Before we dive into the First Commandment I would like to look at the whole issue of sin. We see the effects of sin all around us. We see death and destruction, we see earthquakes and weeds and pimples. These are all the results of sin. At the same time sin is something that people today don't want to deal with. It is an offensive word. It is not politically correct to refer to people as sinners, instead words like mistake or misunderstood are used. Sin you could say is a dirty word, but it is also a Scriptural word. So what do we mean when we use the word sin?
The Catechism defines it as every thought, desire, word, and deed which is contrary to God's Law. It is in other words every imperfect thing that we do. Other names for sin include disobedience, debts, wickedness, rebellion, fault, trespass, and wrong. Like I said it is a dirty word.
The next question is how did sin get here? Scripture tells us that Satan brought it into the world by tempting Adam and Eve who gave into the temptation and disobeyed God. We all know the story of the Fall of Man that happened in the Garden of Eden.
When we talk about sin we are really talking about two types of sin. There is original sin and actual sin. Original sin is what we inherited through our original parents Adam and Eve. Because of their disobedience we are all born sinners. It is like a disease that there is no cure for. The result of this original sin in our lives is that we are born with no fear or love of God. In other words we are born spiritually dead in sin. It separates us from God himself. This original sin also corrups all of nature. When you read the account of the Fall you see that the ground was cursed along with man. So every imperfection in life is the result of original sin.
Then as an outgrowth of our original sin we commit actual sins. Actual sins are things that we do, think, or say that are sinful. These are the sins that we and others see. Many times people concentrate on these actual sins and think well if I don't do this bad thing or that bad thing, then I am not a sinner, or at least I am not as bad a sinner as the person that does do those things. Our actual sins though are just symptoms of our original sin. A simple way to think about it is, because we are sinners we sin. Whether we committed any actual sins or not we would still be sinners. Just like even if a person who has cancer doesn't show symptoms they still have cancer. So when we confess our sins we are not just confessing our actual sins, but also the fact that we are by nature a sinner through and through. The ultimate result of our original sin is death.
There are two types of actual sin. There are the sins of commission and sins of omission. Sins of commission are things that we do that we shouldn't do, like cursing or breaking a law. Sins of omission are things that we don't do that we should do, like not helping someone who is in need, or not taking care of our families. Both are equally bad and again are symptoms of our original sin. The important thing to remember about sin is that it leads to death both physically and spiritually.
When we realize our sinfulness that is when we need to hear the Gospel. The only answer or antidote to the disease of sin is the forgiveness that God gives us through His Son's death on the cross. The blood of Jesus washes away our sins and restores our relationship with God and gives us spiritual life. We are still going to die physically because of the effects of sin, but we are not going to die spiritually because we have forgiveness and eternal life in Jesus Christ. This is the whole Law/Gospel thing that we talked about in an earlier lesson
Here are some Bible verses concerning sin to look up: 1 John 3:4, 8; Romans 5:12; Psalm 51:5; Romans 5:19; Ephesians 2:3; Genesis 8:21; Ephesians 2:1; Galatians 5:19; Matthew 15:19; James 1:15; James 4:17
Here is a question for you: If Jesus has already forgiven all of our sins, then why do we need to keep confessing them?
Pastor Fred
Wednesday, March 28, 2007
Monday, March 26, 2007
Readings for week 5
Here are the readings that I promised. We are picking up where we left off
March 26 - Jeremiah 1-5, Lamentations 3
March 27 - Ezekiel 1-3, 16, 33
March 28 - Daniel 1-2, 4-6
March 29 - Hosea 1-4, Joel 2
March 30 - Amos 3; Obadiah, Jonah 1
March 31 - Micah 1-2; Nahum 1
April 1 - Habakkuk, Zephaniah 3, Haggai
We are all headed to my kid's favorite hangout again today, the Phoenix Zoo. See you Wednesday night.
Pastor Fred
March 26 - Jeremiah 1-5, Lamentations 3
March 27 - Ezekiel 1-3, 16, 33
March 28 - Daniel 1-2, 4-6
March 29 - Hosea 1-4, Joel 2
March 30 - Amos 3; Obadiah, Jonah 1
March 31 - Micah 1-2; Nahum 1
April 1 - Habakkuk, Zephaniah 3, Haggai
We are all headed to my kid's favorite hangout again today, the Phoenix Zoo. See you Wednesday night.
Pastor Fred
Friday, March 23, 2007
Your Death In A Small Town
This Sunday we are going to be taking a little trip to a small town called Grace North Dakota where death is about to visit in a most shocking way. You might want to come along for the ride. The trip will start at 9 a.m. There will be singing and praying beforehand, then I will take you to Grace. When you arrive you will meet an a group of individuals who are unique and yet they are just like us. For all of you CSI watchers you will want to come and investigate this for yourselves.
I will start reposting the readings next week. See you Sunday.
Pastor Fred
I will start reposting the readings next week. See you Sunday.
Pastor Fred
Wednesday, March 21, 2007
Lutheranism 101 - Part 5 - Law and Gospel
One of the great things about Lutheranism is our sharp distinction between Law and Gospel. We do not mix the two. They both have different functions and they both need each other. That is why Lutheran pastors always try to preach both in their sermons. We will get back to that in a second. But first let's discuss in a little more detail what they are.
When God created people he wrote the Moral Law on their hearts. So all of mankind has a knowledge of the law. That is why it is illegal pretty much everywhere to kill someone or to steal. Later on God wrote the Moral Law on the stone tablets that he gave to Moses, so now we have it in writing you could say. When we read the Old Testament we see that there were more laws than just the Moral Law though. There was also Civil Law and Ceremonial Law. The Civil Laws were the property laws and business laws like we have today. We no longer have to obey these because they pertained only to the nation of Israel. The Ceremonial Laws were the religious rules and ordinances. These told you what you were to sacrifice and how to sacrifice it. It also included what special days to observe and what you could and couldn't do on the Sabbath. These laws were all fulfilled with the death of Christ who was the final sacrifice and also our Sabbath rest. So the only law that made it into the New Testament and our time was the Moral Law, the Ten Commandments.
The Moral Law has three uses. The first use of the law is that of a curb. It keeps chaos and anarchy from breaking out in the world. Because man has the law in his heart and in writing he knows that it is wrong to kill and steal and disobey authority. Therefore his conscience restrains him from doing these things. Now people do still kill people and do bad things, but the Moral Law at least keeps a lid on it. The second use of the law is that of a mirror. It Shows us Our Sins. When we look at the Moral Law we see that we have not kept it perfectly so we know that we are sinners in need of a Savior. Pastors use this second use of the law in their sermons to lead people to repentance. The third use of the law is that of a guide. This third use is only for Christians. It shows us how to live as Christians. We do not preach the third use of the law to unbelievers. Pastors preach the third use of the law usually toward the end of their sermons to show the people how to live out their Christian faith.
The most important thing to remember about the law is that it is never good news. The law always condemns us or tells us what we should be doing. It is always coming down on us. The focus of the law is always on our actions. The main purpose is to Show us Our Sins. The law shows us that we can never measure up to God's perfection
The Gospel on the other hand is always good news. Where the law Shows us Our Sins, the Gospel Shows us Our Savior. The focus of the Gospel is on what God has done for us. It never has to do with our actions. The Gospel always tells us what God has done for us, what he is going to do for us and how much he loves us and forgives us.
That is why Pastors always preach both law and gospels in their sermons. We preach the law to show people their sins and then the gospel to show them their Savior from that sin. In other words preach them into hell and then back into heaven. Now some churches only preach one or the other or they confuse law and Gospel. For instance there are some churches that preach only the law. Well if you do that then people leave the church feeling convicted and guilty but they don't know what to do with it. They haven't been shown the Savior. Some churches confuse the two by saying things like Jesus died for your sins so you better get your act together so you can go to heaven. This puts your salvation back into your court instead of God's. Then there are others who only preach the gospel. They only talk about the love of God and the forgiveness of Jesus. This sounds great, but without the law showing you a need for Jesus why would you care or see any need for him. So the two work together, even though they are separate.
Now let me throw some Scriputure verses at you and let you guess whether they are law or gospel.
Mark 12:30-31 L or G; Colossians 2:8 L or G; John 3:16 L or G; Colossians 1:6 L or G; Matthew 28:19 L or G; Romans 10:4 L or G; Galatians 3:13 L or G; Psalm 37:5 L or G
As for the test you took last week, the answers are all found in the previous blogs.
Pastor Fred
When God created people he wrote the Moral Law on their hearts. So all of mankind has a knowledge of the law. That is why it is illegal pretty much everywhere to kill someone or to steal. Later on God wrote the Moral Law on the stone tablets that he gave to Moses, so now we have it in writing you could say. When we read the Old Testament we see that there were more laws than just the Moral Law though. There was also Civil Law and Ceremonial Law. The Civil Laws were the property laws and business laws like we have today. We no longer have to obey these because they pertained only to the nation of Israel. The Ceremonial Laws were the religious rules and ordinances. These told you what you were to sacrifice and how to sacrifice it. It also included what special days to observe and what you could and couldn't do on the Sabbath. These laws were all fulfilled with the death of Christ who was the final sacrifice and also our Sabbath rest. So the only law that made it into the New Testament and our time was the Moral Law, the Ten Commandments.
The Moral Law has three uses. The first use of the law is that of a curb. It keeps chaos and anarchy from breaking out in the world. Because man has the law in his heart and in writing he knows that it is wrong to kill and steal and disobey authority. Therefore his conscience restrains him from doing these things. Now people do still kill people and do bad things, but the Moral Law at least keeps a lid on it. The second use of the law is that of a mirror. It Shows us Our Sins. When we look at the Moral Law we see that we have not kept it perfectly so we know that we are sinners in need of a Savior. Pastors use this second use of the law in their sermons to lead people to repentance. The third use of the law is that of a guide. This third use is only for Christians. It shows us how to live as Christians. We do not preach the third use of the law to unbelievers. Pastors preach the third use of the law usually toward the end of their sermons to show the people how to live out their Christian faith.
The most important thing to remember about the law is that it is never good news. The law always condemns us or tells us what we should be doing. It is always coming down on us. The focus of the law is always on our actions. The main purpose is to Show us Our Sins. The law shows us that we can never measure up to God's perfection
The Gospel on the other hand is always good news. Where the law Shows us Our Sins, the Gospel Shows us Our Savior. The focus of the Gospel is on what God has done for us. It never has to do with our actions. The Gospel always tells us what God has done for us, what he is going to do for us and how much he loves us and forgives us.
That is why Pastors always preach both law and gospels in their sermons. We preach the law to show people their sins and then the gospel to show them their Savior from that sin. In other words preach them into hell and then back into heaven. Now some churches only preach one or the other or they confuse law and Gospel. For instance there are some churches that preach only the law. Well if you do that then people leave the church feeling convicted and guilty but they don't know what to do with it. They haven't been shown the Savior. Some churches confuse the two by saying things like Jesus died for your sins so you better get your act together so you can go to heaven. This puts your salvation back into your court instead of God's. Then there are others who only preach the gospel. They only talk about the love of God and the forgiveness of Jesus. This sounds great, but without the law showing you a need for Jesus why would you care or see any need for him. So the two work together, even though they are separate.
Now let me throw some Scriputure verses at you and let you guess whether they are law or gospel.
Mark 12:30-31 L or G; Colossians 2:8 L or G; John 3:16 L or G; Colossians 1:6 L or G; Matthew 28:19 L or G; Romans 10:4 L or G; Galatians 3:13 L or G; Psalm 37:5 L or G
As for the test you took last week, the answers are all found in the previous blogs.
Pastor Fred
Friday, March 16, 2007
Confirmation Test I
This is a test over the natural and revealed knowledge of God, The OT and NT and Authority
1. Name at least two things in the world that you can look at and see evidence of a God.
2. What did Sandy in the comments section call Darwinism?
3. Where does morality come from?
4. Over what period of time was the Old Testament written?
5. What is the earliest manuscript of the Old Testament that we currently have?
6. When was the last time that the Canon of the Old Testament was discussed and what was the name of the council?
7. What does the word Torah mean?
8. What books make up the Torah?
9. Over what period of time was the New Testament written?
10 What do the Gnostics believe in general?
11. Where were many of the Gnostic Gospels discovered?
12. In what year and where was the New Testament Canon confirmed?
13. What are the first three gospels called as a group?
14. What three languages was the Bible written in?
15. What are the three I's that we believe in as Lutherans?
16. What is the difference between a translation and a paraphrase?
17. Why is the natural knowledge of God not enough for salvation?
18. Where does God reveal himself to us?
19. What is the ulitmate source of authority for a Christian?
20 How many books are there in the Bible?
Now for the answers to the questions I asked you a week ago.
Why are the first eleven chapters of the Bible so important? The first eleven chapters contain everything that serves as a foundation for the rest of the Bible. You have the creation and fall, the promise of the Messiah, the first murder, the flood, the covenant given to Noah and the Tower of Babel. If you discredit these chapters the entire Bible falls apart. There is no sin, no Savior, no relationship between man and God.
Who wrote the book of Psalms? Well it wasn't just one person. We know that David wrote a lot of it. Solomon wrote some and there are at least two or three other authors as well.
Why is it when the New Testament quotes the Old Testament that the wording is many times different from what you read in your Old Testament? The translation of the Old Testament that you have in your modern Bible is a translation from the original Hebrew version of the Bible. But the Old Testament that Jesus and others had during that time is actually the Septuagint. When Alexander the Great conquered all of that area about three hundred years before Christ, he brought the Greek language with him. Over a period of time it became the universal language. So a bunch of Jewish scholars in Egypt, 70 in all hence the name Septuagint, translated the Hebrew Old Testament into Greek. So that is what they were using. So when they quoted the Old Testament they were quoting the Greek translation of the Hebrew. Therefore the words are different, but the meaning is the same.
I hope you did well on the test. You can do with it what you want. You can either send it in, answer in the comments section, or just keep it privately to yourself. Next week we will start talking about the law of God.
Pastor Fred
1. Name at least two things in the world that you can look at and see evidence of a God.
2. What did Sandy in the comments section call Darwinism?
3. Where does morality come from?
4. Over what period of time was the Old Testament written?
5. What is the earliest manuscript of the Old Testament that we currently have?
6. When was the last time that the Canon of the Old Testament was discussed and what was the name of the council?
7. What does the word Torah mean?
8. What books make up the Torah?
9. Over what period of time was the New Testament written?
10 What do the Gnostics believe in general?
11. Where were many of the Gnostic Gospels discovered?
12. In what year and where was the New Testament Canon confirmed?
13. What are the first three gospels called as a group?
14. What three languages was the Bible written in?
15. What are the three I's that we believe in as Lutherans?
16. What is the difference between a translation and a paraphrase?
17. Why is the natural knowledge of God not enough for salvation?
18. Where does God reveal himself to us?
19. What is the ulitmate source of authority for a Christian?
20 How many books are there in the Bible?
Now for the answers to the questions I asked you a week ago.
Why are the first eleven chapters of the Bible so important? The first eleven chapters contain everything that serves as a foundation for the rest of the Bible. You have the creation and fall, the promise of the Messiah, the first murder, the flood, the covenant given to Noah and the Tower of Babel. If you discredit these chapters the entire Bible falls apart. There is no sin, no Savior, no relationship between man and God.
Who wrote the book of Psalms? Well it wasn't just one person. We know that David wrote a lot of it. Solomon wrote some and there are at least two or three other authors as well.
Why is it when the New Testament quotes the Old Testament that the wording is many times different from what you read in your Old Testament? The translation of the Old Testament that you have in your modern Bible is a translation from the original Hebrew version of the Bible. But the Old Testament that Jesus and others had during that time is actually the Septuagint. When Alexander the Great conquered all of that area about three hundred years before Christ, he brought the Greek language with him. Over a period of time it became the universal language. So a bunch of Jewish scholars in Egypt, 70 in all hence the name Septuagint, translated the Hebrew Old Testament into Greek. So that is what they were using. So when they quoted the Old Testament they were quoting the Greek translation of the Hebrew. Therefore the words are different, but the meaning is the same.
I hope you did well on the test. You can do with it what you want. You can either send it in, answer in the comments section, or just keep it privately to yourself. Next week we will start talking about the law of God.
Pastor Fred
Wednesday, March 14, 2007
Lutheranism 101 - Part 4 Revealed Knowledge and Authority
I was going to put a test on here today, but then realized that I had not covered the revealed knowledge of God or authority.
One of the questions from a previous lesson was; is the natural knowledge of God enough to gain salvation? The answer to that is no. As was pointed out before almost everyone has a natural knowledge of God whether they are Christian or not. There are very few Atheists in the world. But if all you have is a natural knowledge that some supreme being exists where does that leave you? Well at most it leaves you with a bunch of questions. What is he like? Does he like me? What is he going to do with me when I die? Can he be trusted? If you look back at most primitive religions you find that they lived in fear of God. They did everything they could to appease him. In fact the Greeks just wanted their gods to leave them alone. If all you have is that natural knowledge you never know what this god may do. Maybe he will just decide someday to stomp you into nothing. It really leads to fear. Or at best it leads to a god of your own imagination.
That is why we need the revealed knowledge of God. This is where God reveals himself to us in a way that we can understand and get to know him. That is what the Bible is. It is the revealed knowledge of God. In Scripture God shows us who he is. We get to know his personality, his will and what he is doing and is going to do. Only in the revealed knowledge of God for instance do we find that we have a God who does love us. We find he is a God who has sent His Son to die on the cross for our sins. We are shown in Scripture that we have the forgiveness of sins and salvation through our faith in Jesus Christ. There is no other way to find these type of things out on our own, God has to tell us and he does that through the Bible.
Now that leads us to another topic, that is authority. To talk about God and truth we have to have a source of authority. The question is what is that authority? Where is your ultimate source of authority from about God and truth? This is not a minor question, especially in our modern society. For instance some people's source of authority is Oprah. Now Oprah is a very successful woman and obviously very bright. She brings a line up of people on her show that speak about spiritual issues and finding truth. It is a fact that if she endorses something or someone they many times become an instant success. For many people Oprah is a source of authority about God and truth. For other people it might be their parents. Their parents taught them about God and installed a sense of morality in them. By the way parents, you do this whether you realize it or not and whether the god you teach them is the true one or not and whether the morals you teach or good ones or not. So for many people their parents are ultimate source of authority for the rest of their life. For other people it might be a book they read or a show they watch that provides interesting information. For others it might be the church. The church has certain traditions and ways of doing things and these things are accepted as truth. For other people it is their experiences or feelings. This source of truth has become very important for a number of people. You hear the I've lived it statements and I've experienced this so it must be true.
These are all sources or foundations of authority. The question is can they be trusted? Well I like Oprah, I think she has her heart in the right place and I also love my parents and other people who have taught me importants truths through the years. But at the end of the day all of them are sinners just like me, which means they are not always right. So I am not completely trusting of them as my ultimate source of authority about God and truth. I also know that the church has not always been right and many times gets truth confused with traditions to the point that the traditions become as important as the truth. So I am not going to totally trust the church. I have also gained much from experiences but I also know that experiences can be very subjective. So I am not completely trusting of experiences. The same thing with emotions. Sometimes we can't trust our emotions. Emotions can be wrong and can't be taken as source of authority. They are important, but what makes you happy may make me sad.
So what is the ultimate source of authority. As Christians we look at the Bible as the ultimate source of authority. It is the only book written by God himself, through human authors. It is the only book with no mistakes and it is where God has clearly revealed his will. So when I have a deep question about God that is where I go. Humans err, the church errs, experiences and emotions are too relative. Only God's Word can really guide me to the answers that I need about God.
When I post the test on Friday I will also post the answers to last Tuesday's questions. Feel free to give me your answers ahead of time. The test itself will cover everything we have been talking about.
Pastor Fred
One of the questions from a previous lesson was; is the natural knowledge of God enough to gain salvation? The answer to that is no. As was pointed out before almost everyone has a natural knowledge of God whether they are Christian or not. There are very few Atheists in the world. But if all you have is a natural knowledge that some supreme being exists where does that leave you? Well at most it leaves you with a bunch of questions. What is he like? Does he like me? What is he going to do with me when I die? Can he be trusted? If you look back at most primitive religions you find that they lived in fear of God. They did everything they could to appease him. In fact the Greeks just wanted their gods to leave them alone. If all you have is that natural knowledge you never know what this god may do. Maybe he will just decide someday to stomp you into nothing. It really leads to fear. Or at best it leads to a god of your own imagination.
That is why we need the revealed knowledge of God. This is where God reveals himself to us in a way that we can understand and get to know him. That is what the Bible is. It is the revealed knowledge of God. In Scripture God shows us who he is. We get to know his personality, his will and what he is doing and is going to do. Only in the revealed knowledge of God for instance do we find that we have a God who does love us. We find he is a God who has sent His Son to die on the cross for our sins. We are shown in Scripture that we have the forgiveness of sins and salvation through our faith in Jesus Christ. There is no other way to find these type of things out on our own, God has to tell us and he does that through the Bible.
Now that leads us to another topic, that is authority. To talk about God and truth we have to have a source of authority. The question is what is that authority? Where is your ultimate source of authority from about God and truth? This is not a minor question, especially in our modern society. For instance some people's source of authority is Oprah. Now Oprah is a very successful woman and obviously very bright. She brings a line up of people on her show that speak about spiritual issues and finding truth. It is a fact that if she endorses something or someone they many times become an instant success. For many people Oprah is a source of authority about God and truth. For other people it might be their parents. Their parents taught them about God and installed a sense of morality in them. By the way parents, you do this whether you realize it or not and whether the god you teach them is the true one or not and whether the morals you teach or good ones or not. So for many people their parents are ultimate source of authority for the rest of their life. For other people it might be a book they read or a show they watch that provides interesting information. For others it might be the church. The church has certain traditions and ways of doing things and these things are accepted as truth. For other people it is their experiences or feelings. This source of truth has become very important for a number of people. You hear the I've lived it statements and I've experienced this so it must be true.
These are all sources or foundations of authority. The question is can they be trusted? Well I like Oprah, I think she has her heart in the right place and I also love my parents and other people who have taught me importants truths through the years. But at the end of the day all of them are sinners just like me, which means they are not always right. So I am not completely trusting of them as my ultimate source of authority about God and truth. I also know that the church has not always been right and many times gets truth confused with traditions to the point that the traditions become as important as the truth. So I am not going to totally trust the church. I have also gained much from experiences but I also know that experiences can be very subjective. So I am not completely trusting of experiences. The same thing with emotions. Sometimes we can't trust our emotions. Emotions can be wrong and can't be taken as source of authority. They are important, but what makes you happy may make me sad.
So what is the ultimate source of authority. As Christians we look at the Bible as the ultimate source of authority. It is the only book written by God himself, through human authors. It is the only book with no mistakes and it is where God has clearly revealed his will. So when I have a deep question about God that is where I go. Humans err, the church errs, experiences and emotions are too relative. Only God's Word can really guide me to the answers that I need about God.
When I post the test on Friday I will also post the answers to last Tuesday's questions. Feel free to give me your answers ahead of time. The test itself will cover everything we have been talking about.
Pastor Fred
Friday, March 9, 2007
Lutheranism 101 - Part 3 - The New Testament
While the Old Testament took over a 1000 years to write, the New Testament was written over 50 years or so. The earliest NT books were 1 Thessalonians and Galatians, probably written about 50 A.D. The last book, the book of Revelation was completed by about the year 100 A.D. The rest of the books were probably written somewhere in-between.
The shape of the New Testament Canon has come into sharp dispute recently in the media. This has come as the result of such books as the Da Vinci Code and publication of the different Gnostic gospels. Serious scholars have not put much stock in any of this though. The Da Vinci Code has been lambasted not just by conservative Christian scholars but also by secular scholars who will tell you the history just doesn't add up. The reason many Christians have reacted so strongly to this is that Brown who wrote the fictional book does teach that the history behind the book is true. He has even claimed so on national TV, much to the ridicule of anyone who knows anything about ancient history.
The word Gnostic in Greek means knowledge. The Gnostics thought that they had a secret knowledge of God. There were a number of variations in their beliefs, but basically it came down to believing that there was a material world which was evil and a spiritual world which was good. They looked at Jesus as coming from a higher order of beings who came to earth to reveal truth to a few individuals who have this secret knowledge. They deny that Jesus took on flesh and that he died on the cross for the sins of mankind because this would entangle him to much in the evil material world. They also deny his physical resurrection and look upon it as more of a spiritual thing. Gnostic thought is what is largely behind much of the New Age Movement, hence the importance of the Gnostic Gospels to them. Many of these Gnostic gospels were discovered in the Nag Hammadi Library.
The Gnostic Gospels, contrary to what people such as Ellen Pagels and Crossan says, were never seriously considered to be a part of the Canon. First of all they were not written at the same time as the New Testament. Most of them were written in the century after the completion of the NT. From the beginning they were not read in the churches or considered to be of any authority. They did not fit in with the other books and if you take the time to read them you find they have many strange things in them that totally contradict Scripture.
What is interesting about much of this is that some people think all this stuff about the Gnostic Gospels is new. It is not. For instance there was a discovery just recently of the Gospel of Judas. This was supposed to rock the Christian world. They must have forgotten to tell the Christian world because most of us just went, well good we have been wondering where that thing went. Early Church Fathers in the first four or five centuries had already told us there was a gospel of Judas. We knew it existed and we also knew that the church had rejected it from the beginning. We just didn't have a copy of it anymore. So thanks for finding it guys, go ahead and put it on the shelf right over there so it can begin to gather dust again.
Burgland says this, "The early Christian church did not decided what books were authoritative, but they did recognize the unique nature of the works that we know as the New Testament. In his Easter letter to his congregations in A.D. 367, Bishop Athanasius of Alexandria Egypt, listed the 27 New Testament books as divine and called them springs of salvation. In A.D. 397 at Carthage in North Africa, a church council met, with Augustine in attendance, and confirmed the canon of the New Testament. After that there was little discussion about the Canon."
Most of the New Testament books had an Apostle connected to them and they were publicly read in the church service which meant they were considered to be authoritative. So really the council didn't pick and choose which books were to be in and which were to be out, they just confirmed what the church was already using. In the past pastors never talked much about the Gnostic Gospels because they didn't have to, now because of the New Age Movement and it's false teachers we have to.
There are as I said before 27 books in the New Testamemt. We have the four gospels, Matthew through John. The first three gospels are called the synoptic gospels because they all tell the same story from different points of view. The fourth Gospel John was written much later and tells the story to a second generation of Christians who would not have known Jesus personally. Then we have one book of history, the book of Acts. The last book of the Bible, Revelation, is a book of prophecy. The books in between are called the Epistles and they were written mostly by Paul and then some by James, John and Peter and a few unknowns.
The Bible was written in three languages. The Old Testament was written in Hebrew, except for parts of Daniel which was in Aramaic. The New Testament was written in Greek and maybe a few parts in Aramaic.
We also believe in the three I's. We believe that the Bible is Inspired. Men wrote down the words but the words were actually God's. In other words the Holy Spirit inspired them to write what they wrote. So it is the very Word of God. We also believe that the Bible is Inerrant. It has no mistakes in the original languages. Notice I said original languages. There are mistakes in the translations, because you cannot translate word for word from one language to another. So we believe what the Bible says even if it is hard to deal with. We also believe that the Bible is Infallaible. It can't have any mistakes. The difference between inerrancy and infallible is this. A phone book is supposed to be inerrant. It is not supposed to have any mistakes, but we all know that it does. So a phone book is not infallible. The Bible has no mistakes and it can not have any mistakes because it is the very Word of God. What God says is always right. He is the one who determines the very definition of right. So the Bible can't be wrong.
There are now more translations and paraphrases of the Bible out there then you can shake a stick at. The difference between a translation and a paraphrase is pretty simple. A translation tries to go word for word as much as it can. They strive for exact accuracy between the original language and English. A paraphrase just strives to get the general concept across. It is more loose. Paraphrases are okay for reading, but should never be used for study Bibles. Good examples of translations would be the New International Version, the Revised Standard Version, and the King James Version. Good examples of the paraphrases would be the Living Bible, The Message, and the Contemporary English Version.
Well we could go into the whole history of the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Nag Hammadi Library, which is full of false Gnostic Gospels, and the Old Testament Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha, but that is for another course later on.
I am not going to give you any questions on this one, because next week we are going to have a test. So I will let you study what we have been talking about.
Pastor Fred
The shape of the New Testament Canon has come into sharp dispute recently in the media. This has come as the result of such books as the Da Vinci Code and publication of the different Gnostic gospels. Serious scholars have not put much stock in any of this though. The Da Vinci Code has been lambasted not just by conservative Christian scholars but also by secular scholars who will tell you the history just doesn't add up. The reason many Christians have reacted so strongly to this is that Brown who wrote the fictional book does teach that the history behind the book is true. He has even claimed so on national TV, much to the ridicule of anyone who knows anything about ancient history.
The word Gnostic in Greek means knowledge. The Gnostics thought that they had a secret knowledge of God. There were a number of variations in their beliefs, but basically it came down to believing that there was a material world which was evil and a spiritual world which was good. They looked at Jesus as coming from a higher order of beings who came to earth to reveal truth to a few individuals who have this secret knowledge. They deny that Jesus took on flesh and that he died on the cross for the sins of mankind because this would entangle him to much in the evil material world. They also deny his physical resurrection and look upon it as more of a spiritual thing. Gnostic thought is what is largely behind much of the New Age Movement, hence the importance of the Gnostic Gospels to them. Many of these Gnostic gospels were discovered in the Nag Hammadi Library.
The Gnostic Gospels, contrary to what people such as Ellen Pagels and Crossan says, were never seriously considered to be a part of the Canon. First of all they were not written at the same time as the New Testament. Most of them were written in the century after the completion of the NT. From the beginning they were not read in the churches or considered to be of any authority. They did not fit in with the other books and if you take the time to read them you find they have many strange things in them that totally contradict Scripture.
What is interesting about much of this is that some people think all this stuff about the Gnostic Gospels is new. It is not. For instance there was a discovery just recently of the Gospel of Judas. This was supposed to rock the Christian world. They must have forgotten to tell the Christian world because most of us just went, well good we have been wondering where that thing went. Early Church Fathers in the first four or five centuries had already told us there was a gospel of Judas. We knew it existed and we also knew that the church had rejected it from the beginning. We just didn't have a copy of it anymore. So thanks for finding it guys, go ahead and put it on the shelf right over there so it can begin to gather dust again.
Burgland says this, "The early Christian church did not decided what books were authoritative, but they did recognize the unique nature of the works that we know as the New Testament. In his Easter letter to his congregations in A.D. 367, Bishop Athanasius of Alexandria Egypt, listed the 27 New Testament books as divine and called them springs of salvation. In A.D. 397 at Carthage in North Africa, a church council met, with Augustine in attendance, and confirmed the canon of the New Testament. After that there was little discussion about the Canon."
Most of the New Testament books had an Apostle connected to them and they were publicly read in the church service which meant they were considered to be authoritative. So really the council didn't pick and choose which books were to be in and which were to be out, they just confirmed what the church was already using. In the past pastors never talked much about the Gnostic Gospels because they didn't have to, now because of the New Age Movement and it's false teachers we have to.
There are as I said before 27 books in the New Testamemt. We have the four gospels, Matthew through John. The first three gospels are called the synoptic gospels because they all tell the same story from different points of view. The fourth Gospel John was written much later and tells the story to a second generation of Christians who would not have known Jesus personally. Then we have one book of history, the book of Acts. The last book of the Bible, Revelation, is a book of prophecy. The books in between are called the Epistles and they were written mostly by Paul and then some by James, John and Peter and a few unknowns.
The Bible was written in three languages. The Old Testament was written in Hebrew, except for parts of Daniel which was in Aramaic. The New Testament was written in Greek and maybe a few parts in Aramaic.
We also believe in the three I's. We believe that the Bible is Inspired. Men wrote down the words but the words were actually God's. In other words the Holy Spirit inspired them to write what they wrote. So it is the very Word of God. We also believe that the Bible is Inerrant. It has no mistakes in the original languages. Notice I said original languages. There are mistakes in the translations, because you cannot translate word for word from one language to another. So we believe what the Bible says even if it is hard to deal with. We also believe that the Bible is Infallaible. It can't have any mistakes. The difference between inerrancy and infallible is this. A phone book is supposed to be inerrant. It is not supposed to have any mistakes, but we all know that it does. So a phone book is not infallible. The Bible has no mistakes and it can not have any mistakes because it is the very Word of God. What God says is always right. He is the one who determines the very definition of right. So the Bible can't be wrong.
There are now more translations and paraphrases of the Bible out there then you can shake a stick at. The difference between a translation and a paraphrase is pretty simple. A translation tries to go word for word as much as it can. They strive for exact accuracy between the original language and English. A paraphrase just strives to get the general concept across. It is more loose. Paraphrases are okay for reading, but should never be used for study Bibles. Good examples of translations would be the New International Version, the Revised Standard Version, and the King James Version. Good examples of the paraphrases would be the Living Bible, The Message, and the Contemporary English Version.
Well we could go into the whole history of the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Nag Hammadi Library, which is full of false Gnostic Gospels, and the Old Testament Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha, but that is for another course later on.
I am not going to give you any questions on this one, because next week we are going to have a test. So I will let you study what we have been talking about.
Pastor Fred
Tuesday, March 6, 2007
Lutheranism 101 - Part 2 - Old Testament
For those of you who really want to go in-depth in this area I would highly recommend the book, "Reading the Bible with Understanding" by Dr. Lane Burgland. He was a professor at Concordia Theological Seminary in Fort Wayne Indiana. I think this is the most comprehensive book for lay theologians on the subject of the Bible. As a student I preached at a church where he was doing some vacancy work at the time. Since I was still a student he needed to approve my sermon. So a few days after I gave it to him to read he called me into his office. I thought I was there to talk about my sermon. Burgland had other ideas. He loved guns and always packed one where ever he went, even in the classroom. Which was interesting because he was big enough he probably could have played in the front line for the Green Bay Packers. I mean no one in their right mind would have ever messed with this guy. Well somehow he found out I was from Idaho and Montana and that my parents had at one time owned a sporting goods store in Missoula and that I had been in the Marine Corps in artillery. I walked into his office expecting to have my sermon critiqued and instead all he wanted to talk about was guns and ammo. So we must have talked for over an hour about shooting and blowing things up. Finally as I was getting ready to leave he said, "Oh wait a minute here's your sermon back, looks good." He instantly became one of my favorite professors of all time. Anyway if you want to get the book talk to me. A lot of the stuff I am going to be talking about here comes directly from his book.
The Bible has been under attack for some time now. People talk about oral tradition and how it wasn't written till long after its supposed authors were dead. Its accuracy and what books were accepted into the cannon have also been questioned. The problem with many of these accusations is that they do not stand up to historical research. Burgland points out for instance that we have writing samples from 3100 B.C. from what is modern Iraq and Egypt. So writing goes way back. The Old Testament itself was written over a period of about 1100 years. Moses wrote the first five books of the Bible in the 15th century and then the last books of the Old Testament were probably finished about 400 B.C. Some have questioned how Moses could have known all the history that happened before him including the whole history of creation. Some of the information could have come down in oral form and some could have come from other writings. We also have to realize that we believe God inspired Moses as he wrote. So God told him the history. Again if you want to get more into this we can but I don't really have space here. This could be its own study later on maybe.
As far as original manuscripts well we don't have any. Until 1947 the oldest copy of the Old Testament that we possessed was dated about 1000 A.D. When the Dead Sea Scrolls were found they matched 95 percent of the manuscripts we had. They were dated about 95 A.D. which means that for close to a thousand years they had not changed except for minor things. For instance there was no book of Esther in the Dead Sea Scrolls. This shows the care that was taken to preserve the original writings through the years. So much for a bunch of copy mistakes.
Jesus also held the Old Testament in high regard quoting from it continually. The authors of the New Testament also quote from it time and time again. They consider it an accurate document.
So how did we get the Old Testament put together in the form that we have it now? The Canon, which is a list of books accepted as Holy Scripture, was in its current form about the time the New Testament was being written. The last time its make up seems to be discussed is the Council of Jamnia or Yavneh in 90 A.D.
The Old Testament is made up of 39 books divided into certain groups. There is the Law or Torah which is the first five books of Moses. Then there are the prophets, some of which are history, Joshua through 2 Kings and then prophecy, which is Isaiah through Malachi. The Writings are thinks like the Psalms and Proverbs, Song of Songs and the like.
Here are some Bible verses for you to read: 1 Thessalonians 2:13; 2 Peter 1:21; 2 Timothy 3:16; 1 Corinthians 2:13; Luke 16:29; 2 Timothy 3:15
Here are some questions for you:
Why are the first eleven chapters of Genesis so important?
Who wrote the book of Psalms?
Why is it when the New Testament quotes the Old Testament that the wording is many times different from what you read in your Old Testament?
If you take some time to read the comments section from last week's lesson you will see some good feed back. As for the answers:
To the first question from Acts 17, Paul says it is so people will seek Him.
In Psalms it says that an atheist is a fool
The answer to the last question is no. The natural knowledge of God in not enough for salvation. We cannot know through natural knowledge that there is a Savior.
I liked the feed back, it showed that you were thinking through things. I imagine that what I wrote above is going to generate a lot of questions. Please feel free to send them. Like I said we could get very in depth in this issue. Our next lesson will be on the New Testament and Inspiration.
Pastor Fred
The Bible has been under attack for some time now. People talk about oral tradition and how it wasn't written till long after its supposed authors were dead. Its accuracy and what books were accepted into the cannon have also been questioned. The problem with many of these accusations is that they do not stand up to historical research. Burgland points out for instance that we have writing samples from 3100 B.C. from what is modern Iraq and Egypt. So writing goes way back. The Old Testament itself was written over a period of about 1100 years. Moses wrote the first five books of the Bible in the 15th century and then the last books of the Old Testament were probably finished about 400 B.C. Some have questioned how Moses could have known all the history that happened before him including the whole history of creation. Some of the information could have come down in oral form and some could have come from other writings. We also have to realize that we believe God inspired Moses as he wrote. So God told him the history. Again if you want to get more into this we can but I don't really have space here. This could be its own study later on maybe.
As far as original manuscripts well we don't have any. Until 1947 the oldest copy of the Old Testament that we possessed was dated about 1000 A.D. When the Dead Sea Scrolls were found they matched 95 percent of the manuscripts we had. They were dated about 95 A.D. which means that for close to a thousand years they had not changed except for minor things. For instance there was no book of Esther in the Dead Sea Scrolls. This shows the care that was taken to preserve the original writings through the years. So much for a bunch of copy mistakes.
Jesus also held the Old Testament in high regard quoting from it continually. The authors of the New Testament also quote from it time and time again. They consider it an accurate document.
So how did we get the Old Testament put together in the form that we have it now? The Canon, which is a list of books accepted as Holy Scripture, was in its current form about the time the New Testament was being written. The last time its make up seems to be discussed is the Council of Jamnia or Yavneh in 90 A.D.
The Old Testament is made up of 39 books divided into certain groups. There is the Law or Torah which is the first five books of Moses. Then there are the prophets, some of which are history, Joshua through 2 Kings and then prophecy, which is Isaiah through Malachi. The Writings are thinks like the Psalms and Proverbs, Song of Songs and the like.
Here are some Bible verses for you to read: 1 Thessalonians 2:13; 2 Peter 1:21; 2 Timothy 3:16; 1 Corinthians 2:13; Luke 16:29; 2 Timothy 3:15
Here are some questions for you:
Why are the first eleven chapters of Genesis so important?
Who wrote the book of Psalms?
Why is it when the New Testament quotes the Old Testament that the wording is many times different from what you read in your Old Testament?
If you take some time to read the comments section from last week's lesson you will see some good feed back. As for the answers:
To the first question from Acts 17, Paul says it is so people will seek Him.
In Psalms it says that an atheist is a fool
The answer to the last question is no. The natural knowledge of God in not enough for salvation. We cannot know through natural knowledge that there is a Savior.
I liked the feed back, it showed that you were thinking through things. I imagine that what I wrote above is going to generate a lot of questions. Please feel free to send them. Like I said we could get very in depth in this issue. Our next lesson will be on the New Testament and Inspiration.
Pastor Fred
Saturday, March 3, 2007
Ice cream and Push ups
My mother occasionally talks about taking my 2 year olds out for ice cream. She has not had the chance to do that yet, but I am more than willing to let her as long as I can go along just to watch. We took them to Dairy Queen last night and bought them those small individual cones. It went well until they decided to share with each other and Darla and I. We kept telling them to eat their own ice cream but they kept smearing it on my shirt, on the table on the window, on their own clothes and every napkin we could get ahold of. So we all had ice cream whether we wanted it or not. So when grandma comes and wants to take them to ice cream I am more than willing to let her.
So how many push ups can you do? It might depend I guess on what you are doing them for. Tomorrow we will be doing push ups for Jesus.
On another note people have mentioned to me that the reading program we are doing is a little too demanding. So we are going to take a break for two weeks so that everyone can catch up. The readings are printed in the previous blogs.
Pastor Fred
So how many push ups can you do? It might depend I guess on what you are doing them for. Tomorrow we will be doing push ups for Jesus.
On another note people have mentioned to me that the reading program we are doing is a little too demanding. So we are going to take a break for two weeks so that everyone can catch up. The readings are printed in the previous blogs.
Pastor Fred
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