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The Bible is not for calculating but for Christ

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1 Thessalonians 5:1-11

Here we are one Sunday before Christ the King Sunday, the end of the church year. The texts are stronger in terms of judgment, especially judgment on those who are leaders, and then also the note of hope that we find in 1 Thessalonians.

As we have noted, there are many today, particularly among evangelicals and Baptists, who are caught in end-time thinking. Dallas Theological Seminary, which has over 2,000 students and over 100 faculty, is a major center for study of “the Rapture” and end times. And Dallas Theological Seminary is not alone. There are many such schools, neighborhood Bible studies, and preachers. We ask ourselves: What do we Lutherans say to this?

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Comfort one another with these words

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1 Thessalonians 4:13-18

Every year for the Sundays of November the texts are about the end times as we approach the end of the church year: Christ the King Sunday, which this year is November 26th. The text for this Sunday in November is an end-times text from 1 Thessalonians.

As we have noted before, scholars are pretty sure this is the first of the letters Paul wrote, and it was written about 50-51 A.D., shortly after he became a Christian and only twenty years after the death and resurrection of Jesus.

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God has taken my salvation out of my hands into his

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A Sermon for Reformation Sunday

It used to be that Lutherans nationwide would wear red on Reformation Sunday and have special music and adult forums to mark the Sixteenth Century Reformation. That tradition has fallen by the wayside in many Lutheran churches. Nevertheless, we want to remember this particular event and what it meant to the history of the Christian Church.

506 years ago on October 31, 1517, a monk named Martin Luther nailed Ninety-Five Theses to the door of the church in Wittenberg. The theses were in Latin and thus not for public discussion. Not too many people could read. But he was raising the question of salvation, and what was happening in the church of his time.

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Two Sermons for the Twentieth Sunday after Pentecost

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Sermon 1: The foolishness of God is wiser than men

1 Thessalonians 1:1-10; 5:24

1 Thessalonians, the earliest of Paul’s letters, has some significant things to say that are said with a certain drama, both in words and in thought. It seems that Paul just wrote it spontaneously. How did he do it? How could he have just written these kinds of things that we find in the letters of Paul?

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Sermon 2: “He who calls you is faithful and he will do it.”

1 Thessalonians 1:1-10

A few years ago a major church event happened. The Diocese of Pittsburgh voted to leave the Episcopal Church. This was an important diocese and a major break in that church. It’s best understood by a remark made by the head of the Episcopal Church at that time, Presiding Bishop Griswold. He wrote: “Our problem is that we have two religions within our church. One religion is based on experience, and the other religion based on the traditional message of the Bible and the Book of Common Prayer.”

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