Pious Lutheran

Slavery, in and of itself, is a hot topic in the socio-political sphere of these United States of America. As soon as us Americans here the word slavery, instantly racism, Jim Crow laws, and racial segregation spring to our minds. If you had to think up words to describe slavery the first ones to come to mind would probably be: bad, evil, horrific, and disgusting.  So when you hear Jesus say: “ Truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who practices sin is a slave to sin,” the first thought in your mind is probably that slavery is bad and I don’t want to be a slave, so I don’t want to be a slave to sin. But that’s not really the context within which Jesus spoke those words. That’s just our Americanized ears hearing Jesus speak that way. Because while it is true that Jesus releases us from our slavery to sin to freedom in Christ, this freedom doesn’t look like what we typically imagine.  But before we get into all of that, it’s important that we first lay a foundation for what ...

“ At Capernaum there was an official whose son was ill. When this man heard that Jesus had come from Judea to Galilee, he went to him and asked him to come down and heal his son, for he was at the point of death. ” Why does God permit such terrible things to happen? Why does He allow hurricanes to kill and injure so many and destroy so many people’s homes and jobs? Why does God let us suffer so greatly and watch our loved ones die? October is breast cancer awareness month and miscarriage and infant loss awareness month. Why does God allow such terrible tragedies to befall our mothers, daughters, fathers, and children?  If God is so good and perfectly benevolent and loving, then why does He let evil happen? Does God care? Is God actually good? Does God even exist? How can He exist when there are such evil things that take place in this world?  Those questions are commonly referred to as the problem of evil. To sum it up in one question: How can God who is perfectly good co...

“ But when the king came in to look at the guests, he saw there a man who had no wedding garment. And he said to him, ‘Friend, how did you get in here without a wedding garment?’ And he was speechless. ” This almost sounds like a bad dream you might have, right? You receive an invitation to the party of the year by the wealthiest and most influential family in the state. So you show up at the big fancy wedding gala, and suddenly the king comes up to you, what an honor! But he gives you one sideways glance, and asks why you’re naked! How humiliating! But in this nightmare it gets even worse: “ Then the king said to the attendants, ‘Bind him hand and foot and cast him into the outer darkness. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’ ” So what you wear obviously matters. It leads us to ask ourselves the question: Are we clothed in the wedding garment? To which we gladly answer: God clothes us with the wedding garment so that we may enter into the great heavenly weddi...

“ And behold, some people brought to Jesus a paralytic, lying on a bed. And when Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralytic, “Take heart, my son; your sins are forgiven.” ” That’s not exactly the response you would expect from a healer probably. If an ambulance takes you to the ER, you don’t expect the doctor to look at you and offer you friendly platitudes. You’re looking for real help and real relief from your physical ailment. But what Jesus speaks here is no mere platitude, because in those four words a far greater healing is given to the paralyzed man: “ your sins are forgiven. ” This same sort of healing Jesus still gives to His church to this day. Like the paralytic, prior to conversion, sin paralyzed us and often still does, but Christ has the power to forgive and He makes us alive in Him. You see, prior to becoming a Christian, prior to conversion, we were powerless like the paralytic was powerless. We were in the “ old man, ” as St. Paul writes, “ which belongs to o...