Lutheran Logomaniac » Books

This fall to start off our year I am teaching a bible class using President Matthew Harrison’s delightful work, A Little Book on Joy, as the basis. This is a book that I continue to devour with much, uh, joy. It has helped me immensely personally as a pastor and as a Christian, and lends itself very well to congregational study.

My approach to this is basically that I’m taking the study questions at the end of the chapters, tweaking them, and then adding graphics and other Scripture passages as it may be helpful. I welcome anyone’s comments or criticisms. You are free to use them as you see fit. I only ask that you credit where you got it from, and actually try to buy copies of the book.

Also as a note, the YouTube video just zips through it quickly because it is showing the presentation. There is no audio, etc. Enjoy!

A Little Bible Study on Joy: Part One – in Keynote

A Little Bible Study on Joy: Part One – in Powerpoint

A Little Bible Study on Joy: Part One – in PDF

A Little Bible Study on Joy: Part One (YouTube)

The Presence, by Berthold von Schenk

ToddPeperkorn — Thu, 06 May 2010 16:46:08 +0000

This book, listed above, isa rather interesting book written if I recall in 1945. Berthold von Shenk is often cited and considered one of the fathers of the liturgical movement in the LCMS. He is without a doubt one of the more interesting characters, that’s for sure. Rev. Paul Sauer did a nice job with a paper on von Schenk at the CTS Symposium a couple years ago.

Anyway, one of the benefits of my little corner of the world is that I have a wicked awesome coper/scanner thing, which allows me to scan big files into PDF format easily. I have done so with this book.

So my question is, are any of you interested in having this book run through OCR so that it would be searchable? Let me know. Either way, I will be posting it shortly.

-LL

Books for Sale (Patristics, Eastern Orthodoxy & Exegetics mostly)

ToddPeperkorn — Thu, 06 May 2010 15:08:54 +0000

I am helping a friend sell a bunch of books. HERE IS A PDF OF THE BOOKS AVAILABLE. Some of the titles for the books include:

11. St. Gregory the Great, Pastoral Care
Basics of Biblical Greek Grammar
Biblical Hebrew Vocabulary Cards
The Book of Isaiah, Chapters 1-39
The Byzantine Commonwealth: Eastern Europe, 500-1453
The Byzantine Legacy in the Orthodox Church
Byzantium & the Slavs
C. S. Lewis’ Letters to Children
Christ in Eastern Christian Thought
The Christian East and the Rise of the Papacy: The Church 1071-1453 A.D
The Christian Theology Reader
Chronological and Background Charts of the Old Testament
The Church of the Ancient Councils: The Disciplinary Work of the First Four Ecumenical Councils
A Concise Exegetical Grammar of New Testament Greek
The Conservative Reformation and Its Theology
Cyril and Methodius of Thessalonica: The Acculturation of the Slavs
The Desert a City: An Introduction to the Study of Egyptian and Palestian Monasticism Under the Christian Empire
A Dictionary of Early Christian Beliefs
The Didache: A Commentary
A Documentary History of Religion in America (2 vols.)
The Early Church
Early Church and State
The Early Liturgy
The Ecclesiastical Text: Text Criticism, Biblical Authority & the Popular Mind
Elizabeth: Grand Duchess of Russia
From Nicaea to Chalcedon: A Guide to the Literature and Its Background
God & Man in Music
A Grammar for Biblical Hebrew
Gregory of Nyssa: The Life of Moses
Historical Theology: An Introduction to the History of Christian Thought
A History of Christian Thought: Volume 1: From the Beginnings to the Council of Chalcedon
A History of Christian Thought: Volume 2: From Augustine to the Eve of the Reformation
A History of Israelite Religion in the Old Testament Period
Homiletic Moves and Structures
The Institutes
Isaiah II
Jesus Through the Centuries: His Place in the History of Culture
Josephus: The Complete Works
The Koran
The Later Christian Fathers: A Selection from the Writings of the Fathers from St. Cyril of Jerusalem to St. Leo the Great
Latin Can be Fun
Lexical Aids for Students of New Testament Greek
Licht auf dem Weg Band II.
The life of Christ
Mark: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary
Maximus Confessor: Selected Writings
Morphology of Biblical Greek, The
Mystery Of The Church
The New Testament: An Orthodox Perspective
On Ascetical Life (Popular Patristics Ser.)
On Christian Teaching
On Searching the Scriptures — Your Own or Someone Else’s: A Reader’s Guide to Sacred Writings and Methods of Studying Them
On the Divine Images: Three Apologies Against Those Who Attack the Holy Images
On the Incarnation: De Incarnatione Verbi Dei
On the Soul and the Resurrection: St Gregory of Nyssa
On Wealth and Poverty
A Practical Grammar for Classical Hebrew
Proper Distinction Between Law and Gospel
Pseudo Dionysius: The Complete Works
Rome, Constantinople, Moscow: Historical and Theological Studies
The Septuagint with Apocrypha: Greek and English
St John Chrysostom: Six Books on the Priesthood
St. Basil the Great on the Holy Spirit
St. Cyril of Jerusalem’s Lectures on the Christian Sacraments: The Procatechesis and the Five Mystagogical Catecheses
St. Innocent: Apostle to America
ST.JUSTIN MARTYR:FIRST+SECOND APOLOGIES
The Study of Liturgy
Understanding the Nicene Creed,
What Luther Says: A Practical In-Home Anthology for the Active Christian

If you are interested in any of these books, or any combination thereof, please contact me in the comments on the blog or follow the directions in the PDF file. You can make me an offer on any book if you think the asking price isn’t right. Thanks!

-LL

Good Shepherd Sunday (Misericordias Domini 2010)

ToddPeperkorn — Wed, 21 Apr 2010 13:46:26 +0000

Todd A. Peperkorn, STM
Messiah Lutheran Church
Kenosha, Wisconsin
Easter 2 – Misericordias Domini (April 18, 2010)
John 10:11-16

TITLE: “A Shepherd in Sheep’s Clothing”

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen. Our text for this morning is from St. John chapter 10, “I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.” (John 10:11 ESV)

Jesus Christ is risen from the dead! The tender mercies of God (Introit) are manifest to us in His Son’s resurrection. Jesus the Good Shepherd is bound up in Jesus the Risen One. God raised Him from the dead, and now He Himself goes out and searches for the lost, the sheep of His pasture that have strayed away from him.

In one place our Lord described us as “harassed and helpless like sheep without a shepherd.” (Matt. 9:36) Do you feel that way? Are you harassed on every side? Are you rudderless, lost, and without direction? Does it almost seem to you like no one is in charge, and that things continue to happen however they will, sometimes good, sometimes bad? God knows your own trials of body and soul, and He longs to gather you into Himself.
One thing is for certain, God has great plans for you, dearly beloved. St. Peter put it this way in our Epistle:

“He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness.” (1 Peter 2:24 ESV)

God longs to hold you and keep you in the palm of His hand. God longs to keep you safe, to feed you. He doesn’t want you to continue to cling to sin like an old shoe that fits great but is bad for your feet. These sins, you don’t need them! They are not you anymore. Yet every day it seems as those you and I continue down the same lost paths, we commit the same sins, we wander away like sheep that don’t know any better. Why do we do this? We do this because we don’t know any better.

Yet our Heavenly Father longs to draw you to the still waters of His Word, and to give you good pasture, to feed you with the food of eternal life. God wants to give you all things in His Son, Jesus Christ our Lord. In our Gospel for today, Jesus talked about the relationship between Himself and His people, the sheep.

Now I don’t know about you, but I don’t actually interact with sheep much in my daily life. We city folks don’t have much of a sense of what it is like to try and round up a hundred sheep, keep them together and safe, feed and water them, guard them against wolves and other predators, and the like. We don’t know by experience how sheep really are.

Sheep sometimes get a bad rap as being a dumb animal. Now that isn’t really fair. It would probably better to say that sheep are herd animals, or that they are trusting animals. They will follow together, and are rarely in groups of less than four or five. What this means in real terms is that if a sheep goes astray, it’s likely led astray. And if it does go astray by itself, it’s almost totally helpless.

So of all the animals to use as an analogy for us, why would God use this one? And how does this help to teach us about the Resurrected Jesus and His life for us as the Good Shepherd?

It means this. You and I by nature are followers. We may follow other people, we may follow our hearts or our desires, but we are followers. Even when we rebel, we rebel in imitation of the truth. Because you and I have followed down the wrong paths for so long, God must shepherd us back. God must draw us to Him, keep us in Him, guard us, feed, us and lead us to the still waters. He says it this way in Ezekiel,

“Behold, I, I myself will search for my sheep and will seek them out.” (Ezekiel 34:11–12 ESV)

Now this is all good, but simply saying that the Lord is my Shepherd can be an empty phrase. Jesus the Good Shepherd can quickly become no more than a pat saying, a plaque on a wall or hallmark theology. It has no flesh and blood because we don’t know what it means.

So this is where we talk about the Church. Christ is risen from the dead, ascended into heaven, but He is not absent. He is hidden, and He hides Himself here, in His Church. The church is Christ’s tool, His voice, His hands. There is a strong relationship between the Good Shepherd and the under-shepherds of His Church. When Christ returned to heaven, He appointed apostles to be His messengers, His ambassadors. Those apostles were to preach in His name, forgive sins on His behalf, baptize and deliver His body and blood to the sheep, God’s people.

When Paul spoke to the pastors of the Church at Ephesus, he said it like this, “Be on guard for yourselves and for all the flock, among which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to shepherd the church of God which He purchased with His own blood.” (Acts 20:28 NAS95)

God has put a pastor into your life to serve you. In this case it is me, but God of course could and has used many others for this same purpose. The person of the pastor is not important. The office of the pastor for us is the link between God’s Word and God’s people. In the Lutheran Confessions we say it this way:

Thank God, ‹today› a seven-year-old child knows what the Church is, namely, the holy believers and lambs who hear the voice of their Shepherd [John 10:11–16].1

God has raised Jesus Christ from the dead. He is your Good Shepherd, who guides you to the paths of eternal life because of His tender mercy. He preaches to you, waters you, feeds you, protects you from evil within and without. You dwell in the house of the Lord forever.

Listen to His Voice, for in His Word you have eternal life. Follow the voice of the Shepherd, the voice you heard at your Baptism, the voice you hear as you receive His Body and Blood in the Holy Sacrament, the voice you will hear at the Last Day when He will raise you and all believers to eternal life. Listen to that voice, for in it you have eternal life. Believe it for Jesus’ sake. Amen.

And now the peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in true faith to life everlasting. Amen.

Some of the concepts in this sermon were received with thanksgiving from the book Preaching from the Whole Bible, by Bo Giertz. If you use the one year lectionary, GO BUY THIS BOOK. I use it all the time.

1 Concordia : The Lutheran Confessions. 2005 (Edited by Paul Timothy McCain) (283). St. Louis, MO: Concordia Publishing House.

We are back in print and available NOW

ToddPeperkorn — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 16:54:31 +0000

[Reprinted from my other blog]

I Trust When Dark My Road: A Lutheran View of Depression first went into print last June. All of the copies from the first printing were taken before it even entered the building at LCMS World Relief and Human Care. The book has touched many lives with the Gospel, and I believe has served as a great opportunity for pastoral care to many people.

So after a six month hiatus, we are back in print! Thanks be to God.

The book is free, just as it was before. They are, however, charging a small amount for shipping. I’m very glad to hear this, as it will allow them to keep their costs lower and to make more of them available in the long run.

So what can you do to help spread the word about this free resource? Here are a few ideas:

Tell people either by email or in person. You can send them to my web site and I will have the easy link setup in a prominent place.
Write a review of the book on your blog, web site, or even in your church newsletter.
Review it or at least rate it on one of the several online review places. Here are a few of them: Goodreads, LibraryThing, Google Books, or anyplace is that you may review it.
Ask your church secretary to put a notice in your church bulletin about the availability of the book. Here’s a sample bulletin insert:

Are you trapped in the fog of depression? Do you know someone you love who suffers from depression or anxiety? I Trust When Dark My Road: A Lutheran View of Depression is now available at no charge from LCMS World Relief and Human Care. Call (888) 843-5267 to order your free copy, or go to the web site darkmyroad.org for more information.
Show this to your pastor, and encourage him to order up to five free copies for pastoral care and use at the congregation.

Thanks for all your help and support, friends! God is merciful, and He continues to bring healing and hope to His hurting children.

Pastor Todd Peperkorn
I Trust When Dark My Road: A Lutheran View of Depression

My Light and My Salvation: A Review

ToddPeperkorn — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 15:42:42 +0000

My Light and My Salvation by Kurt E. Reinhardt

My rating: 4 of 5 stars
This little volume by Pastor Kurt E. Reinhardt is a real treasure. Like nearly every volume of poetry I’ve ever read, the quality varies from page to page, but in this one, the quality is consistently quite good.

The book itself is beautiful, which a gorgeous color cover of our Lord, it makes the 68 page book worth it almost in it’s own right. The print is easy to read and well laid out.

The poetry is generally hymnic in format, with metered lines that could easily be adapted for singing. I found myself with several of the poems wishing that I could sing it in church on a given Sunday, because it was wed to the text so well. A perfect example of this would be “With Longing Heart the Father Waits,” which is based on the parable of the Prodigal Son from Luke 15:11-32. The meter for this poem is 8 7 8 8, and really sings of the grace that our heavenly Father longs to give to His wayward children. The final stanza is an example:

With longing heart our Father waits
For His lost children at His gates;
A ring, a cloak, and shoes lie near
While Love's own feast awaits them here.

The real strength of the volume, however, I think lies more in the poems which speak of the spiritual trials that the Christian faces. There are too many to quote to really give a full sense of it, but here is one example from “O Jesus, Master, Hear Me”:

O Jesus, Master, bear me,
For I am tired and weary,
All strength from me has fled;
At last I know true weakness,
And crave from You in meakness,
Your mighty arms to be my bed.

Another real treasure in here is some additional verses to well known hymns that the author has either translated or written himself. He includes several stanzas of newly translated verses of Beautiful Savior, and two communion related stanzas for Just as I am, .

This book is available from Redeemer Press , and is $15 plus shipping.

-Rev. Todd Peperkorn

View all my reviews >>

Making it All Work: A quick review

ToddPeperkorn — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 20:17:23 +0000

Making It All Work: Winning at the Game of Work and Business of Life by David Allen

My rating: 5 of 5 stars
This book, along with Getting Things Done The Art of Stress-Free Productivity, is one of the most influential books for me in terms of reducing stress, increasing productivity, and generally having a much more peaceful worldview.

As a pastor, I am constantly torn between the desire to be productive and to engage in pastoral care with my congregation. Allen has helped me to put all of these things into perspective, and has allowed me to balance the various parts of my life (home and family, work, play) in such a way so that I am able to gain both control and perspective on how I spend my time and energy.

I would recommend this book for anyone who is stressed, overworked, feels like their life is out of control, or who wants to gain a bigger view of how all the parts of their life fit together.

View all my reviews >>