This is part two of my bible study on President Harrison’s book on joy.
Also as a note, the YouTube video just zips through it quickly because it is showing the presentation. Â There is no audio, etc. Â Enjoy!
A Little Bible Study on Joy: Part Two – in Keynote
A Little Bible Study on Joy: Part Two – in Powerpoint
A Little Bible Study on Joy: Part Two – in PDF
A Little Bible Study on Joy: Part Two (YouTube)
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. Â This is a book that I continue to devour with much, uh, joy. Â 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. Â I welcome anyone’s comments or criticisms. Â You are free to use them as you see fit. Â 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. Â There is no audio, etc. Â 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)
I wrote this one as a mindmap, so I don’t have a printed text for you. Â But here is the audio:
(Why groups like the ACELC aren’t helpful: Part Three)
So let’s get to the point. Â I am going to make a couple presumptions here from my reading of the ACELC, its documents and stated goals. Â If I have misunderstood or misrepresented those goals, I will gladly receive correction.
As I read the stated intents of the ACELC, it is to fraternally point out and exhort the LCMS and its leadership to A) recognize the errors in doctrine and practice in our midst and B) to correct these errors.
The presumption that the ACELC then makes is that the divisions in theology and practice may be addressed using our current structure. Â The problem as they have structured it is A) ignorance of what the errors are, hence the evidence of errors and the teaching materials; B) Disagreement over what actually are errors (hence the ACELC fraternal admonition and other supporting documents); or C) We don’t have elected officials who will follow through with questions of discipline over either pastors/church workers or congregations.
The way that Lutherans in the twentieth century sought reform (at least in the Missouri Synod) is two-fold.  The first is more or less what the ACELC seeks to do.  That is, draw a line in the sand, demonstrate the errors, condemn false doctrine, and set oneself up more or less against the institutional status quo.  We can see this in The Confessional Lutheran, the formation of the Orthodox Lutheran Conference (and similar groups after it), in Christian News, in Affirm, Consensus, and many other groups big or small.
The second way basically has been to seek to elect godly and faithful men (and women) to various offices in the church, the goal being that if the right people are elected, then the right things will start to happen. Â We saw this leading up to the election of JAO Preus II, the election of A.L. Barry, and most recently with the election of Matthew Harrison. Â It has also happened on a much smaller scale at the district or even the circuit level.
Certainly to a certain degree I recognize and agree with both of these approaches. Â We should recognize the wea
knesses and errors in our midst, repent of them, receive absolution and move forward as a church body. Â We should also seek to elect godly and faithful people to work. Â I have no qualms whatsoever with anyone in the LCMS who wants to agitate to elect this or that candidate. Â This is our structure, and if that doesn’t happen, then we are simply agreeing with the status quo.
But this is the heart of the problem. Â Our structure and system is broken. Â Maybe it never really worked in the first place.
This is why.
As long as we elect district president, synodical president, and various other positions of leadership in the church, and most importantly, reelect them on a regular cycle, it is impossible for our church body to exercise church discipline of any sort.
The reason is very simple.  A district president (or synodical president) is always 3 years away from another election.  He is elected and reelected by the very people whom he has been called to exercise discipline over.  That is what we might call “biting the hand that feeds you.”  This approach can’t work, for the very same reason that Walther and others have rejected temporary calls.  If I as a pastor have to constantly worry about whether my pastoral care and discipline of my sheep is going to be up for review/renewal, and that my ability to remain as the pastor is dependent upon my sheep either liking me or even agreeing with me, then my ability to serve them is compromised.  I don’t see how I can reject the temporary call of pastors and at the same time assent to the temporary call (election, whatever term you want to use) of district presidents that are then expected to exercise pastoral discipline.
If we as a church body want to act like a church and receive discipline, then we must have pastors who are able to exercise that discipline. Â Yes, I am talking about bishops. Â But if we as a church are unwilling to accept that authority, then I don’t see how we can accept our “leaders” to exercise that authority.
I am not trying to be a hyper-Euro-Lutheran, or suggest that the way of bishops is without its dangers.  I fully recognize that as long as we are dealing with fallible men as pastors/bishops, abuse will happen.  But the way we are currently structured in my opinion makes it pretty much impossible for any kind of discipline to actually happen at either the pastoral, congregational, or district level.
I am happy to be convinced otherwise here.  Please do so.  But after looking at our own history for some time, I don’t see any other conclusion.
In Christ,
Pastor Todd A. Peperkorn
Messiah Lutheran Church (LCMS)
Kenosha, Wisconsin
[I am indebted in part to my friend Ken Kelly, for his insights into the text. Â He probably won’t like the sermon anyway, but I’ll mention him nonetheless…-LL]
There is always a temptation when it comes to the healing miracles of Jesus to look for a deeper meaning, to find the hidden message in the bottle of the story that takes an expert to find. What does this story have to do with the doctrine of justification, or thankfulness, or stewardship, or whatever it is that you are interested in right now? When we come to a story and read the bible, it is very easy to draw our own needs and wants and desires into the event, so that the actual event gets lost.
So what happens in this story? Let’s unpack it to make sure we understand everything.
Jesus is traveling from Galilee south to Jerusalem. He is going around the land of Samaria, right on the edge of it. This is the part of the country where no good Jew would voluntarily travel. You know what parts of town we’re talking about here. The Jews and the Samaritans did not intermingle. They were just close enough to each other to be very, very different. The differences weren’t economic or strictly racial. The difference was religion, that most divisive of things. The Samaritans only accepted the first five books of Moses, and rejected the Temple in Jerusalem entirely. So the Jews would have nothing to do with them. And Jesus is right on the edge of their country.
As he is traveling and enters a border town village, Jesus is met by 10 lepers. We can understand the plight of these ten lepers to a certain extent, although not as well as we might think. In our society today, if you have a terrible contagious disease, you are treated for it. Even the poorest in our country would receive medical care, and the politicians would fight later about who is going to pay for it. But it was not so in Jesus’ day. In Jesus’ day, these men had to wear black, and probably had to wear something that looked almost like a cowbell around their necks. They have to cry out unclean, unclean when others came near to them. So they are shunned by their family and friends alike. But perhaps the greatest pain and sorrow that these men had to endure is that they were shut off from the house of God. In our Introit for the day from Psalm 84, David cries out, How lovely is Your tabernacle, O LORD of hosts! My soul longs, yes, even faints for the courts of the LORD. There was a longing in Jesus’ day to be in the house of God. Maybe it come from the travel of the Israelites. Maybe it came from their years of Exile and wandering. But there was no question that in the piety of the people of Jesus’ day, to be in the house of God, well, that is as good as it gets.
Yet that is precisely where these lepers were left to fend for themselves. Because they were ritually unclean, they could not enter into God’s house, they could not be in the very presence of God in His Holy Temple. They longed for it. They knew that this is where the children of Israel belonged. But it was not to be so. Their disease prevented them from entering into God’s house.
So they come to Jesus and beg Him for mercy. Jesus tells them to go visit the priests, who could judge whether they were cleansed or not. While they are on the way, they are cleansed of their leprosy. Wonder of wonders! Jesus told Nicodemus that in order to gain eternal life that he must be born again. Well, these men now look like they did go back through their mother’s womb and came out whole on the other side! It’s hard to imagine for us what kind of joy that must have brought.
One of them turns around and does the polite thing that your mother always told you to do. He returns and gives thanks to Jesus. He falls at Jesus’ feet and thanks him over and over again.
So what is the miracle here? What is the point of this story? It would be very easy to make it about thankfulness, or one of the other many themes that kind of run through our heads after hearing the texts so many times. But at the end of the day, the point of the text is very simple: Jesus healed the man. It is really that simple.
Jesus, God in the flesh, came down to earth to fix what was broken in your life. The big and the little. The eternal and the temporal. Jesus comes to make things right that have gone oh so wrong. He does it by the authority of His Word. Proverbs reminds us to be attentive to the words of Jesus, for they are life to those who find them, and healing to all their flesh.
So the question for you today, who come to hear the words of Jesus, is this: what has Jesus promised to do for you? Do you know? Do you believe His words? He promises forgiveness of sins, life and salvation for you. He promises to heal your diseases and to make everything right that is wrong. That is His promise to you.
Believe His Word of promise to you, just as this Samaritan believed His Word. Jesus gives you a pledge, a sign and token that is proof of His Word. He gives you His own body and blood to you so that you might live. It is as if Jesus says to you, “here I am. My word is my bond. Trust in me, for I will give you all that you need for this body and life. And to prove this to you, I give you my own body and blood. I pledge myself to you. You are clean by my uncleanness for you.â€
Trust in His word of promise for. Jesus is as good as His Word, and His Word for you this day is a great one indeed. Amen.