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Luther Preached the Gospel So Objectively that It Sounded Universalist
A recent visitor to my church explained to me his understanding of the Christian Gospel: The visitor was earnest, lovely, a kind and gentle soul. The only problem is this: What he said is not the Christian Gospel. Point 2 is absolutely true, and is the teaching of God’s Law. Points 1 and 3 are…
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Owning the Keys Gives the Church Flexibility in the Call
When you turn wise human arrangements into divine commands, you obscure God’s Word and confuse Law and Gospel. At the extreme end of this kind of mistake, we end up falling foul of Jesus’ warning in Mark 7:7 (quoting Isaiah 29:13): in vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men. (Mark…
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All Christians Owning the Keys Supports the Public Call to Ministry—It Doesn’t Undermine It
The Augsburg Confession 14 rightly and biblically says “no one should publicly teach, preach, or administer the sacraments without a proper public call.” Many Christian churches agree with this statement in principle, but the biggest differences arise among Christians about what a proper public call is. Some claim that proper public call is created by…
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Owning the Keys Means Every Vocation is Spiritual
People sometimes speak as though pastors and missionaries do “spiritual” work, while everyone else merely has an ordinary job. Martin Luther rejected that distinction. Every Christian has the same baptism, the same Gospel, the same faith, and the same standing before God. Christians have different offices and different work to do. All these vocations are…
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Jesus Thinks He Gave the Keys to Everyone
I’ve heard it argued that Jesus did not give the Keys of the kingdom to every Christian, because when Jesus gave the Keys, only the apostles were present. There are numerous problems with this argument. For example, when Jesus actually gives the Keys in John 20:22-23, John does not make clear who exactly was present.…
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Distinguishing the Power and Use of the Keys is Reckless
Some “Lutherans” preach that Jesus gave the power of the Keys to the whole church, but he gave the use of the Keys to pastors alone. Indeed, when I was once exploring the possibility of joining a particular Lutheran denomination I was told exactly this in a conversation about Matthew 16. The distinction is, of…
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Luther Said All Christians Have the Power of the Keys
In John 20:22-23 Jesus gave the power of the “Keys” to the church: “Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you withhold forgiveness from any, it is withheld.” But, a key question about these Keys is this: Who did Jesus give this power to? I am…
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How Can I Understand the Bible?
You can read the Bible cover to cover, repeatedly, in multiple translations… and still not understand it. At the end of Luke’s Gospel, some of the disciples who’d been with Jesus for years, heard his teachings, even seen his miracles, still did not understand. Even after Jesus rose from the dead and appeared to them,…
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What Does the First Commandment Mean?
What does it mean for us that God is God? We often imagine God as a harsh, distant, or easily disappointed dictator. But, that picture doesn’t come from God himself. It’s not how his Word reveals him. In fact, that picture comes from our sin: In the Garden, Satan introduced the idea that God has…
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What Should I Wear to Church?
You’ve never been to church before. You are in Manchester. And you decide to try out Manchester Lutheran Church. At that point, some people panic a bit, because they start worrying about what they should wear. The headline answer is this: Wear your normal clothes. There is no dress code. But by saying that, I…