When I worked at Apple, well over a decade and a half ago, we had a bin in the back of unused parts from newly opened boxes. Headphones, charging cables, and other odd bits and bobs filled it to the brim. We called it the “surprise and delight” box because if a customer came in …
Tag: Lutheran
What happens when they are touched by the breath of God?
From its inception nearly two centuries ago, my church body, The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod was known to be a church body that, despite all the caricatures (negative or positive, rightly or wrongly attributed) was a church body that had been, to borrow from a father in the faith, grabbed by a book that would not …
Continue reading What happens when they are touched by the breath of God?
Sharing the Southwell
The now sainted Anthony Thiselton gave a lecture back in the 1980s when he assumed a new post as Principal of St. John's, Nottingham dealing with exegesis and the posture of the interpreter (you can read the lecture here). I've often thought about that lecture in part because of one line in particular: Too often …
Troubled Hearts
Eight years ago my wife and I were expecting our second child. We went in for a gender scan at 18 weeks and they couldn’t find a heartbeat. To say that we were gutted is an understatement. Some may not see the death of a child in the womb as equivalent to the death of …
A Prayer for the Church
Below is the litany I'm praying this week from the daily devotional I use, and have shared before, published in 1965 by Concordia Publishing House titled, The Daily Office. I am inviting you to pray it with me on this anniversary of the presentation of the Augsburg Confession. Litany for the Holy Christian Church O …
What Should We Speak?
One of the reasons I appreciate engaging in historical research, particularly related to the early to mid-twentieth century, is because it reminds me that today is not harder to live in—it only seems that way. To be fair, today is a hard time in which to live for a variety of reasons, not the least …
Love is Prior
This coming Sunday we are planning on having a couple of deaths and resurrections otherwise known as baptisms. As I read the scriptures I see baptism not as something I or others do to show our commitment to God so much as it is God’s way of making disciples of all nations, God’s way of …
The Stupid Standard
Today my alma mater, Concordia Seminary in St. Louis, is holding its commencement exercises. I love a good commencement exercise. I enjoy the pomp and circumstance, the academic regalia, the nods to the institution and traditions of which those graduates become an everlasting part. At the seminary in particular my heart warms hearing “Thy Strong …
Looking in the Mirror
For at least the past five years one quote from a now sainted theologian has rattled around in my head. “Too often,” said Anthony Thiselton, “we attack or defend before we have genuinely understood.”1 He spoke that in an address he gave in the mid-80s as he took up a post as Principal of St. …
A Bit Pale By Comparison
For Martin Franzmann, his wife Alice was the “lady who (saving all their lovely reverences) has made all other ladies seem a bit pale by comparison.”[1] For me, Martin Hans Franzmann is the Lutheran theologian, who, saving all their lovely reverences, has made all other Lutheran theologians, especially those named Martin, seem a bit pale by comparison. …
an occasional theologian 