Mission in Mark, Part 2

Colleagues, This week’s Thursday Theology features Part 2 of “Mission in Mark,” the tour of Mark’s gospel by Pastor Paul Jaster of Emmanuel Lutheran Church in Elyria, Ohio. In it, Paul begins with a short discussion of Jesus’ shift from the public ministry in Galilee to the private instruction of the disciples—a fitting follow-up for the day after …

“THE FREUDIAN SLIP”

Matthew 6:24-34 Crossings Conference, Homily 5 January 25, 2012; Morning Prayer   You are hungry. You remember that cookie jar in the kitchen and decide to indulge yourself in a little late afternoon snack. You open the jar already imagining the taste of those chocolate chip cookies. But the jar is empty! No cookies! Who ate them? You …

“YOU GOTTA BE KIDDING?”

Matthew 5:20-37 Crossings Conference, Homily 3 January 24, 2012; Morning Prayer   Perhaps some of you remember one of the best selling books of the 1980’s, Robert Fulghum’s All I Really Need To Know I Learned In Kindergarten. ALL I REALLY NEED TO KNOW about how to live and what to do and how to be I learned …

“A PERFECT WORLD”

 Matthew 5:38-48 Crossings Conference Tuesday, January 24, 2012; Prayer at Midday These are some of the most well known words in all of the New Testament. “Turning the other cheek, . . . going the extra mile, . . .” have almost become clichés. They are startling, surprising, unsettling . . . . and dangerous. I would like …

“WHO DO YOU THINK YOU ARE?”

Matthew 5:1-12 Crossings Conference, Homily 1 January 23, 2012; Morning Prayer   You are patiently waiting in a traffic jam when a car suddenly speeds by on the shoulder passing up all the traffic and cuts in at the last moment just before the lane ends. How can someone be so rude and inconsiderate? All you want to …

“MAKING A DIFFERENCE”

“Matthew 5:13-20 Crossings Conference, Homily 2 January 23, 2012; Evening Prayer   Have you ever eaten french fries without salt? They are bland potatoes. Have you ever lost your electric power in a storm? Groping around in the dark tripping over furniture is no fun. Salt and light make a difference. Jesus uses both images to portray the …

The History of Discipleship in the Lutheran Tradition

Robert Kolb   If we wished to be fundamentalistic, we could make this a very short lecture. Even though Luther used the words for “disciple” and “discipleship,” in his translation of Scripture, the word itself did not become a part of Lutheran theological vocabulary until much later, perhaps first in the twentieth century – Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s Nachfolge (he …

PART TWO: The Disciple and the Church: The Fellowship of Faith

The Gospel-Given Life Discipleship Revisited Introduction: The Problem of the Separation of Discipleship and Church As we noted in Part I, the biblical view of salvation is the key to understanding the biblical notion of discipleship. Discipleship is not first and foremost about what the disciple does for Christ or anyone else for that matter. It is first …