The Epistle To Diognetus

And brother will deliver brother over to death, and the father his child, and children will rise against parents and have them put to death. And you will be hated by all, for my name's sake. But the one who endures to the end will be saved. (Mark 13:12-13). This is much in line with the prophecy found in Micah 7:5-6.

The hatred that they experience is clearly hatred of Jesus. Hatred of Him being their king, the one whom they pitched in their lot with. Such hatred is to be born with the equanimity of all Christ's people.

The Epistle to Diognetus (140 A.D.) described Christians this way: They play their full role as citizens but labor under all the disabilities of aliens. Any country can be their homeland, but for them, their homeland, wherever it may be, is a foreign country. Like others, they marry and have children, but they do not expose them. They share their meals, but not their wives.

They live in the flesh, but they are not governed by the desires of the flesh. They pass their days upon the earth, but they are citizens of heaven. Obedient to the laws, they yet live on a level that transcends the law. Christians love all men, but all men persecute them. Condemned because they are not understood, they are put to death but raised to life again.

They live in poverty but enrich many; they are totally destitute but possess an abundance of everything. They suffer dishonor, but that is their glory. They are defamed but vindicated. A blessing is their answer to abuse, and deference is their response to insult. For the good they do, they receive the punishment of malefactors, but even then, they rejoice as though they are receiving the gift of life. They are attacked by the Jews as aliens, and they are persecuted by the Greeks, yet no one can explain the reason for this hatred.

- Pr. Will Weedon

The Two Types Of Spiritual Blindness

Martin Chemnitz, the sixteenth-century Reformer, points out that spiritual blindness can run one of two different ways. There is pharisaical blindness, or there's what he calls Epicurean blindness - named for the philosophical school whose motto was: eat, drink and be merry because tomorrow you're going to die.

Pharisaical blindness arises when you think you're doing pretty well all on your own. You're not so bad of a person - in fact, you're better than most. That kind of blindness shuns the light that Christ shines because it shows you're anything but. Just revisit what Christ does with the Law in the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5). He doesn't leave it on the surface. He drills all the way down and there exposes in your heart that you certainly have not been loving God with your all or your neighbors as yourself.

Epicurean blindness is not so much about lying to yourself about your goodness. It is instead lying to yourself about whether sin is your friend or your enemy. And when you tell yourself it's your friend and gladly indulge it - you're in darkness. A lot of folks prefer it that way. Prefer avoiding the light that shines in Christ. Blindnesses

- Pr. Will Weedon

Forgiven: Past, Present, Future

Are we forgiven once, or are we forgiven many times? How does that relationship work? The way Lutherans deal with forgiveness is that we can say we have been forgiven, that we are forgiven now and will be forgiven.

There is in which we live in light of a past reality, an event that has brought us forgiveness in baptism. However, that doesn't mean we are not forgiven daily because Jesus tells us to pray in the Lord's Prayer, "forgive us our sins." We are not saying, "I thank you, you forgave my sins."

Continually this life of faith is one where God counts us as righteous because of Jesus because we continue to be in Christ or connected to Jesus. Faith is that which brings me Jesus; insofar as I am connected to Jesus, I receive His righteousness.

Scripturally, we can speak of all our sins already being forgiven, and we can speak of our sins being forgiven daily. We also have this future aspect of justification that is true for us in a more real sense on the Last Day.

I received forgiveness once at my baptism; I receive forgiveness daily as I pray the Lord's Prayer. I receive forgiveness every time I receive the Lord's Supper in repentance. I continually receive forgiveness by faith being connected to Jesus, and on the Last Day, I will be judged as righteous in Christ.

- Dr. Jordan Cooper

Nunc Dimittis

Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace according to thy word. For mine eyes have seen thy salvation, Which thou hast prepared before the face of all people; To be a light to lighten the Gentiles and to be the glory of thy people Israel. Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit, as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end. Amen.

Placing Simeon’s song (Nunc Dimittis) after the distribution illuminates the glory of the gift we receive in the Lord’s Supper. As Simeon saw the fulfillment of God’s promise and the return of God’s glory to His temple, Simeon was ready to die in peace. So also, the saints who receive the body and blood of Christ have seen and received in themselves the salvation of God.

When the pastor says, “Depart in peace,” He is not saying, “Go back to your seats quietly,” Rather, we are singing a joyous funeral hymn. We are saying, “I’m ready to die in peace.” Each leaves the altar ready to die in peace; they have seen and received the salvation of God, prepared in the presence and for the benefit of all people.

- Roy S Askins

Porn (Porneia)

It is actually reported that there is sexual immorality among you, and of a kind that is not tolerated even among pagans, for a man has his father's wife. And you are arrogant! Ought you not rather to mourn? Let him who has done this be removed from among you. (I Corinthians 5:1-2).

The word used here in Greek is the root of the word porn (porneia). That's a broad term that connotes all the ways human beings can corrupt God's good gift of sex. From same-sex relationships to adultery, from incest to the abuse of animals. The whole gamut of abuses the gift of sexuality outside its God-intended parameter, which is marriage.

Instead of moving their community to shame, Satan had somehow twisted their minds around to think that what was really a source of disgrace was a point of pride, something to celebrate. We're not sure exactly what they were thinking, but we might actually be meeting here for the first time the Gnosticism that would later post such a dangerous trap for Christians.

One of the weaknesses of the Church in our day and age is how seldom we are willing to love with the tough, tough love St. Paul shows here towards that man and towards the congregation. Excommunication tends to be rather rare, and that's not a sign of gentleness and love; it's a sign of apathy and indifference to the present and future misery of unrepented sinners.

 

-Pr. Will Weedon

For You

It's true God is everywhere, but He is not everywhere for you. So He is in the fire, but you don't jump in the fire to get close to God. He is in the ocean, but you don't jump in the ocean to get close to God. As Dr. Normon Nagel once said, "We do not need a God who is everywhere is as useless as a God that is nowhere. What we need is a God who is somewhere."

You have to find where He has placed Himself to be a benefit for you. So we are always looking for those words "for you," and that is what we find in the Supper. This is my body given "for you." The blood of the New Testament poured out "for you." So we see the Lord Jesus has put His body and blood specifically in the bread and wine for Christians to eat and drink with the promise of the forgiveness of sins.

- Pr. Bryan Wolfmueller

The Serpent And Eve's Seed

The fact that God speaks of the Serpent having to go on its belly as if he did not go on his belly before might recall the words from Revelation 12 that identify the Dragon with the ancient Serpent. So imagine his wings being clipped, if you will.

The Church has long regarded [Genesis 3:15] as the first Gospel promise after the Fall. "Her seed" is a most unusual expression because we don't usually think of women as having seed; they have eggs. In Latin, this reads "semen eius." The woman will have seed, and that seed will be the one to bruise or mash the Serpent's head, but it will cost Him. The Serpent will bite His heal.

All the way back to the second century, we find this passage referring specifically as Christ's triumph over Satan and death.

- Pr. Will Weedon