The week has arrived.

     Greetings to you in the name of our Risen Lord.  It is officially the week of Call Day.  I hope the weather is nicer on Wednesday than it has been the past few days.  I do not mind the rain but it is this gloomy misty weather than just is not much fun.  We did get to play softball again Thursday finally.  We played the only other undefeated team for number one and number two spots for the playoffs.  We lost so we are number two, but I am confident that we will go far in the playoffs.  I had my last two golf meets this last week so now the golf season is over.  I was humbled in my round Wednesday.  I started with a par and then had a bogie and then on number three which is a par three I stuck my iron shot on the green.  I got over confident and started thinking about how good my round was going to be if I kept playing like that.  I ended up four putting for a double and the rest of the round followed that tempo to end up with a 48.  Once my round was completely shot in hole six, I just started having fun again and ended up with three good last holes to save myself from breaking 50. It was then I remembered that golf is suppose to be fun and not so serious.  This is true with many things in life and it seems like every time I start trying too hard or thinking I am going to do great at something, I am humbled and reminded that it is God who brings all good things from me, not myself.     But I am really glad I played this season and had a great time playing with the guys.
      I got up early to work through my Bible study this morning and now I have some free time before I have to leave for church. So this is short and sweet, but just wanted to write something since I have been falling behind.  I am getting close to being done with my Exodus Exegetical and then I might try to put parts of it up here since I do not think you want to read the whole thing.  Also, Thursday I will post on here where my vicarage assignment is. If you are really eager to know, they will all be up on the website on Wednesday.  I am excited but trying to stay focused until Wednesday.
       My thought for the day is simply to remember what Sunday morning worship truly is.  Listen to the Word of God as the truly inspired Word.  Listen to the sermon and take to heart the message your pastor is preaching on.  Sing loudly and boldly praising your Lord, because He loves the sound of your voice whether you can sing or not.  Think about the actual words you are confessing in the creed and the words you are praying in the prayers. Be there, full attention, putting aside all worries, fears, and stressors.  Spend your time in the house of God rejoicing that you have been given the faith in His name and have been made a child of His through His Son.  I wish God's riches blessings on your worship and on your Sunday.  He is Risen, He is Risen Indeed, Alleluia, Amen.
Luther's Morning Prayer
I thank You my Heavenly Father, through Jesus Christ Your dear Son, that You have kept me this night from all harm and danger.  And I pray that you would keep me this day also from sin and every evil.  That all my doings and life may please You.  For into Your hands I commend myself, my body and soul and all things.  Let Your holy angel be with me, that the evil foe may have no power over me. Amen.  

Comforting Humility

     Greetings to you in the name of our most amazing God!  The weather here has been nothing but rain for almost four days now.  I wouldn't care except I am tired of all the puddles covering every sidewalk and the fact it is interfering with softball.  Other than that I do not mind the rain.  This morning a clap of thunder louder than I think I have ever heard boomed out from what sounded like directly above the dorms at 6, waking everyone up.
     We had our last pre-vicarage meeting last night and Dr. Neilson was having a blast giving the first few hints out to some people.  He told me I didn't need a plane ticket to get to mine so I am pretty sure Hawaii is out.  Other than that he didn't give me any other hints.  However, just hearing him talk about knowing where we are going made it seem more real than ever.  It took me two hours to fall asleep last night as I laid awake in excitement and anxiety thinking about where I could end up.  I am trying to stay focused on studies and just life in general for the next two weeks, but it is getting harder and harder.
      My thought for the day today comes from a topic with which I have been struggling recently.  We have been translating Revelation for my Lectionary class. Then in Matthew class we have also been talking about Jesus' predictions for the end of times.  However, also during this time we have been discussing how and why Jesus came the first time. Focusing in on these two things at the same time made me realize something for the first time.  See the Pharisees and scribes were the faithful leaders of the temple at that time. They studied scripture, taught scripture, and were very strong in their religious beliefs.  They had dedicated their lives to trying to be as faithful as best as they knew how.  And through this deep study and meditation they built up in their minds an expectation of what it would be like when God sent the Messiah.  They expected Him to send a king in the full glory and power. A king who would come defeat all enemies and save the chosen people. However, when Jesus came, He did do these things, but He did not do them in the way they had expected.  He was their king, He did defeat their enemies, and did save His chosen people.  However, he was born in a stable, not a palace.  He defeated the enemies of sin, death, and the devil not the surrounding countries who had oppressed the people, and He saved His people through the resurrection and the hope of life everlasting.  The point is these men who had dedicated their lives to knowing God's Word did not accept Jesus because He did not match their expectations.  They were just trying to be faithful, but their faithful stubbornness ended up killing the true Messiah.  So who is to say we wont do this too?  Who is to say I wont do this?  I have spent the last several years of my lie growing deeply in the Word of God. I have dedicated my life to trying my hardest to be faithful to Him and to learn and study, teach and preach His Word and His will.  And in doing so I have learned expectations of His second coming.  You know we study Revelation and we do build up these expectations in our minds of how He is going to come the second time. So what happens if He comes the second time just like He did the first time?  What if He comes in a way we do not expect because it's His way and not ours?  What if I am the next generation of Pharisees who wants Him killed because in my faithful stubbornness I deny Him as the one who is sent from God?  The thought of this scared the living you know what out of me.  And the more I thought about it and let it bounce around in my mind, the more fearful I got.  So I couldn't take it anymore and after class I asked Dr. Gibbs about it.  I actually waited around after class but he was talking to other people so I just left and told myself to let it go. However, Dr. Gibbs was walking behind me and asked me if I had wanted to talk about something, so we ended up having the discussion.  I explained to him all of this I had been struggling with and all that had been going through my mind.  We believe when Christ comes again that every knee will bow and every tongue will confess Him as Lord and there really will not be the option to deny Him.  We have this idea of trumpets being sounded and Him coming down on the clouds and that is it.  It's done and over.  The sheep will be on the right and the goats will be on the left and we really have no active part in it other than praising Him and being thankful for His coming.  But again my thoughts go back to the fact that the Pharisees thought the Messiah would be this grand glorious king the first time too.  Then my mind goes to the fact that He tells us there will be false prophets and anti-christs claiming to be the one true Christ.  So we do have to be skeptical and concerning to make sure we are not led astray by these false ones.  I told all of this to Dr. Gibbs and he told me it sounds like I have received a spirit of humility.  In other words, if we start to believe we cannot be wrong, we might be stubborn as the Pharisees and stick to our own expectations instead of realizing it is actually Him. These are not the exact words Dr. Gibbs used and the way he said it was much better than how I am paraphrasing it here.  However, just talking about it with him and hearing his positive attitude really calmed me down.  I told him my slim amount of comfort is that the Spirit will be present in the heart of the elect to accept Him as the Christ when He comes again no matter how He comes.  He agreed with me and confirmed that this is when the doctrine of the elect is comforting.  So what I learned is that we can never start to think we know everything and while we have to be sound in our beliefs, we have to be humble in the fact that we can and will be wrong at times.  We continue to study and learn His Word and we do grow deeper and stronger in our faith.  We pray that the Spirit is ever with us and guiding us.  Then when we have moments of anxiety or doubt we have brothers and sisters in Christ to turn to for comfort and strengthening.  Most importantly, we have prayer to always turn to and ask God Himself that no matter when He comes and no matter how He comes, that we may be His faithful children who will accept and follow Him as our King and Lord and remain steadfast to Him alone.
     After I talked about this with Dr. Gibbs, I came back to the dorms and as I was walking into my room I was overcome with this feeling of just comfort and awe.  It just made me realize how amazing our God is that even during times when we are struggling He does not leave us alone, but gives us support and comfort in various ways, including those around us.  We cannot sing our praises loud enough for all He has done for us and continues to do each and every day.  This fearful struggle truly was a humbling thing and yet it is comforting at the same time.  All praise be to Him who is our living and reigning King, active in our lives each and every day in more ways than we will ever know.
Dear Heavenly Father, 
Thank you so much for not leaving us alone but giving us support and strength in each other as the one body of Your church.  Be with each of us, that at times of struggle or wondering, You may give us Your Word and Your comfort.  Help us to grow closer to You and know You are always with us, watching over us, and protecting us.  Give us Your Spirit so that we may never stray from You but remain in Your faith and love at all times. In the name of Your Son, who lives and reigns with You and the Spirit, one God, now and forever more. Amen.  

Let the Fun Begin

      Greetings to you in the name of our gracious Savior.  I am not sure if time is anyone's friend anymore, or if it ever was.  We are down to four and a half weeks left of the quarter.  Only two weeks from tomorrow until Call Day when I find out where I will be spending a year of my life.  This is the "fun" part of the quarter where I find myself every quarter.  Down to the final month left and looking ahead at all that is due is those four short weeks.  I just want to kick myself for not working ahead.  However, the fact I have been in this position five times already gives me the confidence I will survive another one.  I have four tests, one this week and then three finals.  I have two exegetical papers, one in Greek and one in Hebrew.  Then I have two other papers and a quiz left.  I just keep telling myself only nine more things to do and then it doesn't sound so bad.  Really, if I can get the four papers done, I am not too worried about the tests.  I am super excited to start my Greek exegetical; however, the Hebrew one is due before the Greek one so I had to force myself to put the Greek one aside and start the Hebrew one.  My Hebrew one is on Exodus 40:33-38.  I did not get to pick the text, which I think is one of the reasons I am less excited about it.  Also, even though Greek is much more complex and complicated than Hebrew, it has stuck in my head better than my Hebrew has.  So the fact I am struggling to remember some of the basics of Hebrew is another reason I am less excited about it.  However, I am working through it and reteaching myself some of the things I have forgotten and it will get done.  My Greek exegetical is on Matthew 21:18-22, where Jesus curses the fig tree.  I told Dr. Gibbs who has written two of the three Matthew commentaries and is currently working on the third one that I was considering this text.  His reply was that he hopes I figure out what it means because he is still not sure and has spent much time puzzling over it himself.  He also told me if I do figure out what the text is doing, he will footnote me in his next commentary.  I have nothing but doubt that I am actually able to work through this text in a new way that just seems to be the right answer, but hopefully in my weakness the Spirit will work His strength.  As I am doing my reading of Matthew each week, I just cannot help but stop and wander through my mind why Jesus curses the fig tree, why Matthew includes it in his Gospel and especially where he does, and what is the real meaning behind it.  This is why I chose to write my paper on it, because even if I do not come up with the grand solution, at least I will have thought thoroughly through it and researched all the possible answers.  Again though, this week and next week is about trying to get the majority of my Hebrew one done. I also have to get my other two papers done next week.  All of these things are due right after Call Day, so I am trying to have them done before Call Day so I can enjoy that time.
      Other than all the homework, I have still been busy with work, sports, and life in general.  We had another golf meet yesterday.  I shot a pretty decent round but still lost in match play to the guy I was playing against.  Match play is when you try to win more holes than the guy you are matched against.  The overall strokes do not count for anything.  He only beat me by two strokes, but he beat me five holes, we tied two and I beat him two.  I should have tied him on three other holes but my putter did not want to work at all.  I had four par putts that I missed by mere inches and was left with four tap in bogie putts.  It was frustrating but still a fun free round of golf.  Our team still won overall even with my loss.  Coach moved me up to third though instead of fourth, and I know I would have beaten the fourth guy easily.  I am just glad to be getting out, playing, and playing decently well.
       I figured out on May 26th when I do the entire service at my field work church because Pastor is on vacation, that I can use my sermon I wrote for class last quarter.  That was a nice relief because it saves me the time of writing another sermon that first week of summer.  I am also down to five Sundays left to do my adult Bible study.  This last week we had double our normal class size because of all the extra people who stayed for the pot luck afterward.  We got into some really good discussions and I hope maybe a few of them will come back now that they have seen the kind of stuff we talk about in there.
      My thought for today comes from my reading of Matthew.  Chapter 5 verse 37 which reads in the ESV, "Let what you say be simply 'Yes' or 'No'; anything more than this comes from evil."  This verse is part of Jesus' sermon on the mount and it is in the section on oaths.  Jesus is telling the people not to take an oath on heaven, the throne of God, or multiple other things.  He does not want you to take an oath on these things but rather just let your yes be yes and your no be no.  What He is really saying here is be a trustworthy person who others believe when you say yes or no without an oath.  In our modern world I think of the saying, "You pinky promise?"  If you did not trust someone was actually going to do what they said they would do, you would ask them to pinky promise so you knew they were serious.  If that person had been a trustworthy person who you knew always did everything they said, you wouldn't have to ask if they pinky promise.  It also makes me think of the old western movies where the guys who were always the stand out menly men would say, "I give you my word."  They gave you their word because their word was worth something; it meant they were serious about doing it.  However, I fear if you told someone that today, they would not even know what you mean.  "Our word" today doesn't have any value behind it because nobody trusts anybody.  We have become so untrustworthy to each other, "our word" has no weight behind it to someone who doesn't know us.  And depending on how we have lived our lives, it may not have any weight behind it to even those who do know us.  But that's why I love this verse.  We should live lives that show we are trustworthy, responsible people who actually do what we say we are going to do.  So my goal and I dare you to try it, follow through with everything you say you are going to do, even if it is the tiniest little thing.  Then people will trust us and we can truly let our yes be yes and our no be no.  This is what Christ calls us to do, and with His help we strive to live as He calls us to live.  All Praise be to Him who revealed Himself and His Father's will to us so that we, with the guidance of His Spirit, might live a life that is pleasing and honoring to Him.
Dear Heavenly Father, 
Please give us Your Spirit and let Him strengthen us and guide us so that we live the life You want us to live. Let us be trustworthy and responsible people so that all we do is for Your honor and glory.  Let our lives be a witness to the faith You have given us, so that others may be brought into the same faith.  Make us Your faithful children at all times and in all we do.  In the name of Your Son, Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen.  

Exodus 16

       Greetings to you all in the name of our victorious King and Christ!  Hope you all have a great Friday and weekend.  It has been a pretty great week.  Tuesday night Logan, my buddy from college, Taylor, my roommate from college, Liam, Taylor's one year old son, Erin, and I all went to the Cardinals game.  It was a great game and the Cards won.  Then Wednesday we had our golf meet.  I played at the number four spot but did not play nearly as well as I did Monday. The course was a beautiful course way outside of the city.  It was in a low clearing surrounded in the hills covered with thick woods.  There were a bunch of giant beautiful homes out there, so it much be a rich area.  The course is long, flat, and almost no trees.  However, it had very narrow fairways and hazards everywhere it wasn't fairway.  I did have the pleasure of meeting a snapping turtle in one of the small creeks, a small gardner snake in the tall grass, and saw about fifteen deer out in the pasture surrounding the course. It was lightning almost the entire time we were there, but they let us play through six holes before they finally called it on account of the weather.  We had some pretty major storms in our area that night.  I don't have a lot planned for this weekend other than hopefully golfing tomorrow, just for fun though.
       My thought for the day is the next chapter of Exodus and finding the Gospel in the chapter. This is one I could flush out much more fully, but since it has to be only one page I had to make it kind of brief.   Here is my paper on the Gospel in Exodus 16:

         The obvious theme for this chapter is God feeding His people with the bread of life.  However, I want to look at a more subtle Gospel theme for this chapter.  The theme I want to look at is salvation comes in the morning.

            The Israelites start complaining about how they are starving to death.  So what does God do?  He gives them what they need; food.  When does He give it to them?  He gives them the bread first thing in the morning.  The text uses the phrase “when the dew had gone up” to let us know the bread came in the early morning.  He gives them what they need in the morning. 

            This fits in the immediate context of the chapter as I just stated above because it is when the bread comes to them.  It fits in the entire Exodus narrative because the morning is an important time of the day for the Israelites.  When Moses is dealing with Pharaoh and the plagues, he always goes to Pharaoh the next morning.  In the wilderness morning is when the offering sacrifices were to be burnt.  In chapter 34 God tells Moses to come up Mount Sinai in the morning.  However, the best example of how this fits in the Exodus narrative though is in chapter 14.  As the Israelites are crossing the Red Sea, God has kept the Egyptian army in the cloud all night, but in the morning God tells Moses to stretch his hand out and let the sea return to normal drowning the entire army.  God waits until the morning to save them from their enemy and show them that they are free.  Their salvation comes in the morning.    

            This fits in the entire Gospel narrative in several ways too.  David writes in Psalm 30 that weeping may tarry for the evening, but joy comes in the morning.  Psalm 46 is believed to be Sennacherib’s siege of Jerusalem in 701 B.C.  185,000 Assyrians have surrounded the city of King Hezikah, and it looks like there is no hope for him and his people.  However, when they wake up the next morning all 185,000 Assyrians are dead because the Lord uttered His voice and whipped them all out.  Then of course the greatest example of this is Easter morning.  Jesus walked out of the tomb, risen from the dead, first thing in the morning.  He then appears to the disciples and the woman letting them know He is indeed alive.  He is our salvation who comes in the morning. 

            I cannot try to say that the eschaton will be in the morning, but I would not be surprised if it was.  What I can say is that our joy still comes in the morning because every morning is a fresh start to new day.  God gives us what we need in the morning, and that is our forgiveness and New Adam which allows us to try to live each day as best we can for His honor and glorification.      

Important Details

      Greetings to you all in the name of our Risen Lord!  I had a pretty great day today.  I woke up early to finish studying for my test, and then went and took my test.  I feel like I did pretty well on it but it all depends on how subjectively he grades the essays and short answers.  Then I knocked out a little homework before my next class.  Then after classes I got things ready for supper and then went to my golf meet.  It was the first golf meet of the season and I was kind of nervous to be honest.  However, the other team only brought four guys so he played our top four.  That left one other guy and me so we played against each other in tournament style.  It was fun since it was just the two of us and we weren't really playing for anything other than pride.  It was match style which means that it is purely the number of holes that you win, not your total score.  I ended up beating him five holes, he beat me on two and we tied on two.  As far as overall score goes, I beat him by seven strokes.  I started off with a double bogie because I had three chips.  However, the second hole is a par three and I was sitting off the green about fifteen feet and I chipped in for a birdie.  After that, my round began to come together quite nice.  I drove the green on a par four that was 285 yards. I missed the eagle put but saved birdie.  The only downer was it took three hours to play nine holes because the two foursomes in front of us playing in the actual tournament took forever on each hole.  On holes 7 and and 8 I kind of fell apart and had a double and a triple bogie but finished with a par to save six over for a 40.  I think it was one of the best rounds of the day for the team but it still didn't count for anything other than making me feel good about my golf game.  Then Erin and I went over to Chris and Jes's to watch the NCAA National Championship since all three of them are Michigan fans.  I grilled supper while they watched the first part of the game.  It was a fun evening of all of us hanging out even though Michigan lost.  
      My thought for the day comes from Exodus class.  One of our test questions last Friday was based on Exodus 2:11-14.  When we covered this in class, Dr. Egger told us that if you do not properly understand these verses you cannot understand the entire Exodus narrative.  When he said this my first thought was he was crazy.  What do these verses have to do with the Exodus narrative, they seem so simple and almost unimportant in the grand scheme of things.  However, he spent the rest of that class period explaining what he meant and I realized he was right.  So now I want to share with you how these few verses have so much more meaning than may be seen at first glance.  The most important point of this passage is that it sets up Moses as the representative of God.  This is seen in verse 11 when it says that he saw the burden of the Israelites.  This parallels chapter 3 verse 7 where the Lord says He has seen the affliction of His people.  The next main point of this passage is that when Moses looks one way and then the other way and sees no one, most people think this is just him making sure no one will witness him murder the Egyptian.  However, what it is really setting up  is the fact that Moses sees a Hebrew being beaten by an Egyptian and he looks all around and sees no one else who will or can step up and help these people.  He is going to have to be the one who will help these people.  He starts by striking down to death the one who was striking one of his people.  This sets up a foreshadow for the fact that God will strike down to death the Egyptians who had for so long oppressed the Israelites.  Then as Moses comes to the second conflict in this passage it sets up two more points of importance.  The first is when the Israelite asked Moses who made him judge.  As you look ahead to the rest of the Exodus story we know that it is God who who makes Moses judge over the people.  The second point is when the Israelite asks Moses if he is going to kill them like he killed the Egyptian.  This becomes a prominent theme throughout the rest of the Exodus story.  As God deals harshly with the Egyptians and other enemies of the Israelites, the Israelites continue to wonder is God going to kill them like He does their opponents.  However, we know God time and time again spares their lives and does not kill them.  These are the several ways Moses is set up as the representative of God and how this passage really does show some important themes that will last the rest of the Exodus story.

A Blessed Easter

      Greetings to you all in the name of our Risen Lord!  I hope you all had a wonderful Easter weekend.  I had a great weekend with the family.  Erin and I left Friday night after church and got to Nate and Kari's around ten.  Saturday we spent the day playing cards, playing football with the boys, drinking, and talking.  It was a fun day.  Then Sunday morning we went to church at St. Paul's and it was a beautiful service with the choir, organ, trumpet, drums, and the celebration hymns of Easter.  I cannot help but think the joys of hundreds of faithful Christians all singing praises to God to the beautiful sound of instruments is only a tiny glimpse of what Heaven and the new creation will be like.  It's a fun thing to think about and hope for when that day comes.
     Erin had a good weekend meeting the family and didn't leave running away so I will take that as a good sign. The family all liked her and realized she fits in well.  She even won a majority of the card games on Saturday.  It was a successful weekend of introduction and welcoming.
     Preaching Maunday Thursday went well.  My friends Chris and Jes came along with Erin and me.  It was fun to have them in the congregation.  The attendance was not real high, but more than I expected.  I am enjoying preaching more and more each time.
     Call day is only four weeks away.  The quarter is almost half over and it just does not seem possible.  Time goes too fast, and I fear it will only go faster now that the weather is getting nicer.  I am still playing softball and golf each week.  Not much else is new around here.  A week from today a group of us are going to the Cardinals game.
      My thought for the day comes from a paper I had to write for Exodus.  We were assigned two chapters from Exodus and told to very briefly come up with one main Gospel theme from that chapter.  The Gospel theme is supposed to fit with the entire chapter, the entire Exodus narrative, and the entire Gospel narrative of Christ.  For this first paper we were assigned two chapters, 14 and 15.  Here is what I came up with for these two chapters.

            The biggest element of these two chapters is water; however, the event I want to focus on is the changing of the water at Marah from bitter to sweet at the end of chapter 15.  When Moses threw the log into the bitter water that the thirsty Israelites were craving, God made it sweet.  This fits into the immediate narrative of these two chapters along with the entire Exodus narrative.  It fits in the immediate narrative because as Pharaoh and his army are bearing down on the Israelites who were cornered against the Red Sea, God turned this bitter situation into a sweet one.  Instead of their only choices being getting cut in half by swords or drowning in the sea, God let them cross the sea on dry ground and drowned all of Pharaoh’s army permanently destroying their old enemy. 

            This fits in the Exodus narrative because God continuously turns bitter situations into sweet events for the Israelites.  However, it also fits because the overall narrative is God freeing the people from slavery, a very bitter life where they served Pharaoh rather than God, and bringing them into His presence, a sweet life where they can serve Him. 

            This fits into the ministry of Jesus in several ways.  Each and every miracle Jesus performs turns some sort of bitter crippling, disease, or even death into sweet healing or life.  However, it fits in the grander scene of His ministry through the cross.  His death on the cross seemed like the bitterest blow of all to Jesus’ disciples, friends, and all followers.  This seemed like the bitter blow that could not be turned sweet.  It appeared that death, the bitterest thing we taste in this life time, had won.  However, the same God who turned that bitter water for those thirsty Israelites sweet is the same God who turned the bitter death of Christ sweet when He brought Him back to life.  Not only was it sweet because it established Christ’s reign as the one true eternal King, but also because it set all children of God free from the bitter slavery of their sin.  God used a log to turn bitter water sweet for the Israelites.  He used two logs in the shape of a cross to turn the bitter broken relationship of God and his sinful creatures into sweet redemption.  This redemption’s full sweetness will not be tasted until that Final Day when Christ comes again.  So until then we continue to taste the bitterness of this present evil age, but we have the hope of that redemption because God gave us a foretaste of the sweetness in Christ’s resurrection.  He truly has turned the bitterness of sin into sweet justification that is the now not yet justification we believe in.  That day will be our Marah but an infinity times sweeter!   

      Remember just because the day of Easter is over, the hope and joy we have in Easter lives in us each and every day.  Christ is Risen and our faith is solidly grounded in this truth, so live each day in the joy of your faith, serving the God who loved us enough to send His Son to die and rise again in order to claim us as His children.  Praise Him for the loving merciful God He is!  

Dear Heavenly Father, 

Thank you so much for sending Your Son to be our Savior.  Thank you for loving us enough to claim us as Your children.  Please give us Your Spirit so that we may live each and every day serving You and witnessing the Easter hope and joy we have in our Risen Christ.  In the name of our Savior who lives. Amen.