Guard the Good Deposit

On a Friday night in September 1884, Lutheran theologian C. F. W. Walther gathered some of his seminary students together in St. Louis, Missouri. This was one of a series of Friday night talks he gave for the purpose of 'making you really practical theologians. I wish to talk the Christian doctrine into your very hearts.' On this night he said:

You can gather how foolish it is, yea, what an awful derision has taken hold upon so many men's minds who ridicule pure doctrine and say to us: 'Ah, do cease clamoring, Pure doctrine! Pure doctrine! That can only land you in dead orthodoxism. Pay more attention to pure life, and you will raise a growth of genuine Christianity.' That is exactly like saying to a farmer: 'Do not worry forever about good seed; worry about good fruits.'

--C. F. W. Walther, The Proper Distinction between Law and Gospel: Thirty-Nine Evening Lectures (St. Louis: Concordia, 1928), 20-21

Why Bainton's Here I Stand Is a Classic

Luther's principles in religion and ethics alike must constantly be borne in mind if he is not at times to appear unintelligible and even petty.

The primary consideration with him was always the pre-eminence of religion. Into a society where the lesser breed were given to gaming, roistering, and wenching--the Diet of Worms was called a veritable Venusberg--at a time when the choicer sort were glorying in the accomplishments of man, strode this Luther, entranced by the song of angels, stunned by the wrath of God, speechless before the wonder of creation, lyrical over the divine mercy, a man aflame with God.

For such a person there was no question which mattered much save this: How do I stand before God?

--Roland H. Bainton, Here I Stand: A Life of Martin Luther (1950), 213-14

If You Have Trouble Finding Me in the New Earth...

This is what I'll be doing.

The reason God created smallmouth bass is so that human beings made in his image can stand in a crystal clear stream and have one at the end of a medium-light spinning rod with six-pound-test line and the drag set loose.

How Is David to Be Remembered?

Think of the kings of Israel and contemplate their deeds: whoever among them feared Torah was delivered from troubles; and these were the seekers of Torah whose transgressions were forgiven. Think of David who was a man of righteous deeds and who was therefore delivered from many troubles and forgiven.

--4Q398 lines 24-25, a letter written within the Jewish community at Qumran, and part of the Dead Sea Scrolls

For what does the Scripture say? "Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness." Now to the one who works, his wages are not counted as a gift but as his due. And to the one who does not work but trusts him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted as righteousness, just as David also speaks of the blessing of the one to whom God counts righteousness apart from works: "Blessed are those whose lawless deeds are forgiven, and whose sins are covered; blessed is the man against whom the Lord will not count his sin."

--The Apostle Paul, Romans 4:3-8

Intriguingly, in line 31 of this same fragment the writer of this Qumranite letter reflects on his readers' devotion to Torah (the Jewish Law) and writes that "it will be counted to you for righteousness." He uses the very same three-word string that is found in the Hebrew of Gen 15:6, speaking of Abraham's being counted righteous apart from his deeds, which Paul quotes in Romans 4:3 above.

God's Sovereignty Encompasses Everything

How can we really say God is sovereign over all when there is so much chaos and pain in the world?

Nothing shall hinder his great design. God's great ends will be obtained: all his ends will be obtained, and by his own means.

After all this seeming confusion and vast succession of strange and wonderful revolutions, everything shall come out right at last. There is no confusion in God's scheme; he understands his own works and every wheel moves right in its place.

Not one mote of dust errs from the path that God has appointed it; he will bring order at last out of confusion. God don't lose himself in the intricate endless moves of events that come to pass. Though men can't see the whole scheme, God sees. The course and series of events in divine providence is like the course of a great and long river with many branches and innumerable windings and turnings which often seems to go backwards. 

--Jonathan Edwards, 1744 sermon entitled "Approaching the End of God's Grand Design," in Works, 25:121