Resources
When a non-believer commits suicide, it can lead to sadness, anger, and many difficult questions for their friends ...
If you have served in the parish for any period, you have ministered to someone suffering from a sense of ...
It is hopeful to say that our suffering is from God, for then we know to whom we must turn is good and omnipotent and will turn our tears into joy in heaven. This is the theology of the cross.
Martin Luther once wrote: “Without trials ... a person can know neither Scripture nor faith, nor can he fear and love God. If he has never suffered, he cannot understand what hope is.”
We ask, “How long will you defend the unjust, O God, and show favor to the wicked?” God points to the cross and ...
How are Christians to respond to this shift in the ethics of medicine today? The path that seems most appropriate ...
In this essay, Hermann Sasse describes the theology of the “two regimens” (more commonly called “two kingdoms”) of the state and the church. Sasse addresses the widespread misunderstanding of the kingdom of God.
We are all citizens of two kingdoms. One is the kingdom of this world. Christian citizenship will advance the cause of movements that strengthen the guarantees of order and law, keep separate church and state, keep sacred the institution of marriage, and protect the morals of youth.
Every person is a subject of two kingdoms — one spiritual, the other earthly. Both the godly and ungodly are citizens of an earthly kingdom or country. However, Lutherans are not always as great a blessing to their country as they should be.
In Martin Luther’s teaching on the dual existence of the Christian, we observe a connection with the teaching of the two governments or two kingdoms. The Christian does not seek to escape or withdraw from the world as in monasticism, but rather he lives out his calling in the particular place where God has located him.
Luther puts it strongly: Vocations are “masks of God.” On the surface, we see an ordinary human face — our mother, the doctor, the teacher, the waitress, our pastor — but, beneath the appearances, God is ministering to us through them. God is hidden in human vocations.
Every Christian — indeed, every human being — has been called by God into a family. Our very existence came about by our parents. Martin Luther said, “God has given this walk of life, fatherhood and motherhood, a special position of honor, higher than that of any other walk of life under it.”