This weekend, while driving, I tuned into National Public Radio. A show came on entitled “Speaking of Faith.” It is Public Radio’s attempt to address spirituality and religion. This was the first of their shows that I have listened to, and I can see that it might have some real possibilities to start conversation and debate. This particular episode dealt with the ‘Spirituality of Parenting’ and was an interview with a female Rabbi on how to raise your children with a sense of the ’spiritual.’ You can hear the whole interview here:

http://speakingoffaith.publicradio.org/programs/spiritualityofparenting/

About twelve minutes into the show they play a clip from a caller, in which the caller asks how to instill spirituality in her children while avoiding a “parent-forced religion.”

The guest Rabbi goes on to expound her theories concerning this and then offers some sample prayers from one of her books for children. I was totally shocked. Prayer as speaking to God was non-existent. These were poems or free verse not directed really to the deity. My question is, how is it even really prayer if you are not addressing deity? The emphasis was on instilling a vague sense of fairness, niceness, and compassion (i.e. when a squirrel gets hit by a car), and avoiding any real content or doctrine (dogma in the Rabbi’s parlance) and allowing the naturally spiritual nature of children to be nurtured and encouraged.

Hmmm… maybe I should let the naturally hedonistic tendencies of my children dictate their learning experiences with sex and drugs. Their self assertiveness and self esteem should be bolstered on the playground by their natural inclination to bullying and going along with the crowd. We wouldn’t want to be guilty of “parent-forced” sobriety or chastity, inflicting our arbitrary values on our innocent young. Of course this is insanity, and I would never abuse my kids in such a manner. But apparently our culture thinks this is the way to do it with our children’s spiritual development.

Why would you want to impart any kind of spirituality to a child that you didn’t think was true? These people evidently reject dogma and doctrine as not true (or not true for them) or in the case of the caller to the show, true for her but maybe not true for her children, but then feel the need to impart a set of values that they have made up or arbitrarily elevated to importance. The whole thing seemed empty and pointless; an effort to instill in children character traits that our feminized culture deems appropriate. (Note: I am not saying that these traits are wrong or there is no place for them in our children’s development, just that these are not the primary stuff of the Christian faith.) Times are tough for theologically liberal Christians and Jews if the above example is indicative of their best efforts at handing down their faith to their children.

Thank God for the Scriptures and the catechisms. These allow us to impart to our children God’s answers to their questions from His Word. They give form and structure to our spirituality, teach us to pray, and impart content that we have not just made up. These answers are time tested, and connect us to those who have believed and gone before us. They illumine God’s grace and action toward you in Christ. They impart to us God’s wisdom and truth.

If you listen to the podcast, or at least part of it, you will be struck by the huge contrast between the Christian/Lutheran way of catechesis and the generic spirituality of modern liberal religion. I think it is pretty informative and is worth five or ten minutes of your time.

(Resurrection Day, 2008)

I have been accused in recent months of being a “radical.” I guess I must confess that I stand guilty as charged. I am a Christian, and thus by nature I stand on this earth as a radical. As a Christian I believe, teach and confess a faith that is in stark contrast from everything else under the sun. This faith I proclaim is not a faith that allows for fence sitting or lukewarm commitment.

I have been given faith from the One who says, “A house divided against itself cannot stand.” (Mark 3:25) In an age of fence sitters, flip-floppers and tolerance of every ideology, the Author of my faith says, “Whoever is not with me is against me, and whoever does not gather with me scatters.” (Matthew 12:30) Indeed, I guess being a Christian in this world of lies makes me a radical.

“For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek.” (Romans 1:16) As Christians we proclaim the Good News about Jesus Christ, and Him crucified for the forgiveness of every sin of all mankind. When the world was separated from God because of its rebellion against Him, at just the right time, while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. All of us. Every last one of us.

So deep was His love for us that He was willing to beaten and crucified to death to save us from the fires of Hell. He was wounded for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his stripes we are healed (Isaiah 53:5). Indeed, a Father sentencing His only begotten Son to death to save world of rebels who hate Him should be considered a radical message.

We do not make Christianity a radical faith. Jesus Christ Himself did that. You see, Jesus makes claims that do not allow you to be a fence sitter, or to simply “believe what you feel.” Jesus makes claims that you must come to terms with. “Jesus said to him, ‘I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.’” (John 14:6) Did you catch that? No one can get to Heaven apart from Jesus. He is the only door by which mankind can enter in. This is a claim of exclusivity. That means that eternal life depends on Jesus Christ alone. This means that it cannot be “Jesus and…” anything. Not “Jesus and me”, not “Jesus and Mary”, not “Jesus and Mohammad”, not “Jesus and Buddha”, not “Jesus and Oprah”, not “Jesus and Osteen”, not “Jesus and Pastor Killian”, but simply Jesus Christ alone. “And there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.” (Acts 4:12)

I guess I am a radical. Being a Christian by necessity means that you must confess one thing to be true (Christ crucified for the forgiveness of sins), and the rest of things not to be. Do not be afraid, my brothers and sisters in Christ, to count yourself a radical too. Let the scoffers scoff and the mockers mock. Let them brand us as extremists.

In Jesus Christ alone, there is truth that brings eternal life. We belong to Christ. “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he dies, yet shall he live.” (John 11:25) Christ the Lord is risen today! Death is dead, and life lives! Live in repentance, and live today and every day in the shocking and radical grace of God who loves you.

Under His Mercy

We here at NRP hope you have a wonderful Resurrection Day, filled with the grace-filled preaching of the Gospel of Christ for your salvation. After taking your sins to death on the cross in order that you might be freed from the shackles of sin, your debt paid forever, our Lord Jesus rose from the dead, just as was foretold, defeating sin, death and the devil for all eternity.

Our Father loves us, his flock, so dearly that He gave His only begotten Son that we might have eternal live with Him. What a wondrous and glorious gift.

In His gift of faith, we are clothed in Christ’s perfection, all His perfect works imputed to us, credited as righteousness. It is finished. The battle is won, fought by the great Healer and King in our stead, stepping in and fighting the fight which we could not.

And when the strife is fierce, the warfare long,
Steals on the ear the distant triumph song,
And hearts are brave again, and arms are strong.
Alleluia! Alleluia!

The golden evening brightens in the west;
Soon, soon to faithful warriors comes their rest;
Sweet is the calm of paradise the blest.
Alleluia! Alleluia!

But, lo, there breaks a yet more glorious day:
The saints triumphant rise in bright array;
The King of Glory passes on His way.
Alleluia! Alleluia!

From earth’s wide bounds, from ocean’s farthest coast,
Through gates of pearl streams in the countless host,
Singing to Father, Son, and Holy Ghost:
Alleluia! Alleluia!

He is risen! He is risen indeed! Alleluia!

Excerpt from “For All The Saints”, LSB #677;
You’ll hear me quote this, my favorite hymn, fairly often

Like many others, I was a bit shocked to hear the abrupt cancellation of the wonderful Issues, Etc. radio program and termination of Pastor Todd Wilken and Jeff Schwarz by the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod (LCMS), which owns the KFUO radio station. But, I do have to say that this news is not completely surprising. Honestly, this sort of thing has been brewing for a long time.

Many have been trying to guess as to what is behind this seemingly sudden move, and I won’t try to join that crowd here, but I would like to focus on a couple things. Please keep both Pastor Wilken and Mr. Schwarz, as well as Jeff’s wife who is pretty sick right now, in your prayers. This is of the utmost importance.

Secondly, especially during this Holy Week, please remember what we Christians celebrate and recognize was done for the sins of the world in Jesus’ death and resurrection. It is easy at times like this to get lost in the wickedness in this kingdom and forget that our Father can create wonderful and great things from such tragedies as this. I already have suspicions about some truly great possibilities in the future that could dwarf what came before. I would recommend that we all hold tight in this respect, be as patient as we can, and see what comes of this.

This isn’t to say that anger and indignation isn’t appropriate. Sometimes lines are crossed that simply demand a visceral reaction. If anyone understands the need to sometimes be loud and angry, it is I.

But I would ask that, as you pray for our dear friends from the former Issues, Etc. radio program, please remember that this is not hopeless. We celebrate the most hopeful event this week that any sinner could wish for.

Our Lord became man and took the sins of the world to Himself and took them to death that we would have eternal life with Him. All thanks be to God!

Under the completely sufficient imputed righteousness.

I was talking with a friend the other day and we were discussing lent in general and Holy Week in particular. Personally, I love the Church year, especially Advent and Lent. Of course my favorite days are the Twelve days of Christmas and Easter, but I digress. Joe and I were pondering the emotional roller coaster ride that the disciples must have gone through the last week of Jesus’ earthly ministry, and how that compares with the “solemnity” and “repentance ” that we often feel obligated to drum up during lent and Holy Week. In reality there is no comparison. Foregoing meat or sweets or whatever else we deny ourselves for lent just never made sense to me. It seems unrelated to the subject at hand.

Imagine that you are one of the disciples. You have cashed in whatever life you once had and thrown your lot in with Jesus. You spent the last three years with Him, wandering around the country side, listening, watching and learning. Every once in awhile He says some things about dying and rising that you really don’t understand, but other than that you think you have a pretty good grip on His program, and those ‘hard sayings’ are just metaphors you haven’t figured out yet.

His hour has finally come and you are jubilantly riding on His coat tails as He is welcomed as the King of Israel in Jerusalem. All the sacrifice is about to pay off and you will be an important officer in His kingdom. Your wildest hopes and dreams are coming true right before your eyes. Your country will be restored to it’s former glory, and you are working with the Messiah-King, right in the center of things, helping Him to restore God’s rule over the land. It doesn’t get any better than this. You are in the right place at the right time.

Then things literally start to go to hell. Betrayed by an insider, Jesus’ inner circle prayer meeting is raided by the religious police. You are woken from a comfortable sleep. A brawl and a knife fight ensue. Someone is stabbed. You all flee from the authorities. Jesus is taken prisoner. In moments the whole plan comes unraveled. Your life as you had come to know it is over. You went from being an important official of the new kingdom to a wanted fugitive in just a few minutes. The next morning a kangaroo court is hastily convened, and by that afternoon Jesus is dead, and you and your friends are in hiding. Although sudden, Good Friday must have unfolded like a slow motion train wreck, going from bad to worse. Everything you had worked for is gone. Everything Jesus had promised you is gone. You cannot return to your old life, its gone too. You have nothing left.

Two days later Jesus appears to you and your friends, having risen from the dead. Your hopes and dreams are thrust back upon you in such a shocking fashion (albeit greatly changed) that you really don’t begin to grasp its true significance until Pentecost.

This is what they would call back home a “whipsaw,” to be suddenly and violently wrenched from one position to another and back again. How do you even begin to get your mind around it? The amazing euphoria, the rage and grief, the jarring return of hope. How does someone handle something like this?

The apostle John seems to have handled it. He followed Jesus at a distance during His trial, even attending the crucifixion and comforting Jesus’ mother.

Peter, on the other hand, doesn’t do so well. He starts a brawl, cuts off a guy’s ear, then runs away. He too follows at a distance, but denies Jesus by telling the lie/truth that he “knows not the man.” The statement is a lie because Peter is clearly a disciple and has talked to Jesus almost every day. It is also true because after three years Peter really had no idea what Jesus had been saying all this time or how He was bringing His plan to pass. This is Peter’s confession of his failure to understand Christ and to hear Jesus’ words in faith.

As for the other disciples, the Scriptures are largely silent, but it can be assumed that they went off and hid.

Even after all this time, the recounting of these events leaves us with many questions, and a couple of answers, and that is why I think that there is value in revisiting the events of Holy Week each year. What happens to our hopes and dreams, and even our lives, when all we have left is a dead Jesus? As believers, how do we deal with the Peter, John, and missing disciples that dwell simultaneously in each one of us? How well do any of us really understand Jesus? I think this is the repentance that lent and Good Friday call us to.

God has answered all this by reconciling all things to Himself in the death of His Son, and raising Him to life so that we may obtain the forgiveness of sins and life everlasting. In light of this I am convinced that no matter what happens to me in this life, in the end it will be okay, and Jesus will make it so. The resurrection is the guarantee that “whoever trusts in Him will never be put to shame.”

It is my hope that our readers will avail themselves of the many worship opportunities available this Holy Week, culminating in the Feast of the Resurrection on Easter Sunday, and ponder the lessons of lent and Easter throughout the coming year.

God’s Peace

We’ve done it. We’ve gone and fired up our new Freebies! section here at NRP. There are just a few things in there right now, but we have a list of more great stuff we’ll be adding very soon, so don’t miss out.

We hope you enjoy the great Christian resources we’ve been mining out of the giant untamed internet. Expect to find text and audio here, some links which will take you to other websites, and some content which we will host directly ourselves.

All of the things in Freebies! are free resources for you to use without limitation (unless otherwise noted on a website to which we link). We hope you print the articles and share them with others and load any audio files onto your iPod or put them on a CD so you can listen to them going and coming from work - or even give a CD to a friend or two.

We’re very excited about the things we’re going to be offering in Freebies! Trust me… this is only the beginning.

Well, we’ve certainly started 2008 with a bang.

Dr. Rosenbladt’s presentation of The Gospel For Those Broken By The Church has been garnering rave reviews from folks of all denominations and backgrounds. If you’ve not yet heard or read Dr. Rosenbladt’s presentation, what are you waiting for? It’s simply one of the finest, clear-cut and to-the-point pronunciations of the Gospel for those who may have been getting “another gospel” from church. Can Christians be saved? Dr. Rosenbladt certainly thinks so. You don’t want to miss this one.

But we’re just getting started!

Right now, we’re working on getting a whole lot more of Dr. Rosenbladt’s presentations (MP3s) available for sale in our store as soon as possible. Additionally, we’re working to add more and more of his incredible book outlines (available in PDF) to the catalog as well. When they’re done, we will have almost 200 different electronic outlines available, all with the wonderful high-quality work that Dr. Rosenbladt always produces. They’re simply invaluable study guides that you don’t want to miss, especially if you’re a student.

On other fronts, we’ve been having conversations with several people, the names of whom we will reveal later, who are going to be helping us to form a “Freebies” section of our site. We’re looking forward to using this area to make available many wonderful discussions, papers, and interviews (all electronic files which will be available for free download directly from NRP), as well as links to great free materials, which are dynamite Gospel messages and which also help educate the listener or reader in the Christian faith.

I won’t go into too much detail now, but keep your eyes open. We’re planning to have some HOT stuff that you won’t want to miss, especially at that price. (Did I mention they would be FREE?)

Another section we’re looking forward to getting up and running is one where you can go and find our hand-picked book, audio and video titles that we don’t currently carry directly in our catalog, but that we think are imperative to learning about the Gospel and the Christian faith. Many of these will probably go through Amazon, since they’re such a fine customer-service-oriented company and we love working with them. Plus you’ll be pretty sure to get your hands on stuff that is out of print and still save money. Again, that’s a great thing for any of us.

Of course, we’re working on more products to put into our own catalog which you simply can’t get anywhere else, and as those become available, we’ll keep you in the loop here.

We’re very excited about everything we have planned for 2008 and I can’t tell you how pleased we are with the wonderful comments we’ve been getting directly from you. As always, please don’t hesitate to call or email us and let us know your thoughts or ask us your questions. We love your feedback (part of our daily bread) and can’t tell you how blessed we feel to be able to share the Gospel with you.

We here at NRP hope you are having a wonderful new year and are finding yourselves and your families and friends being greatly blessed with the grace and peace of Jesus Christ.

Under the totally sufficient imputed righteousness.

Merry Christmas!

Christmas is truly my favorite time of the year. The happiness of the Gospel simply pours forth at this time of year more than any other. It does so so much, in fact, that people who aren’t even believers are caught up in it and can’t help but be more joyful than at any other time of the year.

In our home, as much as happiness always reigns, so much more so does it on this day. Truly, as I’ve gotten older and spend time with my family and friends, I’ve come to the realization that Christmas and all the joy of the birth of our Savior gives us a better foretaste of the feast to come than just about anything I’ve experienced in this life.

That’s what I love about it. We simply have an INCREDIBLE banquet awaiting us at the end of the tribulations of this life. I can’t wait to meet my Savior face to face and talk with Him. I yearn to meet my father’s father and hug him and enjoy the best whiskey with him and introduce him to all our friends and family. I look forward to no more tears, joy and faithfulness beyond measure. I look forward to the food and the drink and the laughter and the song and dancing.

What a happy theology we are given.

Under the completely sufficient imputed righteousness.

Well, it looks like we’re getting some attention. Some of you may have noticed, or not, but over the last day, our site has had a couple pages hacked to produce some malicious code through people’s browsers.

This sort of thing, unfortunately, is something that all sites have to be on guard about, and we’re looking into it right now. The site has been restored so that the malicious code isn’t there anymore.

If you have any concerns about this at all, please contact us here either by phone or email and we’ll let you know everything about what we know about this issue and why your information is safe with us.

Thanks for your patience, and we hope you’re having a wonderful Christmas season, and we wish you and yours a very merry Christmas!

He rules the world with grace and truth,
And makes the Nations prove
The glories of His righteousness
And wonders of His love…

My Pastor always tells us to pay close attention to old hymns because you can find some great theology in them. Such is the case with “Joy to the World.” This particular verse of this hymn is the reason I don’t participate in the ‘Christmas Wars’ and why you will never hear me decrying the commercialization of the Christmas holiday. Christmas as we celebrate it is the ultimate example of what this verse teaches.

Think about it for a minute. Christ’s dominion is such that pagan holidays have been gutted of their original meaning and filled with the things of Christ. So much so that the original pagan meanings have all but disappeared from our culture, and would be entirely forgotten, except for a handful of atheists who desperately try to use their origins in a pathetic attempt to delegitimize the Holiday.

You may be saying to yourself, “Well, our culture has forgotten the Christian meanings, too.” I say not entirely. Even then, Christ makes the Nations prove the glories of His righteousness and the wonders of His love.

The cathedrals of commerce, our shopping malls and grocery stores play Christmas music for almost a month before Christmas. Shoppers are literally drenched with the praises of Christ while they engage in what amounts to preparation for extravagantly sacrificial giving to friends and family. Believers and unbelievers alike, once a year, spend what many people consider far too much, just to give it away. This in turn creates a huge wave of cash that washes around the globe creating jobs that allow people in other countries to buy food and clothing. I heard recently that most retail outlets don’t turn a profit until Black Friday, the first day of the Christmas shopping season. God teaches us about giving and provides daily bread for millions. All this because the Word became flesh and dwelt among us.

Workaholics and greedy businesses on this one day are forced to take a Sabbath rest. (I believe that this is a foretaste of that ‘every knee shall bow and every tongue shall confess’ thing mentioned in Scripture.) Families and friends are given a day to be together and enjoy each other.

The Scripture says “And from His fullness we have all received grace upon grace.” By the power of the Word all this is accomplished at Christmas.

I’m not bothered when businesses talk about “Happy Holidays”, we all know which holiday they are referring to. Christmas is the 800 pound gorilla on the holiday block. A Jewish friend told me that Hannukah was on par with St. Patrick’s Day. Kwanzaa is in its holiday infancy and it will take a few hundred years (if the Lord should tarry) to see if it has any legs.

I can hear the protests—“These people aren’t Christians, are materialistic, are doing it for selfish reasons, don’t understand the true meaning”, etc, etc. These things are true. Let me paraphrase the patriarch Joseph. We mean these things for whatever reason we mean them, but God means them for good. For us and our neighbors.

Every year I marvel that the whole world can’t help but participate in the celebration of the Incarnation. I am also humbled by the mighty power of the Word that brings this to pass.

Truly it is “Joy to the World.”