Episode 105: Law and Gospel (part 19)
The God Whisperers have some raucous fun with Joel Osteen’s fatwah against pork, shellfish, and other bottom feeders, and then move on to more of Walther’s Proper Distinction of the Law and the Gospel.
Tags: bacon, bottom feeders, Joel Osteen
RE: Joel Osteen did attend Oral Roberts University for 1 year or less. He has no college degree or theological education. All I can say is duh what did you expect. Long live bacon!
For reference:
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm1127010/bio
http://www.joelosteen.com/About/JoelOsteen/Pages/JoelOsteen.aspx
http://www.who2.com/joelosteen.html
And don’t forget all those luscious bottom feeders – shrimp, scallop, lobster, oysters, clams, mussels, and for all you southerners, crawfish. Oh yeah, baby!
Sounds like you were saying our baptism isn’t worth much. If it only reveals God’s love, that won’t do me much good. Sounds like saying that the cross reveals God’s love in order to inspire us to lead a moral life. If baptism doesn’t create repentance and faith in me on a daily basis I’m toast. What else is there to look to? My sincerity? Something inside myself? Baptism and the Supper do more than reveal. They save. All by themselves without depending on me, outside of me.
Mike – who’s saying that? Baptism works faith and repentance. That’s what it does. Daily drowning and rising. You don’t do it. It’s done on you. You just keep looking to Christ in Baptism, Word, and Supper, and He’ll take care of the rest.
Revealing is never nothing when God is doing it. To reveal your salvation is to save you. No ifs, ands, or buts about it. It saves you precisely because it creates faith. “Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved.”
Why do we have two part 18s?
You haven’t had crab cakes until you’ve had them in Maryland!
Chris – The perils of working ahead. This is why I procrastinate. It’s a typo. Hehehehe.
I must go to Maryland just for them. And I will. So much food, so little time.
Thanks Pastor Cwilra … sorry, that was the impression I was getting. It seemed like you guys were saying that baptism only counts if you have faith, and then it seems like you’d end up where Calvinism leads, to looking at yourself for evidence of faith and of your election.
Instead of “revealing”, I like “declaring” better, like when God speaks something into existence out of nothing. God reveals my true condition in the law but that may not lead to faith. “Revealing” sounds too passive.
Thanks for your previous response @:}
Hey Mike – “Revealing” actually is the better word. “Declaring” sounds like news and information. Revealing is what “mysteries” (mysteria) do when God is running them. In fact, Word and Sacrament are traditionally mysteries that reveal the will of God to save. Also, the Gospel does not create salvation ex nihilo, but reveals salvation in Christ crucified. We even speak of the Gospel as God’s “revealed will.” I would say that “revealing” is more sacramental than is declaring, and I’m sticking with it. Thanks for listening.
Pr. Cwilra, Not that I doubted that you are a true foodie but I love that the fact that you know that the name Maytag means more than washing machines. Maytag is hard to find around here and when it does turn up it’s pricey, sometimes over $20 a pound. Good stuff though!
I actually have about 5 pounds of turkey bacon in my freezer. I love it, but IT’S NOT BACON. If you expect it to taste like bacon, you will be sorely disappointed. If you expect it to taste like turkey, it is wonderful.
Thanks again, Pastor Cwirla …
I was a Calvinist before I started listening to you guys’ show and also Radical Grace and then I became Lutheran. I don’t think I’m a Crypto, but there may be some presuppositions that I haven’t shed yet.
About “declared” versus “revealed”…
I will need to consider your comments as I believe there are some underlying presuppositions that I’m not understanding. Calvinist theology definitely emphasizes the declared aspect more … but I think I see your point that it can’t just be an abstract declaration … it must be connected to the cross as the means of salvation.
For Calvinism, things can be more abstract as sovereignty may sometimes receive more emphasis than God revealing himself in history … though that’s not always the case depending on the teacher.
On the declaring side, I would reference Romans 4 regarding Abraham being declared righteous … “the God who gives life to the dead and calls (or declares) things that are not as though they were.”
My understanding would be that God declared Abraham to be something he wasn’t (righteous) and it was so because God said it (though I see your point … not as an abstract declaration but because the imputed righteousness of Christ would later be revealed and Abraham received that promise by faith).
The passage does reference creation ex nihilo and raising the dead … though in the context of creating faith out of nothing. God declares and the reality leaps into being. I would want to protect the idea that God declaring something is Him doing something … or that he creates faith out of nothing through the sacraments by declaring that our sins are forgiven for Christ’s sake.
you might also consider a soundbite from European Vacation – “Oink oink, my good man!”
SRB – what you say about turkey bacon is exactly what I say about Mexican restaurants here in our neck of the woods (that is, if I know who you are… and I think I do.) Being from California, I have to tell myself when I go to greater St.L Mexican restaurants, “This is good food, as long as I don’t expect it to be real mexican.” Though Mariachis is closer to the real thing than any of the others I’ve gone to (like Casa Gallardo.)
and I would love to find somewhere around here that serves good fish tacos on a regular basis. (I think Mariachis might on Fridays during Lent.)