Bible Study Summary, 8/16/15

Someone asked if I would put up a short summary of the discussion at Bible study each week.  If you were there, feel free to make additions to my summary in the comments!

For three or four weeks now, we’ve been using Pr. Matt Richard‘s helpful study, “How Do We View Christianity?” which sums up two ways of looking at the various aspects of human beings, sin, free will, salvation, and more.

This past week, we looked at page 5 of the study, discussing the will and conversion (does the will participate in conversion or is it the object of conversion?), the cause of our salvation (does God save us in light of our faith, or for the sake of Christ?), and whether the main force of the Law of God is to empower us for “victorious living” or to reveal original sin in us and its fruits.

Under the second question, one thing I wanted to emphasize was that our salvation and the Christian faith are tied completely and inseparably to the flesh of Jesus.  As soon as we start talking about God’s love, goodness, or mercy apart from the concrete actions of Jesus in His life, death, and resurrection, we will start to drift away from the certain promises of Jesus and into the uncertainties of our own lives and experiences.

We also talked about election/predestination and how that teaching of the Scriptures (e.g., in Romans 8 and Ephesians 1) is meant as a doctrine of comfort and Gospel, not as a teaching to encourage speculation about who is saved and who is not.  (You can read more on the Lutheran teaching of Election here and here.)

Our Bible study is every Sunday immediately following the Divine Service (we aim for 11:00 am).  Please join us!

Bishop and Christian*, August 2015

In the cycle of the year, August seems to be made for “last gasps.” The last gasp of summer, the last gasp of vacation, the last gasp of freedom for children before they return to school. Unfortunately, the cycle of the year, especially the school year, has intruded on the Church. People take the summer off from church (from Christ?), the church building seems emptier, Sunday School attendance wanes.

While the issues during the summer are obvious, there is a deeper issue behind the rhythms we set for ourselves: what we teach our children. You and I know how hard it is to get back into a routine after we have been out of it for a while. We know how difficult it is for our children (and us!) to get back into the routine of getting up and going to school. It is no different with the things of God. Habits can be good or they can be bad, but we all know that bad habits come naturally to us, while good habits have to be cultivated and meticulously maintained. If you have a garden, you know about this. You cannot just let the soil of a garden do what it does naturally, and expect it to be weed-free. Wouldn’t it be nice if the plants we want would grow as quickly and easily as the weeds! (I can’t wait for the new creation.)

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