And all went well. She's resting at the moment. A bit of upset tummy, but other than that very good. Nurses keep commenting on how healthy she is. No prescription drugs at 51 must be pretty good! Thanks to everyone who prayed for her.
P.S. Her nurse, Ellen, is LCMS, married to a local DCE.
31 August 2011
30 August 2011
New Lutheran Quote of the Day
We also stand in for others with Christ by our intercessions on their behalf when they have sinned. If they have done something wrong, we don't damn them, but we act as if their sins are ours. We ask God to have mercy on them and give them the opportunity to come to repentance. -- Dr. John Kleinig, *Grace upon Grace* p. 210.
Old Lutheran Quote of the Day
Just as the sun does not cease being visible even if it is not actually seen at times when clouds cover it - since its radiance later shines with very brilliant splendor - so the church does not cease being visible even if the true confessors are hidden in saves and secret places, because they will again come out into public when the madness of their persecutors cools and the darkness of heresy has ended. -- Blessed Johann Gerhard, *On the Church* p. 185.
Patristic Quote of the Day
"He who has seen me has seen the Father;" this does not mean that he has seen the image and form of the divine nature, since the divine nature is simple, not composed of various parts... It means that what the Son does for men He accomplishes by means of the Sonship He received from the Father. -- St. Basil the Great, On the Holy Spirit, par. 21
29 August 2011
A Cross-Posting
from ALPB. This seemed to have generated some response and a number of folks said it was helpful. Figured I'd post it here as well:
I'm not sure it will clarify or not, but for what it's worth. We in the LCMS do not accept denominationalism. We do not believe in the branch theory of the Church. We recognize that our practice of closed communion is exactly what would be appropriate for the entire visible Church on earth. We believe that what we believe is precisely what every jurisdiction/communion SHOULD believe, because it is - we hold - nothing other than what the Scriptures teach.
In other words, we don't regard those who hold to a different Confession as just "another denomination." We regard the other confessions to the extent they differ from ours to be falsifications of the truth. As offensive and prideful as they may sound, it's not intended to be anything less than what (until very recent times) EVERYONE believed about their own confession.
So we act in our communion discipline *as if* we were the legitimate heir and successor to the Catholic Church of the West. That's a self-understanding derived from our Lutheran Symbols. We do not claim to be the only jurisdiction in this Catholic Church of the West, purified by the Gospel. We recognize other particular churches around the globe in whom the same faith resides - from the churches of the Archbishop of Latvia, to the churches of the Archbishop of Kenya and the Bishop of Southern Africa and the President of the LCC, and a bunch of others. Consequently the notion that our altars are closed to non Missourians is actually not at all accurate.
In the corrupted state of the Church in which doctrine that we cannot but regard as false and dangerous is enshrined in the confessions of other jurisdictions, this leads invariably to acknowledging in them that while members of the Church Catholic may well reside in their midst (in fact, most certainly DO), nonetheless those Churches by the acceptance of various falsehoods alongside the truth of God, cannot be acknowledged as true sister churches on a par with our Synod. Again, I know it sounds horrific to the ears of those who think denominationally, but if you think confessionally it makes perfect sense: confessions can be entirely pure, somewhat corrupted, or totally destructive of the Christian faith. We tend to put almost all the other confessions (Anglican, Reformed, Roman, Orthodox) as "somewhat corrupted." Totally destructive would be something like a Mormon or JW confession.
So back to the assumption that an LCMS person holds the pure confession - that IS the assumption we would make, unless the person in question gives evidence that his participation at our altars is in fact a lie - that he disagrees with our Lutheran confession of the Christian faith as expressed in our Lutheran Symbols.
I've probably offended all my ELCA friends and many of my Missouri ones by the above, but I think it's clear that until we can get the differing ecclesiologies understood, there's no hope of anyone understanding our practice of responsible communion (my preferred term), which takes seriously into account the nature of one's public profession at a given altar (where, as Pr. Speckhard says, he or she is willing to accept correction).
I'm not sure it will clarify or not, but for what it's worth. We in the LCMS do not accept denominationalism. We do not believe in the branch theory of the Church. We recognize that our practice of closed communion is exactly what would be appropriate for the entire visible Church on earth. We believe that what we believe is precisely what every jurisdiction/communion SHOULD believe, because it is - we hold - nothing other than what the Scriptures teach.
In other words, we don't regard those who hold to a different Confession as just "another denomination." We regard the other confessions to the extent they differ from ours to be falsifications of the truth. As offensive and prideful as they may sound, it's not intended to be anything less than what (until very recent times) EVERYONE believed about their own confession.
So we act in our communion discipline *as if* we were the legitimate heir and successor to the Catholic Church of the West. That's a self-understanding derived from our Lutheran Symbols. We do not claim to be the only jurisdiction in this Catholic Church of the West, purified by the Gospel. We recognize other particular churches around the globe in whom the same faith resides - from the churches of the Archbishop of Latvia, to the churches of the Archbishop of Kenya and the Bishop of Southern Africa and the President of the LCC, and a bunch of others. Consequently the notion that our altars are closed to non Missourians is actually not at all accurate.
In the corrupted state of the Church in which doctrine that we cannot but regard as false and dangerous is enshrined in the confessions of other jurisdictions, this leads invariably to acknowledging in them that while members of the Church Catholic may well reside in their midst (in fact, most certainly DO), nonetheless those Churches by the acceptance of various falsehoods alongside the truth of God, cannot be acknowledged as true sister churches on a par with our Synod. Again, I know it sounds horrific to the ears of those who think denominationally, but if you think confessionally it makes perfect sense: confessions can be entirely pure, somewhat corrupted, or totally destructive of the Christian faith. We tend to put almost all the other confessions (Anglican, Reformed, Roman, Orthodox) as "somewhat corrupted." Totally destructive would be something like a Mormon or JW confession.
So back to the assumption that an LCMS person holds the pure confession - that IS the assumption we would make, unless the person in question gives evidence that his participation at our altars is in fact a lie - that he disagrees with our Lutheran confession of the Christian faith as expressed in our Lutheran Symbols.
I've probably offended all my ELCA friends and many of my Missouri ones by the above, but I think it's clear that until we can get the differing ecclesiologies understood, there's no hope of anyone understanding our practice of responsible communion (my preferred term), which takes seriously into account the nature of one's public profession at a given altar (where, as Pr. Speckhard says, he or she is willing to accept correction).
28 August 2011
Reminder: Divine Service for the Martyrdom of St. John the Baptist
will be held tomorrow evening at St. Paul's at 6 p.m. Join us if you can!
McGurk's!
Tonight we travelled to St. Louis to enjoy another visit with Donald (an old friend of both Cindi and me from Jr. High), his sister Fran, and his aunt Vera (who just celebrated her 85th birthday - you'd never know it). We had a wonderful time - McGurk's has been a favorite since Dean and Lauren introduced us to it a few years ago.
And here's High Kings for the Irish Pub song:
Drought and Punishment
One of my dear members had been using Starck's Prayer Book to pray for rain, and was surprised to find herself praying: "We must indeed acknowledge before Your holy countenance that we have fully merited such hard punishments with our persistent disobedience toward Your commandments, with our base ingratitude toward Your many blessings, with our appalling misuse of the bounties You have showered on us. Yes, we are forced to confess that You would do us no wrong at all if You would afflict us with even more grievous punishments for our many transgressions." She asked me: "Is that right? That drought is punishment?"
Though we confess in the Confession that we deserve "temporal and eternal" punishment, it is common to think that with God there is no more punishment. But the entire Scriptures bear witness against this. No, our loving heavenly Father still visits temporal punishments upon individuals, peoples, nations. I always point to the thief on the cross. He had his sins forgiven - glory be to God! - and yet still he died for his crimes as a thief upon a cross. God removed the eternal punishment, but not the temporal.
It remains one of the reason that "fear" means fear in the explanation to the commandments: "we should fear and love God so that..." Fear his temporal punishments. He may indeed withdraw His blessings and let us live with the consequences of our deeds at times.
And yet.... Yet we must be clear on this: in Luke 13, our Lord warns us against making the horrific conclusion when we see a tragedy that the people who suffer from it were "worse sinners." His conclusion wasn't that "God doesn't do that." His conclusion was: "Unless you repent, you will all likewise perish." So let us beware of ever looking at the suffering of others and declaring them worse sinners; rather, let us receive any and every chastisement from our beloved heavenly Father as a call and opportunity to repent, to turn. It's never a message of repentance for "them" - it is always an invitation to repentance for "us."
Hence the prayer in Starck - where we perceive in a drought the call of God to repent, to turn, to remember that He alone is the source of the rain on which we depend, indeed that He is the Giver of every good gift. And so it ends with great hope:
"O Lord our God, we hope in Your goodness! Let us live before You and spread abroad Your praise. Hear our prayer, and we shall be heartily thankful for Your mercy, and shall exalt Your name as long as we live, here in time and hereafter in eternity. Hear us, dear Father in heaven; for You alone are our God. Hear us according to Your faithfulness that never ends, according to which You have promised us comfort and help in every trouble. Hear us for Your own sake."
You see, we believe that though we surely deserve such punishments and far, far worse, that God in His grace may well mitigate the temporal chastisement, and so we pray to Him with boldness. One of the most neglected parts of our Symbols actually confesses: "Afterward [after being clear on the free nature of justification that comes before works], even we concede that the punishments by which are chastised are soothed. This happens by our prayers, by our good works, and finally by our entire repentance, according to 1 Cor. 11:31, 'But if we judged ourselves truly, we would not be judged.'" (Ap V:147).
Though we confess in the Confession that we deserve "temporal and eternal" punishment, it is common to think that with God there is no more punishment. But the entire Scriptures bear witness against this. No, our loving heavenly Father still visits temporal punishments upon individuals, peoples, nations. I always point to the thief on the cross. He had his sins forgiven - glory be to God! - and yet still he died for his crimes as a thief upon a cross. God removed the eternal punishment, but not the temporal.
It remains one of the reason that "fear" means fear in the explanation to the commandments: "we should fear and love God so that..." Fear his temporal punishments. He may indeed withdraw His blessings and let us live with the consequences of our deeds at times.
And yet.... Yet we must be clear on this: in Luke 13, our Lord warns us against making the horrific conclusion when we see a tragedy that the people who suffer from it were "worse sinners." His conclusion wasn't that "God doesn't do that." His conclusion was: "Unless you repent, you will all likewise perish." So let us beware of ever looking at the suffering of others and declaring them worse sinners; rather, let us receive any and every chastisement from our beloved heavenly Father as a call and opportunity to repent, to turn. It's never a message of repentance for "them" - it is always an invitation to repentance for "us."
Hence the prayer in Starck - where we perceive in a drought the call of God to repent, to turn, to remember that He alone is the source of the rain on which we depend, indeed that He is the Giver of every good gift. And so it ends with great hope:
"O Lord our God, we hope in Your goodness! Let us live before You and spread abroad Your praise. Hear our prayer, and we shall be heartily thankful for Your mercy, and shall exalt Your name as long as we live, here in time and hereafter in eternity. Hear us, dear Father in heaven; for You alone are our God. Hear us according to Your faithfulness that never ends, according to which You have promised us comfort and help in every trouble. Hear us for Your own sake."
You see, we believe that though we surely deserve such punishments and far, far worse, that God in His grace may well mitigate the temporal chastisement, and so we pray to Him with boldness. One of the most neglected parts of our Symbols actually confesses: "Afterward [after being clear on the free nature of justification that comes before works], even we concede that the punishments by which are chastised are soothed. This happens by our prayers, by our good works, and finally by our entire repentance, according to 1 Cor. 11:31, 'But if we judged ourselves truly, we would not be judged.'" (Ap V:147).
27 August 2011
On the Church
reflecting with Gerhard:
The one Church may be regarded under different aspects:
1. As invisible
a. insofar as she always encompasses the total number of elect, some of whom are already gathered into the heavenly Kingdom and some of whom have not yet been born, so that she will only "appear" at the Last Day;
b. insofar as human eyes cannot distinguish in the visible assemblies of the church those who are saints from the non-saints, but who will be finally separated on the Last Day.
2. As visible
a. insofar as the elect are invariably found in the assembly of the called and gathered.
b. insofar as there are certainly times when the visible church is blessed with a pure doctrine, a faithful ministry, and godly divine worship, even in this age; but that this is not always the case.
Further, when dealing with the Church we may note the distinction between triumphant and militant; and when dealing with the militant between particular churches in specific places which are either pure or corrupted (though in corrupted churches God is also at work to save insofar as they retain enough of the Gospel to bestow faith and so unite poor sinners to the Blessed Trinity) as regards their teaching; yet it is possible for EVERY visible church to be corrupted, as will no doubt happen in the Great Apostasy foretold in Scripture.
And that's about as far as I've gotten in Gerhard. More to come later...
The one Church may be regarded under different aspects:
1. As invisible
a. insofar as she always encompasses the total number of elect, some of whom are already gathered into the heavenly Kingdom and some of whom have not yet been born, so that she will only "appear" at the Last Day;
b. insofar as human eyes cannot distinguish in the visible assemblies of the church those who are saints from the non-saints, but who will be finally separated on the Last Day.
2. As visible
a. insofar as the elect are invariably found in the assembly of the called and gathered.
b. insofar as there are certainly times when the visible church is blessed with a pure doctrine, a faithful ministry, and godly divine worship, even in this age; but that this is not always the case.
Further, when dealing with the Church we may note the distinction between triumphant and militant; and when dealing with the militant between particular churches in specific places which are either pure or corrupted (though in corrupted churches God is also at work to save insofar as they retain enough of the Gospel to bestow faith and so unite poor sinners to the Blessed Trinity) as regards their teaching; yet it is possible for EVERY visible church to be corrupted, as will no doubt happen in the Great Apostasy foretold in Scripture.
And that's about as far as I've gotten in Gerhard. More to come later...
Well...
forget that thought about Liverpool yesterday. Jo and Cindi were both rather rude. BUT it was still a great week. Managed to get in 3 mile runs each day, so finished up this morning at 18 miles for the week. Also got back into my BFL routine with weights, which also felt great (with a little bit of ouch). Tomorrow am definitely NOT running or exercising - except for my lungs in singing the Divine Service and preaching.
New Lutheran Quote of the Day
It seems that God gives us our enemies for just this purpose; He allows them attack us so that He can use us to pray for them and so secure His blessing for them. When we do that, we most clearly remember our heavenly Father and copy His dear Son. -- Dr. John Kleinig, *Grace upon Grace* p. 207, 208.
Old Lutheran Quote of the Day
We have not separated from the church catholic. The Donatists said that the church had perished from the entire earth. We say, on the contrary, that the church has always continued and will endure forever. Consequently, we not only acknowledge that the church has been preserved under the papacy in earlier times, we also profess that the church is still being gathered to God by a loud voice in the middle of Rome. The Donatists enclosed the church within the borders of Africa alone... But we believe and confess that the church is catholic and universal. The Papists should see if they can free themselves completely from the error of the Donatists because they say that all catholics have disappeared from the world except those alone who have remained in the party of the bishop of Rome. -- Blessed Johann Gerhard, *The Church* p. 184.
Patristic Quote of the Day
He raises up from the depths of sin those who have fallen from resurrection. He accomplishes all things by His powerful touch. He shepherds, He enlightens, He nourishes, He leads, He heals, He raises up. He calls all things from non-existence into being; once things are created, He keeps them in existence. Thus God's blessings reach us through the Son. -- St. Basil the Great, *On the Holy Spirit* par. 19.
26 August 2011
Beautiful day...
New Lutheran Quote of the Day
In intercession we don't just use our faith for others, we also show our love for them. We give of ourselves spiritually to them. -- Dr. John Kleinig, *Grace upon Grace* p. 207.
Old Lutheran Quote of the Day
The church of both the Old and New Testaments can cease to exist in this way, that corruptions increase, the public ministry is no longer pure so that in that place where there was a large and obvious church, no church appears any longer. Thus the true church of God goes into hiding and is preserved in those who do not make up a visible and manifest assembly. -- Blessed Johann Gerhard, *On the Church* p. 152.
Patristic Quote of the Day
Thought and reflection are unable to penetrate the begetting of the Lord. -- St. Basil the Great, On the Holy Spirit, par. 14
24 August 2011
The doctrine of the impersonality
of the human nature of Christ is one of the most vital and neglected pieces of our orthodox confession of the Savior. Nothing like a conversation with a Nestorian heretic to demonstrate its ongoing relevance and how its denial lands you with TWO Christs, no matter how hard you fight it. Kyrie eleison!!!!
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