The Crossings Blog

Colleagues, Here is the second half of Matthew Becker’s paper on Werner Elert that some of us heard at the Crossings conference in January. It calls for the closest reading you can give it; and if, like me, you keep a stash of essential “must-keep” theological essays for future reference and sharing, you’ll want to add ...

Colleagues, Dr. Matthew Becker of Valparaiso University was one of three core presenters at our Crossings conference last January. The theme, arising from Romans 1:16-17, was “The Power of the Gospel for Times Like These.” To further focus our thinking, we prepended that title with “Up Weak Knees,” a line borrowed from the English translation of ...

Colleagues, We’re not quite two weeks into the 2018 Easter season, and again I’m noticing a phenomenon that impresses me more and more as I speed toward retirement in a few years. There is no such thing as milking an Easter text dry. No matter how often a preacher picks it up to shake and squeeze ...

Colleagues, I get together every three weeks or so with a group of pastors, some active, some retired, to explore the texts for forthcoming Sundays. We’re due to meet next Monday to get a jump on Easter. I volunteered to tackle the Easter Festival texts. Earlier today I rummaged through my files and unearthed some work ...

Colleagues, Here is the second part of the paper that launched the 2018 Crossings conference at the end of last month. Two weeks have gone by since I sent you the first part. When introducing that I encouraged you to mull on the coincidence of Ash Wednesday and Valentine’s Day on February 14. Love’s day arrived, and hate ...

Colleagues, A week and a day have gone by since the party broke up in Belleville, Illinois. I refer as you might guess to the Seventh International Crossings Conference that was held there on the last three days of January. The group of 60 or so who gathered included a wonderful mix of both new and ...

Colleagues, This is John 1 season. We sampled it on the Third Sunday of Advent (1:6-8, 29-28). The main course followed on Christmas Day (1:1-14). Where I do most of my work, a pesky saint has finally prevailed on me to tackle the Gospel of John in the Sunday morning Adult Education class. I consented with ...

Colleagues, Below is the final installment of our serial post on Luther and mission, penned 15 years ago by Ed Schroeder. Here Ed moves from reportage to analysis and assessment. He also stirs the pot with some polite though pointed critique of positions and trends that people who passed as he did, from the LCMS to ...

Colleagues, Here is the next installment of Ed Schroeder’s exploration of Luther’s thinking on the topic of mission. Peace and Joy, Jerry Burce ______________________________________________  Luther’s Theology of Mission (continued) by Edward H. Schroeder C. The Sermon from 1536 The Mission Mandate Here Luther is struck by the overwhelming magnitude of the mission mandate. “These are words of impressive majesty, pure majesty. Jesus commands ...

Colleagues, Here is the second half of Rudolf Keller’s essay on Luther the human being, a sinner who trusted Christ. One of you wrote over the weekend to say that Part One was “the best thing I’ve read in the avalanche of materials on the 500th anniversary.” I trust the rest of it will be just ...