Evan 💦🩸🕊️

Jesus is the Resurrection and the Life. Anyone who believes in Him, though they may die, shall live. And whoever lives and believes in Him shall never die... Do you believe this?

18. Finally, why do you wish to go to the Sacrament? That I may learn to believe that Christ, out of great love, died for my sin, and also learn from Him to love God and my neighbor. -Luther, "Christian Questions and Their Answers"

@PatrologyVotary Based reading list.

As I prepare for baptism, I am meeting with my priest to go over a few things. I am also doing preparatory catechetical reading: The 1662 BCP’s catechism The Whole Duty of Man Saint Augustine’s On the Creed Nicetas of Remesiana’s works Cyril of Jerusalem’s Catechetical Lectures

@AngAesthetics I know a guy the SSPX can talk to

Umm...who wants to tell him?

Guys, I'm such a larper. When I posted that quote last night from the Apology, I cited it as being from 1530 when it was actually published in 1531 😭 Someone take away my Lutheran license.

In Martin Luther’s book, On the Jews and Their Lies, the very first argument he makes is against ethnic and ancestral pride. He argues that no one is more noble before God simply because of his ancestry. The Jews claimed that because they were born Jews, they possessed special standing before God. Luther rejects this outright. In fact, he applies the same principle to everyone. No one has a claim on God because of bloodline, ethnicity, or family heritage. Second, Luther argues against sacramentalism. He rejects the idea that circumcision, by itself, made a person holy or gave him favor with God. This argument applies not only to the Jews of his day but to anyone who trusts in outward religious rites apart from faith. Circumcision bound the Old Testament saints to faith, just as baptism binds Christians to faith. Apart from faith, circumcision is nothing, and baptism is nothing. Of course, Luther makes these arguments with his usual colorful and forceful language. But these opening arguments are important because they strike at two perennial errors: trusting in ancestry and trusting in religious ceremonies rather than trusting in Christ. Luther opposed making race/ethnicity the unifying principle. Those who argue race over religion, don’t have Luther on their side.

Dr. Luther on Confession: "When I admonish to confession I am doing nothing else but admonishing you to be a Christian. If I bring you to become a Christian then I have also brought you to confession; for those who desire to become devout Christians and be free of their sins and possess a happy conscience already have the right hunger and thirst, so that they eagerly grasp for bread, as the harried deer burns with heat and thirst."

@DarthHarryson I was at Confession yesterday and my pastor told me that there's only one other person in the congregation who comes to him for Confession, and they do it once a month. We have fallen so far from the Faith of our Lutheran fathers!

"While [Paul Gerhardt] would not anticipate the judgment of Almighty of God, [he] could not grant that the Elector and his co-religionists were Christians, insofar as they were Calvinists."

"Neither has any sane man ever understood justification by faith alone in such a way, as if the grace of God, the merit of Christ, and the ministry of the Word and of the Sacraments were excluded from justification." -- Martin Chemnitz, Examination of the Council of Trent, II:61

after they have been examined and absolved. And the usual public ceremonies are observed, the series of lessons, of prayers, vestments, and other like things." -- Apology of the Augsburg Confession, Art. XXIV: Of the Mass (1530)

🧵"At the outset we must again make the preliminary statement that we do not abolish the Mass, but religiously maintain and defend it. For among us masses are celebrated every Lord’s Day and on the other festivals, in which the Sacrament is offered to those who wish to use it,

“Be it known unto you therefore, men and brethren, that through this man [Jesus] is preached unto you the forgiveness of sins: and by him all that believe are justified from all things, from which ye could not be justified by the law of Moses.” (Acts 13:38-39)

‘If you doubt how you can be justified, then set before your soul Jesus, who wiped away all your sins, who died not for His own sin, but for the sin of the world. And since He died, not having sin, He justly rose again. For how could He be held in Hades who had no sin? Therefore He both died and rose again for this purpose: that He might both free us from sins and make us righteous. Therefore, just as Abraham believed that his body, already deadened, would become fruitful, so also do you believe that Jesus died and rose again, and it will be imputed to you as righteousness, as also to your forefather Abraham.’ –Bl. St. Theophylact, Comm. on Rom. 4:25

@TD_Barrett @sincead33 Based. Thanks so much!

@PrimusPeccator @sincead33 Well your where you should be then. No better source than that. His sermons would be the next place I’d go. You can access most all of them here for free (open the tab on the left to scroll through the volumes). archive.org/details/saint-…

There’s a reason Protestants habitually quote St. Augustine on concupiscence and the real presence and Catholics quote him on purgatory and the authority of the Church, but both sides tend to be more silent on the other issues. 😁 Dare we cope?

@TD_Barrett @sincead33 What would you recommend I read to gain a better grasp of Augustine's spirituality? I'm re-reading his Confessions right now.

@sincead33 Solution: everyone shift from his theology and focus on his spirituality. That’s where he really shines.

#OTD June 16, 1539: During an ordination exam in Wittenberg, Martin Luther was confronted with the claim: “Faith justifies; faith is a work; therefore works justify.” He responded: “Faith justifies not as a work, nor as a quality, nor as knowledge, but as assent of the will and firm confidence in the mercy of God. For if faith were only knowledge, then the devil would certainly be saved… Accordingly faith must be understood otherwise than as knowledge. In part, however, it is assent.” Luther, Table Talk No. 4655 (June 16, 1539), LW 54:359–360

An LCMS overture to rename secular titles of district presidents and Synod president to bishop was struck down by the LCMS Floor Committee, preventing it from coming to a convention vote. Notably, the proposal appears to have greater support among younger members of the LCMS.

“I am the living bread which came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever; and the bread that I shall give is My flesh, which I shall give for the life of the world.” ~John 6:51~

"For the preaching ought to be nothing but an explanation of the words of Christ, when he instituted the mass and said, 'This is my body, this is my blood,' etc. What is the whole gospel but an explanation of this testament?" -- Martin Luther, Treatise on the New Testament, 1520

@PastorBowman Where can I get my hands on Gerhard's Loci without having to sell my soul?

New book moving from the great pile of the unread to currently reading. It's in no way inspired by the last week's interaction with Mormons 😉