Saint Matthew's

Just a reminder – Saint Matthew’s weekly Divine Service followed by Bible study will be held in its regular time slot, Wednesday at 7:00pm.

I’ve made a change to our bible study. Instead of taking a topic and beating it to death, we’re going to embark on something new — we’re going to study the Confessions of the church. That’s right! This week, our bible study is being transformed into a Confessions study group, open to all.

Of course, our bible studies were open to all, as well.

In this time of weakened theological stands of various Christian groups and denominations, I thought it would be a good thing to start a study on what makes us who we are as Lutherans.

We start tomorrow night at 7.

After what seems like forever, our Wednesday night bible study begins anew tonight. In November, the week before Thanksgiving, we ended our nearly eight month study of the book of Romans. After reflecting on this course, while enjoyable, I decided to make our Wednesday bible study/class more topical.

Therefore, tonight we begin a study on comparing religions to Christianity. First up in our study is Mormonism.

Also, starting on Sunday, we’ll begin an after-church bible review of our weekly readings. If you don’t want to stay for it, then you can take home a weekly lessons review sheet. But more about this later this week.

I have to find time this afternoon to prepare for tonight’s Wednesday Divine Service and Bible class. After taking last Wednesday night off (went to the Rangers game at the Garden with my brother), I realized this morning that I’m really behind in my preparations for bible class. And the Divine Service – we’re reading this weekend’s coming Epistle reading from Romans 3 (before clicking the link, take a guess as to what section of chapter 3?)

In our bible class, we’re studying Saint Paul’s letter to the Romans and we’re currently in Chapter 9.

I’ve decided to make coffee and pick up cookies for tonight’s bible class.

No, it’s not a bribe. I will need the coffee by then.

(reposted from reviovine.com)

As I sat in my office getting ready for our Midweek Divine Service and bible study last night, I realized something: I was tired.

Not just tired — really, really tired. There is a difference. I can get through a bible class if I am tired, but when I am really bushed, my life becomes much harder. So there I was last night, being really, really tired, and in a bible class.

I just hope that next week I will be a little more lively.

Tonight, our Bible class following our Divine Service is going to be cut short by about 15 minutes. The reason? Tonight’s presidential debate. I was asked if we could shorten the class so people could get home and watch the third and final match-up between the two top presidential contenders.

I said, “OK.” 

But I figured I could get home in time to watch the Third Period of the Sabres-Rangers game on MSG…

Our Sunday morning bible class deals with “Women in the Bible.” Today, we spoke of the judge, Deborah, from Judges 4 and 5. 

The class was interesting in that Deborah is not someone most people know about from the Old Testament.

Join us next week as we look at Ruth.

I’ve been working on this idea for a while – an online bible study magazine for Saint Matthew’s. We will be making it available ONLY via download from our online bible study page. Right now, it will only include the bible study and maybe a couple of information items from Saint Matthew’s. In time, I will include my sermons and other theological writings.

To find the new online bible study page in order to download “Learning +,” click here.

This publication is part of Saint Matthew’s website update. Things are fluid – very soon everything will be normal.

Last night in bible study, I made a mistake.

OK, it wasn’t something glaring. 

I just gave the wrong Scriptural reference.

We were talking about judging others and in the course of our discussion last night, I mentioned James, Chapter 3 as a reference. 

I was wrong – I meant to say James 4. James writes that one should not judge others, for when one does so one also judges the law. There is only one judge and one-lawgiver, and that is God.

We are trying something out for the summer — we’ve moved our Midweek service and Bible class to Tuesdays from Wednesdays starting yesterday. The hope is to see if more people would come and take part in bible class. Wednesdays apparently were too busy for many people and they could not partake in the weekly bible study discussions.

Starting last night, our bible class continued to look at the Lutheran Confessions, namely the Fourth, Fifth, and Sixth commandments. Oh, that was the plan. We never got to the lesson. Instead, we chatted about various things, including the theology behind the Office of the Keys and why we have a crucifix in church.

So, we got some bible stuff done, though not what was planned.

I will be out of town most of Wednesday, attending a funeral down in the Philadelphia area. I should be back later on in the afternoon. Yes, there will be church and Bible study tomorrow night.

Sad. My friend, Thom, had an inoperable brain tumor, but he didn’t want anyone to know. I received a call on Sunday afternoon that he had died. Just another heart breaking event in my life.

Last night, our Bible study group continued our study of the Small Catechism. Our focus last night was on the Second Commandment – You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain.

We tend to do that more and more in our lives. It has become so simple that when we do violate this commandment, we just don’t seem to care. This isn’t just the use of that hideous vulgarity calling on God to damn people, though this word has become so commonplace in our society, very few people seem to bat their eyes when they hear it anymore.

However, what about those times when we use His name in inappropriate ways — do we even know when we are doing it?

(more…)

A pastor friend out in Indiana blog posted about rocker Alice Cooper and his opinion on Christianity. He makes way too much sense.

“Being a Christian is something you just progress in. You just keep progressing. You learn. You go to Bible studies. You Pray. And it’s not easy because there’s so many things in the world that pull you away. But I think it’s an ongoing thing.”

He makes too much sense. Christians regularly struggle with their faith. It is not easy. But you keep trying to learn. You keep praying. You keep asking the pastor about the meaning of Scripture and how it is to take part in your life.

I’ve always loved Cooper’s rock. And he’s a decent actor, as well.

For about a year, I have been throwing around the idea of a bible class dealing with Islam. Reading through various source materials and taking time to actually study what that religion is all about, I have found myself excited to teach this course. I have structured a multi-part course dealing with the history of the religion to the basic tenets of what Muslims believe.

Our one problem – our Lenten Midweek services are coming up rather quickly, so we’ll have to postpone the nighttime bible study during February and March. I’ll try and figure out something regarding this study for Lent.

We start tonight here at church beginning at 7:30 following our Midweek service.

Just as a reminder, bible class is being held at church tonight beginning at 7:30pm. We will be joined with our friends from Gloria Dei Lutheran Church in town to discuss the differences between our LC-MS and their ELCA. The past two weeks have been fun and informing.

If you have time, come on by.

- My allergies have been horrific that past 12 – 18 hours. Ugh. My head pounds so hard that no amount of allergy medication can stop it. And when it pounds that hard, I get dizzy. Oh, do I hate that! I can usually ignore the dizziness, but yesterday afternoon and evening and early this morning — forget it. I stayed home and laid down.

I know – me laying down in the early evening is weird. But at I couldn’t do much.

This morning was basically the same. It’s the tree pollen. It is way too high. So I am looking to the west and that cold front that will bring relief later today.

- Midweek service will be held tonight. 7:30pm here at church. We will continue the bible study we started last week on God’s Word. Now, if it is storming out tonight – something that is expected – don’t travel to church. I will put copies of the bible study out in the nartex on Sunday.

- By the way, we will celebrate Holy Communion at our service this weekend, both Saturday and Sunday.

- Responding to an email this morning (of course, a week late): It is only $28 Million. Roger Clemens asked, the Yankees gave. Personally, I am thrilled that Clemens is back in pinstripes. I remember hating him when he was with the Red Sox. Oh, I mean pure, unadulterated hate!! Then he left, went to Toronto, and my hatred waned. When he came to the Yankees, he became my favorite. He was now OUR fireballing, hard-nosed, tough as nails ace. Even when he left the Yankees under the guise he was "retiring" and ended up going to Houston, I didn’t hate him  I actually listened to some of the games on XM Satellite Radio that he pitched in when he was with the Astros. Now that he’s back in the Bronx, he’s my favorite again. Maybe he can bring some attitude and stability back to the team.