Luther's Counsel for the Sick and Dying
As usual, Luther took what he received and turned it inside-out, so that it shifted from a series of demands and became a bestowal of God’s gracious promise.
Contributors
Ken Sundet Jones
Ken Sundet Jones, Professor of Theology and Philosophy at Grand View University in Des Moines, Iowa, loves teaching undergrads. He was born in Heidelberg, which must be why he likes Luther so much. He was shaped by the Sturgis motorcycle rally in his hometown and by summers at his grandparents’ cattle ranch. His doctoral dissertation covered 16th-century German evangelical funeral preaching. And he knows how to do knitting and Scandinavian flat-plane woodcarving.
It is Finished
And when He says, “It is finished,” He doesn’t just mean His life and ministry. He means you, your sin, your brokenness, and ultimately your death.
Ken Jones: The Unforgivable sin
In April of 2019, Christ Hold Fast held a one-day event in Des Moines, Iowa focused on The Hard Sayings of Jesus. Speakers from around the country came together to speak to this topic.
The Feast of Easter
All the piety, rigor, and discipline presented to the world by the believers, the General knew, was done out of fear and the denial of God’s grace
Luther on the Verge: Burning the Papal Bull
The Pope Leo X used the psalm description of a boar uprooting grape vines in a vineyard as a metaphor for what the upstart German monk had been doing at that backwater university.
A Simple Thanksgiving
God’s gifts are received, and the faithful heart offers gratias, and thanks are given in return.
The Treacherous Territory of Preaching Thanksgiving
We are awfully close to the tipping point where Thanksgiving falls completely into the clutches of the advertising world. Where the holiday is treated as just another excuse to get you to buy more stuff and accumulate more goods.
Election Hacking
Divine election hacking happens with the proposal that God’s Word is irrelevant and powerless, weak and impotent.
Learning the Cycle of Gospel Proclamation
True preaching arises when the Holy Spirit steeps the proclaimer in its own cycle of judgment and mercy.
Smashing Babies and Scarred Hands
Whatever loss you’ve undergone, whatever grief resides in the hollow of your heart, however much it seems like God has abandoned you, God sees that void as the place he wants to fill with new life and mercy.
A Look at True Proclamation of the Gospel
The Confessions instead look forward and provide a critique of the world and of all my various religions and idolatries.