Jesus says that whoever confesses Him before others, He will confess before His Father in heaven (Matthew 10:32). The Apostle Peter says, “Always be ready to give an answer to anyone who asks about the hope that you have” (1 Peter 3:15). So, every Christian in his everyday life is to point others to Jesus. […]
Faith and Works from Clement of Rome
June 3, 2011 by
The Greek word for “justify,” dikiao, has a couple of meanings. It can mean “declare and make righteousness” but also “show to be righteous.” In Romans 3:28, Paul used “justify” to mean “declare and make righteous.” In James 2:24, James used “justify” to mean “show to be righteous.” Romans 3:28 reads, “For we maintain that […]
John 16:23-30: Praying in Jesus’ Name
May 29, 2011 by
Jesus says, “Whatever you ask.” So what have you asked of God? Jesus says, “Whatever you ask the Father … He will give you.” So what have you asked the Father? Was it a want or a need? And did you get it? But have your prayers become sparse and spindly, because you haven’t received […]
How to Read the Bible
May 23, 2011 by
Jesus said, “You pore over the Scriptures because you suppose that in them you have eternal life. These are the very Scriptures that testify about me, yet you refuse to come to me to have life.” (John 5:39-40). People often pass by those words of Jesus without a second thought. In those words, Jesus is […]
Isaiah 12:1-6 (Luke 15:11-32)
May 22, 2011 by
Isn’t the idea of “holy anger” strange? I mean, how can anger be holy when we consider it sinful? But if we think about it, we know that anger itself can’t be a sin. Read the Bible! More than just once, it describes God getting angry with His people. And since God doesn’t sin, anger […]
Understanding God: His Divine Being (Essence) and His Energia
May 19, 2011 by
We have little problem recognizing, as a concept, that God exists as a Divine Being. God in His Divine Being is God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. This is God as He exists in His essence (or “substance” as we confess in the Creeds). Although we don’t have problem understanding that God exists as a […]
John 16:16-22: The “Woman” and the “Man”
May 15, 2011 by
“When a woman is in labor, she has pain, because her time has come. Yet, when she has given birth to the child, she no longer remembers the agony, because of the joy that a Man has been born into the world” (John 16:21). So says our Lord in St. John’s Gospel. Jesus said those […]
Faith? Works? Yes!
May 12, 2011 by
This is an article that I wrote for the May 20th edition of the Stone County Gazette. Did you realize the Bible never says that we are saved by “faith alone”? In all of Scripture, you will never find those words, “faith alone.” This is what Scripture says: We are “justified by faith, apart from […]
Called to Suffer: 1 Peter 2:21
May 8, 2011 by
Somehow, in some way, a malformed idea has infected the Church. The idea is this: It is that our faith is all about worldly well-being and pleasure. Because of this idea, we have lost our focus on eternity, expecting God to give us heaven on earth. Because of this idea, we’ve given up preaching “Jesus […]
Lay Readers in the Lutheran Church: A Short Primer
May 3, 2011 by
Lay Readers: A Scriptural, Historical, and Lutheran Look By Pr. Rich Futrell Introduction Within our lifetime, we have seen “lay readers” become the norm when it comes to the reading of scripture during worship. Although this practice is now widespread, most of us don’t know what prompted this change. For most of us, it just happened. […]
