tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22781533.post116209956305049192..comments2024-03-23T14:04:57.635-05:00Comments on Father Hollywood: Sermon: Festival of the Reformation (Transferred)Rev. Larry Beanehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06705910892752648940noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22781533.post-1162358154560183012006-10-31T23:15:00.000-06:002006-10-31T23:15:00.000-06:00Dear Past Elder:Thanks for your encouragement. Sol...Dear Past Elder:<BR/><BR/>Thanks for your encouragement. Soli Deo gloria! <BR/><BR/>Thank you also (and more importantly) for your thoughful and insightful observations. I can add nothing except to encourage everyone to read your comments and drink them in!<BR/><BR/>Pax!Rev. Larry Beanehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06705910892752648940noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22781533.post-1162124007063259032006-10-29T06:13:00.000-06:002006-10-29T06:13:00.000-06:00Thank you for an excellent sermon! In the world's...Thank you for an excellent sermon! In the world's terms I am a convert to Lutheranism from Roman Catholicism, particularly the type now suppressed by Rome. In reality, I haven't converted to anything. I remember when I was going through Bible Information Class in WELS (where I began, I'm LCMS now) reading the Babylonian Captivity from a book called Three Treatises I had bought years before and never read. When it came to the Eucharist, ending with his comment that who would not faint for joy at the thought of such a Saviour, I thought to myself I had never read such a truly catholic treatment -- here is what the church I had known had hemmed and hawed, stammered and stuttered, and now gags and pukes, trying to say, just plainly and clearly said! The pastor saw this and gave me a copy of the Book of Concord (Tappert) which continued the process begun with Three Treatises -- here was no new church but the only church there is, reformed and restored to its original message and mission, without losing what had developed of value along the way, such as the liturgy. I wasn't changing churches at all, I was simply finding a place where the Gospel was rightly preached and the Sacraments properly administered in the only church there is. The ordinary language word may be Lutheran, but I've never been more catholic -- or put another way, I didn't really hear the catholic faith and join the one, holy, catholic and apostolic church until I became Lutheran. And thank you for the reminder that this is no cause for smugness, it's purely the grace of God, and the world, the flesh and the devil agitate all the time against it.Past Elderhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10541968132598367551noreply@blogger.com