Preaching "Son" to Slaves

and the constant kindness of God.

Nov 16, 2024

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1/ Prayer and God’s Desire (1 Timothy 2:1-7)

2/ 2025 Formula of Concord reading plan

Pr Finnern has put together a reading plan for the Formula of Concord. If you haven’t spent much time with the Formula, I would encourage you to give this a look.

https://witness.lcms.org/2024/reading-plan/

We we studying the Formula in our monthly Saturday Men’s Study, and I was reminded again this morning what a treasure this document is.

(There’s a lot of other good-looking resources hanging around there: https://witness.lcms.org/category/resources/)

3/ Thanksgiving in Suffering

In the conversation after this week’s Worldwide Bible Class we were discussing thanksgiving in the midst of suffering, and we came up with these five encouragements to thanks:

God is with us.
God uses suffering to bless us.
God limits suffering.
God shows His strength in our weakness.
God will end suffering.

4/ Anti-Word, Anti Sacrament: An Adjustment to My Understanding of the Great Argument of Christian History

It was also in this week’s WWBC that I modified my position on the distinction of Protestants (excluding Lutherans from Protestant here) and Romans Catholics. I’ve previously said that the problem with Protestants and Catholics was the Word OR Sacrament problem. Protestants went for the Word; Catholics went for the Sacrament. Lutherans have Word AND Sacrament.

I was wrong. The essence of Protestantism is not that they embrace the Word, but that they reject the Sacraments. And, importantly, this rejection actually effects how they think of the Word. Think, for example, how the Protestants do not have the absolution, or any understanding of the power of God’s Word.

Likewise, the essence of Romanism is not an embrace of the Sacraments, but rather a rejection of the Word. This also has a corresponding effect on their sacramental theology. The example here is how the Roman Catholics do not talk about the forgiveness of sins as a benefit of the Lord’s Supper.

Explanation begins around 10:26 here:

5/ Has American Christianity Failed?

If your hanging around YouTube, here’s a fun interview:

6/ Preaching “Son” to Slaves

Here’s a few paragraphs for this book I’m working on:

The final scene of the parable is the conversation of the gracious father with his obstinate son field, standing in the field, refusing to come into the feast.
And [the older brother] was angry, and would not go in. Therefore his father came out, and entreated him.
And he, answering said to his father, "Look, these many years I served you, I never transgressed your commandment, and yet you never gave me a little goat that I might make merry with my friends! But as soon as this, your son, was come, who devoured your property with harlots, you killed the fatted calf for him."
And he said to him, "Son, you are ever with me, and all that I have is yours. It was right that we should make merry and be glad, for this your brother was dead, and is alive again; and was lost, and is found."
The first word of the father says it all: “Son.” “You are not my servant, you, also, are my son. Everything that is mine is yours. You haven’t earned it or deserved it, you’ve inherited it.” Jesus presses that word up against the Pharisees and their legalism: Son. In that one word is contained all the Law and the Gospel. It is a rebuke of the religious delusions of humanity, all our attempts to achieve an acceptable holiness on our own terms, all our legalism, all our self-righteousness, all our self-appointed rituals of righteousness, all our judging ourselves holy and others unclean. All of it, says Jesus, is a vain and puffed-up, a proud slavery that wants to earn what God would freely give. This is the insult to God, and the reason that pride is a double sin: it wants to earn what God wants to give. “Son, all that I have is yours.” “Son” is a call to repentance from the slavery of pride.
“Son” is also a word of comfort, a preaching of peace. “You are not my servant, you are my son,” the father says graciously to the older boy. It is a call to rejoice in the gifts, to be part of the feast, to come into the home. All of your attempts to win my affection have not succeeded, but neither have they failed, they were totally unnecessary in the first place. You were always a beloved son, you always had a gracious father.
That father’s grace is far beyond what you knew, what you imagined, what you expected, and even what you wanted.

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Christ is Risen! Pastor Wolfmueller

Psalm 27:4

www.wolfmueller.co

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