You and I were made for worship....

The Third Commandment: "Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy."
"What does this mean?  We should fear and love God, and so we should not despise his Word and the preaching of the same, but deem it holy and gladly hear and learn it."
Luther's Small Catechism

"Secondly, and most especially, we keep holy days so that people may have time and opportunity, which otherwise would not be available, to participate in public worship, that is, that they may assemble to hear and discuss God's Word and then praise God with song and prayer....
Places, times, persons, and the entire outward order of worship are therefore instituted and appointed in order that God's Word may exert its power publicly."
The Third Commandment: Luther's Large Catechism.

Sorry it took so long for me to get to this.  This post was a bit harder for a different reason than others.  It was difficult for me because it has been self-evident since I came into The Church 38 years ago, 2 months before my 18th birthday.  I am a modern.  I am learning to speak and present "postmodern" but I will always remain a modern.  As an 18 year old beginning the experience of regular worship, it was not about how it moved me (though it did); nor about what I "got out of it" (though I did); but rather because it was TRUE.  Gospel Truth that powerful demanded a response.  And public worship of The One was the appropriate response.  So I am old enough (as I write this on my birthday) to not "get" the postmodern (Gen X, Gen One / Next, Gen 3) calculation and processing, "Should I go to church tomorrow or not?  Why yes?  Why no?" 

But I am also a realist.  Somewhere along the way worship became like Cod Liver Oil.  For those who are not 56 or older, Cod Liver Oil is exactly what it sounds like, and it tasted exactly as you'd expect.  My parents did not ladle it down my throat while I held my nose.  Actually I used it for turtle bait.  It was that nasty.  But many remember holding their nose and taking a ladle full as quickly as possible to get it down.  Why this torture?  It was good for you.  So you did it no matter how nasty it was.  For many in the older generations worship has become like Cod Liver Oil.  (It is that way for the younger generations too, but they simply choose NOT to drink it.)  Many go to worship because "it's good for you" whether or not they feel they really got anything out of it.

Not everything in postmodernism is bad.  "Because it's good for you" is a reason to go to worhsip, but not the only reason.  Worship should never have become that, and never needed to.  It certainly does not need to be that today. 

The worship wars rage on - only the form and tactics of battle have changed.  I read a blog recently about worship in which the writer was bemoaning and criticizing the tendency of churches to offer multiple worship services.  He was arguing that different worship services appeals to the consumer mentality of worshipers, which should be avoided, and that different styles separates and even polarizes the congregation into different worshipping bodies.  I laughed (it was not a merry laugh) and thought, "OK, let's do ALL services as contemporary praise and worship services then."  To which he would doubtless have responded, "No, not that.  That is not what I meant."  LOL, no doubt.  (He provided an example on youtube of his "right" way to do worship.  <sigh>)

Chris Tomlin is correct.  "You and I were made to worship.  You and I were born to love (God)."  Worship IS the appropriate response to an Almighty, All-loving, Creator and Savior.  John Calvin wrote that the purpose of life is "to glorify God, and to enjoy God's presence forever."  Amen.
I close with a quote (loosely rendered) from Dr. Leonard Sweet's "Aqua Church" that changed the direction of my ministry and drove me to the Doctor of Ministry program in Preaching.
"I will put The Living Water into any container from which people will drink.  The Living Water never changes.  Containers can change all the time."

Worship is a VERB.  "Just do it."  (Sorry.  It slipped.)
Rev. Dr. Robert C. Castro (Bob)

I know you're out there....

"I know you're out there.  I can hear you breathing."

As I have mentioned, many of my ideas for posts come from discussions / strings on the ELCA Facebook Group.  I was considering a post on Repentance.  But then I had another idea.  I have made posts on topics that I thought very important based upon discussions taking place among pastors.  But I have not asked you to chime in on what you think is important.  Are there topics that you would like to see covered?  If I were not able reflect on the topics of interest to you directly from The Lutheran Confessions (Not everything is covered, although they are pretty comprehensive.)  I would certainly be willing to reflect based upon how I read The Bible.  (And my last post was a summary of how I read Scripture.) 

Are there questions you would like to discuss or see discussed?  I will check back from time to time to see if one is posted here as a comment.  But feel free to send suggestions to my e-mail as well.  You can use lauva1956@gmail.com.  But I think it would be better to use my Yahoo address: lauva_1@yahoo.com.  The Yahoo account I check every day; the gmail account only periodically.
Thank you all for tuning in.
Rev. Dr. Robert C. Castro (LOL, Bob.)

The Sword of the Spirit / The Word of God

1.We believe, teach, and confess that the prophetic and apostolic writings of the Old and New Testaments are the only rule and norm according to which all doctrines and teachers alike must be appraised and judged, as it is written in Ps. 119:105, “Thy word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path.” And St. Paul says in Gal. 1:8, “Even if an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel contrary to that which we preached to you, let him be accursed.”^[1]

3…In this way the distinction between the Holy Scripture of the Old and New Testaments and all other writings is maintained, and which as the only touchstone all doctrines should and must be understood and judged as good or evil, right or wrong.

Epitome of the Formula of Concord, Rule and Norm,  Part I.  Articles 1, 3

---

^[1] The Book of Concord the confessions of the Evangelical Lutheran Church. 1959 (T. G. Tappert, Ed.) (464). Philadelphia: Mühlenberg Press.

This is another one of those posts which one would think would be self-evident.  So I feel like apologizing, but I'm not going to, because in our culture today it is not self evident. 

What is the role of The Holy Bible in our Faith?  If you ask any ELCA Lutheran pastor if he or she teaches in accordance with the Bible, he or she will answer, "Yes, of course."  But it is axiomatic that the Bible must be interpreted.  The lense through which we read the Bible is call a Hermeneutic. Most ELCA theologians and pastors, including myself, do not apply a hermeneutic of literalism.  Not everything in the Bible was intended to be taken literally.  Given that, to take everything literally is actually not a faithful application of Scripture.  But the danger is obvious.  What in the Bible should be taken literally and what ought not to be?

A related issue is the question of "infallibility" and "inerrancy."  The professors at Lutheran School of Theology presented an excellent case for taking the position that infallibility and inerrancy asks the wrong question. When I first began seminary in August of 1994, we were assigned an article by the late Dr. Joseph Sittler.  It was an excellent argument for the place of Scripture in faith.  I do not recall a better one.  (And I used to get paid to make and analyze arguments.)  He argued that making the issue "infallibility" or "inerrancy"  (These are virtually synonymous, meaning totally without error of any kind.) not only asks the wrong question, but presents a danger to faith.  By basing faith upon these concepts, if it is demonstrated to someone that there is an error (even if the demonstration is incorrect) the faith of the person is at risk.  Dr. Sittler proposed an excellent definition of the place of the Bible in our faith.

The Bible is the incomparable testimony of the nature, the work and the will of God. 

(Emphasis added.  I did not place the statement in quotes because I have been unable to verify the exact words from the article.  The Archivist of Dr. Sittler's works at LSTC is graciously researching to find the exact reference to confirm the quote.  If any word is in error, I will gladly make the correction in a future post as this is a very important definition of the place of Scripture for Faith.)

I emphasize the word "incomparable" because this is the word upon which all turns.  Y'all know what that means.  Nothing compares.  Nothing rules over scripture.  Nothing is its judge.  Not psychology or sociology, not science (or pseudo-science), not any form of criticism - nothing.  (I get that we do not worship The Bible; we worship the God of the Bible.  And Jesus Himself IS The Word of God.  But the reference here at in the oath of ordination refers to The Bible.)

When I entered seminary our two children were in LCMS School.  As a lawyer we could pay the tuition and did.  As a pastor we could not.  A friend of my daughter called her to tell her about the new church they were attending. If you were a member, then there was no tuition.  So with the consent of my pastor and the consent of the LCMS senior pastor, my wife and children became Missouri Synod the four years I was in seminary.  The senior pastor was well known in LCMS circles and eventually went on to a professorship at Concordia, Fort Wayne.  We talked.  He asked me one time about historical criticism.  This was the main issue that divided the LCMS at Concordia, St. Louis, resulting in the formation of The Seminary of Jesus Christ in Exile (Seminex).  My response was this (having been recently taught the historical method).  (Many of my professors at LSTC were the ones who had left in protest.)  The historical method is a tool.  Like any tool it can be used, or it can be abused.  A hammer can pound a nail or a skull.  A screwdriver and push a screw or pierce a heart.  When the historical method is used to help us understand and apply Scripture to our lives, it is a tool being used for its intended purpose.  When it is used to "tell us" which verses in the Bible we are free to ignore, it is being abused.

If I had a dollar for every time I shared The Bible on a particular issue and had the retort given, "We don't proof text", well...you know.  In the Church there is a dangerous tendency to find "reasons" (translate excuses) to not apply The Bible in what Luther called "its plain meaning" or plain sense.  There are many reasons for this, I think.  Our culture has things it does not want to believe.  So there is a temptation to interpret those very things away when they appear in Scripture. 

I also love the quote attributed to Mark Twain.  When asked if it bothered him that so many things in The Bible are so hard to understand, he responded, "Actually, to tell the truth, I am much more troubled by the parts that are very clear."

This unwillingness to apply the plain sense impacts all of the questions that I have addressed below.  The deficiency, as I have argued it, in almost every case comes from being unwilling or unable to apply The Word of God in its plain sense. 

Of course Jesus is God (whatever Dr. Dominic Crossan, Dr. Marcus Borg, and Dr. Bart Ehrman may argue otherwise to their disciples).

Of course the New Testament includes the concept of atonement.

Of course I believe in angels and demons.

Of course I cannot teach that everyone goes to heaven (even if in God's sovereignty and love and grace it turns out that all will).  God in Christ has told us what Good News to preach. 

When teaching on The Bible in my beloved Latvia, I came up with 5 principles for reading and applying The Word of God that I have found helpful. I have used them in presenting The Alpha Course as well.  I list them here without the refences and discussion. If you are interested I am happy to provide the examples used to demonstrate the points.  They are:

1. Everything in The Bible is true, but not everything is in The Bible.

2. We need to use our God-given reason when reading The Bible.

3. We need to read The Bible in its context (historical and literary).

4. Not everything in The Bible is for us; and not everything in The Bible is forever. 

5. Not everything in The Bible was meant to be taken literally.

I close by reposting the oath that I took, that all ELCA pastors (and I assume other Lutheran pastors).

It's not a word game.  It's not a battle over opinions.

The Bible is the incomparable testimony of the nature, the work and the will of God. 

Amen.

The church in which you are to be ordained

confesses that the Holy Scriptures are the word of God and are the norm of its faith and life.
We accept, teach, and confess the Apostles', the Nicene, and the Athanasian Creeds.
We also acknowledge the Lutheran Confessions
as true witnesses and faithful expositions of the Holy Scriptures.
Will you therefore preach and teach in accordance with the Holy Scriptures
and these creeds and confessions?
Each ordinand responds: I will, and I ask God to help me.

I believe in the Resurrection of the body.

"The term 'resurrection of the flesh,' however, is not well chosen.  When we Germans hear the word Fleisch, we think no farther than the butcher shop.  Idiomatically we would say 'resurrection of the body.'  However, this is not of great importance, as long as the words are rightly understood."
Large Catechism, Apostles' Creed, Article III.

"Fourthly, concerning the doctrine of the resurrection, Scripture testifies that precisely the substance of this our flesh, but without sin, shall arise, and that in eternal life we shall have and keep precisely this soul, although without sin.  If there were no difference whatsoever between our corrupted body and soul on the one hand and original sin on the other, then it would follow, contrary to this article of our Christian faith, either that our flesh would not rise on Judgment Day and that in eternal life, instead of this essence of our body and soul, we should have another substance or another soul since we there shall be without sin...."
Formula of Concord, Solid Declaration, Article I, Original Sin.

I struggled with this one.  I had to spend a lot more time in the Book of Concord than I thought I would.  What the quote of Martin Luther in the Large Catechism says to me is that the contributors to The Lutheran Confessions took it as self-evident that Jesus rose bodily from the dead, and that we will as well.  The Apostles' Creed says that we believe in the resurrection of the body, so they did believe it.  Imagine. 

The Scripture reference for this is Luke 24: 36-43.  In this resurrection appearance, the apostles think Jesus is a spirit after his resurrection.  First Jesus tells them he is "flesh and bone".  Then to prove it, he eats a piece of fish in their presence.  Given the lengths to which Jesus went to demonstrate that he was bodily raised, and given the clarity of The Apostles' Creed that we believe in "the resurrection of the body," it may seem odd to post on the topic of whether Jesus bodily rose from the dead, and that we will as well.  But Gnostics are alive and well in the world today.  (Gnostics believe that physical is "bad" and spirit is "good" so there is no bodily resurrection for Jesus or for us.)  And each year at this time of year Drs. Crossan and Borg of The Historical Jesus Movement (and The Jesus Seminar) gain notoriety and money by selling the conclusion that despite what the confessors found self-evident, somehow Jesus did not bodily rise from the dead. 

Most of the topics I have raised in this blog come from actual "discussions", either face to face or digitally.  The discussion last week was a proposition that there is no evidence for The Resurrection of Jesus Christ.  It is something we have to just accept on "blind faith" because there is no evidence.  Two years ago, after reading Lee Strobel's "The Case for Christ" and Josh McDowell's "The New Evidence that Demands a Verdict," I wrote a closing argument (rebuttal summary) in the hypothetical case to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Jesus of Nazareth rose from the dead.  As a disciple of C. S. Lewis, obviously I am convinced that there is evidence for our belief that The Resurrection of Jesus Christ is an historical fact, in the sense that it actually occurred in history.  (I have that presentation on DVD BTW.)  It is not surprising that The Historical Jesus proponents would deny a bodily resurrection, since they also deny the divinity of Christ.  The post earlier on the divinity of Christ came from a discussion at a leadership event in which a pastor shared that he did not believe that Jesus is God because Dr. Crossan had demonstrated that he is not.  Really?  These heresies go together.  And they both have the same intent: an attempt to set aside the uniqueness of Jesus Christ as The Way and The Truth and The Life.

The Resurrection of Jesus Christ is the most important event in the history of history. It demonstrated that Jesus was exactly who he said he was, and that God keeps God's promises.  Don't allow the wild speculations of a handful of scholars steal your hope and joy this Easter season.  He is risen indeed.  And because he lives, we too shall live.

I believe in the resurrection of the body.

Let's review.

I am planning my next post on The Resurrection of Jesus Christ.  As I head in to that post, I thought this would be  a good time to review what I have attempted to demonstrate from The Lutheran Confessions, and from Scripture, so far.
Let's review.

1.  The Lutheran Confessions (including the ancient creeds) continue to be important to our faith walk today.  They not only define what it is to be Lutheran, they define what it is to be Christian.

2.  Jesus is Eternal God, just as the Nicene Creed sets forth.  This is what distinguishes Christianity from every other religion "in the history of history."

3.  Jesus died for our sins, as satisfaction for our sins by His blood.  There are differing "theories" of atonement, descriptions of HOW this works, but THAT it works is essential.

4.  The writers of the Lutheran Confessions wrote believing that there will be a hell and there will be human beings that inhabit it forever along with the demons.  We "chuck" this doctrine to our own peril and the eternal peril of those we love (which ought to be everyone).  Jesus spoke quite a bit about hell and damnation.

5.  The writers of the Lutheran Confessions took at face value the declarations in Scripture that angels and demons actually exist and actually impact the lives of human beings.

6.  Martin Luther referred to the good that we do as "faith active in love."  The Lutheran Confessions make it quite clear that we live out our faith in acts of love and obedience, what Luther also referred to as "living wet" - living out our baptism every day.

7.  Jesus is the only way to heaven.  He said so (John 14:6) and the confessors believed Him.  Is is possible that God has another way?  God is God.  But again, we are responsible for The Message that has been shared with us.  We don't deny the words of Jesus Himself because we find them unpopular.

8.  Our human natures are totally stained by sin.  God created our human natures "good" and they remain so, but the stain covers them completely.  The reason Jesus is the only way, the reason His death matters eternally, is that only His blood removes the stain.  There is no where else to go.

I have argued at the beginning of this blog that our ordination oath obligates us to teach in accordance with The Lutheran Confessions.  Some have stated that they do so "in so far as they are a faithful exposition of scripture."  But I posted the oath below to demonstrate that those words do not appear in the oath.  Instead we confess that they ARE a faithful exposition of Scripture.  And for each of these points I have gone the next step to demonstrate that they do in fact faithfully convey the teachings of Scripture, our norm of faith.

As Resurrection Sunday approaches, what my Latvian brothers and sisters call, Lieldienas (The Great Day) we will look closely together at what The Lutheran Confessions set forth regarding the center of Christian Faith, the Resurrection of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

Thank you for walking with me.

St. Valentine and St. Patrick

I love the stories of St. Valentine and St. Patrick.  I love remembering them on their "day".  But the celebration is always made bittersweet for me by the ironic cultural trappings we have used to surround these days.

About a hundred years after The Apostle Paul's life was ended by the emporer in Rome, there was a priest in Rome by the name of Valentine.  When the emperor banned marriage for soldiers conscripted in the Roman army, Valentine let it be known through the Christian underground that he was willing to perform secret marriages before God for Christian soldiers.  He was eventually discovered, arrested, tried, and the Emperor Claudius took his head (he was a Roman citizen) in the same manner of Paul's execution.  He died for the sake of love. The date of his death was February 14th.  Valentine (later sainted by the church) stood for Christ in a pagan culture, against paganism, for the truth of Jesus Christ.  And how do we remember St. Valentine's Day - the day of this great saint of God in Jesus Christ?  Cupid, pagan god of love.  Cupid was his Roman name.  In the "original" Greek he is Eros, god of erotic love.  St. Valentine stood in the Name of Jesus Christ, the one true God of agape - unconditional God-love.  I Corinthians 13.

Hundreds of years later, a teen named Patrick was at home in the area now France, when he was captured by raiders and taken as a slave to the island of Ireland.  He lived among the pagan people of Ireland for many, many years, his young adulthood, before finally escaping back to his homeland.  But God the Holy Spirit moved on Patrick's Christian (Christ-loving) heart, filling it with love for those who had captured and enslaved (and often brutalized) him.  Patrick became driven to return to the island of his enslavement with the Good News of Jesus Christ, who is The Way, and The Truth, and The Life.  Pouring out his life for the people of Ireland and being "marked for death" more than once, he started over 300 churches in Ireland to the honor and glory of The Name.  He battled paganism and superstition across Ireland.  And how do we remember St. Patrick's Day in our culture?  Leprechauns (and, or course, public drunkenness). 

I love the story of St. Patrick for another important reason.  The Holy Spirit - GOD - drove St. Patrick to Ireland because the people there were NOT OK.  THEY were enslaved in darkness of paganism and superstition, and God would have that end. So God sent Patrick with The Truth about Jesus Christ, the ONLY way to heaven, so that the peoples of Ireland could be welcomed into what really is the one true faith.  Of course there is truth in all religions.  To concede that is to concede nothing.  All other religions are simply in error when in comes to the person, the nature, the work of Jesus Christ.  (I discussed this at some length below in the post on why Jesus really is the only way, and will not repeat it here.)

The point is this.  As the followers of Jesus, until we get that the Good News we have to share can't be gotten anywhere else and can't be given by anyone else (other than the followers) we have not yet begun to do what Jesus commissioned us to do.

Soli Deo Gloria - to God alone be glory.
Blessed St. Patrick's Day. 
(BTW, St. Patrick's Breastplate is pretty easily available online, but if you would like me to send you the very readable and poetic version I discovered and formatted for use in worship and meetings, let me know and I would be happy to send it out.)

Total Depravity?

TOTAL DEPRAVITY?

 Formula of Concord: 2, 1, 6

  First of all, it is true that not only should Christians regard and recognize as sin the actual violation of God’s commandments in their deeds, but they should also perceive and recognize that the horrible, dreadful, inherited disease corrupting their entire nature is above all actual sin and indeed is the “chief sin.” It is the root and fountainhead of all actual sins. ^c Luther calls this a “nature-sin” or “person-sin,”²⁵ in order to indicate that even if a human being thinks, says, or does nothing evil (which is, of course, after the fall of our first parents, impossible for human nature in this life), nevertheless, our entire nature and person is sinful, that is, totally and thoroughly corrupted in God’s sight and contaminated by original sin as with a spiritual leprosy. Because of this corruption and on account of the fall of the first human beings, God’s law accuses and condemns human nature and the human person. Therefore, Luther concludes, we are “by nature children of wrath” [Eph. 2:3*], of death, and of damnation, if we are not redeemed from them through Christ’s merit.

Formula of Concord: 2, 11, 85

 For this reason the human being who is not reborn resists God completely and is totally the slave of sin. The reborn, however, desire to practice God’s law according to their inward self, but see at the same time in their members the law of sin, which resists the law of their mind. Therefore, they serve God’s law with their mind but the law of sin with their flesh (Rom. 7[:22*, 23*, 25*]). In this way one may explain and teach the proper understanding of this matter thoroughly, clearly, and appropriately.

Formula of Concord: 1, 1, 3

On the other hand, we believe, teach, and confess that original sin is not a slight corruption of human nature, but rather a corruption so deep that there is nothing sound or uncorrupted left in the human body or soul, in its internal or external powers. Instead, as the church sings, “Through Adam’s fall human nature and our essence are completely corrupted.”⁶ The damage is so indescribable that it cannot be recognized by our reason but only from God’s Word. The damage is such that only God alone can separate human nature and the corruption of this nature from each other. This separation will take place completely through death, at the resurrection, when the nature which we now have will rise and live eternally, without original sin—separated and severed from it—as it is written in Job 19[:26, 27], “I will be covered in my own skin, and in my flesh I shall see God, whom I shall see for myself, and my eyes shall behold.”

These provisions of the Formula of Concord deal with "original sin." So first of all, YES, the Lutheran Confessions teach that "original sin" is something very real.  With regard to the concept of total depravity, it can come down to definitions.  The Formula of Concord is also clear that human beings in the civil arena have some capacity to make good and right choices.  Humans can do good works.  But when it comes to being in a relationship with God, when it comes to overcoming sin, humans bring nothing to the table.  It is not that human nature, created in the image of God, created "very good" has become evil.  It is that sin is a stain on human nature.  And the stain is complete.  It's not a spot or two.  All of human nature is all covered in sin.  And only Jesus can separate the good human nature from the stain of sin.  (This goes back to the "Atonement" post below, because God accomplished that through the blood of Christ.)  The Confession in the old red Service Book began "I am by nature sinful and unclean."  That language was changed in the green hymnal, "We confess that we are in bondage to sin, and cannot free ourselves."  I have no problem with this.  I can see how the language in the old red hymnal could be confusing in that someone might think that human nature IS evil.  Being in prison to sin, and in bondage of slavery, is a good image. 

The reason this is so important is that only those who recognize that they are "in bondage to sin and cannot free themselves" recognize they need a Savior.  This accounts for much of the "all ways lead to heaven" position that I addressed in a post below.  If we can all just "do a little better" or all "move in the right direction" then not trusting in Christ, but trusting in some other "guru" is all one.  But we are not going to get to God by "trying harder" or "doing better" or "moving in the right direction."  We are going to get to God the way God prescribed, in and through Jesus Christ, who is Savior and Lord (and eternal God).  There is no other way.  Only a Savior can save us from sin.