About 300 years ago "Biblical Criticism" came into its own. What began perhaps innocently enough: an attempt to understand the contemporary environment of the Bible using history, archaeology, language etc, quickly went far afield. Before long everything about Scripture, its authenticity, inspiration, reliability, authors and events, for example, the six day creation, a...

Acts 10:41 " ... not to all the people but to us who had been chosen by God as witnesses, who ate and drank with him after he arose from the dead." (ESV) This verse is a clear illustration of how to hear Scripture the way it wants to be heard: Christologically, liturgically, sacramentally, incarnationally. All of those. It is doubtful that 1 out of 100 Evangelicals or ...

If you would compliment the incomparable C.S. Lewis he would tell you that he owes all his skill to poet George McDonald. Having read just a few of his poems I must confess that man is a genius. By genius, in this case, I mean a man who can convey a large and extensive message in less than 200 words. See what I mean with the poem: BABY WHERE did you come from, baby dear ?...

For some time now I have posited that as Liturgy is Scripture, Scripture is also Liturgy. Here is a primer on my thesis. The longer I think on these things, however, the more clear they become.Contrary to the entire historical critical enterprise and "The Jesus Seminar," the 4 gospels are not literary productions to be analyzed, criticized or voted upon. But they are, rat...

Part of the reason for the gross liturgical confusion that reigns in western Christianity is that we don't know the proper designation for the thing in which the church catholic engages every Lord's (Christ's) Day. The Greek Church gets it right so let's start there. Among them the Sunday morning event is called: The Divine And Holy Liturgy. When you drive by their church...

Many throughout church history, early fathers as well as the latest critical scholars, have assumed that either the synoptic gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke) must perfectly agree with one another, or the church cannot claim that they are divinely inspired and true. This has worried Christians for so long that Tatian, a 2nd century apologist, created his Diatessaron. It was...

St. John Chrysostom is one of the greatest teachers the church has ever known. The following homily is one example of why he was given the title Chrysostom, which means golden-mouth. Chrysostom. Writing On The Blood Typology Let us then return from the [Communion] table like lions breathing fire, having become terrible to the devil; thinking on our Head [Christ] and on t...

Christ Lutheran Church is blessed to have an accomplished Lutheran organist who is a talented hymnist as well. This recently written hymn gives Christians hope "even when steeples are falling." The melody is Consolation (The King Shall Come). Though castles burn and kings are slainThough kingdoms grow and flameThough war destroy the peaceful plainWe rest in baptized frame...

This is a portion of a sermon preached by Rev. Carl Ferdinand Wilhelm Walther, Lutheran Pioneer in America, 1st President of the (current) LCMS, founder of Concordia Seminary St. Louis, MO....

On January 1st the church celebrates the Feast of the Lord's Circumcision. According to Old Testament law a son was to be circumcised on the 8th day; and so Jesus who was "made under the law" (Gal. 4:4) was presented for this Old Testament type of Baptism. While "this Cup" of his blood IS the New Covenant, it was at 8 days of age that divine blood was first spilled: fo...