Chromosomes

When conceived, there is either a joining of an XX (female) set of chromosomes or an XY (male) set of chromosomes - this is basic genetics 101. Even if a person is confused about their gender, they undergo hormone therapy and undergo radical surgery to alter external sex organs. If some 300 years from now, someone would come across the grave of a person who had taken hormone therapy all their life and had gender reassignment surgery; if they ran genetic testing on that skeleton that they had found 300 years later, they would say this person was male or female based on the residual effects of having XX or XY chromosome.

-Dr. Kirk Clayton

Holy Innocents

Herod sent them to Bethlehem and said, "Go and search carefully for the child. As soon as you find him, report to me, so that I too may go and worship him." (Matthew 2:8).

Note the great ones of this world are not averse to using a cloak of piety to hide evil intentions. Herod The Great once said, "Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by rulers as useful." Christians, of course, know that's bunk and that wise men seek Him still.

When Herod saw that he had been tricked by the wise men, he became furious, and he sent and killed all the male children in Bethlehem and all the region who were two years old or younger. When the Eastern Orthodox celebrate the Feast of the Holy Innocents, their tradition insists that he slew 14,000 infants. But the Jewish historian Josephus who catalogs any number of Herod's atrocities fails to mention this one.

The answer the modern scholars tend to give is a good one; there probably weren't all that many children thus murdered and it kind of pales killing other folks' kids when you executed your own favorite wife, her mother, and your kids. What is for sure, the information given by Josephus fits the action of Herod here and makes it totally unsurprising. He was cold and calculating and jealous of his thrown.

But even if it's only 10 or 5, would it not be an awful and evil thing in its own right? As the mothers and fathers held their butchered babies in their arms, you better believe the only question that arose in their broken and shattered hearts was why- why God? It's cold comfort to try to theologically parse the distinction between God's permissive will and His active will. It was the cruelty of Herod himself, a very broken man from a very broken race of men who are shown it wasn't God who affected those deaths. A spotlight on what's gone wrong in us all.

-Pr. Will Weedon

Galileo

Chances are you have been taught some of the same things I was taught in history or even perhaps science class about why the Roman Catholic Church had Galileo arrested. The myth goes something like this: Galileo was imprisoned or somehow tortured by the Church for advocating Copernicanism, that model of the universe that was relatively new at his time, firmly establishing the church's eternal enemy of science.

The Galileo affair is and has been until recent generations of a profession of historians of science today have come to a much better understanding of Galileo than you might have found 50 or 100 years ago. The story is often told that Galileo was some type of champion of free thought and some kind of point man for the scientific community, who turns his telescope to heaven and sees error reputable evidence somehow that proves the earth moves and the sun stands still. And the Church, ruffled by this for fear it contradicts their cherished understanding of Scripture, does all it can to silence him, including threatening him with jail or torture or, in fact, putting him in jail and torturing him. The truth really couldn't be further from this.

First of all, Galileo thought he had this positive evidence of the earth's motion and proof of the Copernican Hypothesis, but his evidence was faulty. He grounded most of his confidence in a theory he had about the tides. Although he thought it was a good theory, it turns out that it really wasn't a good theory. He did have interesting telescopical observations, but the telescopical observations themselves stop short of demonstrating that the earth moved. They certainly showed problems with one of the leading competitive theories of Claudius Ptolemaeus, the second-century astronomer. But Galileo overstated his case. He did so in a context where he alienated himself not so much from the Church as from the leading natural philosophers as we would call scientists in those days. Many of them had independent arguments with Galileo over the behavior of falling bodies, floating bodies in the water, sun spots, and how to interpret a supernova, and in case after case, Galileo was at odds with many of the leaders of the scientific community. When they found themselves frustrated by his virtuosity in these arguments, they began to involve the Church and challenge his robust claims to the motion of the earth.

Leaders of the Church were certainly open to the prospect that the earth might move, but they wanted to see good evidence. One of the most important leading figures, Cardinal Robert Bellarmine was pretty clear; he said, "if there was a true demonstration that the sun is at the center of the world, I like to see that demonstration. But I can't believe there is such a demonstration until someone shows it to me." He was not persuaded by what Galileo had to show him about the tides.

So Galileo kind of dug himself into a hole and did so even further when he was enjoined not to teach or publically discuss this idea of the earth's motion, and instead, he went ahead and wrote his dialog on The Two Cheif World Systems, which he published in 1632. It was a dialog between generally three figures, and in the mouth of the fool, he put the words of the Pope. When it was pointed out to the Pope that Galileo was actually taking this opportunity to what appeared to be ridiculing the Pope, Galileo was summoned to Rome and put on trial.

Ultimately, he was found vehemently suspected of heresy; in other words, he was never officially charged as a heretic but was placed under house arrest in his comfortable Italian villa for the remainder of his days which he continued scientific work. So the story is much more interesting than the narrow one that makes it look like the church was anti-intellect and bigoted. The point here is while he did have his opponents in his theory about the motion of heavenly bodies and the place of the sun and earth, these opponents were largely in the natural science communities and not within the Church itself.

-Dr. Mark Kalthoff

December 25th

Why was December 25th chosen for Christ's birth? There's still this myth circulating that the date was borrowed from the Roman Empire and, therefore, has pagan origins.

December 25th was mentioned first by Tertullian (ca 160 AC). His study of the Gospel of John has him calculating Mary's conception of Jesus on the 14th of Nisson according to the Hebrew calendar (March 25th Gregorian calendar). Precisely nine months later would have Christ born on December 25th.

We modern people would have some reason to be skeptical of Tertullian's calculation method. This date certainly is a tradition of men and probably is not the exact date of Christ's birth. Nevertheless, the day of December 25th was not borrowed from anything paganism was doing.

-Pr. Will Weedon

Wisemen

A lot of modern scholars will argue that the Wisemen wouldn't have arrived till two years after the event. You could conclude that from Matthew 2:16, but it is by no means a slamdunk. One thing is for sure they did not arrive on the night of Christ's birth. When they show up, the Child and His mother (note Joseph is absent, maybe at work) are in a house, not a stable; thus, the artwork of the Church, both East and West puts them at the cave or stable, which is surely not accurate. When the great 16th-century reformer of the church Martin Luther, engages the question, he opines probably fell sometime in the six weeks before the presentation in the Temple, which St. Luke records in his second chapter. No one knows for sure.

-Pr. Will Weedon

Zero

The concept of zero hadn't been invented yet, so things went from 1 BC to 1 AD. Ancient historians tell us Herold, The Great, died shortly after a lunar eclipse, and we can go back and know when there was a lunar eclipse in Palestine. You can use the NASA website to calculate when there was a lunar eclipse.

There are a couple of dates that might be important. There was one in 4 BC in March, and that is one some people use to try to date Herold's death. But there was another one in early 1 BC, which is believed was shortly before Herod's death. Herold died in the Spring shortly before the Passover. This all helps us date the Birth of Jesus Christ. Why is this important? It shows that God came to us in history and that the Bible is accurate and people didn't just makeup stories.

– Dr. Andrew Steinmann

Holy Spirit

 "And it shall come to pass afterward, that I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh; your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, and your young men shall see visions." (Joel 2:28)

You might be thinking; I've never prophesied or seen visions; does that mean I don't have the Holy Spirit? Remember, prophecy is first and foremost not predicting the future things; it is only sometimes that, but above all, speaking forth the words of God and the visions those words give us of God's will and the perfect fulfillment on the day of Jesus' glorious appearing.

In the great initial fulfillment of this verse on the day of Pentecost, the Spirit comes first on the twelve and those with them, but then before the days' end, Peter had directed no less than three thousand to the water where they too would receive the same gift, “Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. For the promise is for you and for your children and for all who are far off, everyone whom the Lord our God calls to himself.” (Acts 2:38-39)

What happens to these people? They are filled with the Spirit, and they attend to the apostle's word, and they begin speaking it among themselves; they prophesy and sing their joy in the word of God into each other's hearts and minds. So it was that day, so it has been in all the years since as the baptized receive the Spirit, give themselves to the hearing and speaking of the word, and sing out their joy in the Lord.

-Pr. Will Weedon

His Star

 "For we saw his star when it rose and have come to worship him" (Matthew 2: 2b)

St. John Chrysostom preaching this text to the congregation in Antioch in the late fourth century makes it crystal clear that St. Matthew is not endorsing astrology, and he argues for this star not being actually a phenomenon in any sense but a special object which appears solely for this purpose. Thus you mustn't think astrology explains the star. This is a special incidence all the way around, and note they don't say the star leads them toward Jererslum. Its appearance somehow told them that the long-awaited Jewish King had been born. They think they know then where to go...

Luther loved to point out that though nature announced His birth, it did not direct the Wisemen where to actually find the King. Using human reasoning, they landed in Jererslum, the capital city of the Jews. What human reason was hopeless to achieve was locating Him, for you needed the Word of God. You needed the writing of the Old Testament - the prophets would proclaim where you could find the King of the Jews (Micah 5:2).

So they make the journey a tad farther south to Bethlehem (verse 9). The appearance of the star was quite miraculous, and one more time it appeared before them, but this time it led the way like a pillar of cloud by day, and a pillar of fire by night had led the Israelites. So this star miraculously leads them to the very place where the Child is. Artist probably does us no favors is showing it nice and bright high in the sky. You, well know no one can see from that; the star is over a particular place. No, the text suggests, as St. John Chrysostom noted, that it appeared as a bright light right above the house, pointing it out showing its supernatural nature. It's not any phenomenon of the cosmos but a very grace of God. It behaves as no natural star can, but it leads to the Child confirming the very words of the prophet Micah that this newborn King was birthed in Bethlehem, the ancient home of King David.

-Pr. Will Weedon

VDMA

 "Verbum Domini Manet in Aeternum" is Latin and in English means (The Word of the Lord Endures Forever). It is the motto of the Lutheran Reformation, a confident expression of the enduring power and authority of God's Word. The motto is based on 1 Peter 1:24-25. It first appeared in the court of Frederick the Wise in 1522. He had it sewn onto the right sleeve of the court's official clothing, which was worn by prince and servant alike. It was used by Frederick's successors, his brother John the Steadfast and his nephew John Frederick the Magnanimous. It became the official motto of the Smalcaldic League and was used on flags, banners, swords, and uniforms as a symbol of unity of the Lutheran laity who struggled to defend their beliefs, communities, families, and lives against those who were intent on destroying them.

-Concordia Reader's Edition

Two Men In Field

Then two men will be in the field; one will be taken and one left. (Matthew 24:40)

No, folks, this is not the Rapture that modern dispensationalists teach. Jesus means when the day comes, everyone is going to be doing normal things, but some of those doing normal things are also prepared and ready, having heeded His words, and others will not be.

St. Hilary of Poitiers put it distinctly in his commentary on St. Matthew in the fourth century. The two in the field, therefore, represent the faithful and the unfaithful. Both of whom will be surprised by the Day of the Lord in the midst of the world in the course of their life's work.

But now, how to be among those taken, as in, brought to the Lord and not among those left? He explains in verse 42, "Therefore stay awake, for you do not know on what day your Lord is coming." Certainly, that applies to the coming of the Lord on the Last Day, but you know it also applies to your last day. You do not know when the Lord will actually call you from this world to Himself. Sudden death is a very real, real possibility for any of us.

So when Chrysostom preached this to his congregation in fourth-century Antioch, he said: If ordinary people knew when they were going to die, they surely would be striving earnestly at that hour; in order therefore that they may strive not at that hour only. He does not tell them the hour or day; he wants them to keep on their toes, looking for it that they may be always striving. That is why he made the end of each person's life so uncertain.

You stay awake if you will, by never discounting the end of your life and the Day of His return and of judgment. You stay awake by remembering His promise and by living in such a way that on that day of His appearing, you're not ashamed, for your sins will have been covered by His blood, and you will have been found striving for His will even when you did your earthly chores.

-Pr. Will Weedon

Out Of Egypt

 "Out of Egypt, I called my son." (Matthew 2:15b)

Hosea is replete with both images that God uses to describe love for his people, that of a wife and that of a child. He highlights Yahweh's faithfulness in both images and Israel's unfaithfulness as either Yahweh's betrothed or as his child. Jesus is a foil to Israel's failure. If they are disobedient sons, He is a faithful Son who does all His Father's bidding.

In his own day, John Chrysostom heard the Jews objecting to this citation by St. Matthew, insisting that is not what Hosea was talking about at all! He was talking about Israel, not Jesus. Chrysostom points out to Matthew's detractors, though, how very often throughout the Old Testament of a nearer fulfillment nests inside a greater and more distant one. He argues this is of a piece with that since St. Matthew had already introduced us to the very notion that the entirety of the Old Testament is actually, well, Jesus' story, His genealogy, His book. He undergirds this point with all of those citations from the prophets that punctuate his Gospel and show how the whole finally comes home to roost in Jesus. But this one is of particular importance; it shows that Jesus is Israel reduced to one and Israel as faithful Son. Thus He will relive the whole of Israel's story in His own life.

If Israel (quite literally Israel) Jacob and his sons went out of the Promiseland to Eygpt for a period of time, then so will Jesus. If Israel wandered forty years in the wilderness and endured temptations and trials, so will Jesus wander forty days in the wilderness and endure various temptations and trials. Said another way - Jesus and His whole life, from birth to death, from resurrection to ascension, is at work bringing the actual meaning of the Old Testament to light as the revelation of Himself. No single bit of the Old Testament can give you the whole you find in Jesus, but taken all together in light of His story as St. Matthew and the other Evangelists tell it, you begin to see that it was no exaggeration to speak of the Old Testament as His own book (John 5:39) whose job was to proclaim Him as the Savior of sinners and reveal Him as the God who is with us!

-Pr. Will Weedon

Enosh And Enoch

Eve bears another son named Seth, Hebrew for "He appointed." She means this is the appointed heir of the promise God gave. She had thought originally that it would be Cain. She learned to her heartbreak and sorrow that he was not the crusher of the Serpent's head; he was in league with the Serpent. So with this birth, we begin to trace the Messianic line, the descent from Adam and Eve of the promised Seed. In every generation, there will be one line carrying the promised Seed forward.

Seth's son is named Enosh, and Cain's son is named Enoch. The similarities in names are attentional, and it indicates there are really two kinds of people going on here. Saint Augustine explains his great thesis: "We have two lines of succession: One descending from Cain and the other from the son who was born to Adam in order to be heir of Abel who was killed, and to whom Adam gave the name Seth. He is referred to in the words:  'God has given me another Seed for Abel whom Cain slew.' Thus it is the two series of generations that are kept so distinct. The one from Seth and the other from Cain symbolize the two cities which I am dealing with in this work. The heavenly city in exile on earth and the earthly city who only search and satisfaction are for and in the joys of earth."

These two cities are implacably opposed to each other. You can see why right? If you are determined to settle down here in this world, in this age, then anything that would direct you away from the present is regarded as an enemy, as a distraction, a pipedream. Similarly, when you know that in this age you don't have your true home and that you are really a people on pilgrimage well, then you long for the heavenly home where God is worshiped and seen and known. Then anything that distracts you from your journey to that home in obtaining it is the enemy. So between these two cities, there never will be peace. The one values what the other regards as worthless and even dangerous.  

Pr. Will Weedon

The Chalice

Drinking from the common cup [chalice] is the preferred mode of receiving the Lord's Supper, but it isn't mandatory. But it does best confess what Christ instituted, and it does confess one cup institution. The Lutheran Church Missouri Synod doesn't say you must do it but that it is to be preferred. It actually holds fast to Christ's institution, so to use individual cups is certainly not forbidden. Still, it carries with it implications of individualism that is not included in Christ's original institution. It's right there in the term individual cups, "individual," and we come together as a body.

-Pr. Todd Wilken

Eating And Drinking.

"Take, eat; this is my body...Drink of it all of you, for this is my blood." (Matthew 26:26-28)

But still, can He really of meant for us to actually eat His body and drink His blood and do so for the forgiveness of sins? Isn't that just beyond the pale of possibility? Again, the New Testament is not ambiguous on this.

St. Paul also declares, "the cup of blessing which we bless is it not a participation or communion in the blood of Christ?" And St. Paul flat out tells you that whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy matter is not guilty of bread and wine but guilty concerning the body and blood of the Lord. So we are to examine ourselves before we partake.

And again, just as the witness of the Church through the centuries is universal about the reality of the bread being Christ's body, so also the contents of the cup being His true blood, and bringing to us all that blood has won for us.

.

-Pr. Will Weedon

Words Of Institution

"The natural understanding of the words of institution 'This is my body; this is my blood,' and you extend that then also the words, 'Do this in remembrance of me,' already provide a proper understanding of the Lord's Supper. Because you can't do what Jesus is doing with His disciples if you can't repeat that; if you can't do the same thing He is doing with them. So when Jesus says, 'This is my body,' of course, we take Him at His word that it is His body, and it has to be His body down the road in the future. So then, the natural understanding of the words already creates a proper understanding of the Lord's Supper."

-Dr. Jacob Corzine

Build Back Better

In that day, I will raise up the booth of David that is fallen and repair its breaches and raise up its ruins and rebuild it as in the days of old. (Amos 9:11)

God is going to "build back better." It was this passage that St. James quotes in the great Jerusalem council (see James 15:13-17). The Lord had foretold that the Gentiles, too, would find welcome at the time that the Lord restores the booth of David by sending His Son in the flesh to suffer and die to raise victoriously and reign over all until His enemies are placed beneath His feet.

In the Scriptures, bread tends to be associated with the Fall, sorrow, and life in this fallen world like Genesis 3:19. But wine now is associated with eschatological joy, with the feast of the kingdom of God. And so a time of abundance is foretold when the mountains will drip sweet wine, and all the hills will flow with it. You can't help but think of that first of signs, which Jesus performed in Cana of Galilee (see John 2:1-12). It's as if though He is waving this verse from Amos in their faces, manifesting His glory, and announcing in His person the arrival of the messianic age.

Now, if Christ is the fulfillment of the restoration of David's kingdom, and this includes the Gentiles, then the "They shall build the ruin cities and inhabit them, and they shall never be uprooted from there again" does not refer to some restoration to Palestinian soil. This points to the home which God prepares for His people (Hebrews 11). God has prepared for us a home, a heavenly inheritance. Here in this world, we don't have a final home, but God has a final home for us, and we will arrive there, at last, a home prepared by and through the gift of His Son into our flesh and blood to restore, and to rebuild the fallen down house of David.

-Pr. Will Weedon

Winepress

 And the winepress was trodden outside the city, and blood flowed from the winepress, as high as a horse's bridle, for 1,600 stadia. (Revelation 14:20)

"Outside the city" brings remembrance that Jesus suffered outside the city as He trod alone the winepress of God's wrath for us. He bore what we could never bear and did it to save us from that wrath forever. But if anyone rejects what Jesus did outside the city, if they persist in their rebellion against the true king well, then the horrible picture of this passage comes into play. The blood is depicted spread in a 184-mile radius around the holy city and as high up as a horse's bridle. That horrible image suggests the complete and utter torment that awaits those who persist in refusing Jesus as their king.

People always like to image gentle Jesus, meek and mild, and yet the Jesus you meet in the pages of the New Testament has more than a little bit of an edge about Him. After all, He bluntly said in Luke 19:27, "But as for these enemies of mine, who did not want me to reign over them, bring them here and slaughter them before me." That is exactly what this verse from Revelation depicts.

So people loved by God; there really are two ways this whole thing ends. Jesus makes that so clear in His parables of the end. Just read through Matthew 25 one more time. On the one hand, there is the joyful gathering of the saints to the Lamb carried home by the angels, welcomed into the kingdom to heaven to blessedness. But then there is the fearful, frightful, terrifying judgment that awaits without any doubt all who continue in revolt against King Jesus to their last earthly breath. They want nothing to do with Him; they want nothing from Him. Even though in love for them, He too has born the fullness of divine wrath which their sins demanded that they might be all atoned. Heaven or hell, folks, there is no middle ground.

-Pr. Will Weedon

Passover Sader

Many Christians that would gather during Holy Week to celebrate a quote-unquote Christian Passover Seder meal would be surprised to discover the origins of the Jewish Passover Seder were within the sect of the Pharisees. Ironically, Christians who would want to learn about the context in which the Lord's Supper was instituted would turn to the liturgy of the Pharisees to teach them about the meaning of Jesus' words.

Jesus instituted the Lord's Supper in the context of the Passover and most likely not from the Seder liturgy. Jesus commanded us to "do this" in remembrance of Me. What was the "do this" referring to? What Jesus is telling us to do is the Lord's Supper - the Eucharist meal He instituted the night He was betrayed. That is His gift to the church and what He commanded and authorized to have the church celebrate and to "do this" in remembrance of Him. It belongs to us because it's given to us by the Savior Himself.

Whatever took place before no longer matters. The church is given this Supper; this bread; this wine; this body; this blood. It makes no sense for Christians to gather around a Passover Seder than for them to gather around another sacrificial lamb."

-Dr. Dan Gard 

Gathers

The eight verbs Luther's Small Catechism assigns to The Holy Spirit, which are drawn out from the Scriptures, are: calls, gathers, enlightens, sanctifies, keeps, forgives, raises, and gives. Here is a closer look at the Holy Spirit's work of gathering.

The evangelical instinct to think about the Holy Spirit is very individualistic. Our Lutheran instinct goes against this. It is true the Holy Spirit works in each one of us to give us faith; each one of us believes, but we do not remain alone, and the Holy Spirit gathers us to the preaching of the Word. He gathers us through the preaching of the Word, and to the preaching of the Word, and this is what it's meant to be "Church," to be brought and adopted in the family of God, so that not only Jesus our brother, but we also have brothers and sisters in Christ in the holy Christian Church. The Church is the fellowship of all those who believe in Jesus.

We can't see faith, so the Church is made known by the preaching of the Gospel, which creates faith, and the right administration of the Sacraments, which creates faith, and those means the Holy Spirit uses to create faith is the way we also identify the holy Christian Church. Christians are gathered together people; we were never meant to believe on our own. Yet while it's possible to have faith and be apart from the visible Church, it's dangerous, and it's also sinful.* The Holy Spirit gathers His people, and He gathers so we can hear the Word together, pray together, give thanks to God together, and eat and drink the body and blood of Jesus together. This is all the Lord's will for us.

*Luther's Small Catechism - The Third Commandment: Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy. What does this mean? We should fear and love God so that we may not despise preaching and His Word but hold it sacred and gladly hear and learn it.

-Pr. Bryan Wolfmueller

New And Old

"No one tears a piece out of a new garment to patch an old one. Otherwise, they will have torn the new garment, and the patch from the new will not match the old. And no one pours new wine into old wineskins. Otherwise, the new wine will burst the skins, the wine will run out, and the wineskins will be ruined." (Luke 5:36-38)

New and old are the operative words here. Jesus has brought the new, which simply can't be patched onto the old. The old law and the piety it evoked cannot hold the gospel joy bursting on the scene with Jesus. It will require a new garment, or it will tear, and the old one will not match. This is Jesus' reflection on the rupture with the synagogue and temple Judaism that He saw clearly before it happened. 

St. Cyril of Alexandria, in the fifth century, wrote: "The first covenant has grown old, nor was it free from fault. Those who therefore adhere to it and keep at heart the antiquated commandments (meaning ceremonial law) have no share in the new order of things in Christ. In Him, all things have become new."

You can't squeeze the Christian gospel joy into the old forms without destroying them and spilling the wine. Isn't that exactly what happened? As the gospel joy got poured into those old ceremonies, they began to creak and tear, and before long, they were deflated and empty, and the gospel joy spilled out from them upon the earth for all people. 

St. Luke chronicles this happening in the Book of Acts as temple, synagogue, circumcision, and dietary laws are all burst open by the gospel itself, which spread out to all the world. It creates a piety suitable to it, a piety that is clearly indebted to the old form but also uniquely transcends them. But instead of Passover, paschal or Easter, and the Eucharist. Instead of the old Pentecost, the new Pentecost - the giving of the Spirit in Baptism. Instead of tabernacles, Christmas, when God tabernacled in our flesh. Instead of circumcision made in the flesh, baptism. Instead of sacrifice, confession, and absolution. It just rolls on and on.

-Pr. Will Weedon

Antiquity

Often Roman Catholics use the argument they are the original, the first, and antiquity is on their side. That can seem like a convincing argument and especially appealing because so many Protestants are ahistorical. 500 years ago, Rome was using that same argument against the Lutheran reformers, but Martin Chemnitz masterfully, in his Enchiridion, shows that the argument of antiquity is a total dead end. Roman Catholic doctrine has not been around the longest, and isn't the doctrine of the Scriptures, or is it the doctrine of the early church. The early church knew nothing of papal primacy over the other bishops. The first Christians knew nothing of purgatory and most certainly didn't pray to Mary or the saints. There weren't seven sacraments. Paul, in his letters to the Romans and Galatians, put to rest the doctrine of works-righteousness, and so forth, and so on. It doesn't matter whose institution has been around the longest but what matters is whose doctrine has been around the longest. The Roman Catholic Church as an institution may have been around the longest, but its doctrines certainly have not. The true faith has existed since Adam and Eve, and it was believed by the patriarchs; it was preached by the prophets; it was taught by Christ and his apostles, and that is the ancient faith which does have antiquity on its side.

-Pr. Joshua Sullivan

Patristics

 Neither the East nor Rome owns the Church Fathers. It is absolutely fair to say Lutherans in the sixteenth century invented patristics because of Lutherans' fight with the Roman Catholics. They would say what you are teaching [faith alone, grace alone, Scripture alone] is novel and not what the Church taught. In his Examination of the Council of Trent, Martin Chemnitz shows point by point this is what Scripture says, and this is what the Church Fathers had to say about those Scriptures, and he lays out all the patristic evidence." The Church Fathers had brilliant minds and have been thinking about what these Spirit-inspired texts meant for fifteen hundred years, and we would be dumb to say all that is irreverent.

A famous Protestant convert to Catholicism, John Henry Newman, once wrote, "To be deep in history is to cease to be Protestant." Ironically, while Newman was converting to Catholicism, Cardinal Henry Manning wrote: "We will overcome history with dogma." He knew history wasn't in their favor and believed the key was that he needed to have doctrinal development beyond the New Testament to be able to justify the stance that Rome took. We recognize there is no doctrinal development beyond what the New Testament lays down, and nothing that goes beyond Scripture is binding on Christians. St. Gregory of Nyssa wrote: Let the Divine Scriptures be the umpire between us, and whoever accords with that, that's where the vote of truth is given.

You would be shocked if you listened to how the Lutheran Confessions speak of the Fathers. The Lutherans have the audacity to insert in the face of Rome and the East that the Fathers are actually our Fathers. If you listen to what the Fathers teach, what they teach is our faith. The Holy Fathers often say we are saved by mercy." When the Lutherans presented their confessions to the Roman Catholics, they argued from the Scriptures that the Word of God agreed with the Lutherans. Furthermore, the Lutherans presented many quotes from the Church Fathers, such as Ambrose (340-397), Athanasius (296-373), Augustine (354-430), Basil (330-379), Chrysostom (347-407), Clement of Rome (96), Gregory of Nyssa (330-395), Irenaeus (130-200), Mark the Ascetic (425) to show they agreed with the Word of God.

-Pr. Will Weedon

Jesus A Refugee?

Jesus was a refugee, a claim we hear a lot from in liberal Christiandom and groves of unbelievers simply to push a political agenda of open borders. The only reason this is even questioned is because of the immigration debate going on in the U.S. and Europe at this moment. When anyone asserts that Jesus was a refugee, they're doing so to paint their opponents as un-Christian.

The idea that Jesus was a refugee is taken from Matthew chapter 2. We don't know anything about their time in Eygpt. Still, we know from history that there was a considerable Jewish population in Egypt, especially in Alexandria. Hence, it's not unreasonable to think the Holy Family would have stayed amongst their own kindred while in Eygpt.

It's incorrect to think of Judea and Eygpt as different countries separated by an international border in the 1st century AD. Today Isreal and Egypt are different sovereign countries. Still, in the 1st century, that wasn't the case because both Judea and Egypt were providences of the Romas Empire. Under Roman law, the Holy Family would have been a "Peregrine," which most of the citizens of the Roman Empire were and every class within the Empire had free rights to travel and cross provincial borders.

Jesus said, "render unto Caesar the things that are Caesars' (Mathew 21). God has ordained civil government and given "Caesar" the authority to make laws for the express purpose of keeping the peace, protecting its citizens, and punishing the wrongdoer. St. Paul lays this out all in Romans chapter 13."

-Pr. Joshua Sullivan

Classical Art

The Church, in many ways, has distanced itself, sadly to say, from art, but art can still teach the truth of Scripture. We live in a very visual culture even though we have gotten away from classical paintings. People don't tend to open up a book and read these days, so classical paintings are an excellent way to teach God's Word. The neat thing about images is they don't invade, but they invite, and you are drawn to them. Art speaks loudly while remaining silent.

-Kelly Schumacher:

Miraculous Signs

"And these signs will accompany those who believe: in my name, they will cast out demons; they will speak in new tongues; they will pick up serpents with their hands; and if they drink any deadly poison, it will not hurt them; they will lay their hands on the sick, and they will recover." (Mark 16:17-18).

This passage is rather illumined for us by St. Pauls's words in 2 Corinthians 12:12, "The signs of a true apostle were performed among you with utmost patience, with signs and wonders and mighty works." These signs that Jesus mentions here as accompanying his believers, specifically, are the ones that the New Testament mentions as being fulfilled in the ministry of the apostles themselves.

Think about how Acts covers the casting out of demons and the apostles all speaking in new tongues. Even the way St. Paul on Malta shook off in the fire the viper that had bit him and how the natives were just waiting for him to swell up and die, but he was just fine. How they laid their hands on sick people and healed them. The drinking of the deadly poison is particularly interesting in the later life of St. John, who, according to the church's tradition, by God's grace, thwarted an attempt to poison the chalice and kill him.

St. Gregory the Great, writing at the beginning of the seventh century, says, "these signs were needed at the church's beginning; the new faith needed to be nourished by miracles to grow. When we plant a vineyard, we must water the plants till we see they begun to grow in the earth, and when they have once taken root, we cease to water them constantly."

So St. Gregory urges his hearers not to be troubled that the church of his time or ours seem to lack these miraculous signs. These signs the apostles administered confirmed for all time the truth of their witness to believers.

-Pr Will Weedon

This Is My Body

Mark 14:22, And as they were eating, he took bread, and after blessing, it broke it and gave it to them, and said, “Take; this is my body.”

So into the old Passover meal, Jesus inserts something brand new. There are a lot of Christians who think the key to the Supper is in the old Passover, but that is exactly backward. It's the Lord's Supper that is key to the old Passover. And remember how Jesus said earlier you couldn't put new wine into old wineskins or a new piece of cloth on an old cloth that has already been washed, so His Supper isn't just something inserted into the old Passover; it rather brings the Passover to its end at least to those who belong to Him. It explodes it from the inside, and remember they learned Jesus says all kinds of outrageous things, and they have learned that He always means exactly what He says and says exactly what He means.

We are not told they asked a thing, but surely they must have been thinking. Remember back in John 6, after the feeding of the five thousand, the question was asked, "how can this man give us His flesh to eat?" And if they were asking themselves how it could be right now, they had a good sense not to voice that thought out loud. But the word delivers whatever it promises, and if He declares of the bread that it is His body, well then faith falls down before the Son of God and confirms - don't know how it can be, Lord, but you always speak the truth, and your word does not deceive, Your body it is!

Pr. Will Weedon

Nativities Of Jesus And John The Baptist

In the late seventh and early eighth century, a monk called Venerable Bede lived. He never traveled far from where he was born in England and spent his whole life devoted to prayer and sharing the Scripture. He died on the eve of the Feast of Ascension in 735 AD.

He made the most charming observation and asked why the Feast of the Nativity of John the Baptist is set near the Summer solstice and the Feast of the Nativity of our Lord Jesus is set near the Winter solstice?

His answer is this: He must increase, but I must decrease. So after the Nativity of St. John, the light begins to diminish, whereas, after the Nativity of our Lord, the light begins to grow. He saw in this very natural occurrence great wisdom in the way the Church set these feasts, so to lead us to ponder more than the light of the Sun but Instead, the light that is Jesus Christ Himself, who is the light of men.

-Pr. Will Weedon