Pious Lutheran

Moses and Aaron with the Tablets of the Law, 1692 The Summary of the Law is Love. There’s much confusion about the purpose of the law. The law is all about love Love of God Love of Other Jesus is the ultimate fulfillment of the Law, because of His great love for the Father and for mankind. “ Love is the fulfillment of the law. ” Unfortunately, few people understand this important detail. There’s much confusion about the purpose of the law. For some people laws are simply rules which must be maintained for the sake of keeping rules. Doesn’t matter if the law is good or not, it’s just about being a good person by following the rules. For other people the laws are meant to be broken. There’s too many laws and they don’t understand them, so they don’t bother trying to keep any of them. For both kinds of people the problem is the same: they don’t understand that the purpose of the law is to love God and others. So both kinds of people think the law is ultimately arbitrary, but some manifest...

Christ Among the Pharisees , Jacob Jordaens, ~1660-1670 Talking about theology We’re often silent and refuse to talk theology Yet Jesus is not silent and continues to speak We must therefore ask Jesus questions, answer His, and speak of Him with others “ And no one was able to answer Him a word, nor from that day did anyone dare to ask Him any more questions. ” Just as Jesus had silenced the Sadducees so Jesus silenced the Pharisees. But their silence is not a good thing. Jesus elsewhere bids us: “ Ask, and you will receive. ” Or shortly later in the Gospel of Matthew Jesus sat down with His apostles on Mount Olivet and they continued to ask Him questions. Those who hated Jesus and sought to kill Him refused to speak with Him, but those who love Jesus never stop speaking to Him. Therefore let us be encouraged to always talk about theology . Far too often we’re silent and refuse to talk theology, and yet Jesus is not silent and continues to speak. We must therefore always ask Jesus ques...

Thou Shalt Love the Lord Thy God,  Maurice Schnell, 1830-1902 Who do you love and how do you choose who to love? Most Americans don’t have arranged marriages, not that there’s anything wrong with that, but we choose our spouses more or less. Typically we choose who to be friends with, we choose those we will love. I would guess most of the time we choose those people based upon a level of reciprocity: I scratch your back, you scratch mine.  Usually we don’t choose to love others who don’t give us something in return for our love. I know you might say we don’t choose our family, those are just given, and so we don’t have much choice in loving them. But it happens all the time in families where parents choose not to love their kids, or kids become estranged from their parents, or siblings have terrible feuds and never interact. Even many families choose not to love each other if they don’t get something out of it. The Lord, however, is different. “ The LORD set his heart in love...

  A few weeks ago we heard a lawyer ask Jesus “ What shall I do to inherit eternal life. ” Jesus asked the man what was written in the law and how he reads it. The lawyer answered with nearly the same words that Jesus says today: “ You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself. ” The lawyer’s answer then, and Jesus’ answer today, are both correct. Frankly, that answer is not controversial in the least. When Jesus says: “ You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind, ” Jesus is just quoting verbatim the Shema , the greatest commandment in the Old Testament from Deuteronomy 6:5. When Jesus says “ You shall love your neighbor as yourself, ” He’s just quoting Leviticus. These are Sunday school answers any Israelite child could have given! The interesting thing here isn’t the answer, but the question. They were asking the wr...

In this crazy messed up world, what’s going to save it? Is it love? Afterall, Christ taught that the greatest commandment is:“ You shall love the Lord your God… You shall love your neighbor… ” Love! We all love the word love don’t we! Love is the word of our day! “Love wins!” “Love finds a way!” Love, love, love! We love throwing that word around, but we never really bother to define it too carefully.  Love is used in a variety of contexts. For a young man and woman who’ve been dating, they’re terrified of using the “L Word” too soon in a relationship, even though they’re just fine swapping spit and sharing a bed. Parents love their children, and assure them of their love throughout the day. When you particularly enjoy a certain flavor of ice cream, you make sure to share your love for it with everyone you know. Culturally we talk about loving people just as they are and we say loving them means not asking them to change. We aren’t supposed to be mean, we’re supposed to be lov...