I was blessed with a sermon yesterday which reminded me why we do what we do here at NRP. It took me back to the feelings which stirred us to put this website and store together in the first place.

Based on comments I’ve received directly by different people, I suspect the kind of sermon I heard yesterday is very common, and sadly may actually be considered a ‘good’ one by those who have been damaged by the church in some way.

What am I talking about? The sermon I heard yesterday started with Luke 15:7-10:

“I tell you, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance.

“Or what woman, having ten silver coins, if she loses one coin, does not light a lamp and sweep the house and seek diligently until she finds it? And when she has found it, she calls together her friends and neighbors, saying, ‘Rejoice with me, for I have found the coin that I had lost.’ Just so, I tell you, there is joy before the angels of God over one sinner who repents.”

I gave room, as is my wont, for plenty of foibles – especially considering that the pastor was a guest preacher standing in for the church’s pastor – but began to hone in on it when I started hearing about “choosing Jesus” and “letting Him into my heart”. Those are big red flags for me because they’re not consistent with Scripture. I came to my faith in Jesus through the work of the Holy Spirit…

“no one can say “Jesus is Lord” except in the Holy Spirit.”
- 1 Corinthians 12:3

…and credit can be given to no one else, especially not me. It would be accurate to say that my faith was given to me – in spite of me.

Finally, the main body of the sermon oozed around the concept of me getting busy in my faith, going out and rounding up people for Jesus (my paraphrasing, not the pastor’s). If you know the kind of theology we hold to here at NRP, and the kinds of things we talk about, I doubt anyone would think we weren’t willing to be on the ‘front lines’, as it were, working to pronounce the Christian doctrines of the Reformation to which we adhere.

But I came to a thought as I realized the Gospel was simply not going to be present in the sermon I was hearing. “We should have just stayed home.” And while that’s true in respect to hearing the Gospel (this week was an ‘off week’ regarding communion, being served only on the first and third Sundays of the month) and we could have easily done some study at home as a family and heard MUCH more of the Gospel than we heard at church, not long afterward I remember thinking, “This has been a gift and a blessing.”

That is, I got a reminder of the kind of preaching that too many people are subjected to every week. Growing up with my father, I would never tolerate that sort of preaching for very long. I come to church to hear about Christ crucified for my sins. I certainly do expect to hear a pastor hammer on the law, that condemnation in Scripture of my thoughts and deeds revealing me to be the deeply sinful being I am, but following that the message should then change.

After having my sins brought to the fore in all their painful clarity, the pastor should then spend much more time explaining the thing I don’t hear anywhere else – the Gospel of Jesus Christ and what He did to save me from eternal damnation because I couldn’t do it for myself.

Yesterday that element, the Gospel, was missing. I got to hear about my actions affecting a change which allows God to ‘find me’. And I got to hear how I should be behaving as a Christian – the implicit message being, if I continue to sin like I did before allowing God to find me, I’ll be lost again. I will have strayed from God after having done the important actions which allowed Him to find me in the first place.

I must note here, too, how thankful I am at times like this to be able to worship in a church with a liturgical service. This is exactly the kind of situation in which the liturgy protects the parishioners from a pastor who may not get it right. Due to the liturgy, I still get to confess my sins and have them absolved and hear the grace of God given to me for Christ’s sake.

The thought of so many people regularly suffering under such self-focused preaching, thinking that they’re hearing what they should be hearing – Christ and Him crucified for their redemption – is just painful to me. What I wouldn’t give to be able to have them hear the glory of the Gospel with no watering down whatsoever! This is what Dr. Rosenbladt refers to as “200-proof Gospel”.

Truly, I am spoiled. I was raised in a household in which I was immersed in 200-proof Gospel. I grew up around regular conversations consisting of stuff like what Dr. Rosenbladt discusses in “The Gospel For Those Broken By The Church”. I wish many, many more people had that same opportunity.

And so, here we are. Somewhere along the line, we decided NRP was something we simply had to do. Clearly we’re not a church, we’re a for-profit Christian educational resource, and strive to be one of the best. And our passion for an unwavering laser-like focus on the cross and the Gospel of Jesus Christ is something which we pray we will never lose. And hopefully, if we’re doing our job right, the result will be a source which you can consistently count on to teach you about the Gospel. There are too few such sources out there, especially among us Lutherans. And I’m sad to say that too many churches aren’t delivering it, either.

I hope you don’t mind this long rant, but I had to say something after what I heard yesterday. Many folks are in my thoughts and prayers after yesterday’s sermon.

May you and yours get to hear the Gospel of Christ crucified for your sins each and every week. And if you can’t get it in church, I hope you find some online resources to allow you to hear it through those means. Never stop looking for a church where you can hear the law preached in all its fury and then the Gospel in all its sweetness. Online resources will never be a replacement for such a church. But if the Gospel is simply not being preached at a church near you which you can attend even if it means driving an hour to get there, at least God has made sure that you can hear it through the internet. Take advantage of it.

And I pray that you’re very soon blessed with a church which relentlessly preaches Christ crucified week-in and week-out.

Fear not, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom. – Luke 12:32

no one laughs at god in a hospital
no one laughs at god in a war
no one’s laughing at god when they’re starving or freezing or so very poor

no one laughs at god when the doctor calls
after some routine tests
no one’s laughing at god when it’s gotten real late
and their kid’s not back from the party yet

no one laughs at god when their airplane
starts to uncontrolablly shake
no one’s laughing at god when they see the one that they love
hand in hand with someone else
and they hope that they’re mistaken

no one laughs at god when the cops knock on their door
and they say we’ve got some bad news sir
no one’s laughing at god when there’s a famine or fire or flood

but god can be funny
at a cocktail party when listening to a good god themed joke
or when the crazies say he hates us
and they get so red in the head you think they’re about to choke
god can be funny
when told he’ll give you money if you just pray the right way
when presented like a genie
who does magic like houdini
or grants wishes like jiminy cricket and santa claus
god can be so hilarious haha
haha

no one laughs at god in a hospital
no one laughs at god in a war
no one’s laughing at god when they’ve lost all they got
and they don’t know what for

no one laughs at god on the day they realize
the last sight they’ll ever see is a pair of hateful eyes
no one’s laughing at god when they’re saying their goodbyes

but god can be funny
at a cocktail party when listening to a good god themed joke
or when the crazies say he hates us
and they get so red in the head you think they’re about to choke
god can be funny
when told he’ll give you money if you just pray the right way
when presented like a genie
who does magic like houdini
or grants wishes like jiminy cricket and santa claus
god can be so hilarious

no one laughs at god in a hospital
no one laughs at god in a war
no one laughs at god in a hospital
no one laughs at god in a war
no one’s laughing at god in a hopital
no one’s laughing at god in a war
no one’s laughing at god when they’re starving or freezing or so very poor

no one’s laughing at god
no one’s laughing at god
no one’s laughing at god
we’re all laughing with god

HT to PhoenixPreacher

David Atkinson of South Orange County Outreach pointed out this gem.

• Video version on iTunes
• Video links on Feed Page
• Audio version on iTunes
• Audio links on Feed Page

This is a series of video podcasts from Concordia Seminary, St. Louis, available on iTunes for free. This particular series, starting with an interview of Uwe Siemon-Netto (on the Feed versions, you may need to scroll to the bottom of the page and start from the bottom up, depending on your browser), deals with the doctrine of the Two Kingdoms, God’s two fold rule on Earth.

There are twenty nine lectures in the series, and it takes you from a very basic understanding to advanced application in the life and vocation of believers. The Two Kingdom doctrine is compared and contrasted to groups like Islam and some Christian groups that mingle the two kingdoms. This is a great resource for Pastors and teachers or for your own personal understanding. The doctrine of the two kingdoms is a much needed corrective to the misunderstandings in the church regarding its relationship to the state, and our God-given vocations.

These are quality college- or seminary-level presentations excellently produced. Other links and resources are referenced for further study.

These are great resources made available at no cost and are not to be missed.

**NOTE: The video files we’ve linked to above are fairly large (many over 30MB) and will take some time to download. We recommend only accessing these over a high-speed internet connection. We also recommend Apple’s Quicktime software for viewing the videos.

Right now Concordia Publishing House is offering all versions of the Reader’s Edition of the Book of Concord for 50% off the regular price.

Why are we telling you when it will mean lost sales for us? Because we want this stuff to gain the widest possible hearing. Concordia Publishing does this from time to time in order to enable more people to be able to purchase these important resources. They are selling them directly to the public at an incredible bargain – trust us. The info below is taken from www.cyberbrethren.com.

The available editions, and special prices, include:
Concordia: The Lutheran Confessions on CD-ROM
Regular price: $29.99
Anniversary special: $14.99

Concordia: The Lutheran Confessions Genuine Leather Edition
Regular price: $99.99
Anniversary special: $49.99

Concordia: The Lutheran Confessions Bonded Leather Edition
Regular price: $69.99
Anniversary special: $34.99

Concordia: The Lutheran Confessions Regular Hardback Edition
Regular price: $31.00
Anniversary special: $14.99

Concordia: The Lutheran Confessions: Pocket Edition
Regular price: $14.99
Anniversary special: $7.50
[note: this edition is only the actual text of the Lutheran Confessions, and does not include all the supplemental material in the other editions]

You may place your order either on the Internet:
http://www.cph.org/concordia
Or call 800-325-3040

The full post can be read here http://cyberbrethren.com/2009/06/02/half-price-sale-on-the-book-of-concord/

Take advantage of this rare opportunity to acquire one of the most important and influential collections of doctrinal confessions from the Reformation at rock bottom prices.

In addition to all the great products we offer, I wanted to point out two more reasons that you can be confident shopping with us.

While the first reason has always been our policy, we recently realized that we had never let our customers know up front. We believe enough in our products and their quality that it’s always been our policy to back anything we offer with a 100% money-back, no-questions-asked guarantee. If the product is defective or you are not completely satisfied for any reason, we will replace the product and/or refund your money. We want you to be completely satisfied with anything you purchase from us. If you are not, for any reason, let us know. We are committed to your absolute satisfaction and will do what it takes to make it right.

Secondly, many people have serious reservations about buying things on the internet for fear of identity theft or fraud through having their information stolen on the net.

To protect our customers we have in place four security layers to protect your information:

1.  We use industry-standard 256-bit encryption to protect your information as it passes between your browser, our servers and our payment gateway.
2.  We contract a data security firm to monitor our servers and maintain our firewalls and other data security measures.
3.  We do not keep your card information – it only passes directly to the payment gateway and is never stored on our servers at any time. Should our site ever get hacked, which is highly unlikely, the only information we retain on our servers is your name and address.
4.  Finally, we never, ever, sell, rent, trade or give your information to any other individual or company. We never will.

It is our mission to provide not only some of the best theological resources on the web, but to provide excellent customer service and top of the line data security to make your experience with us the best it can possibly be.

As always, if you ever have questions comments or suggestions don’t hesitate to contact us.

In Christ,

Patrick Kyle
Co-Founder, New Reformation Press

We are excited to finally be able to bring you Dr. Rod Rosenbladt’s great introductory lecture on the distinction between the Law and the Gospel. This distinction is central to understanding the Scriptures and the Reformation.

In this lecture Dr. Rosenbladt gives a clear and concise explanation and definition of both the law and the Gospel, and shows the art of applying them pastorally. Included are the three uses of the Law and the application of the Gospel in a pastoral setting. This is a great presentation which was instrumental in the lives of a number of men who decided to pursue the pastoral ministry.

If you are a Dr. Rosenbladt fan or simply enjoy him on the White Horse Inn radio program, you will love his clarity in this presentation. Stop by and pick up the MP3 today!

http://www.newreformationpress.com/audio/law-and-gospel.html

In my internet travels I came across a link to this interview with Eugene Peterson from 1997. His writings have been foundational and life changing for me. I also know several pastors whose ministries have been salvaged and renewed by reading books like ‘The Contemplative Pastor’, ‘Working the Angles’ and ‘Five Smooth Stones for Pastoral Work.’

Many people consider him to be controversial for his ‘Message’ translation of the Bible. Although that translation isn’t my first choice, you have to respect a man who has wrestled with the text of Scripture to the point of translating them from the original languages into English. He is intimately acquainted with God’s revelation and from this springs a uniquely clear and comprehensive vision of the essence of the Pastoral ministry.

Check out a few select questions and answers from a great 1997 interview in Christianity Today:

(From Part 1 of 2)

Most pastors I know would say that worship is critical and Sunday is very important to them. How could they begin to move away from that?

The defection starts subtly in what you do when people are not asking you to do anything. After three or four years in ministry, you realize that nobody is asking you to pray, and they are asking you to do a lot of other things, so prayer starts to erode.

(From the Continuation in Part 2 of 2…)

Then study starts to erode. You cannot go to a pulpit week after week and preach truth accurately without constant study. Our minds blur on us, and we need that constant sharpening of our minds. And without study, without the use of our mind in a disciplined way, we are sitting ducks for the culture.

This culture is an evil culture. This culture is the enemy. Through the media, through friends, through conversations we’re constantly fed lies, and like most lies, they’re 90 percent the truth. So you swallow the lie, and subtly, the edge of the gospel is blunted; you think you’re preaching the gospel, and you’re not. You don’t even know it.

So the first task in providing pastoral care is to pray and to study the Word.

Who’s going to do that except the pastor? People in the congregation are busy in their jobs, reading their periodicals and attending their conferences. It’s my job to be suspicious of the culture. I’m not a culture critic, but to be a pastor, I cannot be seduced by the world. This becomes increasingly difficult in this so-called postmodern time. If you’re not sharp, you’re on the Devil’s side without knowing it.

A student was telling me he saw a video on Michael Jordan. He said, “Michael Jordan looks so lazy. He looks like he’s not doing anything. Then suddenly, he’s through three people, and he’s slam-dunking the ball.”

As a pastor, how do you slip through the opposition and make your point? You do it by being lazy—or what looks like being lazy—sitting in your study for half a day reading a book that doesn’t have anything to do with your sermon.

As a pastor I’ve got a responsibility to be alert to my culture so that my congregation is not seduced. If I don’t do it, nobody will.

Most congregations don’t think they’re paying pastors to do that.

That’s true. But they’re not the ones who give me my job description.

I get my job description from the Scriptures, from my ordination vows. If I let the congregation decide what I’m going to do, I’m as bad as a doctor who prescribes drugs on request. Medical societies throw out doctors for doing that kind of thing; we need theological societies to throw out pastors for doing the same thing.

And if you give up prayer and study, you will soon give up the third area: people.

Many lay people come to their pastors and say, “Why don’t we have such-and-such a program?” Do they really want their church to be “a place of being”?

It’s odd: We live in this so-called postmodernist time, and yet so much of the public image of the church is this rational, management-efficient model. If the postmodernists are right, that model is passe; it doesn’t work any more. In that sense, I find myself quite comfortably postmodern. I think pastors need to cultivate “unbusyness.” I use that word a lot.

My father was a butcher. When he delivered meat to restaurants, he would sit at the counter, have a cup of coffee and piece of pie, and waste time. But that time was critical for building relationships, for doing business.

Sometimes I’m with pastors who don’t wander around. They don’t waste time. Their time is too valuable. They run to the tomb, and it’s empty, so they run back. They never see resurrection. Meanwhile, Mary’s wasting time; she’s wandering around.

To be unbusy, you have to disengage yourself from egos—both yours and others—and start dealing with souls. Souls cannot be hurried.

If I were to walk into a church, what would tip me off that it was concerned about meeting needs or about “dealing with souls”?

Some of this you don’t notice right away.

I would be wary of a church that was over-glamorous, that promised a lot. I have no objection to finding all the ways you can to get a hearing. Sometimes that means helping people get their kid off drugs. So I’m not saying we shouldn’t respond to people’s needs, but the rock-bottom thing is “Repent and follow.” My job as pastor is to call people to repent, deny themselves, take up their cross, and follow Jesus.

If I revise “Repent!” to “How I can help you get your life in order?” I’m turning away from the gospel. If I take the “Follow” part out and say, “We’ll find out how you can live your life best the way you define it,” who needs Jesus?

Sometimes I feel like a backwoods fundamentalist or somebody carrying a sign around Times Square that says repent. But I’ve been a pastor for thirty-five years, and I don’t trust people one inch in defining what they need. We don’t know ourselves. We need God to tell us what we need.

For me, being a pastor means being attentive to people. But the minute I start taking my cues from them, I quit being a pastor.

Wow, I wish more pastors would listen to what this man has to say.

You can read the whole interview here.

“But thou, O Daniel, shut up the words, and seal the book, even to the time of the end: many shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall be increased.”
Daniel 12:4

I have always found this passage from Daniel to be fascinating, and think that it may be, from an amillenial point of view, a direct reference to the times we live in. It’s just my own speculation, but let me explain why I think so.

Last week I posted an entry entitled “A Small Meditation on Thankfulness.” It got me to thinking about our society and culture, about the abundance and convenience that we have come to know.

We really live in a Renaissance, a golden age, where even the simplest endeavors have been arduously and painstakingly improved. Knowledge is amassed and skills are honed, products and goods are improved. Technology is advancing exponentially. Don’t believe me? Consider these examples.

One of my main hobbies is firearms. Right now, today, there are more different kinds of guns being manufactured, in more calibers than ever before. In the last several years literally dozens of new rifle and handgun cartridges have been invented. This rivals and surpasses the great flurry of creativity in firearms design from the latter half of the 19th century.

My own area of interest is single shot metallic cartridge rifles from the 1870’s and 1880’s. There is a whole subculture devoted to this period and type of rifle. You can buy recreations of almost any rifle manufactured during the period. They range in quality and price from cheap knock-offs to hand built custom rifles costing as much as a new car. Yeah, it really is an obscure niche, and pales in size when compared to the cowboy action shooting subculture. If you like firearms, right now is the best time in history to collect or shoot guns.

A more mundane example is wine, beer or liquor. I work for a specialty grocery chain based on the west coast. We sell a lot of alcohol. In most metropolitan areas you can drink the finest beer, wine or liquor from any country on earth. We sell many wines for under ten dollars that would rival the wines served to Kings several hundred years ago. The best wines made today are simply the finest ever produced. At the same restaurant you can drink whiskey from Kentucky or Scotland, beer from Germany, Japan, and the U.S., and wine from France, Italy, California, or New Zealand.

Look at cars, motorcycles, bicycles, musical equipment, or any other pursuit that lends itself to what one of my friends called GAS (Gear Acquisition Syndrome) Products and knowledge in every one of these areas is exploding.

If you want to learn a skill you can learn any language you want, study martial arts from two dozen different countries, or find lessons to acquire almost any skill. Physical fitness techniques and exercise constantly reach new heights of effectiveness and efficiency. Look at our athletes.

My Pastor tells the story of a colleague visiting him from another country, who suffered a small emotional breakdown when confronted in the grocery store with 60 different brands of jelly and jam in the condiment aisle. My pastor turned the corner into the aisle and found his friend weeping. When asked what was the matter, the friend replied that in his country they only had a few choices and he was overwhelmed by the barrage of options. (The country shall remain nameless, however it is not one that I would have guessed had limited choices when it came to store-bought preserves.)

We can get in an airplane and travel almost anywhere in the world in less than a day. A car trip of several hundred miles is common, and a commute to work of 20 to 30 miles each way is done by tens or hundreds of thousands each day. We can pick up the phone or send an email and be in contact with someone on the other side of the world in seconds.

Knowledge is definitely increased, and we go to and fro on the face of the earth in ways that are substantially different from any preceding time in history. That is why I believe the passage in Daniel is speaking about this age.

I am thankful that I was born in such a time of abundance and prosperity, and amid life’s trials and hardships, it does my soul good to meditate on God’s generosity towards us.

We found a couple blog posts that are thought provoking and wanted to point them out.

Christ in the Old Testament is a favorite subject of mine, and Pastor Paul McCain over at www.cyberbrethren.com has a post about his struggles reading through the book of Leviticus as part of his journey using the Treasury of Daily Prayer.

Over at Pastor Cwirla’s Blogosphere, he riffs on Edward A. Abbot’s book ‘Flatland’ and a video based on the book called ‘Dr. Quantum visits Flatland.’ Pastor Cwirla has a background in science and discusses the book and video as analogies to faith and our relationship to God. The take away quote, “Atheism is really a failure of the imagination, and strict “materialists” who limit their world view to three dimensions and time are actually the “flatlanders” of humanity.”

Our regular readers know that we are big fans of the Mockingbird NYC blog. They have run a series of different posts last week that are simply phenomenal. These guys are good.

http://www.mockingbirdnyc.blogspot.com/