The Will in Conversion:Protestant Rationalism versus Lutheran Adherence to Scripture By T. R. Halvorson NOTE: This article may be downloaded as a PDF Document A recurring issue in Christian conversations is: What is the role of man’s will in conversion. Some say this is no better than arguing about how many angels can dance on the […]
Winston Churchill was visiting New York the day after the stock market crash of 1929. The noise of a crowd outside his hotel woke him. “Under my very window a gentleman cast himself down fifteen stories and was dashed to pieces, causing a wild commotion and the arrival of the fire brigade,” he wrote. Over […]
The Cracked Foundation of Forde’s Radical Lutheranism by T. R. Halvorson NOTE: This article may be downloaded as a PDF Document Gerhard Forde says, “Sanctification, if it is to be spoken of as something other than justification, is perhaps best defined as the art of getting used to the unconditional justification wrought by the grace […]
Artist Francis B. Carpenter said Abraham Lincoln had “the saddest face I ever attempted to paint.” His law partner said Lincoln’s “melancholy dripped from him as he walked.” His life was an unceasing litany of sorrows, tragedies, and dangers leading to the Civil War. With many assassination threats, finally he was shot on Good Friday, […]
Sometimes doctrinal review is like spell check. Spell check is up to its own task, but not up to other tasks. Its competence does not extend to, for example, diction. “Ode to the Spell Checker”by Jerrold H. Zar Eye halve a spelling checkerIt came with my pea sea.It plainly marks four my revue miss steaks […]
The following is from David P. Scaer, Law and Gospel and the Means of Grace, pp. 4-5 (The Luther Academy: St. Louis, 2008). According to a confessional Lutheran understanding, the law lays down God’s requirements or regulations in such a way that sinful people by themselves cannot fulfill them. Those who understand the law’s message in […]
by T. R. Halvorson Note: This article may be downloaded as a PDF file. Outline Citation Evaluation The Atonement in Lutheran Theology Plan of the Book The Problem Teaching of Christ and the Apostles Teaching of the Postapostolic Fathers Citation Dierks, Theodore. Reconciliation and Justification. St Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1938. Evaluation Dierks’ work in Part […]
On November 8, 2022, a majority of the Board of Regents (BOR) of Concordia University Texas (CTX) purportedly made that board self-governing and self-perpetuating in complete independence from the Concordia University System (CUS) and The Lutheran Church–Missouri Synod (LCMS). CTX delivered unauthorized and newly adopted governance documents to the Texas Secretary of State.[i] Rev. Michael […]
Drought and fires this year (2017) recall memories of prairie fires in homesteading days. In high winds, fires moved rapidly, burning grass, crops, livestock, wildlife, buildings, and people. One time a homesteading father saw a fire fanned by winds toward his farm. He realized he and his family could not run away from it. He […]
Foreword from A Year of Law & Gospel Preaching:Postil of Sermons on the One-Year Lectionaryby Rev. Rolf D. Preus Being called to write this foreword is among the highest honors of my life. The call came to me because I am a parishioner of Pastor Preus. The Holy Spirit preaches Law and Gospel to me […]
The Gospel text for January 4 is Luke 2:41-52. After God gives Jesus to Mary, He seems to take him away from her. When she loses him on the return journey from the Passover in Jerusalem, she and Joseph search for him for three days. Are they able to sleep during the intervening nights? When […]
During World War II, Henry Kaiser, steel magnate and shipbuilder, conceived the idea of a massive flying transport. He turned to Howard Hughes to design and build it. It was 6 times larger than any aircraft of its time. Beyond its size, creating this airplane was challenging because of government restrictions on war materials like […]
Some of you remember. Before 1971, television had cigarette advertisements. After that, the ads were banned. The jingle for one brand went, “Over, under, around, and through; Pall Mall travels pleasure to you.” The video showed smoke passing over, under, around, and through tobacco to the smoker. This illustrates something that happened to Jesus in […]
Published originally on Brothers of John the Steadfast, July 13, 2020 Note: This article may be downloaded as a PDF document. Introduction This article provides an introductory sketch of Cultural Marxism and Critical Theory. It discusses the disappointment of economic Marxists over the failure of the workers of the world to unite for revolution. It […]
The decline in membership of Lutheran churches in America is a like a migraine headache. It is always there. We keep explaining it with the same explanations. We keep taking the same medications. The pain continues. What is the right word for that? In The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod, the current (March 2017) issue of Reporter carries an […]
Note: This article originally was published on October 29, 2014on Brothers of John the Steadfast This article is a layman’s plea to confessional Lutheran pastors, theologians, and doctors to consider the myriad of challenges to the doctrine upon which the church stands or falls from a simple, strategic perspective. Otherwise, all we’re ever going to […]
The presiding bishop of a Lutheran body said during an interview by reporter Robert Herguth during his podcast “Faith to Face” that there might be a hell, but she thinks it is empty.[1] In reality, many in that body don’t believe in hell. This comes into the open when congregations of that body remove, “He descended […]
Frequently I hear it said, as a refutation of this or that orthodox proposition, “In this day and age,” that proposition is absurd. There are many variant formulations of the idea. Sometimes it is stated as, “This is the 21st century. We are not controlled by the darkness of the past.” Leaving aside for the […]
Before 1700, common folk had wooden spoons. Well off people had silver. The saying, “He was born with a silver spoon in his mouth,” views a high-born person as knowing nothing about the struggles of life. As the Son of God, Jesus has a silver spoon, his divine powers. But He was born under the […]
Nunc Dimittis: Seeing God’s Savior and Salvation by T. R. Halvorson NOTE: This article may be downloaded as a PDF Document Introduction Nunc Dimittis (the Song of Simeon) as a post-Communion canticle is a treasure. It holds deep riches of consolation in God’s Savior and salvation. Receiving the true body and blood of Christ with […]
Atonement
Liturgy and Communion
Luther’s Liturgical Criteria and His Reform of the Canon of the Mass
Luther reformed the Canon of the Mass, the way the Sacrament of the Altar is administered. He has been branded a liturgical hack.
Was he a hack or a surgeon? What part did Jesus’ own words have in Luther’s reform. Is the Lord’s Supper a sacrifice we are to offer to God, or is it a testament and gift that Christ gives to the Church?
World renowned scholar Bryan D. Spinks reports the findings of his research. Spinks identifies errors of scholastic procedure in the body of literature. He examines root sources. By his industry and workmanlike procedure, Spinks succeeds at what he set out to do: Let Luther answer for himself.
As John T. Pless says in the Foreword: “It took an Anglican to rescue Luther from the Lutheran liturgical gurus. That was my first response to reading this tightly-packed and potent monograph years ago. Its value has not diminished with the passage of time. … Spinks demonstrates that Luther’s liturgical revisions were not sloppily done but carried out with integrity based on his confession of justification by faith alone. Luther understood God to be the donor in the liturgy of the Lord’s Supper. Thanksgiving which flows from the gift dare not blur this fact. The Sacrament is the Gospel.”
Spinks’ achievement gives this work an exceptional place in the literature. A new audience needs it. This is why it should be republished. First published in 1982, it has gone out of print. Used copies are rare and expensive. Dr. Spinks once more gives a precious gift to the Church by readily and graciously granting his permission for this new edition.
With new musical engravings of the Verba and The German Sanctus by Jon D. Vieker and commendation by William C. Weedon, this new edition bursts the epiphany of Spinks’ brilliance into the sight of a new audience and generation.