Romans 10:9-17 - The Message of Salvation to All

Romans 10:9-17 makes if very clear that God has a plan for saving people, but that there are two possible paths.

Paul puts faith and confession as parallel ideas, not distinctly different, and he puts righteousness and salvation as roughly equivalent terms. The law required obedience, but the gospel requires belief. This was written specifically addressing the Jews, so throughout, there are references to the Old Testament to show that this is not a new idea or doctrine, but even what the old testament teaches. Verse 11 is quoting Isaiah 28:16. Verses 12-13 are quoting Joel 2:32.

The early church fathers understood the Bible's teaching on the importance of ordination:

"The unrighteous are the ones who on their own authority, without any divine arrangement, set themselves up to preside over the daring strangers who assemble with them, who appoint themselves bishops without any law of ordination." -The Unity of the Church by St Cyprian

List of Miracles

Unity

I have written about unity being in a shared (correct) doctrine in previous posts, but I wanted to explore what theologians throughout church history have taught.

Starting with the church fathers, St. Cyprian wrote "The Unity of the Church", his greatest work, to counter the Novatian schism. In it, he argues that there can only be one united church:
"The spouse of Christ cannot commit adultery. She is uncorrupted and pure. She knows one home, she guards with chaste modesty the sanctity of one bed. She keeps us for God. She appoints the sons whom she has born for the kingdom. Whoever is separated from the Church and unites with an adulteress, is separated from the promises of the Church. No one who forsakes the Church of Christ can receive the rewards of Christ. He is a stranger; he is profane; he is an enemy. No one can have God for his Father, who does not have the Church for his mother....

"This sacrament of unity, this unbreakable bond of concord, is demonstrated in the Gospel, when the coat of the Lord Jesus Christ is not at all divided nor cut, but is received as a whole garment by those who cast lots for it. Scripture says, “Because the coat was seamless, woven in one piece from top to bottom, they said, ‘Let us not tear it, but cast lots for it.” [John 21:23-24] That coat had a unity from the top down, that is, unity that came from heaven and the Father, that could not be torn by those who received and possessed it. It is whole and undivided. No one who splits and divides the Church of Christ can possess the garment of Christ."

St. Ignatius of Antioch, in his Letter to the Philadelphians, 4,1 (ANF, Vol. I), wrote:

"Wherefore I write boldly to your love, which is worthy of God, and exhort you to have but one faith, and one [kind of] preaching, and one Eucharist. For there is one flesh of the Lord Jesus Christ; and His blood which was shed for us is one; one loaf also is broken to all [the communicants], and one cup is distributed among them all: there is but one altar for the whole Church, and one bishop, with the presbytery and deacons, my fellow-servants. Since, also, there is but one unbegotten Being, God, even the Father; and one only-begotten Son, God, the Word and man; and one Comforter, the Spirit of truth; and also one preaching, and one faith, and one baptism; and one Church which the holy apostles established from one end of the earth to the other by the blood of Christ, and by their own sweat and toil; it behooves you also, therefore, as "a peculiar people, and a holy nation," to perform all things with harmony in Christ."

Later, during the reformation, Martin Luther (sermons from the year 1531, W.A 34-11-387. "Day by Day We Magnify Thee" p. 384) wrote:

"No, my dear man, do not recommend to me peace and unity when thereby God's Word is lost, for then eternal life and everything else will be lost. There can be no yielding nor giving way, no, not for love of you or any other person, but everything must yield to the Word, whether it be friend or foe. The Word and doctrine will create Christian unity or fellowship. Where they reign all else will follow. Where they are not, no concord will ever abide. Therefore do not talk to me about love and friendship, if that means breaking with the Word, or the faith, for the Gospel does not say love brings eternal life, God's grace, and all heavenly treasures, but the Word."

Also:

The founder of the American, Lutheran Church, Missouri Synod, CFW Walther, in his "Pastoral Theology", wrote:

"Sadly, as we have discovered, there are many preachers who call themselves Lutheran and, after preparing the holy table to administer the Lord’s Supper, invite to the gift of grace anyone who wants to come—without permitting an examination their faith and life. And they even think this is a most Gospel-centered practice."

J.W. Baier explains:

“[T]he unity of the Church is disturbed by syncretism, or the religious union of dissenting parties in a brotherly and ecclesiastical fellowship in spite of dissension, so that either the errors in doctrine on the part of the dissentients or at least the erring persons themselves are tolerated within the communion of the Church and the latter are regarded as brethren in Christ and coheirs of eternal life. Either class of tolerance, however, is sinful.”

Bless We the Lord



 

We know that God blesses us.  But the Bible also speaks of us blessing God in the Psalms and James 3:9.  Last post, I discussed our disposition toward God, and blessing Him is apart of it. How does that work, though?  How can mere mortals “bless the LORD”? What can we do to benefit Him, the One who needs nothing?  The blessing that most people think of I the blessing from greater to lesser, such as when God gives gifts to us, but also when kings bestow gifts to their subjects, etc....  But there is also a blessing from lesser to greater.  This kind of blessing–when the subject blesses the king or the mortal blesses God. This kind of blessing mainly consists of thanksgiving. Thus, when we bless our food, we are thanking God for it.

 

Also, consider the liturgy where the pastor says, “Let us bless the Lord.”  And we in congregation do so by responding, “Thanks be to God.”

It is also possible to bless someone in the name of the “greater,” as when pastors, in the name of God–that is, in His stead and on His behalf–pronounce a blessing on the congregation as they convey His gifts.

 

"Behold, bless ye the Lord, all ye servants of the Lord, which by night stand in the house of the Lord. Lift up your hands in the sanctuary, and bless the Lord. The Lord that made heaven and earth bless thee out of Zion." -Psalm 134:1-3

"[B]ut no human being can tame the tongue. It is a restless evil, full of deadly poison. With it we bless our Lord and Father, and with it we curse people who are made in the likeness of God." -James 3:8-9

Our Disposition Toward God

First of all God's disposition toward us is what is most important, and it is defined as Grace. However, the Bible and the Lutheran confessions also talk about our disposition toward God. One aspect of our disposition is our "moods" toward God. In his Small Catechism, Luther frequently begins his explanations with, "We should fear, love, and trust God so that..." When I was little, I used to wonder about the fear, just like many, until it was explained that fear is related to awe of power and submission to authority. This concept really sank in when I saw a chart of moods in a class I took.  As I noticed all of our disposition toward God was on one side of the mood chart and really all of those together make sense.

Genesis 11:1-9 - The Tower of Babel

Chapter 11 starts with the comment that the whole earth had one language (v.1).  The people migrated from the East and settled in the land of Shinar, an ancient name for the land of the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers, known to us more familiarly as Mesopotamia or Babylonia (Isa 11:11). There is a single group of people here who are migrating together as a large family.  They have "one language... the same words" (v.1), yet fear being "scattered" (v. 4).  The tower portrayed in this story is not itself unusual culturally. Yet God acts so that they will be "scattered" (v.8).  These people decided to build a city and a "tower." The idea of building a city was not new (note 4:17) and may simply have represented the movement from nomadic to sedentary culture. Since there is no real hint in that direction in the text, it should not be read as any critique against urban life or the development of technology (note 4:17-22). The issue here is not the building of the tower itself, but the reasons for building it. The first goal was to "make a name for ourselves," with the longer range purpose that they would not "be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth" (v. 4).

 

The concept of having a "name" in the ancient world was close to what we mean by the same expression. A person’s name not only represented the person and their reputation, but it also communicated something about the character of the person (cf. Prov 22:1).  The implication here is that the people are depending on themselves to define who they are, and what they are about in the world. This stands in stark contrast to God’s promise to Abraham in the following chapter: "I will... make your name great" (12:2). The implication is that God is the one who should make their name great (cf. 2 Sam 7:9, 23; I Kings 1:47). This introduces an element of self-sufficiency and self interest here.

 

Their intentions were also in direct contrast to God's command to spread and fill the earth. They instead decided to stay there "lest we be scattered" (v4). The people were afraid of division. Their solution? Take matters into their own hands. They proposed a project: A city, a tower, a name. And yet, since early in the creation story, this has been God’s stated purpose for humanity: that they would "fill the earth" (1:28, cf. 9:7).

 

The next part of the passage is from the perspective of God. There is a certain sarcastic tone in verse 5 that serves to highlight their arrogance: "The Lord came down to see the city and the tower." They intend to build a tower to reach into the heavens to make a name for themselves. The irony is that God can’t even see this tower. He must come down and find this puny tower that the mortals had built. From high above in the heavens, God had to stoop low to see how their little project was progressing. The implication here is that these people aren’t ever going to become gods. 

 

God sees that they are "one people... one language" (v.6). Their unity was real. It had limitless potential. There was only one problem. It was all man-made. As is obvious from the response of God, the problem here is not unity itself. The telling theological commentary of verse 6 provides the crux of this passage: "this is only the beginning of what they will do; nothing that they propose to do will now be impossible for them." This reveals that the issue here is not unity, but is really one of arrogance and pride.  The unity of these people is not something positive, because they are unified around the wrong center. The focus of their unity is their own ability to establish themselves in the world apart from God (note the same idea in a scathing prophetic denunciation in Habakkuk 1:11, 16). Here echoes the same problem that was evidenced in the Eden story: they aspire to become like God, themselves establishing their place in the world and implementing their own rules by which they live in that world.

 

At this point, God entered the picture and confused their language so they could no longer communicate with each other (v. 7). The very thing they feared most, division, dispersal, a half-built city, not a trace of a tower, and a name that means “confusion.” What man makes, God unmakes. Man-made unity, God-made division. Fear of division (real or imagined) is a terrible reason to unite. It will never produce anything more than a man-made unity. True unity isn’t the product of man’s proposals, but of God’s promise. He disposes of our proposals, plans and projects. He leaves us with nothing but his promise and his unity.

 

But this does not necessarily mean that God will intervene directly in history every time humanity poses a new threat by our own selfishness and sin (that issue was addressed in the flood story, 8:21-22, 9:11).  On one level, it is a judgment from God on a self-centered arrogance that wanted to ignore God’s purposes in the world. And yet, on another level, that scattering is a fulfillment of what God had wanted humanity to do, to fill the earth.  That suggests another dimension to the story not yet told in this text that will explain how the scattering can be a fulfillment of God’s purposes for his creation. That part of the story will begin in chapter 12 on the upbeat of grace. There God will call Abraham to begin a journey that will take him into a future he does not know, to places he has not yet seen, and will begin a new scattering that will not reach its climax for many centuries.

Pastors

Previously I had a post on the roles and relationships of Pastor and Elders, which was really about what an Elder is. I have not done a post on Deacons, but it can be summed up rather quickly. The best definition I have heard for what a Deacon is in the LCMS is: "one who is certified to break the Article 14 of the Augsburg Confession". The second best definition I have heard is: "an abomination." Previously I have discussed what pastors wear and why and that Pastors are to fulfill the Great Commission. Johann Gerhard Lists what pastors duties are:

1. Preaching the heavenly Word
2. Administering the sacraments
3. Praying for the flock entrusted to him
4. Honorable managers of their life and behavior
5. Take care of the administration of church discipline
6. Preserve ecclesiastical rights
7. Take care of the poor and visit the sick

A shorthand for what Pastors are supposed to do is to preach and teach. To accomplish that, they need to be constant students of the Bible (theologians), but they need to be out among the people. This is why Pastors have a study and not an office. I have been hearing lately that it has become common to unjustly oust Pastors because of conflicts in personality and/or style.  This is a great sin.  The 2003 CTCR Study Report on “the Divine Call” lists five reasons and not without due process:

1. Teaching false doctrine 
2. Offensive conduct or scandalous life 
3. Deliberate unfaithfulness in the performance of official duties 
4. Neglect of, or inability to perform, official duties 
5. Domineering in office.

The Bible is also full of verses about qualification of becoming a pastor:

1. Aspire to the office
2. Without/above reproach
3. A husband of one wife
4. Self-controlled
5. Sober-minded
6. Orderly
7. Disciplined
8. Hospitable
9. Able to teach
10. Good manager of his household
11. Good Father with faithful, well-behaved children
12. Well thought of
13. Lover of Good
14. Hold firm to the trustworthy word as taught

There is also a list of things he should not be:

1. Not a drunkard
2. Nor violent, but gentle
3. Not quarrelsome
4. Not a lover of money
5. Not a recent convert
6. Not arrogant
7. Not quick tempered
8. Not greedy for gain

Bible Verses About Pastors

Pay careful attention to yourselves and to all the flock, in which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to care for the church of God, which he obtained with his own blood. I know that after my departure fierce wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock; and from among your own selves will arise men speaking twisted things, to draw away the disciples after them. Therefore be alert, remembering that for three years I did not cease night or day to admonish every one with tears. -Acts 20:28-31

[S]hepherd the flock of God that is among you, exercising oversight, not under compulsion, but willingly, as God would have you; not for shameful gain, but eagerly; not domineering over those in your charge, but being examples to the flock. And when the chief Shepherd appears, you will receive the unfading crown of glory. -1 Peter 5:2-4

The saying is trustworthy: If anyone aspires to the office of overseer, he desires a noble task. Therefore an overseer must be above reproach, the husband of one wife, sober-minded, self-controlled, respectable, hospitable, able to teach,  not a drunkard, not violent but gentle, not quarrelsome, not a lover of money. He must manage his own household well, with all dignity keeping his children submissive, for if someone does not know how to manage his own household, how will he care for God's church? He must not be a recent convert, or he may become puffed up with conceit and fall into the condemnation of the devil. Moreover, he must be well thought of by outsiders, so that he may not fall into disgrace, into a snare of the devil. -1 Timothy 3:1-7

Let the elders who rule well be considered worthy of double honor, especially those who labor in preaching and teaching. For the Scripture says, “You shall not muzzle an ox when it treads out the grain,” and, “The laborer deserves his wages.” Do not admit a charge against an elder except on the evidence of two or three witnesses. As for those who persist in sin, rebuke them in the presence of all, so that the rest may stand in fear. In the presence of God and of Christ Jesus and of the elect angels I charge you to keep these rules without prejudging, doing nothing from partiality. Do not be hasty in the laying on of hands, nor take part in the sins of others; keep yourself pure. -1 Timothy 5:17-22

This is why I left you in Crete, so that you might put what remained into order, and appoint elders in every town as I directed you— if anyone is above reproach, the husband of one wife, and his children are believers  and not open to the charge of debauchery or insubordination. For an overseer, as God's steward, must be above reproach. He must not be arrogant or quick-tempered or a drunkard or violent or greedy for gain, but hospitable, a lover of good, self-controlled, upright, holy, and disciplined. He must hold firm to the trustworthy word as taught, so that he may be able to give instruction in sound doctrine and also to rebuke those who contradict it. -Titus 1:5-9

What is a Theologian?

Mirriam Webster Dictionary simply defines theologian as "a specialist in theology." Digging deeper, it defines a specialist as a person who has special knowledge and skill relating to a particular job, area of study, etc. It defines theology as the study of religious faith, practice, and experience; especially the study of God and of God's relation to the world." Therefore, according to the dictionary, a theologian is :

"A person who has special knowledge and skill relating to the study of religious faith, practice, and experience; especially the study of God and of God's relation to the world."

In Martin Luther's 1518 Heidelberg Disputation, he wrote:

"That  person does not deserve to be called a theologian who looks upon the invisible things of God as though they were clearly perceptible I those things which have actually happened [Rom. 1:20, cf. 1 Cor 1:21-25],

"he deserves to be called a theologian, however, who comprehends the visible and manifest things of God seen through suffering and the cross.

"A theology of glory calls evil good and good evil. A theology of the cross calls the thing what it actually is."

A common saying in Lutheran circles that is often attributed to Martin Chemnitz (although I can't find a reference for it) is that theology is the art of making distinctions. This, then, means:

"A theologian is an artist at making distinctions."

C.F.W. Walther states as his third thesis in "Law and Gospel" that:

"Rightly distinguishing the Law and the Gospel is the most difficult and the highest art of... theologians."