1517 Blogcast

Jesus is faithful, loving, and kind. He gladly helps everybody and is good to everyone. This is what it means that He’s God and Savior. So, we look to Him for everything good. In this way, we learn to trust Him and depend on Him for every spiritual good too. Jesus feeds our stomach so that we can trust Him to feed and clothe our soul too.

Unfortunately, too many Christians in the world today have a “Turn or Burn” theology. If you read it in the wrong context and have a poor definition of words, the Bible can appear to be full of that sort of thing. “Repent” seems to be one of the problem words in the vocabulary of many Christians. We often compare its use to a scolding mother who slaps your fingers and shouts, “You stop that right now, or else!” Too often, we equate “repent” as the final warning to stop a particular sin before God ceases to love you and sends you to hell for your evil deeds. This is a terrible misuse of a completely lovely word.   

So what does that word “repent” really mean?  Let’s take a look at the word through the eyes of our fathers in the faith.

This is the second installment in our special series on Luther’s Heidelberg Disputation. You can read the first post here. Translation of Theses 3 and 4 done by Caleb Keith.

“All the lonely people, where do they all come from?” the Beatles sing in their well-known song, “Eleanor Rigby.” We might not have any lost Amazon tribes hidden from us in our overly civilized and connected society, but we have plenty of lonely people. Not far from your doors is a woman who screwed up her life so bad, her family and friends left her to herself. Not far from your church building is a boy who has been abused by the world, feels confused about his sexuality, and doesn’t think anyone would understand. In our schools and workplaces, at Walmart and the doctor’s offices, lonely people are going about their day. They live hidden behind their sins, shame, and past. They assume that this life is all there is before we all turn to worm food. They don’t know anyone cares for them, let alone that the God of the universe loves them.

The red in our ledgers is the blood of Christ, fully atoning for our sins, fully paying our debt. Because God the Father chose to forsake His Son, we will not be forgotten. “Their sins I will remember no more,” our God promises (Jeremiah 31:34), and for the sake of Christ, the omnipotent Ruler of the universe chooses to forget our sins of thought, word, and deed—not because they never existed, but because the wages of death has been paid in full to our Mediator, Jesus.

The Heidelberg Disputation is one of the earliest reformational writings from Luther with its presentation occurring just six months after the famous posting of the 95 theses. Where the 95 theses is a pointed attack on a handful of misdeeds from the Roman church, Heidelberg is a sweeping offensive meant to restore the foundation of all Christian doctrine. The presentation of doctrine found within its theses is referred to as the “Theology of the Cross,” named after Thesis 21 where Luther states, “A theology of glory declares evil good and good evil. A theology of the cross declares the thing to be what it truly is.” Luther argues that the cross is the lens through which we can understand all Christian doctrine because the cross alone stands as a corrective to the ideas and philosophies we try to force on the Word of God. To celebrate the 500th anniversary of Luther’s Theology of the Cross, we are happy to introduce this special series of reflections on the theses and proofs of the Heidelberg Disputation. Each week, we will reflect on a few of the theses leading up to this year’s Here We Still Stand Conference in October. Each post will also include a new translation completed by Caleb Keith.

What our heart wants our mind justifies. We want what we want when we want it. There's not a whole lot we can do to curb the wanting either. This may not seem like much of a problem until we ask what our wanting does to effect God's relation to us. How does our unending need for personal freedom to choose effect salvation? The answer is simple, just not easy for us to accept. What we want in relation to God is captive to sin, death, and the devil. In relation to each other we may have some small amount of freedom to choose, but in relation to God’s saving work for us at Golgotha, we always choose sin and resistance. That's what it means that our will is in bondage.

Sometimes the hardest part of the day is the time just before sleep. At that time, if struggles or stresses abound, we can be kept up by racing thoughts. This fretting and over-analyzation, the frantic search for options, can leave us exhausted and depleted, feeding the cycle of stress that is already at work in us.

“Walk the walk.” When I hear that phrase, I know there’s something for me to do. Get it together girl. There is a way you should be acting and things you should be doing. Generally, I’m a pretty good person, and I think I do what I’m supposed to. 

Both Marys and Marthas abound in the church, and there is often tension between them. Sometimes this tension is expressed by exhausted Marthas spouting off the 80/20 rule:  twenty percent of the people are doing eighty percent of the work. As a pastor, Martha-like curriculums often bombard me with promises to help eliminate apathy in the pews or motivate my people for more service. Much of this type of teaching comes down to guilt-tripping people until they feel forced to do more, serve more, be better. In turn, I too am guilt-tripped about not getting my people to jump on to the latest craze, join a short-term mission trip, or something to that effect.