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I am wondering if you know of other Christian denominations besides Catholic and Lutheran who view communion as the true body and blood rather than a symbolic act of remembrance. Also, I am trying to understand where the word (or concept) of sacraments came from. You say that the Holy Spirit reaches people through the word and sacraments, but where in the Bible is that stated? When I read in the new testament about baptism it was something people obediently did following there conversion as an outward statement of their faith, symbolic of washing their sins away, and when the Bible says about communion that people need to recognize the body and blood of Christ, he was speaking of those who were getting drunk and eating too much and not waiting for anyone else. In other words, not remembering and acknowledging that Christ died for their sins. I don't see anything indicating in the Bible that these are "sacraments" or anything other that simply being obedient to Christ.
All the various branches of the Eastern Orthodox would also be included among those viewing communion as much more than a mere symbolic act.The term "sacrament" is not a Biblical term, but a word that came from the Latin translation of the Scriptures (the Vulgate). The use of the term "sacrament" is not essential, but there are two unique blessings of God in Scripture that have three things in common for which our Lutheran church has used the word "sacrament." Holy Baptism and the Lord's Supper 1) have been instituted by Christ; 2) connect an earthly element (water, bread and wine) with the spoken Word of God; and 3) give and seal to us the gifts which Christ has won for us. Whatever term we assign to those two blessings of God is not the key thing. What is important is what the Scriptures teach about Holy Baptism and Lord's Supper.
We are convinced from Scripture that the two sacraments are most precious gifts of gospel comfort and power for our hearts and lives. To understand the sacraments to be nothing "other than simply being obedient to Christ" is to take gifts of gospel (God freely doing something for us) and turn them into law (actions of obedience from us to God). Look at the following passages of Scripture in which the sacraments are mentioned and ask a simple question: who is doing the work and who is receiving the benefit?
"Then [Jesus] took the cup, gave thanks and offered it to them, saying, `Drink from it, all of you. This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins'" (Matthew 28:22-23). (By the way, if Jesus would have wanted merely to symbolize and remind us of his death, he had a much better picture of himself than bread and wine right there on the Passover table. The Passover lamb eaten at that same meal was already an Old Testament picture of the Christ!)
"Peter replied, `Repent and be baptized every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. The promise is for you and your children and for all who are far off - for all whom the Lord our God will call'" (Acts 2:38-39). (Notice how Peter connects both the Holy Spirit and the gift of forgiveness to the baptism to which he calls those who "were cut to the heart" by their sins.)
"You are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus, for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ" (Galatians 3:26-27). (Notice here that baptism is both the certainty that we have become children of God as well as the gift which clothes us personally in the righteousness record our Savior lived in our place.)
"Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word" (Ephesians 5:25-26). (Notice that baptism, here called "washing with water through the word," is what cleanses us and makes us a part of the sparkling bride [the Holy Christian Church] in whom our Bridegroom, Jesus Christ, delights!)
"But when the kindness and love of God our Savior appeared, he saved us, not because of righteous things we had done, but because of his mercy. He saved us through the washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit, whom he poured out on us generously through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that, having been justified by his grace, we might become heirs having the hope of eternal life" (Titus 3:4-7). (Notice here that what happens in the "washing of rebirth" is that all that Christ has done for everyone in the world is communicated to us personally so that we now become heirs who enjoy present blessings and a future eternal inheritance!)
"And this water [of the flood] symbolizes baptism that now saves you also - not the removal of dirt from the body but the pledge of a good conscience toward God. It saves you by the resurrection of Jesus Christ" (1 Peter 3:21). (Here notice that baptism twice is credited with saving us. How could a mere symbol save us? Baptism saves us because it makes a personal connection between the sinner and his resurrected Savior. Notice that Peter also stresses that baptism is not primarily an outward action, but something that gives us a good conscience before God.)
In passage after passage, God is the one who is active in the sacraments. We are the ones who receive the blessings! As little as you would give credit to the person who sits down to eat a fabulous banquet instead of to the one who provided the banquet, so little do we want to emphasize what we "do" in the sacraments compared to what God is doing as he lays before us a banquet table of salvation. Indeed we do "come" to Holy Baptism and the Lord's Supper. But we come as beggars who are then received as sons and daughters by our gracious Savior. What an empty shell of themselves Holy Baptism and the Lord's Supper become when they are stripped of their gospel promises and made mere outward ceremonies by which we show obedience to God. In Holy Baptism and the Lord's Supper, we don't have mere symbolism, we have present and ongoing real gifts of grace. Why turn gospel into law and rob the Church of God of these precious assurances and promises that come from our gracious Savior?
By the way, please also notice that in 1 Corinthians those who were getting drunk and abusing the Lord's table, were not just sinning against symbols, but were "guilty of sinning against the body and blood of the Lord" (1 Corinthians 11:28). Clearly their actions were as disgraceful as they were not because they were abusing mere symbols, but because they were disregarding and disgracing the very "body and blood of the Lord."
Recently I've been asked about the Muslim religion and how it differs from what the Bible teaches. I would like to know this and what would be a good approach in talking with someone who is confused by this topic.
Islam is a monotheistic religion that sees itself as very distant from the polytheism of heathenism. It is, however, a "heathen" religion in that it does not know Christ as the Savior. Islam rejects the Trinity and the deity of Christ.Islam is a religion of the Law, very similar in many ways to Pharisaic Judaism. Its moral laws are very similar to those of Christianity and Judaism, and its ceremonial laws are a variant of those of Judaism (no pork, no alcohol, etc.).
Its central confession is that there is no God but Allah and Muhammed is his messenger or prophet. It recognizes Moses, David, and Jesus as preliminary prophets, but Muhammed is the last and greatest prophet for all people. It emphasizes prayer, pilgrimage, and charity among its religious works.
We must approach Muslims as we would any other people who do not believe in Christ. They need to know their sin and their Savior. Muslims do not recognize their need for a Savior because they do not recognize their sin. They think that the sin that separates us from God is only the gross sins of unbelievers rather than the sinful thoughts, words, and deeds we all commit every day.
They often think that Christians believe that Jesus, a man, became God, or even that the Trinity is God, Mary, and Jesus. It is best to approach the doctrine of the Trinity by showing them that our sin made it necessary for God to become man to be our Savior.
Muslims are often a quite confrontational and do not shrink from a frank airing of the differences between Christianity and Islam.
What are the main differences between the Church of Christ denomination and WELS?
The Churches of Christ are independent congregations. They are not technically a denomination, but a fellowship or association. There is interaction and cooperation among the congregations in lectureships, journals, and colleges or universities. The Churches of Christ have their origin in the Restoration Movement of the 19th century. This movement attempted to restore primitive Christianity by rejecting what the movement's founders considered to be the false accretions of history. The Churches of Christ (Non-Instrumental), for example, reject instrumental music in worship. Like the other churches of the Restoration Movement the Churches of Christ are decidedly non-creedal, rejecting confessions of faith and creeds, which they claim divide the church.Although the Churches of Christ believe that the Bible is the inspired Word of God and the sole authority for the church, it is difficult to make a doctrinal comparison with what our synod teaches because they refuse to publish a confession of faith. The following differences can be gleaned from their writings. As Confessional Lutherans we believe in baptismal regeneration, the real presence of Christ's body and blood in the Lord's Supper, and close(d) communion. The Churches of Christ deny baptismal regeneration and the real presence, and practice open communion. We also believe in the importance of creeds and confessions; the Churches of Christ reject them. Lutherans are liturgical; the Churches of Christ are not.
I will be grateful for any information on the World American Church.
Neither the standard source books nor an internet search revealed any information about the World American Church. It must be either a local church or a new group. The best way to get information about them would be to ask them for their information sheets or tracts and ask a pastor to evaluate it with you. We do not have access to information about this church without more information about their location.
I was wondering, what is the apostolic Lutheran church? Can you tell me about it?
The Apostolic Lutheran Church of America was founded by Finnish Lutherans in this country who had been influenced by Lars Laestadius and the Laestadian Movement in Finland. The group originally organized in 1872 under the name of "Salomon Korteniemi Lutheran Society" after their leader. In 1929 the group incorporated as the Finnish Apostolic Lutheran Church of America. In 1962 the name was changed to the Apostolic Lutheran Church of America.The Apostolic Lutheran Church claims that the Bible is their authoritative guide. Their worship services are simple. They lay a strong emphasis on the universal priesthood of believers with the practice of lay preaching and confession and absolution. They stress personal piety and require total abstinence from alcoholic beverages.
According to recent statistics the Apostolic Lutheran Church totals 57 congregations and 34 pastors. There are 7,700 baptized members but only 3,000 "believers" enjoy the privileges of full membership in the local congregation.
For information about this church and other Lutheran groups you can order WELS and Other Lutherans, by John F. Brug, Edward C. Fredrich III, And Armin W. Schuetze from Northwestern Publishing House. You may also want to consult the Lutheran Cyclopedia published by Concordia Publishing House and Handbook of the Denominations in the United States by Frank S. Mead and Samuel S. Hill, published by Abingdon Press.
Do you have an opinion on supporting St. Jude's Research Hospital for Children?
There are many charitable and educational institutions that have religious roots. Some of them still remain essentially religious organizations. The Salvation Army is a religious denomination, so I would not support its charitable work. Nor would I support the medical work founded by Mother Theresa.Other institutions that had a religious foundation have now moved quite far away from their roots and become secular service organizations. The YMCA has moved quite far from its religious purpose and often supplies health club services for a fee.
St. Jude's web site gives no indication that it is a religious charity. It presents itself as a charity promoted by the Danny Thomas family with corporate and private support. In response to my question about their religious affiliation I received the following response from St. Jude's Hospital.
"We are not affiliated with any religious organization. Our name, St. Jude, comes from our founder, Danny Thomas, who was Catholic. We accept patients from all over the world from any and every religious and ethnic background. The people who support St. Jude Children's Research Hospital are as diverse as our patient and employee population."
What is the WELS view on Dr Laura? Are there ethical points on which WELS and Dr Laura disagree?
As Christians we would agree with Dr. Laura Schlessinger in many areas. She is pro-life, pro-family, pro-children, pro-marriage, and pro-chastity. However, as Christians we differ with Dr. Laura in a key area. We are also pro-Christ while she is not. We believe Jesus Christ is the only way to heaven. Dr. Laura is not a Christian. This is something to remember when listening to her advice. While her message may correctly reflect God's moral law, her message will lack the proper motivation in Christ.
I am writing a report on the differences between Christian and Jewish religions? I am focusing on marriage. Along with other things. What are the main differences between these two religions?
The essential difference between Christianity and Judaism is that Christianity accepts Jesus as the Son of God, the Savior of the world, and Judaism does not. This naturally results in different views of the way to salvation. Biblical Christianity excludes our works from being a cause of salvation. Judaism looks to God's mercy and our works as the cause of God's favor for us, without Jesus' payment for sin.There is no essential difference between the Jewish and Christian teaching of marriage. Both see marriage as an institution of God--the lifelong union of one man and one woman for companionship and mutual help, for the raising of children, and as a proper way of expressing the sexual nature with which God created us. Within both Christianity and Judaism there are those who hold a more liberal view of the permissibility and grounds of divorce than Scripture permits. But in this respect the differences within Christianity and Judaism are greater than any difference between the traditional views of Christianity and Judaism.
I have been watching a lot of a certain TV station of the Seventh Day Adventists. They seem very biblical, and I have learned a lot of scriptural facts from them but emphasize two things I think very strange: worshiping on Saturday is mandatory (it is the true Sabbath day) and people must be vegetarian (the station has a variety of shows, one that I found most amusing was cooking with tofu!) For vegetarianism they cite Daniel 1 because he ate vegetables and water for 2 weeks instead of the king's diet of rich foods. Also they say that wasn't this the diet in the Garden of Eden (God commanded them to eat from any tree in the Garden except the Tree of Knowledge of Good & Evil).
I can see this from two perspectives (the issue of vegetarianism): First, is it possible that they would have a point since man fell into sin and then God gave them all creatures? (Abel sacrificed a lamb, God made the official command to Noah after the flood). Therefore the vegetarian diet is the "diet before sin?" But the negative point is that the diet is mandated by them, where in OT law they eat meat, and in most of the bible people eat some sort of animal product (Jesus ate fish!) so why do the SDA's advocate true veganism?
Please expound on this and their insistence on following the Saturday Sabbath day. I agree that a vegetarian diet is good if all nutrients are obtained and don't eat much meat myself, but what should this have to do with obtaining salvation (I agree we should regard our bodies as the temple of the Lord and take care of ourselves).
In regard to the sabbatarian views of the Seven Day Adventists and similar groups there are two separate issues: on what day should we worship, and how should we observe that day?It is true that God commanded Israel to worship on the seventh day and to observe that day as a day of rest from all regular labor. It is true that we have no right to change any of God's commandments. But it is also true that God has the right to limit the application of commands which he gives to certain people and to certain times. Not all of his commands apply to all people. The command to observe the seventh day as a day of rest was such a limited command. It applied only to Israel and only for the duration of the Old Testament.
The New Testament specifically tells us that we have been freed from the Sabbath command. Paul told the Colossians, " He forgave us all our sins, having canceled the written code, with its regulations, that was against us and that stood opposed to us; he took it away, nailing it to the cross. ...Therefore do not let anyone judge you by what you eat or drink, or with regard to a religious festival, a New Moon celebration or a Sabbath day" (Colossians 2:13-16).
Since Christ has completed the payment for sin and has abolished the ceremonial law which stood as a barrier between the Jews and the Gentiles, we should not let anyone judge us on the basis of whether or not we observe a day of Sabbath rest. We also must refrain from judging others on this basis. "One man considers one day more sacred than another; another man considers every day alike.
Each one should be fully convinced in his own mind. He who regards one day as special, does so to the Lord. ... You, then, why do you judge your brother? Or why do you look down on your brother? For we will all stand before God's judgment seat" (Romans 14:5,6,10). There is no longer a commanded day of Sabbath rest, not even Sunday.
In the Christian church Sunday is not a day of physical rest in the Old Testament sense, but a day for worship in which we obey Christ's command, "Let us not give up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but let us encourage one another--and all the more as you see the Day approaching" (Hebrews 10:25). The first Christians in Jerusalem met daily, not weekly. "Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts" (Acts 2:46). Within twenty years of Jesus death Sunday had apparently become the main meeting day of the church.
Paul commanded, "On the first day of every week, each one of you should set aside a sum of money in keeping with his income, saving it up, so that when I come no collections will have to be made (1 Corinthians 16:20). Revelation 1:10 also seems to refer to Sunday as the Lord's Day. The earliest church fathers also refer to Sunday as the Christian day of worship. It appears that Sunday was chosen because the first day of the week was the day of Jesus' resurrection. We therefore have both the permission of the Lord and the example of the New Testament church in using Sunday as our primary day of worship.
You have already answered the question about vegetarianism. Although meat was not used before the fall, when there was no sin, God specifically authorized the use of meat after the flood. He commanded animal sacrifices. The Old Testament Passover involved eating the lamb, and Jesus himself observed the Passover. Anyone who maintains the vegetarianism is a command of God can do so only by ignoring the Bible.
The two issues you raise are not the real problem with Adventism. They are just symptoms of a much more serious disease. Adventism is a system of legalistic work righteousness which does not truly teach justification by faith. Although some Adventists have tried to teach the biblical view of justification, they have not succeeded in winning the denomination. Since Adventists do not see Christ in Scripture, we have to say they really do not know Scripture at all, no matter how much they quote it. They are like the Jewish legalists of Paul's day who read the Scripture with a veil over their eyes.
I am interested in information concerning the Evangelical Free Church in America. What are the differences between the Lutheran Church and the Evangelical Free Church. Many families are leaving Lutheran churches in our area and a congregation affiliated with the Ev. Free Church.
Although the Evangelical Free Church believes in the verbal inspiration and inerrancy of the Holy Scriptures, we differ with them on a number of teachings. The Evangelical Free Church denies that Baptism and the Lord's Supper are means of grace in the sense that the Lutheran Church uses the term. They teach a personal, premillennial return and reign of Christ on earth. They allow wide latitude in what they consider "non-essentials to salvation," such as Calvinism and Arminianism. Because of this it is safe to say that they either teach or tolerate errors concerning original sin, conversion, and election.
I was hoping to find some reference of comparison of WELS and the Association of Free Lutheran Congregations (AFLC) as that is where my membership resides. Since we are an Association and not a Synod, some do not consider us as a "Lutheran body" since technically we only "associate" with other free & independent Lutheran congregations. We rely heavily on the Holy Spirit to hold us together as there is no hierarchy or controlling force other than God's Word and His Holy Spirit.
The AFLC is sharply differentiated from the WELS by its view of church government and liturgical worship.The AFLC characterizes its position on church government as "an experiment in extreme ecclesiastical democracy and decentralization. ...It is a specific and direct rejection of the superior authority of every ecclesiastical organization above the congregation." A church is free to choose a purely congregational form of government, but it is going beyond Scripture to say that such a form of government is the one mandated by God. Furthermore, no congregation is an island unto itself. Regardless of the form of government that a group of churches has, it is the duty of all of the congregations to discipline any congregation which persists in departing from God's Word, even if their only recourse is to end their association with that congregation. In the WELS congregations are free in matters not regulated by the Word of God, but they are not free to depart from any teaching of Scripture.
The AFLC says that it does not place an emphasis "upon the intricacies of doctrine but upon a living and personal Christian experience." No congregation or individual has a right to depart from any teaching of Scripture even though it seems unimportant to them. We cannot contrast concern for doctrine with a concern for Christian life, because Christian life flows from biblical doctrine. The AFLC appears to allow for a greater diversity in doctrine than the WELS does.
The AFLC says it has " been accused of 'separatism;' yet it has throughout all of its history been earnestly in favor of full spiritual cooperation." If this means that a biblical church can have any form of fellowship with a church which adheres to unscriptural teaching, the WELS would not agree. Recently a congregation joined the AFLC rather than the WELS because it believed it was not in agreement with the teaching of WELS but that its teaching was acceptable in the AFLC. It appeared that this difference was in the doctrine of church fellowship.
The AFLC says that it is a "concrete expression of revolt against ritualism and formalism, and of the desire to nourish the spiritual life in utter simplicity upon the Word of God." Christian churches are free to choose as much or as little liturgical form as they wish, and such differences are not a barrier to fellowship. But at times the AFLC's aversion to liturgical form seems to go beyond a personal preference for a minimum of form.
The AFLC was "conceived to be a kind of ecclesiastical and spiritual leaven in American Lutheranism." In spite of disclaimers, this seems to imply that the AFLC believes the level of spiritual life that its polity and form of worship promote is superior to that of other forms of Lutheranism. It is not clear to us exactly what is meant by the AFLC's "pietistic" emphasis. If it is merely an emphasis on piety, WELS is in agreement with that.
To my knowledge there has never been a formal exploration of a relationship between the AFLC and WELS. To us differences in church polity and worship forms are not in themselves a barrier to fellowship. Differences in doctrine are. The WELS is always open to constructive talks with any church which is committed to Lutheran biblical doctrine to determine if we understand each other's positions correctly and if we are agreed in doctrine.
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Bravo! Bravo!