Introduction You’ve all heard about the apostle Doubting Thomas. Today I’d like to introduce you to Doubting John. This isn’t something that we talk about very often, but even John had doubts about Jesus’ ministry and identity. Let me point this out to you again in case you missed it in our reading:…

Matthew 1-2 Before we look at ch. 3, let’s take a quick review of St. Matthew’s Gospel thus far. St. Matthew begins his Gospel by giving the genealogy of Jesus, which, as we’ve talked about in our course, The Story of the Bible, is a not-so-subtle way of summarizing the story of Israel, emphasizing a…

Introduction In our Adult Catechesis course, the Story of the Bible, we began by talking about worldviews. Everyone has a worldview. Actually, you probably have several because worldviews aren’t typically consistent in any one person. Our worldview is how we make sense of the world. It’s basically the…

This is, arguably, my favorite Sunday. Please remember though that I speak in hyperbole, so I reserve the right to call many other Sundays my favorite Sunday. But this, I think, really is my favorite Sunday besides Easter because on this Sunday I get to confess as clearly and as loudly as I want to the…

Yesterday Yesterday, I started my morning by checking my calendar. Now I’m pretty bad at reaching out to people on their birthdays, but I’m trying to get better. I have started adding birthdays to contact information, and I’m trying to reach out to people on their special day. I’m still awful at it,…

Galatians The Epistle to the Galatians is about identity. What does it mean for a person to be a Christian? How do you get in, and what does it mean once you’re in. Paul’s answer answer comes at the end of chapter 3: For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither…

Not a Moment, but a Journey Becoming Christian, or becoming Christ-like, is not something that occurs in a single moment. It is rather more like a journey. The process of becoming more like Christ is something that takes place over a long period of time, over a lifetime. But every journey does have a…

In Him Last week I tried to set the context for some of Paul’s ethical teaching thats come at the end of chapter two and then throughout chapter three. What I tried to make clear is that, in Paul’s mind, at your baptism, something happened. For Paul, baptism isn’t merely a symbolic act of obedience.…

sola fide As good heirs of the Reformation, we all know that we are saved sola fide, by faith alone. Because of this we talk about faith, we promote faith, and we use the language of faith when we talk to each other. For all of this, when you try to pin someone down on what exactly faith is, that can…