
[00:11:37] Speaker B: Let's bring it up.
[00:11:38] Speaker A: So that there is a sense in which we are perfect already by justification, and which we are being perfected by sanctification.
And so we have both of these realities. So the queen part of the problem that we have when we read the Bible and we talk about the word perfect, we have to be careful what we're talking about. So especially in the New Testament, the normal greek word that's under there is telos, which means end or goal, or for the purpose for which it was created, it complete.
We normally think of perfect as making no mistakes, or in fact, we think of sinless perfection. And the doctrine of sinless perfection is certainly a false doctrine and a sin to teach the. The idea that we can achieve a state in this life where we do not need the forgiveness of sins.
This is taught in the scripture that says, if you say you have no sin, you deceive yourself, and the truth is not in you. If you say you have no sin, you make God into a liar. So we are never at a place where we can say we have no sin. We're never at a place where we cannot pray. The Lord's prayer, forgive us our trespasses. As we forgive those who trespass against us in this life below, we are trespassing and being trespassed.
That's what it means to live in the sinful world. So to teach that, to teach the opposite of that would certainly be to teach false doctrine, but that the Christian ought to pursue a life in accord with the Lord's word is just basic Christianity.
You never get there, but we're always chasing after it, and we're chasing after it in the confidence that the Lord has already declared us to be holy and forgiven. And so that's the great what? That's the great confidence that we have by the forgiveness of sins, by the doctrine of justification that grows out into our sanctification.
[00:13:47] Speaker B: I think sometimes the confusion comes because I think, like you said, using the word perfect, like, and we see, like, there's that bumper sticker, right? Christians aren't perfect. They're forgiven. All these kind of things which are true. But I think, again, I think the use that were perfect, perhaps especially in the christian life, isn't helpful. Like you said, we're to be striving after the things God has called us to do, knowing that we can't do them apart from the work of the spirits. I still think melanchthon and the apology on love and the fulfilling of the law is probably the best explanation of how that all works together in the christian life. Right. That you are, you are growing and you are obeying more and more of the ten Commandments, but you're not perfect in it. You still need the forgiveness of sins, but you are striving to do those things. So it's not really perhaps a striving after perfection, in a sense that I think I'm going to be perfect. If we're approaching it from that angle, then it's all mixed up and it's going to just leave you miserable. But if you, if you say, well, I love Jesus and I want to do what he says, because Jesus says, if you love me, he'll obey my commandments, um, and you're striving after those things, knowing that you're doing it in the forgiveness of sins, as we were just talking about a moment ago, and knowing that you can't do it apart from the work of the Holy Spirit in you, and knowing that even your good works have to be covered by the blood of Christ because you're not perfect. Uh, I think it's a much healthier approach to that than the idea of striving after perfection, which is not going to be attainable. In this life Paul talks about.
[00:15:17] Speaker A: So I. So it reminded me of the other verse where Paul says, not that I have attained it or haven't been made perfect, but I strive on for this, for the upward calling of the Christ. We got to read that verse. But here's the other one. This is the Hebrews verses 1014. For by one offering, he has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified.
So there's a perfection that we have by faith, but there's a sanctification that's being worked by the spirit and the word of God, and that growth in love, which is really. Which is really great. So we have both of those at the same time. And part of our being sanctified is not caring so much about ourselves. Like, you know, it's one of the dangers of modernity is you either get epicurean kind of whatever hedonistic, do it you want, or you get this stoicism that's pursuing virtue, but it's like virtue in the form of this constant grooming of self. Like, the goal is to become the best version of myself I can be.
Which, I mean, so what, you're given God to serve and your neighbor to serve, and so your life is to be poured out.
Like, there's this sort of self centered virtue seeking. I don't know, maybe I'm just kind of annoyed about it today. But it's like, well, that person is. They're a good person because they're just trying to be a good person. Well, let that not be named among us. Let us. Let us be, like, if someone were to say, well, you know, were Brian and Andrew good men? And be like, well, I don't even know how to think about that. But they poured out their lives for other people. You know what I mean? Like, it's. This is not.
I don't know if that makes sense.
[00:17:11] Speaker B: But, yeah, I think it's right. Luther's approach in the freedom of a christian right, that once we. Once we know we're forgiven before God and our consciences are free, that we're lord of all. Because we're not. We're not scared of anything in our conscience. Cause it's been covered. All our sins have been covered. But then that frees us to be the servant of all, lord of none when we turn to the neighborhood so that our. Our forgiveness doesn't lead us just to keep focusing on self, leads us to focus on others. Because now ourselves been taken care of in Christ, our sins been covered. We don't have to play that game, we're free to turn our attention to those around us who need our love and service and sacrifice, rather than focusing on self.
[00:17:52] Speaker A: Right?
[00:17:53] Speaker B: That's Augustine's famous saying that Christianity is humility, humility. And humility. And humility is always seeing ourselves properly in light of God's law and gospel and then seeing others properly. And I think if you're doing. Seeing yourself in light of God's law and gospel, then that leads to Luther's freedom of a Christian, which turns us then outward, right, to others, rather than just focusing on ourselves all the time and what's going to make us a better person. And it's interesting that you mentioned that in the terms of the stoicism, because I see it all the time online now. Like, the stoic quotes from, like, the apps they have now and stuff are just everywhere, and lots of men. And some of the quotes are fine. Um, you know, I think my wife had up in our classroom, uh, Marcus Aurelius is famous. You know, the. The wasting of time is the greatest crime, or something like that. You know, uh, there's some pithy quotes in there, but a lot of it is just focused on. On self. It's not about, hey, you should do this to help your neighbor today. It's all about what you need to do for yourself. So I think that's a helpful insight, even if you're just angry about it today.
[00:19:00] Speaker A: What a nicely trimmed beard you have. You have to say to people, like, what's going on? I spent 20 hours the other day looking for that Marcus Aurelius quote.
[00:19:08] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:19:12] Speaker A: I also just want to say that I.
I love it when you say that famous Augustine quote, and then you say something that I've never heard. That's really good. Now, I found. But I did find this verse in Philippians. How about, this is beautiful. I think this is probably the first thing that should have come to my mind on this question. Paul says, this is Philippians 312. After this. Beautiful.
I mean, this might be the most beautiful doctrine of justification, stuff that he just said. Well, here I'll read. I'll go back to verse seven. So here's justification. This is the last question. And then on to this. But whatever things were gained to me, these things I've counted as loss for the sake of Christ. More than that, I count all things to be lost in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus, my lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things and count them but rubbish, scuba.
So that I may gain Christ and may be found in him not having a righteousness of my own derived from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which comes from God on the basis of faith that I may know him, and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of his suffering being conformed to his death, in order that I may attain to the resurrection from the dead. Not that I have already obtained it or have already become perfect, but I press on so that I may lay hold of that for which also I was laid hold of by Christ Jesus. Brethren, I do not regard myself as having laid hold of it yet. But one thing I do, forgetting what lies behind, reaching forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.
Let us, therefore, as many as are perfect have this attitude, that's so great. I'm not perfect, but let us who are perfect do this so good.
That's great.
[00:21:04] Speaker B: I'm gonna let Paul have the last word on that one and go to the next question. All right, this one's kind of long, so pay careful attention.
Dear Pastor Wolf Mueller, I saw your video where you were discussing the reason LCMS churches retain the liturgy and do not have praise bands.
That's okay. You supported your argument for why you maintain the liturgy. I especially agree with the idea that music rooted in the ideas of the second great awakening can be counterproductive and misleading if we decide to stick with a liturgical form of worship. This leads to another question. Does retaining the liturgy mean that music in the church should always be western classical music with associated instrumentation, strings, woodwinds, brass? Although I attend a pop calvinist church, as you put it, and volunteer there as a musician, for reasons of circumstance, my convictions have been more lutheran for about 20 years. We sing this, the two Stewart Townsend songs you mentioned often. He doesn't mention what those songs were, though.
[00:22:05] Speaker A: So you think in Christ alone and of the. And how deep the father's love to us.
[00:22:10] Speaker B: Okay. Have I noticed that most lutheran churches have exclusively western classical music in their services? At the same time, with each passing year, there are fewer and fewer people who are able to play western classical music. Furthermore, are Lutherans in other countries obliged to learn western classical music to support the mission of the church musically? Or is there a way to preserve the liturgical mode of worship in combination with other musical traditions, even modern ones? I promise this is not a gotcha question. I would really like to know what you think about it.
[00:22:41] Speaker A: So I'm on. I'm on the edge of my knowing things here so just as a forewarning, I'm just. I'm walking. I'm walking the edge of ignorance, um, which is not an uncomfortable place for me to walk. I'm normally walking there.
I have traveled to a few different spots in the world, some of them not at all western, and worshiped there. And it was liturgical worship, and it was embedded in the culture, and it was marvelous.
So I remember one time singing the liturgy in a packed in this mud hut in the. In the bush in Botswana.
And it was especially special because the missionary read each of the lessons and preached a sermon on each one of the lessons. So we were there for a long time, and the people were singing, and it had all of the wild harmonies of african bush music, and it was unmistakably liturgical. Had the very similar experience at the seminary in Tishwani, in Praetoria, South Africa. Very similar experiences in a remote place in Madagascar when we were preaching there. Had very similar experiences at the Methodist church, of all places, in remote village in Fiji, where there was no. No power at all. Had similar experiences with the missionaries that are in Taiwan and where the worship was in Mandarin, and they were. Had the liturgy, and it was so wonderful because I knew just exactly where I was in the liturgy, but it had. It did not sound anything like, I guess, what's here called western classical music. I mean, it was just embracing the aesthetic, the musical aesthetic of the place, and was marvelous. I mean, even the same thing, you know, when you're in Mexico and singing in Spanish and when you're in.
And I suppose Europe would be part of that western tradition as well. But when we were in Berlin last time, the service was in German and Farsi, and they added English for us, and we were singing a mighty fortress, and it was switching back and forth between the German and the farsi and the English. And it was just. Even the different harmonies when you have the different cultures singing are just great. So I think that one of the strengths of the liturgy is that it is not musically imperialistic, whereas praise music and maybe even modern liturgies, it's one of my worries about LSB, and this is the feast, et cetera, is that those hymns themselves are kind of. They. They bring with them a musical culture that's not necessarily part of the. Of the ancient service.
So the long answer. That was a long answer? The short answer is, yeah, absolutely. We can be liturgical and also be of the place where the liturgy is happening. I don't know, is that. Is that helpful?
[00:26:06] Speaker B: I think based on all that he said, I think the follow up question would be, if that's true, then why can't, or maybe can't, not the best word. But why? Why not then in the United States?
Why are you so against these kind of praise and worship bands?
If it's, you know, the culture of that place and that time? How is that different than being out in the middle of wherever and having that be their culture?
Why can't that be true here in various places? That seems like what they're really getting at. Yeah, I think they thought you would say something similar to what you said. And so what they want to know is, okay, if that's okay for them, why are you so against it here?
[00:26:58] Speaker A: So I remember in this. So I lived in this village in Fiji, Nasibi Koso, which is in the highlands. And so there's no electricity, no running water, but it's one of the places where they still practice the old ancestor worship in Fiji. And they also have a Methodist church there, whereas going and talking to the pastor and everything. So. And one of the things that they would do for, like, announcements and sometimes even for, like, call to worship for the pagan side is they had this big hollowed out log and they would drum it.
And I remember talking to the Methodist pastor and he says, we can't use the drum. We don't use the drum because that belongs to the pagans. So even though our liturgy sounds fijian and all the crazy, and I don't know how to describe all the, you know, the different harmonies of the place, but that's not what it sounds like. But mine, I know, but it's different than the.
The kava ceremony. There's a different liturgy, and it's that we are not. We are not of. We are still of this place, but we are not of that place. So we have to be. We have to have some musical discernment, I think. So when you bring in the band, the rock and roll band, with the rhythm guitar and the drums you are bringing in, you are importing music that is geared to do something that is different than what church music is geared to do.
Church music is geared to teach and to encourage, to admonish and to strengthen our faith and our hope and our love. The band, the rock and roll band is built to get you moving. I mean, that's its purpose. And that moving might be physically moving, dancing. It might be emotionally moving. And one of the reasons why it's so appealing to the evangelical is because they believe in the freedom and manipulability of the will, so that if they can grab ahold of a musical tool that has the purpose of getting you moving, then they'll do it. That's the, that's the whole thing. And so you have contemporary worship which exists to move you towards an internal experience of the divine presence. That's why it exists. Now, could I imagine kind of a modern liturgical, contemporary setting that doesn't have those problems? I think I can imagine it. I've just never seen it. You know, it just so happens that contemporary worship is completely captivated by this idea of moving people towards a. A a a, an experience of the presence of God. I think the reformed, all the, like, the cool reformed guys who, who put your stoic quotes up on there and have their very had, you know, the beards are longer than the sideburns or the trim, what is that called? Where you have the huge, big beard and you have nothing on the side? The fade. You got the fade with a huge, big manicured beard. And they have their praise bands which are just resetting old hymns. It's probably as close as that. They're like, they're experimenting with this, like they're trying to do it. And I think it remains to be seen if it will be successful or not.
But it just, that I think it's. The problem is I think you could do it. I just. I'm not sure it has been done.
[00:30:30] Speaker B: So what would you do with the complaints? This wasn't directly in their question, but I think it's tied to their question. And I see it come up all the time, would be that people do seem to want, and not necessarily everyone, and I know it varies, but there do seem to be a whole lot of people that do want some kind of feeling to come from the music they're singing in church.
I don't always even hear it from people who think you need to have that all the time, but I hear it sometimes from people who, who go to lutheran liturgical churches and think, well, you know, I'm just not moved by this music. It seems very dry or dead or whatever word you want to use. It doesn't. It doesn't feel to them using that word very specifically. It doesn't feel like how they want it to feel.
And so what would you say to them? Like, well, why can't we have that, you know, even once in a while, if it's going to help me feel more excited about my faith in Jesus versus I'm singing your hymns and I'm. I'm bored by them. I'm not feeling anything when I sing them. How would you respond to someone like that? Because I think it's intimately related with the previous question, and I see it all the time, so I want maybe.
[00:31:45] Speaker A: To separate two things here. I want we should have good church music, and good music will move you a lot. So the. The services that are. That we have at St. Paul are just stunningly beautiful. I mean, the music is just.
You know, when the. When the timpani is playing and the. And the horns and the desk cant over the congregation, and it's just. It's kind of. It. It's amazing, you know? And I don't know if it's every couple of weeks that I just can't even finish a hymn. I just moved to tears by the beauty of it. And not just the beauty of it, but by the beauty of what we're saying and singing. And with this. And it should be that. I don't. I think that's something to pursue, is. Is excellence in. In the music of the service in such a way that it.
We are trying as best we can to capture the wonder of what the Lord is saying.
The problem with contemporary worship is it's not bringing beauty into the service of the doctrine or feelings into the service of the doctrine, but it is directly trying to change my feelings, no matter what the doctrine is.
In other words, the goal of good art is to capture the beauty of a thing. And then. Now that is going to move me. The goal of bad art or bad church music is just to move. Just to move me. That's the whole point.
And that, I think, is the huge difference. The music of the contemporary worship movement is beautiful, built to move people. That's its purpose.
And so I don't know if that seems like a subtle difference, but that seems to be a crucial difference. So when someone says, I want to feel more from the music, that's different than saying, we should have better music, because it could be true that, like, we're doing it bad. We're doing it bad. Like, the organ is playing too slow and they don't know how to play the right notes, and the congregation is bad at singing. And when you have a room that's, you know, covered in carpet and there's four people singing, and it's just. It's hard and it's awkward and everything. So we should work on having more excellent music so we could praise God and encourage one another.
But if the problem is that it didn't. The problem is that it didn't make me feel something then that's was never the goal to begin with.
[00:34:34] Speaker B: I think it's. Is it Cantor Rush who wrote the paper about the difference between a polynarian and dionysian music? Like, the dionysian music is meant to basically manipulate your emotions, where the polynarian type music works through the mind first.
He has a whole paper on that that's saying exactly what you're saying. I always break it down this way. I think there's a difference between emotions and emotionalism. Like, our emotions are good and God has given them to us, and. But we want our emotions to be subject to the word of God so that our emotions don't determine our experience. But we submit our emotions to what God says we should be experiencing. Right? We have to. And sometimes, though, we won't feel certain things. And I mean, we, we have amazing music here. We have amazing musicians, we have fantastic organists, plural, which we're really blessed with. We have a lot of instrumentalists, we have wonderful choirs. Um, and it's, it's really amazing to be a part of. And yet, I mean, there's still people, you know, even here, I think sometimes think, well, it's not doing this, this thing for me, but I think part of that is we're not, we're wanting the music to, to, like you said, almost kind of manipulate us into feeling a certain way. But, but that, I've always found that doesn't last. Like, I think we've had somewhat similar experiences. We've kind of come out of that kind of music before and that doesn't last. Maybe it gives you a high for like a few seconds or maybe a few minutes or maybe a few hours that day, but it doesn't carry you through. Whereas solid hymns, like what they actually say and confess through the beauty of the music and the words, actually do a lot for you because they stick with you and they can actually preach to you, uh, once you're out of the service, rather than just giving you kind of a dopamine hit for a few minutes and then it crashes later. So I found it helpful to think about it that way. Or we talk about lutheran objective versus subjective. Um, the lutheran service is designed to give us things outside of ourselves. Um, objectively, Jesus is there doing these things for you. And how I subjectively receive that and feel about it may not line up with what's being given. I can be bored out of my mind, even though Jesus is there with his body and blood, uh, feeding me and forgiving my sins, and I can be bored, but that's not the appropriate response to Jesus, king of kings, lord of lords, who suffered and died for me, uh, giving his body and blood to me, that's not an appropriate response. But I can feel that way and I can act that way in church, but that doesn't mean it's, uh, appropriate response. And it's not the fault of Jesus who's there giving me those gifts that I. I'm bored by it. And I think that's where we get confused. We think it's like the job of the church to make us feel a certain way rather than realizing that there's more to it than that. We're not just there to give you a dopamine hit.
[00:37:26] Speaker A: Yep. Yep. Yeah. You live by the feelings, you die by the feelings. And so just as you get those highs, you get those. I'm going through a dark spell. I'm in the valley. I'm really spiritually dry. Well, and what you said, look, how do I know where the spirit is? Because I hear the word of God and I'm not. We are not to look for the presence of God.
We are not meant to feel the presence of God. We are meant to hear the presence of God. And that's the point.
[00:37:57] Speaker B: So I think it's a good word to end on.
[00:38:00] Speaker A: Hey, thanks, Pastor Packer. Thanks everyone for sending in your questions. Wolframiel co contact, you can send them there, put them in the chat below this video, and we will hopefully get to them in future episodes. Thanks. Announcements coming up, we got this summer digital catacombs here in Austin, Texas, July 2627 28. That'll be phenomenal. So join us for that. If you're lutheran, single, we currently, I think just got news a few more. I think we have 113 signed up for our singles cruise in August 2024. If you're watching or listening to this, and it's after August 2024, look on my website to see if we're doing it again and then you'll know how successful it was. But I think it should be a lot, should be a good time. So if you want to sign up for that, that'll be great. Otherwise, we'll see you soon. God's peace be with.
