The Uncultured Saints

It makes for viral social media statements to say that not only do good works not save you but they’re harmful to salvation. But it’s totally not true. Necessary doesn’t necessarily mean that you have to be forced to do something. It can also mean that it just happens through you, necessarily, and make you love it. Nobody is saying that sinning is great, you should go out and sin more! But braggin...

Sometimes we think it’d be helpful to use character voices to distinguish Law and Gospel. The Law is that which God demands from us. And if you don’t fulfill it, the Law will also threaten punishment. It kind of offers salvation…if you keep it perfectly. God gives the Law to us for three good purposes, none of which are to frustrate us, but to show us who God is. In contrast, the Gospel has no thr...

Once upon a time, there was a controversy among Lutherans. (Shocker!) One camp said the Law has no place in the life of the Christian anymore and good works will spontaneously spring forth without any sort of instruction or guidance. But when we work to set aside the Law, to free ourselves from the Law’s curse, we forget that we already ARE free of the Law’s curse, in Christ. Jesus didn’t need the...

God has given us specific words to describe what’s it is and what’s going on. But those words don’t make sense, they’re not reasonable. So we have to try and figure out what Jesus really means, because He obviously can’t mean what He’s saying. We take God’s gift, take it apart and try to put it back together again in ways that make sense to us. But God’s Words don’t describe reality like our words...

Saying “God is everywhere” is not helpful or useful, when you think about it. It just confuses things, especially when God has chosen to locate Himself in specific places. In the Old Testament, His presence was visible, tangible, and interact-with-able. And in the New Testament, God became Man in the person of Jesus. And so the things that are true of the human Jesus are also true of God Jesus. Wh...

God has given us the image of Christ descending into hell, kicking open the doors, being victorious over the demons for our comfort. This doctrine doesn't stand alone. It’s tied to His incarnation, life, death, and resurrection. When we try to make logical sense of Christ’s descent into hell, we end up putting victory right back into the Satan's hands. Because when we describe it as Scripture does...

Every single thing you do in church — both the traditions explicitly given in the Bible, but also the smaller stuff — should point you to Jesus. If it does, it’s good. If it doesn’t, it’s bad. But it’s definitely not meaningless. The things that we do, the space we do them in are all meaningful. They aren’t “worship” in and of themselves, but they help us understand and convey the truth of the doc...

We've finally made it to the end of the Formula of Concord, by the grace of God, and a bit of sheer perseverance. If God is "God" shouldn't he know everything that is going to happen? EVERYTHING? The beginning, the end, and everything in between. Who wins the trophy, who passes the test, and who ends up eternally damned. Everything... right?  Join Pastor Harrison Goodman and Pastor Eli Lietzau as...