May each quote pique your interest and help you to draw near to God. The Bible, James 4:8, tells us if we do so God will draw near to us.
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Sunday, January 5, 2020
“There are various [Bible reading] guides that keep you on track. Utilize them. No matter which one you use, keep in mind where it all begins—the fear of the Lord. Scripture immerses you in the wisdom of the Lord. That prompts healthy fear. You are not mastering the Lord. Instead, fear teaches you to submit to Him. He is God; you are not. What do you learn from submissive fear? The Lord is good. His wisdom is found in human flesh, born of a virgin, serving the least, nailed to a cross, resurrected from the dead. True fear sees such wisdom and knows that it is not what we do. It is what He alone does for us.”
(Golden, 37)
Read Psalm 111:10
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Sunday, January 12, 2020
“The positive side of this commandment is that we fear, love, and trust in God. ‘To fear God’ means to be afraid of the just wrath of God upon disobedience, but especially does it mean to have a respect and an awe for Him, to revere, esteem, and honor Him, and to obey His will.”
(Koehler, 58)
Note: Koehler is teaching from the First Commandment, which states, “You shall have no other gods before me” (Ex 20:3).
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Sunday, January 19, 2020
“The promise of the Gospel is that Christ, through His Word, makes us new—and with newness in Christ comes definite improvement. When we are baptized into Christ, we go from death and damnation to life and salvation (Romans 6:4). That seems like a monumental improvement. When the Spirit indwells us, working in us and on us, we go from rebellion and wickedness to obedience and sanctification (Galatians 5:16-17). That’s pretty impressive as well. When God’s Word is preached to us, we are moved from darkness and depravity to light and revelation (Romans 1:21-23, 3:21-24). That, too, is nothing short of spectacular.”
(McIntosh, 62)
Read 2 Corinthians 5:17 Read Romans 6:4 Read Galatians 5:16-17 Read Romans 1:21-23, 3:21-24
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Sunday, January 26, 2020
“Do not tell me that this or that man is a runaway slave, or a robber of thief, or laden with countless faults, or that he is a beggar and outcast, or of low value and worthy of no account. Instead, consider that for his sake Christ died. This suffices you a basis for concern. Consider what sort of person he must be, whom Christ valued at such a high price as not to have spared even his own blood.”
(Murray, 26)
Note: Murray is the compiler; this quote is from John Chrysostom, Homily on Humanity, 5.
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Sunday, February 2, 2020
“The Prophet accordingly applies many kinds of names to the Word of God. He calls it a fine, pleasant, green pasture; fresh water; the path of righteousness; a rod; a staff; a table; balm, or the oil of gladness (Ps. 45:7); and a cup that is filled to overflowing. This he does quite appropriately, for the power of God is also of many kinds.”
(Luther, Works, Vol. 12, 148)
Note: Martin Luther is teaching from Psalm 23 where he describes David as giving thanks and praise to God for the preaching of the Word, as does “every other Christian heart" (147).
Read Psalm 23 Read Psalm 45:7
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Sunday, February 9, 2020
“By repenting we admit our spiritual bankruptcy and turn to God as beggars to ask for His mercy and grace. Our repentance is not just an initial act or occasional event in our journey with Christ; it is a daily event, a lifelong process. Our whole life is a process of conversion from ourselves to God, a dying to self that is complete only when we die.”
(Kleinig, 34)
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Sunday, February 16, 2020
“For especially in these last times it is no less needful to admonish men to Christian discipline [to the way of living aright and godly] and good works, and remind them how necessary it is that they exercise themselves in good works as a declaration of their faith [Matthew 5:16] and gratitude to God [Hebrews 13:15 – 16], than that the works be not mingled in the article of justification; because men may be damned by an Epicurean delusion concerning faith, as well as by papistic and Pharisaic confidence in their own works and merits.”
(McCain, 484)
Read Matthew 5:16 Read Hebrews 13:15-16 Read this from the Book of Concord online
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Sunday, February 23, 2020
“THE WORD Lent has its origin in the same root as one of the German words for ‘spring,’ Lenz. As nature awakens from the death of winter, so the Christian finds newness of life in Christ, rising from sin's death.”
(Engelbrecht, The Lord Will Answer, 147)
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Sunday, March 1, 2020
“Because of His resurrection, because Jesus refused to stay dead but rose on the third day, your Jesus won’t let you stay dead either. When our last hour comes, we will rest in the grave, our souls carried by the angels into heaven, but this will be only for a little while. Soon Jesus’ voice will ring out over the world and call us all from the grave. That voice will be the fulfillment of all our hopes and prayers. On that great Last Day, the Lord will have us with Him in life, beyond the reach of sin and trouble and tears, beyond the reach of death and the grave.”
(Wolfmueller, 241)
Read two verses about the Resurrection: John 11:25-26; Luke 24:6-7
Read two verses about the angels: Luke 16:22; Matthew 24:31
Note: in Luke 16:22 Abraham was in heaven
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Sunday, March 8, 2020
“Those whom the Servant has redeemed with his suffering and death will be his eternal portion and inheritance. The Servant claims us by his work; we, as believers, are his. Isaiah repeats the reason once again: The Servant poured out his life in death and was counted with sinners. Jesus, as the Great High Priest, sacrificed himself for the sins of his people and still intercedes for them before the throne of grace.”
(Braun, 236-37)
Note: Braun is teaching from Isaiah 53:12
Read Isaiah 53
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Sunday, March 15, 2020
“The season of Lent reminds us of our need for Jesus as our Savior and of the cost of our salvation. Lent is a time to put down our phones and reflect on this sacrifice. It is a quite time of service in gratitude for the gift of righteousness. When we struggle with sin, we are reminded that God has a plan to help us with that struggle. He gives us His law as our guide, and sends His Spirit to work His will in our lives.”
(Portals of Prayer, No. 446, March 7)
Read Psalm 2:11 Read Matthew 4:8-11 Read Psalm 26
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Sunday, March 22, 2020
“Jesus dies as the tears of His loved ones fell, and He rose, causing tears of joy for believers throughout the ages. When He comes back, He’d rid the world of all sorrow and grief. And Jesus will wipe away every tear of our eyes.”
(Clark, 29)
Read Psalm 6
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Sunday, March 29, 2020
“The wood upon which He was set adrift under the storming wrath of God He fashions into the ship of our salvation. It is our cross too, but it is not a cross of punishment for us; rather, He makes it the cross of salvation.”
(Murray, 105)
Note: This is based on a work from Ambrose titled Three Books on the Holy Spirit, volume 1, chapter 9 .
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Sunday, April 5, 2020
“The 22nd psalm is a prophecy of the suffering and resurrection of Christ and a prophecy of the Gospel, which the entire world shall hear and receive. Beyond all other texts it clearly shows Christ’s torment on the cross, that He was pierced hand and foot and His limbs stretched out so that His bones could have been counted. Nowhere in the other prophets can one find so clear a description. It is indeed one of the chief Psalms.”
(Luther, Reading, 56)
Read Psalm 22
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Sunday, April 12, 2020
“It must have been a great delight to be on guard duty. For the angel, that is. The angels have seen it all: the fall of the devil, the fall of creation, the Son dwelling on the earth, His death, and now—now, the moment that all creation had been waiting for. … And this holy messenger was able to tell the message for the first time: 'He is not here.' ... No Jesus was not there. He was risen and victorious, and He was going to celebrate the very first Easter with His beloved followers, that they might see with their own eyes that He truly was their living Savior.”
(Clark, 56)
Read Mark 16:1-8
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Sunday, April 19, 2020
“[The cross] is laid on every Christian. The first Christ-suffering that everyone has to experience is the call which summons us away from our attachments to this world. It is the death of the old self in the encounter with Jesus Christ. Those who enter into discipleship enter into Jesus’ death. They turn their living into dying; such has been the case from the very beginning. The cross is not the terrible end of a pious, happy life. Instead, it stands at the beginning of community with Jesus Christ. Whenever Christ calls us, his call leads us to death. Whether we, like the first disciples, must leave house and vocation to follow him, or whether, with Luther, we leave the monastery for a secular vocation, in both cases the same death awaits us, namely, death in Jesus Christ, the death of our old self caused by the call of Jesus.”
(Bonhoeffer, Discipleship, 52-53)
Read Matthew 10:22 Read Mark 8:34-35 Read John 15:18 Read 1 Peter 4:14-16
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NOTE: there are two Quotes of the Week this week, including a quote from Valerius Herberger's book The Great Works of God and a quote from Dietrich Bonhoeffer's book The Cost of Discipleship . The Gestapo arrested Bonhoeffer this month in 1943 for standing against Adolf Hitler and his slaughter of the Jews. Bonhoeffer was martyred two years later on April 9, 1945--75 years ago--at Flossenbürg concentration camp. Hitler committed suicide 21 days later (See more of Bonhoeffer at Wikipedia). A point of interest comes to us from the Lutheran Orthodoxy Blog, where we learn that Valerius Herberger was in Fraustadt in 1613 during a plague that took 2,135 souls. The blog adds: "Valerius sent his own family away, but he himself stayed behind, and no doubt helped to commit half the bodies, though he himself was untouched by the sickness."
Sunday, April 19, 2020
“Isaac is an exquisite type of our suffering Lord Jesus Christ, Just as the Holy Spirit Himself testifies in Hebrews 11:19, where He says that Abraham ‘received him back in a figure.’ And the Angel of the Lord Himself points in the text to the Messiah: ‘Do not lay your hand on the boy,' as if He would say, 'This is not the one who will be slaughtered for the sins of the world—God Himself shall strike the Messiah with the fist of His wrath, and all who believe in Him shall be spared eternally.’ ... It will cost blood; the Messiah will have to die. He will be tied up like your son Isaac. Like him He will be silent, like him He will be patient, and like him He will live again on the third day.”
(Herberger, Parts 3 and 4, 92)
Read Genesis 22:1-19
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Sunday, April 26, 2020
“[A] Christian heart is one that learns from the Word of God that everything we have is from God and nothing is from ourselves. Such a heart accepts all this in faith and practices it, learning to look to Him for everything and to expect it from Him. In this way praying teaches us to recognize who we are and who God is, and to learn what we need and where we are to look for it and find it. The result of this is an excellent, perfect, and sensible man, one who can maintain the right relationship to all things.”
(Luther, Works, Vol. 21, 145)
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Sunday, May 3, 2020
“Since Christian prayer is the fruit of the believer's faith in the gracious forgiveness of his sins for Christ’s sake, it is continuous, 1 Thess. 5, 17, because the regenerated heart, led and moved by the Holy Spirit, is habitually turned toward God and therefore also in ceaseless communion with Him, Rom. 8, 14. 15.”
(Mueller, 429)
Read 1 Thessalonians 5:17
Read Romans 8:14-15
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Sunday, May 10, 2020
“Bible reading is an example of Luther’s passionate practices. He made a habit of reading the entire Bible twice a year. He did not pick up the Bible five minutes before he fell asleep at night. He refused to simply read a few verses on occasion when the mood was right. Luther was a lifelong student of God’s Word. He knew the Bible well. He had translated every word of it from Hebrew and Greek into German. And even after reading it multiple times, Luther read the Bible again. And again. And again.”
(Sutton, 37)
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Sunday, May 17, 2020
“The Holy One of God went behind the veil to offer up His own holy blood upon the altar for the payment of our sins. Holy blood has been shed, and we have been redeemed and set apart, set aside as a holy people for a holy God. We need no tribe of priests to redeem our firstborn, for the Firstborn of God has redeemed us, and He is our new High Priest. We are a holy people, a royal nation, a people belonging to God.”
(Pulse, 155)
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Sunday, May 24, 2020
“In hope. We do not yet see the life which we attain through godliness. First we must fall asleep. Our life is prepared, but in hope. That which is hoped for, however, is not seen (cf. Rom. 8:24). Our cross must be understood in hope at the same time; for where there is the exercise of godliness, there the cross is not lacking. Because everything is condemned, there is not peace but a cross (cf. Matt. 10:34). Therefore if we employ the Word, we bear the reproach of evil both from the whole world and from our brethren, and the devil accuses us. But under the cross which we experience, eternal life lies hidden. If it did not lie hidden, it would be the present life. Therefore we have it in hope.”
(Luther, Works 29, 10)
Read Romans 8:24
Read Matthew 10:34
Luther is commenting of Titus 1:2 (read Titus 1:2 in context)
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Sunday, May 31, 2020
“That we should be zealous in good works is one of the purposes for which Christ redeemed us (Titus 2:14) and for which the Holy Spirit converted us. As the redeemed of the Lord we are to dedicate our lives to the service of God by living before Him in righteousness and holiness. ‘For this is the will of God, your sanctification' (1 Thessalonians 4:3). It is God's will and our privilege to do according to His commandments.”
(Koehler, 139)
Read Titus 2:14
Read 1 Thessalonians 4:3
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Sunday, June 7, 2020
“As sinners, we are prone to make excuses for our behavior, labeling some transgressions as 'not so bad,’ or thinking that if everybody else is engaging in questionable activity, then it must be okay. When Isaiah exhorts us in today’s reading, he is commanding us not to dabble in the darkness or compromise with evil in any way. When we walk in the light of the Lord no flashlight will be necessary, for Jesus is our total salvation and illumination.”
(Portals of Prayer, No. 447, June 3)
Read Isaiah 2:1-5 Read Psalm 27:11-14
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Sunday, June 14, 2020
“Paul declares there is no other Gospel or ‘good news’ than what he proclaimed to the Galatians. Here he implies that some teachers have come and tried to convince the Galatians otherwise, as depicted in Acts 15:1-5. Both there and here Paul harshly rejects their teaching. Indeed, even if he himself were to change his tune, Paul insists he would also be condemned (1:8). The apostle sounds so confident regarding his position, as these verses explain. Paul received the Gospel directly from the source, ‘through a revelation of Jesus Christ’ (1:12). As a result, Paul knows his message is correct; any other so called ‘gospel’ which deviates from it must be rejected.”
(Middendorf, 129)
In this quote, Middendorf is teaching from Galatians 1:6-12 and references Acts 15:1-5
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Sunday, June 21, 2020
“At the name of Jesus Ev’ry knee shall bow,
Ev'ry tongue confess Him King of glory now.
'Tis the Father's pleasure We should call Him Lord,
Who from the beginning Was the mighty Word.”
(LSB 512:1) Hymn: "At the Name of Jesus" Text: Caroline M. Noel
Read Philippians 2:5-11 Read Luke 1:31 Read John 1:1-4 Read Acts 1:10-11
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Sunday, June 28, 2020
“He who is obedient, willing, quick to be of service, and glad to give honor to whom it is due knows that God is pleased with him and that he will have joy and happiness as his reward. On the other had, if he does not want to do these things out of love, but despises authority and rebels against it, let him know that he will receive none of God’s grace and blessing.”
(Luther, LLC, 37)
Note: at this point Luther has been speaking at length on the Fourth Commandant which says, "Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long in the land that the Lord your God is giving you" (Ex 20:12).
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Sunday, July 5, 2020
“What is Justifying Faith, of Which Scripture Speaks? The definition of faith is well known; but to the unlearned it can most simply be explained thus: The object of faith in general is the Word of God; for we ought to apply faith to every Word divinely given and revealed. But justifying faith has its own and special object that it seeks in Holy Scripture and that it regards and apprehends, namely Christ our Mediator and the promise of grace, which is given for the sake of Christ. Ro 3:24–25; 4:13, 16; Gl 3:22.”
(Chemnitz , 75)
Read Romans 3:24-25 Read Romans 4:13, 16 Read Galatians 3:22
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Sunday, July 12, 2020
“Personal relationships thrive on good communication. Increased and improved communication with God in prayer will have a wonderfully beneficial effect on our faith relationship with Him. We will know Him better, feel closer to Him, trust Him more, and long more intensely to be in contact with Him. God is very real to people that pray often.”
(Rudnick, 52)
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Sunday, July 19, 2020
“The damage water can do is beyond calculation, but water works blessing too. Baptism is a hurricane of grace and mercy in Christ. Martin Luther points out that “this baptism is a deluge of grace, just as that one [the flood] was a deluge of wrath.”
(Harrison, 66)
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Sunday, July 26, 2020
“If you want to live a full, vibrant, joyful Christian life there is simply no substitute for weekly attendance in church. It all begins there at the Means of Grace place, where all of God’s specific promises of salvation are given out. This is the hub of the wheel. The rest of the Jesus-centered life connects to this hub. Take away the hub and the wheel doesn’t work—start skipping Sundays and see your Christian life unravel.”
(Curtis, 12)
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Sunday, August 2, 2020
“The church does not depend on power, social prestige, rhetorical manipulation, or human-designed programs. All it has are the Word and Sacraments, which, though they seem weak to the world and to all theologies of glory, in fact they carry the life-changing power of the Holy Spirit.”
(Veith, 103)
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Sunday, August 9, 2020
“Lutherans teach that we are justified by Christ, who took our sin into Himself and atoned for it on the cross and who imputes to us His goodness. When we are united to Christ—which happens by Baptism, in Holy Communion, and when we receive His Word—we are justified, freely, apart from any works of our own.”
(Veith and Sutton, 81)
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Sunday, August 16, 2020
“In the entire flood narrative, Noah never speaks. Rather, God speaks, and Noah responds. Noah does all that God commands him four times in the account (Gen 7:5, 9, 16; compare Gen 6:22). His faithful obedience to God’s directives illustrates what Gen 6:9 told us: Noah was a righteous man who walked with God. He stood apart in a violently wicked generation, and God protected him. Noah’s example challenges us to live righteously in a culture of increasing wickedness. God will be faithful to us.”
(Mangum, Custis, and Widder)
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Sunday, August 23, 2020
“In May 1525 Luther wrote a long, angry letter to the Saxon princes. He titled it Against the Murderous and Thieving Bands of Peasants. Using the strongest language Luther urged the rulers to fulfill their God-given duty to stamp out the peasant armies. ‘Let everyone who can, smite, slay, and stab, secretly or openly, remembering that nothing can be more poisonous, hurtful, or devilish than a rebel. It is just as when one must kill a mad dog; If you don’t strike him, he will strike you, and the whole land with you.’”
(Nohl, 139)
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Sunday, August 30, 2020
"Psalm 119 repeatedly portrays God giving life, education, enlightenment, growth, and salvation through His Word. Like in the Lord’s Prayer, each petition or request in Psalm 119 serves also as a confession of our need and an acknowledgement that only the Lord through His Word can meet our need. This brings us back to the importance of listening as the Lord speaks to us through His Word."
(Love, 17)
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Sunday, September 6, 2020
“Because God anticipated the evil of even His favorite people forgetting Him, He had an alternate plan. ‘But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons’ (Galatians 4:4). We are all adopted into God’s kingdom—all one in Christ Jesus.”
(Portals of Prayer, No. 448, July 4)
Read Exodus 6:1-8
Read Psalm 46
Read Galatians 3:28
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Sunday, September 13, 2020
“Before church, pray for those who may hear the Gospel for the first time that the Holy Spirit may grant them faith. Pray for those in whom the seed of faith is starting to sprout that they may grow in that faith. Pray also for the blessed ones in whom faith has flourished that they may be kept strong in Christ as they share their faith with others.”
(Cain, 32)
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Sunday, September 20, 2020
“The story of creation starts ‘in the beginning,’ that is, in the absolute beginning when nothing existed, neither time nor energy nor space, except God. The text does not begin, as other verses so often do in Hebrew, with the word ‘and.’ To start with the word ‘and’ is to suggest that there was something prior to this beginning, There was not.”
(Heck, 11)
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Sunday, September 27, 2020
“The Christian Church is much older than Holy Scripture, that is, it existed long before God gave His written Word to men; for until the time of Moses God called and preserved His Church by oral teaching (viva voce). The Christian Church began immediately after the Fall, when God proclaimed to fallen mankind salvation through faith in the Seed of the Woman, who was to destroy the works of the devil; and Adam and Eve penitently believed the Protevangelium (Gen. 3:15). This method of orally promulgating His Word was retained by God until the time when He called Israel out of Egypt and made it His chosen people, or His Church, Gen. 4:26; 13:4; 20:4; Acts 10:43; Ex. 17:14; 24:4, 7; etc.”
(Mueller, 90)
Read Genesis 4:26; 13:4; 20:4 Read Acts 10:43 Read Exodus 17:14; 24:4, 7
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Sunday, October 4, 2020
“Gospel. The message of Christ’s death and resurrection for the forgiveness of sins, eternal life, and salvation. The Holy Spirit works through the Gospel in Word and Sacrament to create and sustain faith and to empower good works. The Gospel is found in both the Old and Testaments.”
(Engelbrecht, The Lutheran Difference, 587)
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Sunday, October 11, 2020
“Besides teaching his classes, Luther continued his studies. The more he studied the writings of the early church fathers, the less they satisfied him. And the more he studied the Bible, the more he believed that it alone had the final answers to life’s problems. Very likely during his first stay ay Wittenberg Luther began to sense that God could be found only in the Bible, not in the teachings of man.”
(Nohl, 33)
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Sunday, October 18, 2020
“Paul calls himself ‘a servant of Christ Jesus.’ Literally he says he is a slave, a person who doesn’t follow his own will but takes orders. Paul was in the service of Christ Jesus.”
(Panning, 12)
Read Romans 1:1
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Sunday, October 25, 2020
“We have no less than two commentaries by Luther on [Galatians]. … He said of it: ‘The Epistle to the Galatians is my Epistle; I Have betrothed myself to it; it is my Catherine von Bora.’ Luther’s love for this letter is understandable. It is the Magna Charta of Christian liberty, the impregnable Gibraltar of justification by faith.”
(Plass, 85)
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Sunday, November 1, 2020
“When we share and learn with others, we sharpen one another, as iron sharpens iron. The rabbis of old held that studying with others leads to fuller and more accurate knowledge. When we do all of our learning alone, there is the possibility that, without the corrective of others, we will go off on tangents. Verse 17 is a good endorsement for attending Bible study at church, in addition to reading Scripture at home alone.”
(Ehlke, 273)
Ehlke is teaching from Proverbs 27:17
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Sunday, November 8, 2020
“Luther firmly stated that he could not recant his position because to do so would deny the authority of God’s Word. Nor would Luther accept man-made rules for interpreting the Word of God, even when issued from the papal office. By sending the pope ‘Freedom of a Christian,’ Luther sought to demonstrate the clarity and authority of the biblical text.”
(Klug, 85)
Note: Luther wrote his treatise “Freedom of a Christian” in 1520. It included a letter addresses to Pope Leo X.
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Sunday, November 15, 2020
“[I]f anyone looks down on another man as a sinner, sin stills rules him doubly. For since he himself is a sinner, he compares himself as a righteous man to the other person and thus makes himself a liar and does not realize as a sinner that he is a sinner.”
(Grunewald, 22)
Note: Grunewald attributes this quote to Martin Luther
Note: This teaching from Luther was placed under the section of Grunewald’s book following Romans 5:6-10
Note: The wording is a little awkward but the meaning is clear: unfairly judging another is a mark of a sinner.
Romans 12:3 and 14:4 also come to mind.
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