Out-Singing Hopelessness

Dr. Paulson discusses contemporary rejections of Martin Luther.

Many of us have experienced what it feels like to wait and to remain patient this year. This Advent, we are reminded of how the saints before us experienced similar feelings of uncertainty, need, and hopeful expectation as they awaited - both faithfully and unfaithfully - for God to fulfill his promises.

To a world enslaved to time (because it has no future), the Church's disregard for clocks and calendars is ridiculous.

This is an excerpt from Martin Luther’s Commentary on Saint Paul’s Epistle to the Galatians (1535), written by Martin Luther and translated by Haroldo Camacho (1517 Publishing, 2018).

Christians are in a unique position to show the world something truly other-worldly. We are free from living in our world as if it contained all there is.

If our churches are split along generational lines it's because we've turned our backs to the cross. We've shut our ears to the Good News about Jesus Christ, who judges the world with equity.

We're not called to be obedient consumers. We're free in Christ to love and serve our neighbor according to his need

The unrelenting truth of the Gospel is our only hope. Jesus Christ is the unshakeable, unmovable object of our faith. It is this hope in Christ that we find relief and comfort.

While faith forms the relationship with God and love the relationship with the neighbor, hope forms the Christian’s relationship with the future.

In our liquid world, strung out on the meth of evil, full of poor souls fighting to stay afloat, where are you, O God? Don't you care that we are perishing?

When God's Word went to the cross and made full payment for all our sinful, self-serving, self-seeking activities, and then rose from the dead, Jesus added an "always and forever" to our days and life.