I'm An Official Pokedad

My two sons love to play the Pokemon trading card game. I play the game with them every so often, but I've never really delved into the realm of being a Pokemon master.

That is, until yesterday. I bought a Pokemon deck. Hold your applause, please!

I have now entered the world of dueling little pocket monsters that evolve into dueling big pocket monsters. But I must say I do like the artwork and imagination that went into the creation of this game.

Anyway, I had a match with my older son, Chris, using my new deck for the very first time. I thought I was going to get creamed. Much to my surprise-- I won! And, quite soundly I might add. I don't gloat over my victory. However, there is a sense of satisfaction that I'm a not-too-shabby strategist and that I have a pretty decent deck.

Now, if only I could remember the name of my deck...

God Calls

For the promise is for you and for your children and for all who are far off, everyone whom the Lord our God calls to himself.-- Acts 2:39

People are brought to faith in Christ by the promise of the forgiveness of sins and the gift of the Holy Spirit who constantly places our attention on Christ. The Lord is the one who does it all through the proclamation of the Gospel.

I used to be one of those people who would try anything to get people to darken the doors of the church. The logic behind it was: get people in the pews and preach the Good News! The more people, the better!! Churches with huge budgets can do this. I used to envy them, but I don't anymore. Slick marketing and gimmicks get people to come. Serving Starbucks will draw people from all over the place. But who's being drawn-- disciples or customers? Those who are attracted by the grace of God or those who merely smell the coffee?

I think the mentality of "get 'em in the pews and preach to them" has it all backwards. It attempts to add to the numbers before the proclamation of the Gospel. This isn't the pattern in the book of Acts. Proclamation comes first, and the Lord adds to the number. In other words, the distribution of the gifts of God is primary. That is all the Lord requires. I see no command in Scripture to pack church pews.

The apostles certainly never rented buildings, launched balloons, had praise bands, or catered to consumer tastes with brand name goodies. They went out and proclaimed that Jesus is the Christ and used the Scriptures to make that proclamation! The Gospel is what draws people.

I'm not against Starbucks or gimmicks or advertising. I just don't think they're effective evangelism tools!

Burning Bushes

In Exodus 3 Moses sees a bush that is on fire but is not consumed. That's curious. How can this happen? It defies the logic of our modern scientific minds. Things that are on fire are reduced to ashes by the destructive power of the flames. But not so here.

We can stand around and debate whether this really happened or not, like saying that it wasn't really the bush that was on fire but was actually a flaming gas vent coming out of the side of the mountain behind the bush, and it just looked to Moses like the bush was on fire. Moses may have been mistaken. Someone actually made this claim not too long ago. Then we get hot and bothered because the integrity of the Scriptures is called into question, and we feel we have to come to the Bible's rescue and try to find a way a bush can burn without being consumed! Get out your bunsen burners!!

Instead of trying to determine if the bush was on fire or not, I feel it's best to look at how Jesus interpreted the Exodus 3 narrative. We find this in Luke 20:27-40. There we see that Jesus isn't really concerned about whether the bush was on fire or not. In fact, Jesus didn't talk at length about the actual bush at all, but only mentioned it for reference! He used the story as a launching point for a proclamation about God-- that God is the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. He is not God of the dead, but of the living, for all live to him.

That's the point of the story. God is God of the living, for all live to him. There's not any discussion on how a bush can survive a thorough torching. Instead-- Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob are alive! Resurrected, if you will. They weren't resuscitated and walking the streets of Jerusalem. They were covenant forefathers! Don't miss this. Life and living had little to do with organic existence, but with covenant membership. The ancient promises of God to Abraham and Isaac and Jacob were coming to bear on the people through the ministry of Jesus. The lost were being found. Sins were being forgiven. The last were becoming first. All were coming to know the visitation of God.

It's funny, really. We're so concerned about whether this or that actually happened. I feel that when we do this we are engaging in yet another exercise in missing the point. Jesus didn't miss the point. We should listen to Jesus more often for understanding and perspective.

Drive-Thru McChurch

This would be very sad if it wasn't so funny!

Christians Are Not Priests

This entry contains a lot of Lutheran lingo, so I apologize to my non-Lutheran readers ahead of time.

Today was our monthly winkel in Elmhurst with Dr. Roger Pittelko giving a presentation on the Office of the Pastoral Ministry based on a couple of essays from the April 2006 edition of Concordia Theological Quarterly (CTQ). There were some things that Roger pointed out that I had either never heard before or had heard at one time but had since forgotten.

Martin Luther is often credited with restoring what is commonly known as the priesthood of all believers. Dr. Pittelko claimed that there really is no adequate word in English to translate the Greek word hieros from 1 Peter 2:9, which Luther translated as "priesthood". A better word, though still inadequate, would be "offerers". The word "priesthood" is best used as a translation of the Greek word presbyteros, normally translated as "elder" (but don't tell that to Presbyterians-- they'll blow a gasket!). It could be that Luther was mistaken in his translation of 1 Peter 2:9 and the Protestant world never really caught on.

This was all brought up due to a long-time misunderstanding of where the office of pastor derives its authority. I was always taught a rather congregational derivation-- a congregation places a "call" to an ordained pastor and therefore "transfers" the Office of the Keys to that individual. In other words, the pastoral office derives its authority from the calling congregation. Today's presentation demonstrated that the pastoral office derives authority from Christ Himself by virtue of the "calling" (not congregational call) and ordination of the candidate into the pastoral office. Further, according to Dr. Pittelko, "calling" and "ordination" are synonymous.

In short, Christians are not "priests". Pastors (elders, presbyteroi) are priests by the authority of Christ Himself to administer Word and Sacrament for the purpose of building up the "offerers" to offer themselves as "living sacrifices" in loving and willing service to their neighbor.

I asked Dr. Pittelko if priests are therefore not offerers, but have been set apart (as it were) from that function. I asked that question to make sure I was understanding everything that was being said. All Christians are "offerers" by virtue of their call by the Holy Spirit through the Means of Grace. All "priests" are "offerers" as well. But not all "offerers" are "priests". So, instead of the priesthood of all believers, we should be talking about the offererhood of all believers.

To use an analogy, all apples are fruit but not all fruit are apples. Some are pears, peaches, plums, mangos, kiwi, strawberries, pineapples, blueberries, bananas, etc.-- but not apples.

What do I think of all of this? Let's just say I have a lot of reading and thinking to do because I was always taught the congregational derivation, that I derive the authority of the ministry of Word and Sacrament solely from the congregation I currently serve. I've also understood the Greek word heiros to be roughly equivalent to the Hebrew word kohen, meaning "priest", so I understand where Luther was coming from. I've read the articles in the aforementioned CTQ, and will now read them again with a keener eye than before. I also have a lot of questions about this ongoing sticky subject in the LCMS.

Again, I apologize to my non-Lutheran readers if some of this is foggy, but I tried to make it as readable as I possibly could.