Sometimes Christmas is “boring”.

 

I am sure you got a bit of shock at me, a confessing Christian saying that. That sounds unbecoming, doesn’t it? Further my family will be surprised too at me saying this – because I taught my kids some Christmas traditions which I got from my mother and grandparents. As young boy, I looked forward to Christmas Eve the time we celebrate it because where I grew up, I was surrounded by cousins, and it was a lot of fun when the older ones help in what mom and grandma were cooking – and we did have plenty of food. Some of our dishes we only cook exclusively during Christmas Eve, and you do not have them unless it is Christmas or very special occasion. So, wait – do not judge the blog post by its title.

Yeah, it is strange for me to say Christmas is “boring”.

I get bored with the commercialization of Christmas and how the world pushes us to focus on the buying of products so that we can give gifts. In a sense of course, giving is part of Christian virtue. However, today in the West, we are driven to buy many products which are probably going to be kept in the closet unused. It becomes a problem as to what gift you think you should buy for your relatives and friends because you wonder what it is, they still do not have. Also, feasting produces stress and pressure too, the preparation heightens tiredness and thins the patience.  Of course, all of these are FB photo opportunities to post on our FB, but if we be honest – it feels empty. At least that is how I sometimes feel.

It feels empty because we allowed the commercial companies to high jack our precious meaning of OUR Christmas. Did you know that retail companies obtain 30% of their yearly revenue at Christmas time. Try taking away Christmas and you got a fight in front of you, these companies will side with Christians, I can predict – and it is because they get money out of Christmas. Just imagine if we stop celebrating Christmas like we do now – how many tree planters go out of business, how many groceries will struggle, how many butchers will have a dull year, how many people will not have a job! We have allowed the commercial world to dictate to us how we ought to celebrate Christmas and I rebel against that.

I can tell you this was not how the early Christians celebrated Christmas. To them Christmas was the birth of their King.

Luke 2:11

Today in the city of David a Savior has been born to you. He is Christ the Lord!

 Christmas to the early Christians had to do with Sin and Salvation. I read they spend time reflecting and repenting. Repenting? That is something the companies don’t know about – focus on the products and the good time. Careful what we teach our children, we might be building the character of entitlement in them by leading them to expect presents and tons of them.

The early Christians celebrated the simplicity of the gift – the Lord in the flesh – It is all about Jesus. It is not about the presents – it is about the person – Jesus. The real gift of God to us.

 

 

If you are an anti-Calvinist, you must be Arminian? Huh?

 

[Updated - Dec 16, 2023]

There is a common misconception in Evangelicalism that when you write or say something against Calvinism - aha, you must be an Arminian.

Calvinists assume this to be so. In fact, Arminians think this to be so too! They think you are one of them when you oppose Calvinism.

What a false dichotomy fallacy! 

This post is meant to correct this impression - by tracing the situation via history.

Calvinists are quite quick to assume that there is no one else who opposes them except Arminians. Arminius we can recall was the Reformed minister who kicked back against 5 points of Calvinism.

For example, let's take R. H. Lenski - a famous Lutheran NT Scholar well respected by other non-Lutheran who wrote a compelling commentary on Romans 9, which rejects and assails the way Calvinists interpret this to support their decretal/unconditional predestination. Many recognize the formidability of Lenski as an NT Exegete that even the Calvinist Apologist Dr. James White had to write a rebuttal of Lenski's exegesis proving Calvinists exegesis wrong  here. 

Some Calvinist mis-identity Lenski as Arminian - see that here

Furthermore, Arminians love to take Lenski as their own, since he fought Calvinism. In fact even US Synodical Lutherans from LC-MS/WELS/ELS etc who hate Lenski because he rejects their Universal Objective Justification, label him to be Arminian too, not Lutheran! 

Arminianism is a boogey man word. If you want to denigrate a theological opponent, just identify the person as Arminian! Calvinists often resort to straw-man propaganda labelling them as Pelagians or Semi-Pelagians which Arminius, a highly researched theologian, was unlikely to be unfamiliar with these positions. 

Needless to say, Lenski a well respected NT Exegete from the Lutheran camp is loved by Arminians to point as their champion too. See the Theology section of the Wiki article about Lenski here, where there are those who identify him as Arminian.

I read most of R H Lenski's commentary and I don't think he will appreciate being mislabeled and not thought about as Lutheran.

I had a discussion with someone of an Arminian persuasion and I was puzzled why by history and shear evolution of thought why there is reluctance to give credit to where credit is due - that Arminius must have been influence of those who went before - the Lutherans.

Thankfully, I was helped by Arminians who do credit the Lutherans who influenced Arminius with proofs I link below. HT: Andrew David

If you are one of those who would like to make Arminius as an original thinker, here are the facts:

1. The Lutherans have been opposed to Calvinism even before the Arminians came to the scene.  The earliest opposition from Lutherans that can be traced is from 1570.
2. The Lutherans wrote about Calvinism even before the Book of Concord was signed - 1580.
3. Jakob Andrea, a co-editor of the BoC cross "swords" with Theodore Beza, who was Arminius' senior in the university where Arminius studied.
4. Jacob Arminius came to the scene in 1610, that is 1 generation away from 1570.
5. Jacob Arminius claimed that he was influenced by a Danish Lutheran - Neils Hemmingsen and read the writings of Melanchton the author of Augsburg Confession. Here are references to this connection:
1.  Something for Arminius Geeks
2.  The Doctrine of Prevenient Grace in the Theology of Jacobus Arminius

First, argue from Scripture not from your Confession

 

I spoke to a prominent pastor the other day. He said that he does not go anymore to those FB discussion forums and do not engage in those forums anymore. The reason? He said, they do not prove their position from Scripture. Rather, they quote what some Reformation Fathers said and so on. Thus, no exposition from Scripture as to why their position is sound and reasonable.  This is a fallacious position to be in, because this is arguing from authority as if that authority is not human and infallible like us. In Latin, it is called argumentum ab auctoritatis.

This is frustrating because it is no trying to convince you of what Scripture directly says but rather what some teacher in the past that enjoyed respect says. Hence, the argument goes this way - he ( the so called Father)  believed so and so, therefore, you should believe in so and so, like me.

In the Book of Concord (BoC) we have this in FC, SD X, 

Comprehensive Summary, Foundation, Rule and Norm (Source: https://bookofconcord.org/solid-declaration/rule-and-norm/ )

1. First [, then, we receive and embrace with our whole heart] the Prophetic and Apostolic Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments as the pure, clear fountain of Israel, which is the only true standard by which all teachers and doctrines are to be judged. (Source: https://bookofconcord.org/solid-declaration/rule-and-norm/#sd-ruleandnorm-0003 )

If you are true to your so called confession, that you confess the BoC, then quoting the BoC first is something you should not do, rather you need to prove from Scripture first and judge it from all teachings and doctrines. By this, the BoC writers submitted themselves under the authority of Scripture. So, should you.

Yet some hold their confession like the BoC as another "scripture" as another Talmudic book. It is a misuse of this document and an abuse as well.

Intuitu Fidei, once more

 

In this post, we will have some more clarifying statements as to what this phrase further means. To get the Scriptural context why this blog agrees with the ideas embedded in this phrase, you can find the justification in this post here.

Aside from 2 Thes 2:13-14   

13 But we are [a]bound to give thanks to God always for you, brethren beloved by the Lord, because God from the beginning chose you for salvation through [b]sanctification by the Spirit and belief in the truth

We have also 1 Peter 1:2 

elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, in sanctification of the Spirit, for obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ: 

We have a curious phrase here which is both used by St Peter and St Paul in their writings - through sanctification of/by the Spirit. What could this mean? I suggest that to be sanctified in the Spirit is to have faith in Christ for the forgiveness of sins - John 15:26 says He is the spirit of truth and Jesus says sanctification is by God's Truth - the Word - John 17:17 and faith only comes through the word of Christ  ie Law and Gospel.

Intuitu Fidei (IF) stand for in view of faith. This is a quick thumb slogan which sometimes is bound to be misunderstood. This position says God elects us in view of faith. Some Arminians think that this means we are elected for the sake of faith ( faith per se or itself as a thing). This is not what Evangelical Lutherans mean, ie the Old Orthodox Lutherans. Properly speaking they actually want to say in view of Christ's merit apprehended by faith. By this they mean to say that we are not elect by virtue of faith itself, but that which faith hangs on which is the merit of Christ ie the work and person of Christ to which faith grasps. They want to say that faith is not a meritorious property in us, but it is an instrumental cause, it grasps what is promised by the Gospel in which it addresses the demands of the Law. This is the same as what happens in Justification happens in Election/Predestination.

Because Justification and Predestination are two sides of the same coin of Salvation, we cannot have the first to be by faith and the latter to be without faith, meaning without condition ie by decree or decreetal unconditional election. The two will contradict and will rob us of the comfort of the Gospel. If it happens to be illogical only because it is contrary to the whole teaching of Scripture on the subject. IF thus say that means Election in this sense is conditioned on faith in Christ. Thus this negated decreetal/unconditional election. The best passage alluded by Calvinists for this unconditional election is in Romans 9, yet the whole argument of St Paul there pertains to the people of Israel not for every individual per se. In fact we never see in Scripture Esau serving Jacob, in fact it was reverse in that Jacob prepared gifts to his brother Jacob, even referring to himself as his servant. We see Edom, the descendants of Esau indeed subservient to Israel. Clearly as given above 1 Peter 1:2 along w Romans 8:28-29, God's foreknowledge comes first prior to predestination/election. This is something that is missed in the study of this subject.

Incidentally, many out of ignorance and specially Calvinists themselves and modern Evangelicals today think that if someone opposes Calvinism, he/she must be an Arminian. Let's correct this ignorance. For example, the famous Lutheran NT Scholar and respected Exegete - R H Lenski who was definitely anti-Calvinist, is often mis-identified as Arminian, of which of course, Arminians love to own him too. Not true.

Arminianism sprouted as a reaction to Supralapsarian Calvinism of Besa roughly 1610. The Lutherans have been rejecting Calvinism much earlier than that about 1550. In fact Arminius gave a hint that he might have been influenced in his ideas by a Danish Lutheran, Niels Hemingsen. This is the reason why I often suggest that Arminius must have picked up much of the critique of Calvinism from Lutherans.

The point of IF is that election is IN Christ, or if you will the Lord Jesus is the Elect One/ the Chosen One. That is where it happens. Since no one is in Christ unless we have faith IN Him then faith is the instrument of Election as it is the same instrument for Justification.

This is best articulated by Johann Gerhard (emphasis mine).

The good pleasure of the will of God according to which election took place, does not exclude Christ. Because Christ does not become ours except through faith (in his Gospel) therefore, the consideration of faith is a constituent part of election.

...

...

To teach that the view of faith is a constituent part of the decree of election is not Pelagianism, for the Pelagians taught that election took place according to foreseen faith as a certain merit and as a work of natural powers of freewill, in which sense our pious (Lutheran) fathers when disputing with Pelagians justly denied that election took place for the sake of faith or from faith. But we teach that faith is a gracious gift of God and not a merit but a means through which we appropriate Christ for whose sake election took place

Reference: I believe I took this from R H Lenski's part of Errors in Missouri book. Apologies for not tracking the specifics of this.

Reformed, did you know the origin of this term?

Did you know that the word "reformed" was used by the BoC as another label meant to describe the original Evangelical reformers?

Yes, if we look into the Book of Concord we will see it being owned by the Evangelicals (and by this term, the Lutherans, who in the first place did not call themselves, Lutherans, but Evangelicals).

This is taken from the Triglota version of the BoC. Namely, in the chapter named - Formula of Concord - Solid Declaration, Rule and Standard look at paragraph 5]3...

"...we confess also the First, Unaltered Augsburg Confession as our symbol for this time, not because it was composed by our theologians, but because it has been taken from God’s Word and is founded firmly and well therein, precisely in the form in which it was committed to writing, in the year 1530, and presented to the Emperor Charles V at Augsburg by some Christian Electors, Princes, and Estates of the Roman Empire as a common confession of the reformed churches, whereby our reformed churches are distinguished from the Papists and other repudiated and condemned sects and heresies, after the custom and usage of the early Church, whereby succeeding councils, Christian bishops and teachers appealed to the Nicene Creed, and confessed it [publicly declared that they embraced it]".

The word Reformed was referred by Lutherans to themselves. Now I wonder what happened that they lost that label? By history then, this is the first label high jacked from them. Looks like there is always a habit of originating helpful concepts in theology and then relinquishing them to those who disagreed with them.

For example, the "solas" were coined by Lutherans first. Then the others who rally against RCC, have adopted these "solas", though badly mis-applied and mis-understood. 

The last one, the word Evangelical. This is now lost out of the Lutherans. Yet, this is the preferred term they self-identified with. Today, Lutherans now negate and deny they could have happened if the Lutherans in an irenic manner, engaged with non-denominational Christians who identified themselves as "Evangelicals" and taught them what that means. Unfortunately they are not looked at by Lutherans as Christians that need to work with. Rather, the Lutherans blame and demonize them. Rather than influencing them, Lutherans, retreated into their mud puddle.  This a bit sad, because like an Older/Big Brother, Lutherans could have been a great lead in the growth of Western Protestant movement. To go back to the "solas", we all know non-Lutherans are puzzled why Lutherans can teach "sola fide'" and yet assert "baptism saves". They do not know how these two are compatible. Perhaps had the Lutherans been out going to modern-day "evangelicals" by first considering them as Christians needing leadership and understanding, something like what the first disciples through Priscilla and Aquila (see Acts 18:26)   did to Apollos, perhaps things would have been different.

Thanks for hearing me talk out loud.

Heads-Up: In the next posts, the Lord willing - I will do a series of clarification on "Intuitu Fide" and further critique of Walther/Waltherianism.

  

 

Being infected by Neo-Lutheranism

N

 

Neo-Lutheranism, which we will define later, is still going on in those who identify themselves as Lutheran today. To know if you have been infected by it, it is more interesting to test yourself honestly how you would answer the checklist questions below.

1.       Do you/your pastor, romanticize the past? Is there nostalgia, the longing, the sigh that everything good about Christianity happened in the past? This is akin to thinking of the life of your parents when they lived the happy days of 1930-1960 when things were pristine and simple but do this now to your faith.

2.       Do you/your pastor, get into vestment debates? Is there quibbling when it came to the proper attire to use when mounting the pulpit or taking the divine service? Is the alb to be preferred over the Geneva gown?

3.       Do you/your pastor treat the Book of Concord as another authoritative Scripture? Yet your pastor confesses more than what is in the BoC eg like getting into the proper view of church fellowship w other Lutherans or non-Lutheran Christians?

4.       Do you/your pastor rally over the proper form of the liturgy? Do they quibble with the way a section of it is worded or sequenced ie the concern for the form/formality rather than what is going on in the heart? Another example of this is arguing or insisting what is clearly Scripturally an adiaphora, a non-adiaphora.

5.       Do you/your pastor emphasize the Sacraments over the exposition of the Word? Normally this happens when the pastor preaches on a text that speaks no where of Baptism or the Lord’s Supper and then suddenly, he inserts either of these in his sermon. Another, are you ok with your pastor preaching abysmal sermons (or no sermons at all) so long as you get the Lord’s Supper for Sunday?

6.       Do you/your pastor treat your Synod as the visible church? Is there comfort/confidence you are in the right group? Do you think the distinction between visible and invisible church is not important? This is demonstrated in not emphasizing conversion.

7.       Additionally, as my observation, do you/your pastor emphasize Universal Objective Justification – the belief that all (whatsoever) are already declared forgiven/justified in Christ 2000 years ago, without reference to repentance/faith etc.

 

If you have been brutally truthful in answering these questions with a “YES”, then I am afraid you have been infected by Neo-Lutheranism to a smaller or greater degree.

 

Is it bad? Look at the above questions, are they Biblical positions to stand on? The Bible tells us to pick the good and throw the bad but anything that seemed good done in extreme to the detriment of other good things becomes excessively bad too. Scripture should limit how far we go. St Paul says to test everything and hold fast to what is good, which implies drop what is bad, see 1 Thes 5:21.

 

Neo-Lutheranism is a movement back in 19^th century which is a reaction to rationalism and pietism. Sometimes this is called German-Puseyism. What happened to Anglicanism has happened to Lutheranism when the Oxford Movement came to the first. It is still happening as we speak.

 

The Oxford Movement’s aim is to align Anglicanism to the Roman Catholic Church because it has become too plain or ordinary, the famous proponent of this is John Henry Newman, which as we have seen eventually went to being a Roman Catholic cleric.  In this movement, we see prominent characters, the one leading the way is C. F. W. Walther with well-known ones like Adolf Hoenecke and Johann Löhe. There were more, see the link.

 

I am sure those in the Neo-Lutheranism did not willingly know or advocate going to Rome or Eastern Orthodoxy but the above leads to those camps eventually. If you have known ministers who went to those bodies perhaps, they carried their Neo-Lutheranism to one of these results. Ideas do have consequences. There is a way the seems right to a man but the end of it is death Prov 14:12.

 

Any man, no matter how he has been respected by others can never be more respected than Scripture.

The Rationalizing and Speculative Calvin

 

"John Calvin, he was much more engrossed in speculations concerning God than in the observation of mankind. God is, so to say, the fixed center and starting-point of all his thoughts. He meditates and imagines, and if I dared, I would say that he presents God to us, and describes Him as if he knew Him thoroughly, and had exclusive possession of Him. He then summons man into the presence of God, and denies or calmly rejects everything in him which does not accord with or cannot be adjusted to the God whom he has conceived and depicted. He denies free-will of man and affirms his predestination, because he imagines that man's free-will is opposed to the idea which he has formed of the omnipotence and omniscience of God, and that his predestination is necessary to it. Calvin had a very imperfect knowledge and understanding of man because he professed to know and understand too much about God".

-- M. Guizot

Quoted by P.A. Peter, The Tendency of the Calvinistic Doctrine of Absolute Predestination To Vitiate Some Doctrines of the Christian Religion -Columbus Theological Magazine Volume 11 (1891)

• It is never good to impose your speculation about God over Scripture. We cannot rely unskeptically on our rationalizing mind on how we understand God to be.  It should be reverse, we allow Scripture to tell us who and how is God in his being not the otherway around.
• There is arrogance in Calvin in thinking he knows beyond the shadow of a doubt who is God in his being.

Your personal faith or how the Holy Spirit DOES NOT BELIEVE for you.

 

HT: Pr Dr Gregory Jackson - The Ichabod

Many Synodical Lutherans what my associates call Waltherians love to quote Luther's Small Catechism's Article II.III, namely...

🔗I believe that I cannot by my own reason or strength believe in Jesus Christ, my Lord, or come to Him; 

They stop there, to emphasize Sola Gratia. Did you notice, there is more continuing sentences after that? In fact Luther tells us what the HS does in turning us to become believers. Emphasizing Sola Gratia to the point of excluding or minimizing Sola Fide is like falling on the other side of the horse. It skews the facts and misleads - the one teaching it and the one following it.

Scripture taught a lot about personal faith, see this as examples...

Then Jesus said to him, “Receive your sight; your faith has made you well - Lk 18:42

When Jesus saw their faith, He said to the paralytic, “Son, your sins are forgiven you. - Mk 2:5

And if Christ is not risen, then our preaching is empty and your faith is also empty. - 1 Cor 15:14

In my mind, I am ready to abandon respect for Luther if he did not teach what Jesus and the Apostles taught. Thankfully he taught the same - he taught of personal faith of the sinner...

This is from Luther's Sermon 

Luther's Sermons - Mark 7:31-37. Twelfth Sunday after Trinity

(Emphasis: Dr Greg Jackson and mine)

11. Now this I say, that you may know how far the faith of others may be of use to us, and how your own faith can help you. Other people’s merits will help you to attain a merit of your own, and nothing more. And though all the angels, yea, the mercy of God itself, were ready to stand for you, it would avail you nothing, unless you cleave unto it with a faith of your own. But it may effect this, that it will assist you to obtain a faith of your own, which will help you. Furthermore, even if Christ did die for us, and pledged and gave his body and life, blood and flesh for us, and became our advocate; yet it would avail nothing, unless we believe in him. But he can assist us in this way, that he appears before the Father and says: “O Father, this have I done for mankind; do thou give them faith, in order that they may enjoy it.” This then, will help us, if we feel assured that his works and merit are our own. In the same manner one should also speak of the other saints, that no saint’s intercession and merit avail unless we ourselves believe. You observe this also in our lesson. There lies the poor man, unable either to speak or to hear. They who bring him to the Lord can speak and hear. But they cannot make him speak by their hearing and speaking, and even though they all had come near him and said: “We will speak and hear for you”; yet he would, in spite of this, have remained speechless and deaf continually, and would never have been able to speak.

further...

13. Therefore say: I must neither rely upon your works nor you upon mine; but I will, by my own faith, pray God to give you a faith of your own. This is what is said, that we all are priests and kings, that we, like Christ himself, may intercede for one another before God, praying for personal faith.

Thus, if I happen to notice that you have no faith of your own, or a weak faith, I go and ask God to help, you to obtain faith, not by giving you my faith and my works, but your own faith and your own works; so that Christ may give him all his works and salvation through faith, as he hath given them to us by faith.

---

Likewise my friend, I am not here just to sermonize but to serve you in prayer - let me know what interecession you need. God bless.

We cannot put new wine into old wine bottles

 

There is a reason why traditional churches are closing. It is not mainly because the world around the church has been hostile to it. There are dozens of reasons I can nominate.

For example, traditional churches fit elderly people who are probably frail already and not as energetic as before. They likely have lots of personal issues - it is time for them to sit back. Jesus said - pray to God for laborers to come to the harvest, night time comes when no one can work - and night time has come upon them, John 9:4. What would be the motivation for them to reach out to others and minister to them when in fact, they themselves need ministry? They cannot be bothered anymore. That is why the job of the pastor is to inculcate to his congregation the mission of the church in the Great Commission (Matt 28: 19:20). When the members of a church have no conscious duty to share the Gospel to their neighbors the congregation will soon die and close. They may as well, because as Jesus said – they have lost their saltiness. See Lk 13:6-9.

When a congregation sees that it is either their way or the highway, they get what the want, they get left alone. When the congregation does not reach out to the young, they get what they want, they become happy in themselves, happy in their ways as the Lord takes them one by one until they close their doors since their hearts have been closed to others. It is sad when a congregation is more attentive for people to follow their tradition rather than serving the needs of others – serving the Gospel and offering spiritual care. When the congregation thinks (and the pastor allows it,) that it is not their job but the pastor’s to win souls, then the days of that congregation are numbered, and so is the time of the pastor.

However, I have seen when the old members of the congregation mix with young people, when both can sing using traditional hymns and modern Christian choruses, that sight spells health and wholeness. It does not have to be an either/or situation but both/and. A congregation can have both the old and the new together. I have seen this in action, and it is wonderful when the mixture can coordinate.

If you notice, I do not go to worship wars. I have stopped my delusion that God has anointed me to be fides defensor. When something is an adiaphoron – it remains a matter of indifference. The unchurch could care less if you allow communion by intinction or give communion on a Good Friday. They are not even there yet so such subjects are irrelevant.   I found it laughable when someone wrote in an article that she has seen young people have their mouths opened as they listened to organ music - suggesting that the young are enamored with church organ music. I do not see evidence of this. I can believe some handful of them are like this, but not as a trend. I am surrounded by traditional blue stone churches, I do not see young people lining up to enter them. I have experienced and seen that in my street evangelism it is the young teenagers who are interested in the tract I hand out. People even young people need a community – when their hearts are turned towards the old because the old have welcomed and were kind to them, they will minister in return. We reap what we sow especially when we sow kindness.

The congregation does not have to choose either to stick with tradition or abandon it, there can be open understanding and both the old and the new can co-exist in the church – just like in a family. In a family uncles/aunts and nephews/nieces, grandparents/parents and children and grandchildren can go together.

Put it this way, everyone needs the love of Christ be they young or old. A Christian should always be Christ to the other person. Thus that should be our disposition towards strangers, our neighbors. Unfortunately when the congregation has its foot at the back, as Jesus said, night time comes and no one can work and sadly, night has come already for some congregations.

 

 

Church Calendar and/or Word Fitly Spoken?

 

This is based on my research. The Christian practice of having a church calendar was said to have developed fully in 600 AD. This is the splitting the 12-month period into church seasons. Many church practices we know today would usually originate in one local section of the Church and then gets adopted by the other region in the Church. Then it becomes a practice of the many groups in Christianity as a standard.

Part of the church calendar are the readings which revolve about the life of the Lord, his teachings, and the life of the people of God. Thus, we call them lessons for the day. These readings were used by Christian leaders as part of discipleship training for believers who mostly have no access, obviously, to the text of Scripture and mostly could not read. It is no wonder why icons and statues were used to remind believers of characters that relates to their faith. Praise the Lord for the printing press, we now have Bibles all over the place and many can read or can learn to read.

Having a set of readings for the pastor to preach on is good but it can be a ritual performance too. The pastor can say, he has done his job, he spoke on the text even though there is no exposition of the text and as if he was preaching to kids. The job of the pastor is to feel the heart of his people, to know their spiritual needs and find a way to apply the text to their needs.

The sheep needs food. Jesus said to Peter, John 21:15-19, “if you love me, feed my sheep”. The pastor, if he is true to his calling, should have concern for the nourishment of his sheep. He would know or try to learn at least, what spiritual diet the sheep should receive.

This is where ritualized sermons are not so helpful. It becomes going-through-the-motion event on a Sunday.

This is why I admire, the pastor who once invited me to preach in his congregation. He said, you know we have these readings for that Sunday, but you do not have to preach on them. We can read them, but take your text anywhere you feel the HS is leading you for what we need. This I did.

In Proverbs 25: 11 A word fitly spoken is like apples of gold in settings of silver.

The Word of God fitly spoken, appropriate for the need, for the present hunger becomes food for the soul, producing faith and edification.