The conversion of Paul

Today's readings: Acts 9:1-22, Psalm 67, Galatians 1:11-24 (sermon text), and Matthew 19:27-30.

Listen to your older siblings in Christ. They can pass their knowledge on to you, and you to your younger siblings. Occasionally, siblings give bad advice (in which case: ask your parents!). But not with Paul - he's divinely inspired. He was responsible for the Galatians' safety. So he wrote the letter to them. They were falling from the one pure and true Gospel, so Paul exhorted them to return.

He'd experienced the wrong way (before Damascus) for years. He was zealous in this wrong road. Now he was instead zealous for the Gospel and protective of all his younger siblings. First he had heeded Jesus, his and our oldest Brother. Not only was Paul a convert, but he was also a preacher of the Gospel by grace.

We may not have persecuted the Church, yet we're still sinners. But we're also saved, found, and rescued by grace alone through faith alone in Jesus Christ alone. Therefore, as His brothers and sisters, let us rejoice and exult and tell others! Listen to your older brothers and sisters in Christ, for they are there to give you the very Word of Life.

I go back to the unnamed institution of higher learning today. God bless all in college.

Life Sunday

Today's readings: Acts 4:8-13, Psalm 139, 2 Peter 1:1-15 (sermon text), and Mark 8:27-35.

God is life; we share Him with others, spreading this precious life to others. However, our society - even some Protestant churches - has no respect for human life. Let's look at Peter's confession. He confessed Jesus as the Christ, equivalent to YHWH, Life itself. Granted, Peter didn't understand the cross at this time, but his confession was still true.

God's life given to Adam and Eve was perfect and intended to be eternal. But the two chose to place themselves above life itself. Therefore sin is a perversion of life; abortion, a gory manifestation of sin. In ancient times, both abortion and infanticide were legal. Early Christians knew that life is precious, so they opposed both sins with all their might.

King Herod tried to kill infant Jesus too. But the Author of life had His own timetable, for He is after all the Lord of life. Now we have life in Him (see explanation to the 1st article of the Apostles' Creed). Therefore we need to protect life, whether it be unborn infants, the elderly, or anyone in between. God cares; we should too.

Next week's sermon notes will be posted later, possibly on Monday, since I won't have access to a computer for the better part of the day.

Christmas 3 (Christ's baptism)

Today's readings: Genesis 1:1-5 (sermon text), Psalm 29, Romans 6:1-11, and Mark 1:4-11.

In both the Old Testament and Gospel readings, the Trinity is present (although less obviously in the OT reading). Let's examine both.

Genesis 1:1 - God the Father is the creator of everything, including time. We tend to forget the big picture in the day-to-day, but God doesn't forget us. Pagans can never be at peace, conversely, because they don't know the true God. First He created matter.

But the Theory of Evolution (note large E) doesn't account for this origin of matter - it has to assume that matter is eternal (what did you know, it's an article of faith!). Yet we're the ones accused of hanging everything on faith... Evolution posits that all life is the result of mistakes and a huge amount of time. Creation, meanwhile, posits that all life is the result of a loving Creator and therefore less time.

The Trinity is present in Genesis 1:3 - the Father created all things along with the Son (John 1:1), while the Spirit hovered over the waters. Verse 26 speaks of "Us" (the Trinity talking among the Persons) creating man. Day 1 - light was created because Jesus is the Light of the world. The Father was well pleased with both light and Light. This Light guides us to walk by the right path, seeing God as the source of all things, of the meaning of life. Turn to the Word. Remember that light is separate from darkness.

Side note to old-earth creationists: Why would the text of Genesis have "evening and morning" for each day if the days were thousand-year periods?

Christmas 2

Today's readings: 1 Kings 3:4-15, Ephesians 1:3-14, and Luke 2:40-52.

There's another Christmas story told here: God on earth in a humble 12-year-old boy. He looks quite ordinary, so how could He be God's Son? The text states that God's favor was upon His only-begotten, so much so that Christ could extend the favor of God to all of mankind. Mary, Joseph, and the extended family were at Jerusalem because of the Passover. The irony: the Passover Lamb was already traveling with them! Jesus followed the law of Moses until the Crucifixion, the sin offering for the whole world. He and His family went up "according to custom" because Christ had to fulfill the Law perfectly.

He stayed behind in Jerusalem because the Temple was there, the dwelling of God's glory. His parents didn't do a head count. The teachers of the Law were rightly impressed with Christ's perfect knowledge of the Word (after all, He'd written it - and, of course, studied it from young childhood). Later He would be consumed with zeal for God's house. It shows our corresponding lack of commitment to the Word in favor of our word.

Pray that godly zeal would consume you - read the Word, guard it, meditate upon it, study it. You have much to understand, as Mary and Joseph did. Be submissive to God as Jesus submitted to His parents. Through His submission He forgave your sin.

And that is what Christmas is all about.