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All Saints’ Day A Minor Festival With Major Comfort

“I pray also that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened
in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you,
the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints” 

(Ephesians 1:18, NIV).

As you read this article, there’s a festival fast approaching on the church year calendar. It’s a festival that doesn’t receive much attention these days. It is “All Saints’ Day.” It falls each year on the first day of November.

How and when did the Festival of All Saints originate, and what is its significance? In the days of the early church, when Christianity was an outlawed religion, followers of Jesus were subjected to bitter persecution. Many were killed for refusing to knuckle under to the authorities and renounce their religious beliefs. It was during this period of open hostility toward Christians that the church chose a day of the year on which to remember those who had been martyred, and to praise God for His mercy in preserving them in faith amidst the fiery trials they faced. The name they ascribed to the day was All Saints Day. Later, all who died while anchoring their hopes in Jesus were remembered on this day, with thanksgiving to God.Read More »All Saints’ Day A Minor Festival With Major Comfort

Our “New Wine” Reformation Heritage

“No one puts a piece of unshrunk cloth on an old garment, for
the patch tears away from the garment, and a worse tear is made. 

Neither is new wine put into old wineskins. If it is, the
skins burst and the wine is spilled and the skins are destroyed. 

But new wine is put into fresh wineskins, and so both are preserved”

(Matthew 9:16-17 ESV).

This parable is a practical example of taking good care of household items.

Patching an old garment with unshrunk cloth would make no sense—as soon as you would wash it, the patch would shrink and you would be worse off than you were before. Putting new wine (which is still expanding) into stiff old wineskins would only result in a wasteful mess.

What was Jesus’ point with this parable?

The religion practiced by the self-righteous Pharisees was an old wineskin. “Follow our rules, be as holy as we claim to be, and God will reward you” was their message. This old wineskin was all works and pride, but the new wine that Jesus brought was the opposite. It was confession of sin, and trust in Christ for forgiveness of that sin. Jesus’ point was that works and grace are incompatible. You can’t “patch up” a religion of works. You can’t pour  the Gospel of grace into a heart that claims its own righteousness. It’s one or the other, as St. Paul makes plain: “And if by grace, then it is no longer of works; otherwise grace is no longer grace. But if it is of works, it is no longer grace; otherwise work is no longer work” (Romans 11:6).Read More »Our “New Wine” Reformation Heritage

“BREAD OF LIFE” READINGS September 2016

Date / Verse / Reading Comments

TLH = The Lutheran Hymnal, 1941; WS = Worship Supplement 2000; [ ] = Biblical Events Noted

Sept 1 TLH 25 Nahum 1:2-9 The Lord is caring and good, but He is also just. His mercy and justice are not incompatible. Trust in Him and live.

Sept 2 TLH 455 2 Kings 24:10-17 “As the Lord had declared,” Babylon marched against Jerusalem and the exile began. Would Judah truly understand why? [Hannah Prays for a Son]

Sept 3 TLH 105:1-4 1 Chronicles 3:1-24 This might appear just a “dry” genealogy, but notice how David is central—even as his house was central to the promise of a Savior.Read More »“BREAD OF LIFE” READINGS September 2016

The CLC in Convention: “In the Footsteps of the Reformers”

CLC_Conv_Graphic“Which will we follow?
Where are we heading?”

For Lutherans, the date of October 31 calls to mind Luther’s posting of his Ninety-Five Theses, the event that sparked the Reformation. Next year, that date will furnish an especially strong reminder because 2017 will mark the five-hundredth anniversary of that significant event. CLC President Michael Eichstadt and Moderator Paul Nolting anticipated this approaching anniversary with this year’s convention theme, “In the Footsteps of the Reformers.” This theme resonated throughout the Thirty-second Convention of the Church of the Lutheran Confession, held June 23-26, 2016, on the beautiful campus of Immanuel Lutheran College in Eau Claire, Wisconsin.

In his convention address, President Eichstadt spoke of the “countless billions of people who over the course of history have left their footsteps on the earth, making paths in every imaginable direction,” and asked, “Which will we follow? Where are we heading?” We want to follow in the steps of Martin Luther because he followed the Word of the Lord Jesus.Read More »The CLC in Convention: “In the Footsteps of the Reformers”