Pious Lutheran

Moses Descends from Mount Sinai with the Ten Commandments , Ferdinand Mol, 1662 The Good of God’s Law The law is God’s eternal will for man to live wisely Our righteousness is not from the law, but from Christ God’s law sets us apart as His people to be the salt of the earth and the light of the world What good are the ten commandments and God’s law? Do they have any bearing on us today? It used to be quite normal to have the ten commandments posted in courthouses, but that has been hotly debated over the past decade or so. I’ve seen surveys done of Christians and many have a difficult time listing even a few of them. It does beg the question whether or not the ten commandments and God’s law matter anymore, or if those are just relics from the past. Yet, we heard it said by our Lord: “ Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. For truly, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, w...

Moses with the Ten Commandments, Rembrandt, 1659 Anger It’s easy to be angry with each other. There is such a thing as righteous anger, but not all anger is righteous We should seek reconciliation, not anger Our Lord forgives us, even though we clearly don’t deserve His mercy You know, it’s not always easy to get along with each other. We are certainly prone to anger. Obviously we’re all sinful, so we make mistakes and do wicked things, provoking each other to anger. But we’re also just different people, so we have different interests, personalities, and gifts. Additionally, we are easily offended, getting upset and emotional over everything. All of these things combine to make it difficult to get along and easy to be angry. Jesus taught us: “ But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother will be liable to judgment; whoever insults his brother will be liable to the council; and whoever says, ‘You fool!’ will be liable to the hell of fire. ”  Jesus’ words are hard to ...

Moses Descends from Mt. Sinai with the Ten Commandments , Ferdinand Bol, 1662                “ For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. ” What does it mean to be righteous? That’s the question we’ll be answering today. Many people, including the scribes and Pharisees and most people in our day, view righteousness merely in terms of outward civil righteousness; doing the right things in the eyes of the world. But Jesus goes a step further, and explains that righteousness is not just a matter of outward actions, but ultimately is an inward spiritual matter of the heart. The righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees was an outward civil righteousness. Now, to be clear, it’s not necessarily wrong to be outwardly righteous. This outward civil righteousness is a part of natural law written on the hearts of all mankind. It’s common sense, do unto others as you w...

Sometimes Jesus says things that I’d rather He just not say, for example, today He said: “ Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. For truly, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the Law until all is accomplished. Therefore whoever relaxes one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever does them and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of heaven. For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. ” Jesus is right, as much as we might hate to say it. To be righteous in God’s sight requires perfect obedience to His law. If we have any hope of entering heaven, then we must keep His divine holy law. But I guess that doesn’t sound too bad, right? That sounds doable. We just read the ten comma...

The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, the ELCA, the largest so-called Lutheran church body in the US held their national youth gathering the other week. As pictures and summaries were posted on the internet, it was a weeklong celebration of the LGBT agenda, which included a confused “transgender” boy, dressed like a girl, speaking in front of the assembly and promoting transgenderism to other children. While I hope that you recognize this as a disturbing thing to teach children to embrace LGBT behaviors as good and God-pleasing, do know that it’s not entirely impossible for us to follow down the same or a similar road. In fact, this road is paved by not believing that sin is sin and that the law matters for our daily living. That is a temptation all too easy for Christians, and especially us Lutherans. Therefore today, our Lord reminds us that we have been baptized into Christ’s righteousness, so that just as we’ve been raised from the dead with Christ, so must we walk in newn...