Asking Jesus into our heart. . .

I read intently a defense of the idea that we ask Jesus into our hearts.  As you may know, Lutherans are not big on this language.  Sure, we know that Scripture references the heart as the seat of the will and faith reposes in the heart.  The problem is that there is nothing in Scripture about asking Jesus into anyone's heart nor is there anything that would give support to the idea that we make a decision for the Lord.  The Scriptures record abundant calls to repent and believe but also with the clarification that no one can say Jesus is Lord except by the Holy Spirit.  In other words, conversion is not a matter of our will and decision but of God's work in us by the Spirit working through His Word.  Period. The danger of making Jesus captive to an emotive feeling or choice made in a moment is that faith becomes a feeling and a choice which can be unfelt and unwilled as quickly and even more easily than any decision for the Lord.

The danger is also that we remove faith from the concrete of the means of grace and the work of the Spirit from those means of grace so that even God becomes an idea to inhabit the imagination rather than the God who fills the present so that He might fill eternity with us.  The more we distance God from the means of grace the more we distance Him from anything we would call real and unchangeable.  God is not an idea.  He is a personal being who is known to us in a personal way through the concrete of the Word and Sacraments.  Faith is not an idea or even an idea of this God.  Faith is the trust in the God who has revealed Himself to us and made Himself known to us precisely because without His aid and Spirit, we would be left to a mere idea of Him and not the reality of Him and what He has accomplished for us.

Of all the things that are dangerous to Christianity, one of them is surely the idea that we turn God on and off like a feeling, that we decide for Him or against Him at will and whim, and that He lives in us as an idea in our imagination.  No God like this has any power to save us eternally nor has He the power to change us in the present moment.  Such a God does not need to be worshiped, is hardly with the time to pray, and will countenance our surrender to whatever desire we have -- including the one to disown Him when He no longer is needed or fulfills any purpose in our eyes.  This God is not the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, not the God of the prophets, and not the God who was made flesh in Jesus Christ.  While I can only hope that evangelicals will tire of this view of God, I can warn the Lutherans who want to be like the evangelicals that this is not the God of our confession, not the God of our liturgy, and not the God of our prayers.

Reasonable and calm but still wrong. . .

Occasionally someone will ask me if the progressives and liberals are raging lunatics.  Sometimes it may seem so but the reality is just the opposite.  Most of them are cordial and reasoned (though some of the fringe are, well, lunatics).  Take the Lutheran Church in Australia and New Zealand and their decision to skip the rules, skip history, skip Lutheran doctrine 101, and skip the fragile unity of their own church body in order to pursue the ordination of women (something they have been trying to do for years but failed according to the rules even though a majority were for it).

If you listen to  Pastor Paul Smith, Bishop, Lutheran Church of Australia and New Zealand, answering the usual questions, you do not hear the voice of someone who seems strange or odd or scary.  He is perfectly calm in his explanation of what was being done, why it was being done, and how the church was going to live and thrive because of what was done.  It is the kind of calm that suggests that there is no reasonable person who could possibly disagree with him on this matter and no one of good heart and sound mind who would object.  Anyway, according to Smith, we are all going to get along and this is all going to be wonderful -- diversity is the byword of a vibrant and alive Christianity, you know.

You can listen to the series of videos here.  They are generally short, a couple of minutes, and nicely done.  The problem is not that he is not nice or that the decisions made are not reasonable in the light of social understanding in the 21st century.  No, the problem is that this is wrong.  It does not accord with Scripture.  It does not accord with the Lutheran Confessions.  It does not accord with history.  It does not accord with catholic doctrine or practice.  More than making things better, it has already spun off one more Lutheran group of those who object to this departure from all things Biblical and catholic.

If it is a choice between nice and reasonable and in accord with the thinking of most folks (especially those outside the Church) and Christ and His Word that does not change and endures forever, which side should a Lutheran be on?  I do not doubt that those in favor of this radical departure from the Scriptures and our Lutheran heritage of faith and practice are nice people and reasonable and probably fun to be with over a glass of Lutheran beverage.  But the sad reality is that this group has chosen to be on the wrong side if God's Word, Lutheran doctrine, and Lutheran practice.  

My point is simply this. If you wish a reasoned Christianity which might be inspired by Scripture but which actually accords with social and cultural thought across religious and secular realms, this is your path.  Diversity over truth, flexibility over orthodoxy, mind over Scripture, and a smile to fix every problem.  We can all get along and look good in the eyes of a culture which does not care a whit what Jesus says, what the Church has said and done, and how it will affect the unity of a particular communion. Pastor Smith is nice.  Those who disagree with him are not so nice.  Well, then, perhaps God is not so nice either -- at least as we would reason it all in the same brains that exchanged a perfect Eden for an earthly fight for daily life until death wins.  Thanks be to God who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.  By the way, you might just want to pray for the LCANZ and also for those good folk who have decided it is better to be on the side of Jesus than the world --  Lutheran Mission Austraila.  They, by their own words, committed to continuing 'to contend for the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints' (Jude 3).

 

The liturgical is not gone but fulfilled. . .

In a very insightful essay over at First Things, Peter Leithart has written eloquently about how the Epistle to the Hebrews is misinterpreted by most of Protestantism and even some Lutherans and Roman Catholics.  I would urge a wider reading of his words.  His point is that the contrast in Hebrews is not between the temporal or earthly and the eternal and heavenly but about that which symbolized and prefigured what Christ has fulfilled and is present now.  It is a good read.

These words should remind us that our institutional forms and ritual habits are neither holdovers from the ceremonial order of the old covenant nor are they empty gestures no longer needed or godly in the new covenant.  Indeed, they have been fulfilled.  What were once merely forms and habits are now filled with Christ.  This is a vibrant liturgy not because the people are with it or into it or it has all the bells and whistles but because Christ is there, the One who fulfilled all that went before and who gives to the present the taste of the eternal which is coming.  Listen to his words:

Once upon a time, Israel offered sacrificial worship at a sanctuary through the ministrations of priests, but Jesus opened the door to a post-religious world sans sacrifice, sans sanctuary, sans priest, sans everything. That’s a misreading. Augustine captures the actual thrust of the letter when he characterizes the transition as one from shadow to reality, symbol to truth. Christian liturgical practice is still sacrificial and priestly, but through Jesus we have access to the real, original, heavenly things. What Israel did in twilight, the church does in the full light of day. The new doesn’t inaugurate an a-liturgical form of life and worship, but radically rearranges liturgy itself.

That is the point we so often either take for granted and thus relegate to the realm of the theoretical or we miss entirely.  Through Christ we do have access to the eternal and that access does not come to us by escaping or eschewing the earthly forms of the means of grace but directly through them.  It is as if we have become the woman caught in her sin who distracts the conversation to the idea of which mountain.  Jesus does not denigrate the mountains that where they worshiped but insisted that it was not a choice between those hills in the past but the revelation of what was here now in Christ -- the heavenly brought to earth to bring us to our home on high and fulfill all the promises of yesterday.

It is clear that most of what passes for worship is an almost gleeful abandonment of anything that would resemble the past in favor of an individualist and emotional piety in which worship is almost irrelevant and the earthly replaced entirely.  This surely ends up being either an other worldly spirituality in which nothing of today has meaning or it ends up with a present day spirituality in which today is the only things that has meaning.  God must be shedding tears.  He has fulfilled all that was promised and filled the present with Christ so that we may glimpse the future and be kept unto the consummation of all things and here we are clapping our hands, stomping our feet, and propelling ourselves into an emotional high or arguing ourselves into heaven as if all the work of Christ depended upon a yea or a nay from us.  Lutherans have, as I have often said, the fullness of it all in the efficacious Word AND Sacraments, catholic doctrine, liturgy, and practice, and the vibrant fruit of God's work in the present through the doctrine of vocation.  What a shame we do not value and live out what we have.  In this, we are not unlike that woman arguing with Jesus at the well while He is giving us what is beyond our wildest hopes and dreams in the mystery of His grace that saves us now for eternity. 

Sounds reasonable to me. . .

Though not all freely admit it, liberal or progressive Christianity does not start with the Biblical text.  In fact, theology for this group begins with how it sounds.  If it sounds reasonable and accords with their worldview and fits with what is acceptable at this time, it simply must be true.  True no matter what God's Word actually says.  Indeed, the Word of God is like raw earth to be mined for the gems that are valued today rather than approached as the truth forever.  In this respect, like the person in search of a final pure product, you have to work through a lot of ore or raw material first.  Scripture is, for the liberal and progressive, the raw ore that is not in and of itself valuable but what it may be processed into does have value.

In this respect, liberal or progressive theology is myopic.  It sees only what it wants to see and it can only see through the lens of what sounds reasonable and right now.  It does not intend to be the way, the truth, and the life forever but what is good now and what works now.  Indeed, this is the greatest failing of liberal and progressive Christianity.  It is tied to the moment and not to the past or the future.  It is wedded to the worldview now and cannot escape this temporal prison.  On the other hand, catholic Christianity is by nature conservative.  It does value what was received from the past and it is concerned about what is passed on to the future and the criterion for this is always outside the self of reason and understanding but in the Word and works of God.

It is unreasonable to think of sin as arbitrary wrongs that are not adjusted or minimized by circumstances or the changing mood or judgments of the times.  It is unreasonable to think of sin as sin without mitigating circumstances to make some of those sins less egregious than the same sin in other contexts.  It is unreasonable to think that anyone might have to deny themselves and their desires and become new and different people in the process.  It is unreasonable to think that worship should reflect the values of God and not appeal to the sense of the times or the desires of those in the pews.  It is unreasonable to think that all life has the same intrinsic value and no life should be ended for the sake of the person or another.  It is unreasonable to meet God in the splash of water, the voice of His Word, the taste of bread and wine.  In all of these, it is completely unreasonable except for the fact that God has reasoned it all this way in His heart and out of love for us.  If we are to endure, we need an anchor more secure than what seems reasonable or right in the moment.  We need nothing less than the Word of God that endures forever and for a Church built upon this solid foundation.  We do not need to make the Church relevant for the promise of life to a people marked with death has its own relevance in every age and generation.

Why would we dwell upon what we think God would want when we have the record of His voice still speaking through His Word?  Why would we make the test of truth reason or popularity or acceptance by the judgment of the present moment?  There is so much more and it beckons us to get past what seems reasonable or comfortable to meet God where He has planted His promise in time to bring us to eternity.  Why would we dwell upon what works for us now if it has no power to work for us the blessing of everlasting life?  Indeed.  A good thing to hear on a day dedicated to deception.

Still time to sign up. . .

I have been asked to teach a continuing ed course in August in two locations.  The information is listed below.  Take a gander and if you are interested, sign up and join us.  It is not only for pastors but also for lay folks as well.

August 4–6, 2025 in Auburn, MI &

August, 12-14 in Cupertino, CA 

The Rev. Larry A. Peters is a native of Nebraska and graduated from St. John’s College, Winfield, Kansas, Concordia Senior College, Fort Wayne, Indiana, and Concordia Theological Seminary, Fort Wayne (1980). He vicared on Long Island and served his first call in Cairo, New York, before moving to Clarksville, Tennessee, where he has served Grace Lutheran Church as senior pastor for thirty-two years. He is now pastor emeritas of Grace. In 2017 Concordia Theological Seminary recognized him as alumnus of the year. He has served as a circuit visitor in the Atlantic and Mid-South districts, is currently chairman of the Synod’s Commission on Constitutional Matters, sits on the Synod’s Commission on Handbook, and is also secretary of the Mid-South district. He has also served on the planning committees for the Synod’s Institute for Liturgy, Preaching, and Church Music for the last ten years. Pastor Peters has published many periodical articles and served as a contributor to a number of CPH volumes. He is the author of the popular blog, Pastoral Meanderings. Pastor Peters has been married to his wife, Amy, for more than forty-six years, and they have three adult children and two grandchildren. He is currently trying to figure out what retirement means.  

At All Times and in All Places: All God's People Pray 

More words about prayer can be found in the Scriptures than about most other topics, and yet God’s people struggle with what it means to pray. This course will examine the practice of prayer among God’s Old Testament people, through the time of Christ, through the history of Christianity, and down to the present day. What is prayer? What does it mean to pray? How do we pray? How did the people of God order their prayer lives before us? What is the difference between and what is the connection with the individhttps://witness.lcms.org/the-magazine/ual prayer lives of God’s people and the common prayers of God’s people together? What does God’s Word teach us about prayer? This course will help participants learn and appreciate the lessons of the past on the practice and discipline of prayer both as individuals and as a people gathered together for worship and prayer. All of us are both amateurs and professionals when it comes to praying, and this course is both for those who lead and teach God’s people to pray and for the people of God in their discipline of prayer throughout the circumstances and places of life.  

Locations:    Grace Lutheran Church 303 Ruth St. Auburn, MI 48611 To download the registration form, click here.  

Lutheran Church of Our Savior 5825 Bollinger Rd. Cupertino, CA 95014  To download the registration form, click here.

Coordinators:  Michigan:  Rev. Aaron T. Schian Email: aaronschian@yahoo.com Phone: (607) 972-5792  & California:  Rev. John Bestul Phone: 408.252.0345 Email: pastorjbestul@lcos.org 

Schedule Class begins the first day at 12:00 p.m. and concludes at 12:00 p.m. the final day.