Why are we Lutheran? 5 Reasons to be Lutheran (Ep. 30)

Why are we Lutheran? In this episode, Pastors Chris and Tony Pflughoeft sit down to talk about a question that is both simple and deeply important: Why be Lutheran?

Rather than simply assuming that Lutheranism is the right answer because of tradition or upbringing, they walk through five reasons why they are convinced that Lutheran theology faithfully confesses what the Bible teaches about Jesus and the Christian faith.

From the doctrine of justification and the centrality of Christ, to the Means of Grace and the Lutheran confession of Scripture, the pastors explain what makes Lutheranism distinct—and why those distinctions matter.

Whether you have been Lutheran your entire life, are new to Lutheranism, or have simply wondered what Lutherans actually believe, this episode offers a straightforward look at five reasons to be Lutheran.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:01

What does it mean to be Lutheran? This has been a dialogue that's happened, especially within our own circles, being part of a Lutheran church. Some have thought it's a necessity. It's a way that we make a confession to others. It's shorthand for telling them these are all the things that we believe about Jesus and his word. Others have thought maybe it sounds like idolatry. We're Christians, we follow Christ. We don't just follow a man named Martin Luther. Some believe that Lutheran is simply a vestige of the past and it ties us down to things that are no longer necessary. I think before we would address any of those very practical questions on whether or not a church should retain Lutheran in their name or a synod or denomination, what we should do is just ask, well, what does it even mean to be Lutheran? So in order to address that today, we're going to take reasons why we are Lutheran. And this will show what it means to be Lutheran and show the greatest aspects of it, or at least some of them.

SPEAKER_01 1:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:20

My name is Chris Flugheft, and I'm joined by Tony Flugeft. We're both pastors in Southern California, Lutheran churches. I serve at Grace Lutheran in Yorbalinda. Tony serves at Christ the Vine Lutheran in Temecula. And this is Double Portion, a podcast where twin Lutheran pastors discuss the intersection of studying scripture and living out their faiths. Encourage you, if this is something that you found beneficial, to share it with others who like, subscribe, comment on the various platforms to help others engage with this content. One of the ideas behind why we're doing this is a resource for our own churches, but also a recognition that we live in a world where digital outreach is a big part of how churches reach out. You cast a wide net onto the internet so that you may catch the fish close to your own church. So engagement can be helpful with making this find the right people who have questions about the Bible, about Christian living, and specifically joining a church. So, Tony, I think you had five reasons to be Lutheran that you wanted to walk us through as kind of the format for today.

SPEAKER_01 3:02

Yeah, so this isn't by no means an expansive list. And like you said, it's kind of gonna help to define what it means to be Lutheran, but this isn't going to give an exact definition either. I'm not gonna really talk a ton about the confessions and distinguishing between being confessionally Lutheran and not, although these reasons do apply to confessional Lutherans and not to Lutherans who bear the name Lutheran but do not hold to the Lutheran confessions. But five reasons to be Lutheran. And one of the things I'll I'll tell people at my church, when we say Lutheran, we really do just mean Bible-believing Christian. So this isn't necessarily because we're Lutherans, but because as Lutherans we hold to the very word of God. And so I would also tell people that I'm I'm obviously biased. I wouldn't be a Lutheran pastor if I didn't think that we were right. But in the world that we live in, we are divided into camps because there are people who don't teach what scripture says. And so we need to recognize these differences. And so in the world we live in, confessionally Lutheran is the term that defines or that that names the people who believe what scripture says. And and so that's kind of just a little bit of a preamble to now get into the five reasons to be.

SPEAKER_00 4:59

And I understand that pushback. And I do also understand that someone who may have made a conscious decision to change denominations, or someone who was not Christian and became Christian and then joined a Lutheran church, they might have a bit of a different perspective. But what we're gonna say is, hey, these are just blessings, and we we thank God that uh from little on, from when we were very little babies, but brought to the font font at a Lutheran church to then going to Lutheran schools. I got to go to Lutheran schools from kindergarten through graduating the seminary, so blessed in many ways. So maybe not reasons to be Lutheran, but putting forward these other reasons, part of the reasons why I'm Lutheran. Yeah, the Lord has blessed me to can connect me from little on to this wonderful, faithful expression of his truth.

SPEAKER_01 5:57

Yeah. And so with that, the reality is yes, we grew up in in Lutheran churches, but you wrestle with these things your entire life. Although God calls us, God keeps us in the true faith. From a human perspective, we are wrestling with these things all the time. Is the Lutheran expression of the faith really what scripture says? And so this is something that we're we're constantly dealing with, and we dealt with through seminary and in college. Not everyone who was raised in a Lutheran household stays in a Lutheran church. But then another thing, I guess, with that critique or potential critique, that that's just the biblical model for discipleship, I guess, is if you want to use that term. Like children teach their or parents teach their children the faith. And so, yes, we grew up in Lutheran churches because our parents did what they were supposed to do. And so let's get into those five reasons to be Lutheran. Maybe I'll I'll say all five of them and then we'll get through it. Okay. And so this is kind of just my list that I quickly put together. Someone could have a different list, but these are the things that really speak to me personally based off of my study of the faith and teaching of the faith. Number one would be justification by grace alone through faith alone. This is the article upon which the church stands or falls. For Lutherans, this is our bread and butter. This is what we're all about. Justification by grace alone through faith alone. I'm teaching a Bible study in Galatians, and it's just really amazing to just see this emphasis that it's not about the works of the law. It's all about what God has done for us. So justification, this fact that we've been declared not guilty in God's sight, that we've been declared righteous in God's sight by grace, a free gift, and we receive that blessings, the blessings of what Christ did for us on the cross through faith. We personally receive that. Then the second would be a sacramental theology. And so here in a Lutheran understanding of sacraments, we we understand these means that God uses. He instituted, Jesus told us to do this, that offer the forgiveness of sins and use a physical element. So I tell my students to think IOU when they think sacrament, instituted by Christ, offers the forgiveness of sins, uses a physical element. And with that definition, we would understand there to be two, historically, maybe a third, the sacraments. Uh, we'll just focus on the two. I think we've talked about the the third possible argument in the past, Lord's Supper and Baptism. And so this high view of the Lord's Supper and Baptism, frankly, that you don't find in other branches of Protestantism, and we have this sacramental theology. Three, the fact that we will hold to scripture and scripture alone, and we allow scripture to scripture to to give us doctrines. God gives us this truth. Four, we have a historical rootedness. So we don't we don't believe that the the church was just everyone was wrong after whatever, let's say 100 AD until uh till Luther and 1517. We we don't believe in this, like what some call the ditch theory, that like okay, it was good, and then everyone was wrong, and then Luther came. And then finally, we're willing to embrace the mystery. We're willing to just say we don't know, God's greater than us. There's mystery in some of this. So those are my top five reasons. So let's take some time to talk about each of them and and why this is a particularly valuable aspect of the Lutheran faith. And perhaps maybe to discuss a little bit why um I put this on the list of being Lutheran, because I do think a lot of these things are unique to confessional Lutheranism.

SPEAKER_00 9:51

Yeah, so a lot of these terms will find their way into other confessions of Christianity. And when they are speaking the truth, we give thanks to God, right? This is we're not gonna say this is something only Lutherans can teach. When other traditions of Christianity teach these things, thank God that the Holy Spirit has preserved that truth within this church. But what we are thankful for is the prominence of the teaching within the Lutheran confession and the clarity of it. So you started with that justification by grace through faith. As you said, you're teaching a Bible study in Galatians. I'm teaching a Bible study on Romans at my church and thinking about uh what uh Romans says about these things that the clarity of confess of the confession of justification and the the distinction then that we would have. So I think it could be helpful for us quickly to talk about how within the Christian realm that there are different definitions of justification. So there's sanitive and forensic justification. So sanitive is this idea that God is is making people more righteous. And we recognize that it is true that that God does cause people to progress in their righteousness, that we call that sanctification, at least in the narrow sense of sanctification. But that sanitive justification is that it is different than the way that the Lutherans speak about it with forensic justification, that though the words for justification in in Greek and Hebrew are court word room terms. So although some people might try to denigrate this and say, Oh, you're doing nothing but making Jesus a lawyer, it's like, well, this is how the biblical writers speak, that there is a declaration of righteousness, it's true righteousness, but it's not an internal change of righteousness.

SPEAKER_01 12:04

And and also with you mentioned like that progression in righteousness. We'll talk about two different kinds of righteousness, which really does seem to be a biblical way of speaking, that there is this righteousness before God, and there's this righteousness before men. And so we grow in our righteousness before men, but our standing before God, that righteousness that we receive is righteousness through faith. And maybe that's where you're gonna get to.

SPEAKER_00 12:31

Yeah, so then looking at Romans 3, uh that verse 20 says, Therefore, no one will be declared righteous in God's sight by the works of the law. Rather, through the law we become conscious of sin. So the this declaration of righteousness does not come by our works. Instead, the law actually just shows us that we are sinful. Instead, this is a gift of God that is given to us. It is Jesus' righteousness. Jesus is the one who lived perfect for us, and Jesus gives it to us so then we can be declared not guilty of the sins that we have committed.

SPEAKER_01 13:12

Yeah. And so, like you mentioned before, this is maybe not completely unique to Lutheranism. There are certainly people who value justification by grace alone through faith alone, and and they'll use that way. The unfortunate truth, I think, is that sometimes people will use words in a way that means something different, like you were talking about with kind of that Roman Catholic understanding. But even like maybe from more contemporary American evangelical type understanding, they might really hammer home these words. But then faith is that personal decision that you make. And the difference between you being saved and and not kind of lands on that decision that you made. And that's where the the fear for me comes in that Romans 4 talks about this. That basically the argument in Romans 4 is if you do something and you receive a reward, that's a wage, not a gift. And so to make our salvation all about this personal decision that we made is really not about grace anymore. It's rather a reward that God is giving that person for that personal decision. Now, here's the the major issue is as soon as you introduce an element of the things that we need to do, that's where uncertainty comes in. I don't know if I made the decision right. And then when people are trying to depend on themselves and whether they made the decision right, they they really often will start to look to themselves to see evidence of that decision that they made. So instead of looking outside of themselves to the cross, to baptism, to the to the supper, these objective means outside of ourselves that God promises to work, that he binds himself to, they look to themselves, the decision they made. Do they have a good enough conversion story? Do they have good testimony that they can share to others? And then does their life show that they have not only confessed Christ as their savior, but as their Lord? And so we might have these terms in a different church, but the emphasis is really somewhere else. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 15:25

Yeah, and to be thankful to have the emphasis on Christ Jesus and his saving merit and the work that he does, just as the biblical writers do, just as the Lord inspired them to say. So I I think about continuing here, I I mean I could almost read a lot of Romans, but just picking up at verse 21 where it says, But now apart from the law, the righteousness of God has been made known, in which the law and prophets testify. This righteousness is given through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no difference between Jew and Gentile, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and all are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus. God presented Christ as a sacrifice of atonement through the shedding of his blood to be received by faith. He did this to demonstrate his righteousness because in his forbearance he had left the sins committed beforehand unpunished. He did it to demonstrate his righteousness at the present time, so as to be just and the one who justifies those who have faith in Jesus. God, the Father, sent his son Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ lived, died, and rose for us. That there is now this declaration that is received, and it's received through faith. And we we could talk about the objective and subjective aspects of this as well. That all are justified freely, and just as all had sinned, but then the justification is also received by faith. So there's that subjective nature of this as well. So we've got objective justification and subjective justification.

SPEAKER_01 17:14

Another passage I just wanted to throw out there, Galatians 3, really highlighting that it can't be about works. I mean, maybe this connects with Romans 3, like the the law is given to make us conscious of our sins. So the law is not given to justify, but rather to show our failures. And so Galatians 3 talks in a similar way. For all who rely on the works of the law are under a curse, as it is written, curse is everyone who does not continue to do everything written in the book of the law. Clearly, no one who relies on the law is justified before God because the righteous will live by faith. The law is not based on faith. On the contrary, it says the person who does these things will live by them. Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us, for it is written, curse is everyone who's hung on a pole. He redeemed us in order that the blessing given to Abraham might come to the Gentiles through Christ Jesus, so that by faith we might receive the promise of the Spirit. So this idea that the law brings a curse, the law highlights, reveals just how sinful we are. And then it is the gospel and that faith in the gospel that that saves. It is it is that grace of God that He brings us to faith, He keeps us in the one true faith, and the righteous will live by faith. Those who are made righteous by faith have that eternal life through Christ and what he has done. And so, again, just emphasizing this. And so this is why you see a Lutheran worship service structured the way it is. Uh we're all about justification by grace alone, through faith alone. And we understand how God promises to work. He works through the gospel preached and the sacraments ministered. So we'll get into the sacraments in a moment here. But as you think about each part of the Lutheran worship service, it's rich in gospel presentation and gospel preaching. It's the difference between Lutheran hymnity and and the not just, frankly, not just Lutheran hymnity, but the hymnity we use and contemporary Christian worship songs. Some contemporary Christian worship songs definitely are very strong in their presentation of Jesus, but there's also that perhaps what's not even a caricature, because I have a quote from one of the singers in the 90s, I forget her name, I'm offhand now, Amy Grant, where she kind of talked about how the fact she did write Jesus boyfriend songs. And the idea was like she was hoping to connect with people who weren't explicitly religious because it was vague enough that they could identify with the song. And so it was an intentional effort on her part. And so one of the critiques from a Lutheran who goes to kind of like a contemporary Christian concert is that there are not explicit mentionings of Jesus in Christ. I remember doing this one time, going to a concert and kind of counting on one hand how many times they actually said Jesus' name in the songs. Now, I do think this has gotten better in contemporary Christian worship. I actually do think like there was kind of a low point that things have gotten better. But if you compare Lutheran hymnity to some of the music about him maybe being a way maker and a I forget now the lyrics. But then you compare like the Lutheran hymns that we use, they are very specific and give a very thorough presentation of the gospel. So that would be one example. We have the confession and absolution in the service, understanding that that we actually have the power to deliver that forgiveness that Christ won for us on the cross. Uh, you look at the the scripture readings, you look at the sermon that's being preached. So the sermon is not just education, it's not just a Bible study, it's proclamation. And so we do see a distinction between preaching and and teaching. And of course, you're gonna teach when you preach, and you're gonna preach when you teach, but we do see different goals as we look to deliver Christ to the people. And so you see the structure of a Lutheran worship service is all about delivering the good news because we're all about justification by grace alone through faithful. And this isn't, it isn't merely that we assume the gospel for conversion and now we move on to the more serious work of Christian living. We know that the Christian continues to need the gospel.

SPEAKER_00 21:46

Yeah, I wanted to quickly make a comment about what you had referenced in regard to Christian contemporary music. And this isn't meant to be a comment about worship styles in any way. That's just the genre of music, right? If you look up a genre of music, they're gonna call it Christian contemporary. So then I I think it's good to make an acknowledgement because sometimes when we make when people make negative comments, they're kind of fighting ghosts. They're they're fighting against what used to be the status quo. Yeah. So you look currently at a Forrest Frank song or a Josiah Queen, and you would say, you know, these are actually pretty Christological songs that Well, Chris, maybe not Christological, but Chris centered. Yeah, Christopher. Maybe they're not expressing everything about Jesus, but they're they're focused on Jesus. And then you'd ask the question, like, well, what role does this play in the life of a Christian? I I think a Christian can listen to a Josiah Queen song and be benefited from it. Then you'd ask the question, well, is that something you want to bring into a worship service? Well, he did not write that with the intention of people all joining together and singing. So some of these things, you'd say, maybe these aren't the best for worship just because these are not intended for a group of people to join together and sing. Like he's got the refrains in his songs. I'm thinking Jesus is coming back soon. It's like I could see people joining together when you get to Jesus is coming back and then soon, but I don't think this is something where people could just all join together and sing the song. That's that's kind of a side note. I think maybe honorable mention, what I would throw in based off of that for Lutheran, one of the beauties of it is congregational singing. We live in a society where congregational singing is becoming less and less the norm for Christian churches. It's a little bit more of the professionalization of music, and the congregation is a little bit more of an audience that listens to the professional concert that's happening, and then they view their worship and have happening more so like in their reception of it. Maybe they have their hands up, maybe they have their hands out. Not necessarily our topic here, but I think it is a beautiful thing to put the words of salvation on the lips of people in through rhythm, through music, in a way that's memorable. So it gives them the opportunity to proclaim these truths to others.

SPEAKER_01 24:38

I was just reading through some of Luther's works on the liturgy and some of his writings leading up to the Deutsche Messe, the German Mass, and some guidance on conquered among amongst amongst the Livonians. And one of the themes that I really discerned from these writings is this idea that there really needs to be a concern for the the laity and their learning and their understanding. And so that would be the critique about the very nature of something being contemporary is you're always chasing after what's happening now. And I think if we're honest in the wells, we're not even good about being contemporary, we're very reactionary because we're not in the forefront of trying to be the leaders and the innovators, because often the justification for contemporary worship is to try to do what people like. Well, when you're chasing what people like, you end up being late to it anyways. But then the nature of contemporary is you're constantly chasing something new and you're you're making a lot of innovations, you're doing things very differently, and that's not good for memory. That's not good for I I don't believe it's good for teaching the faith because people don't have an under time to understand like what is being taught through this song that is repeated. And you can teach the children this and getting into that congregational singing, that's one of the values that we have from scripture that we are part of that royal priesthood who has been called to declare the praises of God. And so we are giving the words to the people and the tunes. That's one of the hardest parts about congregational singing is if it's constantly a new tune, how are you going to join in and sing? And so I've heard jokes about this. Like, when do you even at any church, when do you hear the most people in the church singing the loudest? Like Christmas Eve. Well, is Christmas Eve all about new songs? No. Even in a contemporary church, they're singing those classic Christmas hymns that everyone loves. And so maybe on both ends, and that would be something I got from Luther's article, his writings on this, on both ends, maybe we need to be cautious about innovation, whether you're going quote unquote extremely high church on the one side or quote unquote contemporary on the other, when we need to consider the individuals and their retention, their learning, their understanding. We've spent a fair amount of time talking about this first one. So maybe we should move on down the list to the sacraments. Yeah. Did you want to say something about the sacraments?

SPEAKER_00 27:26

Yeah, I think this is something that we would point to and say, what a wonderful blessing. Just as in justification with the sacraments, we are thankful that this is confessed within Lutheranism, because this is confessed in the scriptures. Yeah. Right? For all of these, this is what God's word teaches. So then we can go to baptism and we can say that Christ commanded baptism when he said, Therefore, go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you, and surely I'm with you always to the very end of the age. And then we can see other scripture passages that say, now baptism now saves you also. Uh, not the removal of dirt from your body, but guarantee of a good conscience before God. You have the washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit, which is baptism. So we have these Bible passages where you go to them and they're speaking about baptism, and they give a clear confession about baptism and what it does and how the Holy Spirit works through it, that you receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. So to be in a church body that cherishes baptism, that recognizes who baptism is given for is a tremendous blessing. And one of the things that we could do here is kind of walk through our other traditions and say how they don't quite get it. Maybe there's room for some of that, but you would say like we're not the only people who do paedo baptism. Okay, we don't call it paedo baptism, we just call it infant baptism, or more likely we just call it baptism, right? When uh when my daughter was born in April and then she was baptized, we didn't make a big deal about it being an infant baptism. It's just like this is baptism, yeah, because baptism is given for all, and she was born sinful and she needed that gift of forgiveness. But even some other churches that do infant baptism, their idea is not fully scriptural in these things. So you you have the one idea of entering into the covenant community where they kind of struggle with, well, does this child have personal faith in Jesus? They they don't quite answer that. So they say, well, actually, this is just kind of this is a ritual that we do as part of bringing them into a covenant community.

SPEAKER_01 30:03

And those individuals are maybe a little more historically minded, so they kind of understand that this is something the church has done. And so it doesn't completely fit into their theology, so they kind of struggle with how to talk about it, but they're like, Christians did this for a long time, so there's there needs to be some openness towards this idea, but but yeah, I I found that they kind of struggle to talk about what it even is doing.

SPEAKER_00 30:33

And then we have another branch of Christianity that does infant baptism, but they they view this as forgiving original sin and the sins prior to. So then we can go to scripture and say this gives you a guarantee of a good conscience, not just a guarantee of a good conscience from sins beforehand, but sins after. So we can look at the scriptures and confess clearly what baptism does and what a wonderful gift this is. And then we also don't need to denigrate the baptisms of other people who were baptized in the name of the triune God within other churches. So when even though the person who is doing the believer's baptism and it's their first baptism in the church that dunks them into the water, like although we might say, hey, they don't totally get it, we still recognize the wonderful work the Holy Spirit is doing through that. So we can give thanks to God for his work in baptism and then cherish it within our church body.

SPEAKER_01 31:39

This would be a plug where I would encourage people to stay Lutheran. Probably most people who leave the Lutheran church become atheists. That's just true across the board. Ryan Burge or Burgey, I don't know how you say his name, but I see his stuff all over the internet. He will show graphs that kind of dispel this notion that people are leaving to go to like Roman Catholicism or Eastern Orthodoxy. The numbers just aren't there. So most Lutherans who like cradle Lutherans that leave probably become atheists. Atheists are just like unnuns or nuns. But then after that, I would say it's probably that they're going to non-denominational churches. And so if you look at like the demographics, the greatest growth within Christianity, well, the percentage-wise is down across the board, but people were mainline Protestant and now they're non-denominational. We're not mainline Protestants. The demographers will call us like evangelical Protestant, but Lutheran Lutheranism does have a sect that is considered mainline Protestant. And so, with that idea, this would be my encouragement that people should stay Lutheran because the churches that they're going to usually are churches that do not believe in baptism, in the power of baptism, and they don't believe in the power of the Lord's Supper. They view these things as outward signs, uh mere acts of our dedication to God. And Christians think like, well, they kind of have like this idea that they can just kind of go to that church and understand it in the way that they want to understand it, and that's dishonest. That's not wise, it's not prudent because you shouldn't want to support false doctrine. And it's it's unloving to your children who are going to be told, like, let's say you believe in infant baptism and you take your kids to a church that denies the power of baptism, they're going to be stripped of that assurance of the power of that baptism. And baptism is really a really comforting truth to know that we've been adopted into the family of God. We've been clothed with Christ and His righteousness. It is this stamp of approval from God, all sorts of different ways that you could talk about it. And so you take your kids to a church like that because you think, oh, well, it's good for them to have these youth programs, but then it's a church that's telling them that their baptism doesn't mean anything and showing them that their baptism doesn't mean anything. And then they see these people who get rebaptized multiple times. And so it's really not good for your kids, anyways. And so it's just as a pastor, as someone who's been around Lutheran churches my entire life, it is a sad story that so many Christians, so many Lutherans are willing to throw away the beauty of the sacraments for their personal preferences about worship style, about a relaxed approach to God or or programs. And so that'd be my encouragement to people is to see the value of the sacraments, to see the value of clinging to the truth of God's word in in every way, and to understand that the sacraments are not just an indifferent matter.

SPEAKER_00 35:07

So quick reaction, and then I'm going to move into the Lord's Supper for sacraments. So one reaction is I said we would celebrate the baptisms, especially like the 12-year-old, that it's his first baptism at this church. Yeah. And we would say, Oh, that's wonderful, that he's receiving this gift from the Holy Spirit. If it's a second, third baptism, we would say, This is unfortunate that this person has been led astray to think that every time that they have a struggle that they have fallen from the faith and they need to rededicate themselves to the Lord. Like that's a very unfortunate thing. As you noted, the sad thing is that although we would celebrate that first baptism, oftentimes those churches would not celebrate an infant baptism. They would actually teach against it and tell someone like that didn't really matter, or maybe even that was wrong, and you shouldn't have done that. So that's where it becomes a very dangerous thing. We would celebrate and recognize that a baptism within a church that does not recognize the power of baptism when it's the person's first baptism is a powerful thing. But when it comes to the Lord's Supper, however, that's where things get a little bit different, right? You could approach being baptized by someone who does not believe in the power of baptism and say, Well, I know what the Holy Spirit's doing. And it's still an efficacious, wonderful baptism. But if you go to a church that denies the real presence of the of Jesus' body and blood within the Lord's Supper, you can't just say, Well, I believe it's Jesus' body and blood. Yeah. Because uh the the big difference is is the word present. Yeah. And the difference between the the form of the word and the meaning of the word need to have both. So even though they might say uh on the night he's before he's betrayed our Lord Jesus Christ, took bread and broke it, and said this is my body, if they have emptied that of its meaning, they don't have the word. So churches that deny the real presence of Jesus' body and blood within the Lord's Supper do not have the sacrament. Yeah. So that's where our confessions speak. Yeah. So then if you would go to one of those churches and say, like, well, I know they don't believe that Jesus' body and blood is present, but I do, you're not receiving the sacrament in that moment. So one of the big things with the sacraments for the Lutheran church is so that you can receive this wonderful gift from God.

SPEAKER_01 37:39

Yeah. And and kind of a note with that, to some who might think that sounds harsh to say that they don't even have the Lord's Supper, it's better than the alternative. The alternative would be that they are continually eating and drinking our is it judgment? No, they're they're sinning against the body and the blood of the Lord. I forget the first Corinthians 11 order, but there's the the one sense, if you don't discern the body, you're sinning against the body and the blood of the Lord. That's without examining yourself. And so then if you don't discern the body, you're eating and drinking judgment on yourself. And so the the other alternative is that they're continually eating and drinking judgment on themselves. And so they're continuing to take it to their harm. Now, in one sense, like if you're denying Christ's clear words is and and you do something that he tells you to do in a way that he tells you not to do it, is it continuing to harm you no matter what, even if it's not in that significant sacramental way that 1 Corinthians 11 speaks of? Well, yeah, like any amount of false teaching is is harmful to the individual, and to continue to do something that affirms yourself in this this false teaching is harmful to the individual.

SPEAKER_00 38:48

Yeah. So to be thankful for a a church, and this ties a little bit into the embracing the mystery, the last one, but to be part of a church that takes Jesus at his clear word, and when Jesus says, This is my body and says, This is my blood, not to come up with rational arguments as to why that couldn't possibly be, not to pull out different doctrines from scripture that we try to make supersede it and say, well, because this is true, that can't be true because we misunderstand what's even being said over there. But to simply say this is what our Lord Jesus Christ has said, and there can be grammatical arguments that say this is why it makes sense, but to have that kind of classic approach that Luther had when he was dealing with Ulrich Zwingli, and just to say is means is. This is what my Lord Jesus has said. My Lord Jesus does not lie to me. Yeah. And he, if he says this is my body and he gives it to me for the forgiveness of my sins, then I will happily receive this gift from him.

SPEAKER_01 39:54

Yeah. And so, like you said, it's the embracing the mystery that we'll consider a little more detail of how well how. I don't know. Just is. It's not my job to explain it. I express what God has told us. And then it's also connected with that scripture alone point where I don't try to fit God's word into my system of theology, but my system of theology fits into God's word. Where where you see kind of the critique, which I think is accurate, of some some branches of Christianity who seem to like want to fit everything under the idea of sovereignty of God. So then it's like, well, how could how could these people be receiving Christ's true body and blood that are sinners? That that doesn't seem fitting of a sovereign God, and and it almost sounds ineffective, or or these other systems of of thought that they try to fit in, like, well, the finite cannot contain the infinite. It's like that's a that's a neat little axiom that you have there, but where did you get that from? Is that what scripture says? What makes you say that the finite cannot contain the infinite God? And so like they're trying to protect God, but my job is not to protect God, my job is to teach what he teaches.

SPEAKER_02 41:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 41:12

And kind of taking some thoughts from the last three points, tying them all together, and one point I'm about to say is how Saint Augustine is the one who talked about the sacraments as the visible word. And so then we recognize the efficacy and and power of the sacraments is the same as that of the word. So this can also help the approach of a Lutheran church to not err in either side, and it's possible to do it, where for many they think like, wow, the the word is so much more important than the sacrament. Or some, and it seems like this happens, especially with Roman Catholic dialogue online, is that the sacrament becomes more important than the word. Yeah. Because then it's like, well, the word came together by different councils, the sacrament was given by Jesus. So then to approach this with a proper perspective and say, look, these are gifts that Jesus has given to us, these are means that Jesus has given to us through which the Holy Spirit delivers to us the forgiveness of sins.

SPEAKER_01 42:22

And this is a point where I would encourage some Lutherans to be careful about not going too far as well. Because I don't think this is really in our our circles, this idea that the sacrament is more important than the word. I think the way that we were taught is like it's like kind of the two sails on the ship, like the two mountain peaks in the service, you have the word and the sacrament. But you do get some Lutherans who even speak in this way as though like the word is insignificant. But again, if you if you look through what Luther was actually saying about like the the order of the service and the Deutsche Mess and all that, like I mentioned in his in Luther's works, volume 53, I read through these different essays. And and he basically says like we we highly value the the word and preaching of the word and and even goes as far as saying, like, if you're not gonna have a sermon, don't even gather together. Like if you're not gonna preach this, don't even gather together. And so let's not go too far and and denigrate the word because of the value of the sacrament. At the same time, I in our circles, probably the reality is that we're more likely to to maybe not value the sacraments enough. And that's where it would be great for us to embrace our our Lutheran heritage. And so this is something that I think is even worth considering for for Lutheran. Um why is it that most churches in Wells celebrate communion every other week? Uh, why not more often? Because as you read through the scriptures, You see that they they talk about gathering on the first day of the week, and it seems they would have received every Lord's Day. And that's the way the Lutheran confessions speak as well. So what has happened from then until now? And so we don't need to get into a long conversation about that right now, but just maybe something worth considering. But maybe we should move forward to the next point, scripture alone. We've kind of hinted at it here and there. Is there anything you want to say about scripture alone and why this is a valuable reason to be Lutheran?

SPEAKER_00 44:34

Yeah, I think this is a very important conversation to be had because we look to the word that the Lord has given us. So I'm preparing the first lesson of catechism instruction. And when you have first-year catechism students come in, where are you going to start? Often you'll start at either the doctrine of God or you'll start at the doctrine of the word. And kind of a combination of both, because how do you know who God is? You know who God is through the word. That is the gift he's given to us. And uh what we can hear is the statements in scripture that say, like, all scripture is God breathed and useful for teaching, rebuke, and correcting, and training in righteousness. Jesus says in his prayer to the Father, sanctify them by the truth. Your word is truth. We have the statement in Peter that this does not, the words of the prophets aren't their own machinations, but instead this comes from the Holy Spirit. So we can see these statements in Scripture that testify to the efficacy of God's word. And then to be in a church tradition that has the humility to say, let us submit to God's word and listen to Him, not holding ourselves above it, but subjecting ourselves to what the Lord has said. So that's something that I think can be such a wonderful, wonderful aspect of the Lutheran tradition.

SPEAKER_01 46:09

And so this is one of those things places where I'm teaching a new member class, or if I'm with a particularly advanced catechism class, I'll actually throw up some quotes from different church bodies and show this isn't just pastors saying we value the word and other people don't. There are quotes from their textbooks, from their confessions that show that they don't hold the scripture alone. Whether it's specifically stating that councils and uh tradition are on the same level as scripture, or if it's some sort of mixing of human reason with scripture, this is just the reality. You look at different churches' confessions and they don't allow scripture to speak and hold scripture alone. Often human reason is in the mix, whether they're denying the miraculous accounts in scripture, and so again, this is where I said confessional Lutherans, that's who I'm advocating for right now, uh, because there are liberal Lutherans in a biblical sense, biblically liberal, who deny scripture alone. And but the the allowing for human reason to trump the clear words of scripture. So we mentioned before with with the Lord's Supper, where it's it doesn't make sense to us, so it can't mean what it says. But we're willing to say, no, if this is what scripture says, this is what scripture says. So kind of along with the embracing the mystery points, election, Ephesians 1, crystal clear. God has chosen us from eternity, but it doesn't seem to ever go as far as saying the other, the darker side that God has chosen some people to be eternally damned. Now, logically, that would align, wouldn't it? If he chose one, what did he do with the other? Well, he he must have chosen them, right? But we're not captivated by human logic, we're captivated by scripture, and we're not going to go any further than what scripture says. So we hold the scripture and scripture alone.

SPEAKER_00 48:16

Yeah, and I think that is it's played out, right? This isn't just a hypothetical, theoretical thing where we say, like, well, Lutherans hold the scripture, but it's seen. Take a Roman Catholic catechism or take one of the more recent publications of Martin Luther's small catechism with annotations, and you'll say, okay, the Roman Catholic Catechism is a little bit bigger than the small catechism with annotations. But you're going to see this the scriptures are used so much more in the Lutheran catechism. And then look at a worship service at a Lutheran church, like not even asking what vestments they're wearing, but just asking the order of the service, and just see you have the words of scripture on the lips of people from the invocation to the blessing with the songs, canticles from scripture, with hymns that are informed by scripture, with something that didn't strike me as unique, but people have said this is unique to me. And they said, Wow, you guys, you guys read a lot of scripture in the worship services. So other churches have a lectionary as well, but to retain having a lectionary where you have three readings from scripture and a psalm every Sunday is another testimony to our our valuing of this holy and errant word that our God has given to us and our our desire to listen to him.

SPEAKER_01 49:54

Yeah. So I I think we've talked significantly about scripture alone. So let's move down to the historical rootedness idea, unless there's anything you wanted to add about that.

SPEAKER_00 50:06

Well, so I don't know how often people who watch this are in the social media discussions between Protestants and Catholics. I don't know if I would even encourage engaging in that. I would. However, if you if you see it, you're gonna see people, a lot of Roman Catholic apologists online saying like there's a problem with Protestants because they don't have one pope, they have a million popes. Everyone's their own little pope as they decide what scripture means to them. And there might be some fairness to such accusations if you have a two totally unrooted Christianity. I I think there's a lot of what they're saying is not fair because they think that the scriptures are not understandable apart from the magisterium, which is not true. That there is clarity to the word that God has given to his people. There's difficult parts, but there's an overall clarity. Yeah. And God, God wants himself to be understood by his people, by the power of the Holy Spirit, giving them that clarity. But to look at that dialogue and as Lutherans, to stand a little bit outside of it and say, well, we actually are a confession that's historically rooted. We're not going to go through the entire Book of Concord right now. And but what I would point out is many people, if they read the Augsburg Confession for the first time, or they they read different aspects of the Lutheran confessions, will be striked to the extent that the church fathers and various church fathers are referenced. So that this is not intended to be a new branch of Christianity. It never was. Even 500 years ago, when the Lutheran confessions were being confessed, the idea was that we are standing where Christians have always stood.

SPEAKER_01 52:16

Yeah. Yeah. So that is the claim that Lutherans have always made is that we are not doing something new. We're just teaching what Christians have taught. We're teaching what the apostles taught. We're teaching what many of the church fathers taught. We're saying that the the church be began to err and was not teaching the truth. And so there's this saying that Roman Catholics will like to say is like to to be deep in church history is to cease being Protestant. And it's it's almost, I mean, frankly, it's almost comical. Because if you look at the history of, let's say, Roman Catholicism and and see this idea of just this like one line of succession for the Pope, that's just not historically true. And so like to be in history is to see these inconsistencies and to see these times where there were very questionable things happening that would attack some of these historical claims that they're making. And so I do see value in this idea, and I do think this is kind of the spirit of our age, that people like something being historically rooted because they kind of look at our world out there and they're like, everything's going crazy. Let's go to something that that doesn't change. If that answer is intended to be Roman Catholicism, to say that like Roman Catholicism doesn't change is not true. They even have like this development of doctrine idea. If you see there are actually great differences of opinion on very serious matters in Roman Catholicism, you even get uh people in public positions who are in good standing in their churches who are advocating for uh unscriptural positions and things that their church has has denied, and and they kind of just are okay with that. You even see like supporting of of sin in through the flags that they'll fly at like public or at these not public at like the Catholic schools in in Canada or something like that. And and so to say like, hey, there there's this historical rootedness we haven't changed is just just not true. But there is a value in that historical rootedness. I really do think that there is people like this because the world's going crazy, and we have the opportunity of saying, look, we actually are rooted in this confession of faith that didn't just begin in the 1500s, that goes all the way back to the church fathers and to the apostles, and we're gonna continue to confess this. And and so I'm not the Pope of my church, you're not the Pope of your church. We actually have to confess a subscription to the Book of Concord. And and so we're not we're not gonna change, we're gonna keep teaching this thing that has been continued to be taught for generations.

SPEAKER_00 55:21

Yeah, I think that's a wonderful blessing. And something that uh maybe goes against what can happen online. People who want historical rootedness, they kind of want to go back 200 plus years ago without remembering those who came almost immediately before them. And I think that's something that we can do. We can give thanks to God for the faith that was passed from generation to generation. Or we can look to our parents, we can look to, we grew up in a church that had three pastors, and we can look to the the those pastors and the way that God used them, and then think about the the their parents and the pastors that God used to pass on the faith to them and go throughout a history that doesn't just rewind a thousand to a thousand years ago and only talk about them, but we can say like this is a living act of faith that has been passed down for the past thousand two thousand years for the Christian church.

SPEAKER_01 56:28

Now we'll go with the fifth and final point, this idea of embracing the mystery. And I think we've been talking about that a lot, so I don't think we have to give this a ton of time, but this willingness to just say we don't need to answer everything. And that is one of the things I really appreciate about Lutheranism. And so when I'm teaching a new member class, we'll get to something like the Trinity or election or like how Christ is present in the supper, and just to say we're gonna express what scripture says. We don't need to completely understand everything, and that's okay. God's bigger than us. And then I'll kind of jokingly say, like, actually, you you want a God who's bigger than us. If God fit into this small box of understanding, that would maybe be alarming. Like if God was as simple as Pastor Flugift, that'd be terrifying. You don't want a God who's as simple as me. And so we're willing to embrace the mystery and say, we're gonna go as far as what scripture says, but stop there and not go any further. Um, did you want to comment on embracing the mystery at all?

SPEAKER_00 57:32

Yeah, I think embracing the mystery is something that's really important. There is a person who shared with me how the confession of mystery within the Lutheran church was something that drew him to the Lutheran church from a different confession of Christianity because he felt that others were always just trying to come up with explanations. And the explanations didn't always make sense, and the explanations uh were certainly not always rooted in scripture. Yeah. And then he was going through a Bible information class with with a pastor who had preceded me in that location, and uh every time that he had questions that the pastor couldn't couldn't answer, the pastor would just say, and that's where we recognize that there's mystery, and like we're not gonna understand everything. So he he really liked that approach, and I think that's something that's wonderful, and it's it's rooted in the things we've said before of scripture alone, not human reason, the mi the sacraments as expressed in the scriptures, the the core teaching of Lutheranism, that there are going to be things that don't understand for us, and that's when we just simply submit and say, Well, this is what our God has said, and we are going to take him at his word.

SPEAKER_01 58:54

Yeah. And so maybe one last sub-point that isn't really connected to any of these specifically, but this overall thought about reasons to be Lutheran. I do think that churches and Lutheran institutions should think long and hard before they remove the title Lutheran from their institution, from their church. It's kind of become a fad within Lutheranism to do this. And again, I talked about kind of contemporary things and reacting to trends because this was a trend in other church bodies 20 years ago. And so just some encouragement to consider what you're losing if you lose that Lutheran identity. And so some will say, well, we can keep the Lutheran identity without it being something that pushes people away. And so I understand that there are maybe some areas where the ELCA is so prominent that people hear Lutheran and they think liberal. I also know from talking with people that they understand that there's nuance. There's liberals and conservatives in Presbyterian churches, there's liberals and conservatives in Methodist churches, there's liberals and conservatives in Roman Catholicism, there's liberals and conservatives in non-denominational spheres. And so to give people a little bit of credit to understand that there's nuance to these things, but then also there is value in just being honest about who you are. And so to consider, if I am Lutheran and I feel feel that there's a reason to obscure this or maybe even hide this fact, and you might not use that term hide, but it to consider is that what you're doing and what's my goal? And I've kind of thought about this before with like maybe a school or a different institution. Uh, if it took a conversation with the pastor to find out that I was sending my kids to a Seventh-day Adventist school, I'd be kind of frustrated and I would feel like I had been deceived. And so I do just appreciate when people just own who they are. And so I think that there's something about being comfortable in our skin and just saying, I'm a Lutheran for a reason. And I want you to know what what that reason is and to just embrace who you are. So yeah, there's no Bible passage, of course, that says you need to be, you need to have Lutheran in your name or whatever, call yourself Lutheran. Of course, there's no Bible passage that says that. But I do just want people to consider the value of clearly confessing who we are.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:38

Yeah, especially in a day and age of social media where people have really grown to desire authenticity. They feel like as they go through their social media feed, they're running into quote unquote AI slop and fake people. So then for someone to come forward, just say, like, this is who we are, this is what we confess, and this is why we confess it, that could be tremendously appreciated. I could understand why someone would say, like, I'm for the sake of my mission, I think that it wouldn't be best to go forward with uh having that Lutheran name. I I can understand how you would get there, but I think the the pros of confessing who we are outweigh the potential cons. Yeah. And it's a wonderful blessing to go forward and say that we are a Lutheran church, and that is shorthand for we are biblically based, gospel-centered Christians who look to Jesus, confess Jesus, and who who share his word and administer the sacrament. I think there can be wonderful blessing in going forward with that put on the forefront.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:56

And this is a wonderful gift from our God. We are not teaching the truth because there's something special about us, but because of God's grace. So let's go forward and continue to boldly proclaim the truth. God bless.