Tag: Living

He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the human heart; yet no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end. –Ecclesiastes 3:14 The Lord brings death and makes alive; he brings down to the grave and raises up. –I Samuel 2:6 Judas Iscariot Three decades ago now (to the year) I started struggling heavily with anxiety, depression, and spiritual warfare that was beyond me. It was this that the Lord used in my life to draw me to Him in very serious and sober ways. This struggle, in a very intense way (on a…

Richard Sibbes (1577-1635), Puritan pastor and theologian has a few words on the sufficiency of Christ’s offering to the Father, and the trinitarian shape of the gospel: What a support to our faith is this, that God the Father, the party offended by our sins, is so well pleased with the work of redemption! And what a comfort is this, that seeing God’s love resteth on Christ, as well pleased in him, we may gather that he is as well pleased with us, if we be in Christ! For his love resteth in whole Christ, in Christ mystical, as well…

After a long small print section of commentary on Revelation 4—5 on angels and heaven vis-à-vis a Heaven-world relation, Karl Barth ends the whole thing with the following passage: A final observation may be made. At one time θεολογία was thought of as knowledge of the kind of matters which have occupied us here. Rev. 4—5 was thus regarded as a typical specimen, and it was for this reason that the author was called John ὁ Θεολόγος. He would have been most surprised, and the 4 living creatures, the 24 elders and the many angels in heaven, must surely have…

The following is shared from the Lutheran Advocacy Ministry in Pennsylvania (LAMPa) newsletter for Wednesday, April 9, 2025.  Commemorating Bonhoeffer, Living into his Legacy Today, April 9, marks the 80th anniversary of the death of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the German pastor-theologian who resisted the Nazi regime and was executed at Flossenbürg Concentration Camp just weeks before the end of WWII.   Over the past year Lutherans, advocates, and those committed to justice on behalf of their neighbor have been steeped in the legacy of Bonhoeffer and the lessons his theology and life have to offer us as disciples also working at…

Being a confessional Christian is the way. Some might read this and think I am referring to being ‘Reformed.’ But that would be mistaken; the Reformed might think they have a corner on this language, but they don’t. What I mean when I say ‘confessional’ is being a Christian in the Christian existence who lives and breathes and does theology based on the confession that Jesus is Lord. Doing theology based on the premise that God has spoken (‘Deus dixit’), and only after that fact, that reality can a genuinely Christian theology obtain. Being confessional is to live life in…

for we walk by faith, not by sight . . .[1] It is certain that man must utterly despair of his own ability before he is prepared to receive the grace of Christ. That person does not deserve to be called a theologian who looks upon the »invisible« things of God as though they were clearly »perceptible in those things which have actually happened« (Rom. 1:20; cf. 1 Cor 1:21-25), he deserves to be called a theologian, however, who comprehends the visible and manifest things of God seen through suffering and the cross. A theology of glory calls evil good and good…

As a radical Protestant I am a theologian of a radical theology of the Word. This means that I first understand the Word, to be the eternal Logos, the begotten Son in the bosom of the Father. I understand his free election (Deus incarnandus) to be for us to entail what has become the written and proclaimed Word. So, the creaturely media, such as written and proclaimed Words are, in order, at least for the former to be living and active, requires that its res or reality be antecedently given in and from the eternally living and active Word of…

Blessings as we enter holy week! Many of you have journeyed with ELCA World Hunger through Lent as we have reflected on the Psalms and what meaning that vast collection of hymns, poems, laments and prayers might have for hunger ministry today. As the season comes to a close, thank you for being part of the 40 Days of Giving! Lent is a common time for congregations to focus on hunger and social ministry. Indeed, almsgiving is one of the traditional “three pillars” of Lent (the other two being prayer and fasting) and is still found as one of the…