Tag: Word and Sacrament
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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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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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God Directs Your Path—Without Dictating It
The Christian comedian Adrian Plass once wrote a story about a man who was convinced God wanted him to move to the Middle East. Why? Because he was praying for guidance, and every time he opened the Bible it mysteriously mentioned the land of Israel. Plass’ writings are full of humorous moments like this, which…
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That Heaviness Feels True. It Isn’t.
Some days feel heavy.Everything feels bad—or just flat and pointless.Even small things feel pointless or too much to bear. And in those moments, it doesn’t just feel bad—it feels true. It isn’t. One in five adults in Manchester struggle with their mental health. That matters, because people and their experiences matter. But it also tells…