The Nihil Rule

This year's Bible reading plan: - 1 pass through the Old Testament - 2 passes through the Wisdom literature (Job, Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Song of Solomon) - 10 passes through the New Testament gospels - 20 passes through the New Testament epistles For the OT it is pretty straightforward: count the number of pages in the OT, count the number of pages in the Wisdom literature, sum and divide by 365 (or some smaller number to give you a buffer) I wanted to share how I parsed out the New Testament and why. Each month, I read either Matthew, Mark and Romans-Revelations, or Luke, Acts, John, Romans-Revelations. Not to downplay the Gospels proper as being inferior to the Epistles! The synoptic Gospels obviously repeat common stories with different emphases. Matthew acts as an early catechism. Mark's emphasis is action - εὑθύς - immediately! Luke chronicles quite methodically in his Gospel and Acts, while John, writing later, takes on a more sacramental nature - the λόγος, the...

"We are colonists from the age to come. People think that folks who love the liturgy are nostalgic for the past. Balderdash! We are living from the future! It's the Kingdom that will finally be revealed that we live from in faith! We see that in spades in the Book of Revelation..." More on the liturgical nature of the Revelation of Jesus Christ from  Pr. Will Weedon, 5/23/22 (thewordendures.org)

(She's cute, but we're confessional Lutherans... dudes only!) I am offering a $1000 renewable scholarship to seminarians. Along with the scholarship, you will receive a subscription to Gottesdienst, the Journal of Lutheran Liturgy . In order to apply to the scholarship you must meet the following critieria: Attend Bethany Lutheran Theological Seminary (BLTS), Wisconsin Lutheran Seminary (WLS), or Concordia Theological Seminary, Ft. Wayne (CTSFW) Hold a Quia subscription to the Book of Concord In order to apply please email scholarship@nihilrule.com  with the following: 1) Your name or online alias 2) Seminary you are attending and year  3) Your confession to a Quia subscription to the Book of Concord 3) Links to your social media or published presence 4) Anything else you would like me to know about your plans for ministry I will select a candidate or candidate(s) to subsidize for the upcoming academic year. The scholarship will be sent directly to your financial aid office, a...

  "Revelation is a book about prophecies in the future" implies that nothing in the Revelation of Jesus Christ has occurred yet - it's all future. Bullshit. Revelation's fulfillment "was, and is, and is to come" - it has been fulfilled, is being fulfilled and will be fulfilled. The Revelation of Jesus Christ  is fractal . The letters to the seven churches in chapters 2-3 have surely been fulfilled, as they were written to the churches of John's day. Assuming an early dating of Revelation, the destruction of the temple in chapter 11 has been fulfilled. Rev. Dr. Bugenhagen casts Martin Luther as the angel in Revelations 14:6-7: "6 Then I saw another angel flying in the midst of heaven, having the everlasting gospel to preach to those who dwell on the earth—to every nation, tribe, tongue, and people—7 saying with a loud voice, “Fear God and give glory to Him, for the hour of His judgment has come; and worship Him who made heaven and earth, the sea and ...

Adolf Hoenecke wants his synod back.  I am a fan of Lutheran orthodoxy. I am sick of Lutherans that just want to "fit in," that want to be "seeker sensitive," who have coffee bars, padded chairs and TV screens. I am sick of those who see the Liturgy as a grab-bag of fashion accessories to be thrown into a disposable bulletin or TV screen and livestreamed on the Internet. I am confessional, not concessional. This blog will Highlight the issues with TV screens in the sanctuary, disposable liturgies, so-called "online worship" and other abuses created by the uncritical adoption of modernity  Contend with the errors in WELS theology, specifically the Office of the Holy Ministry and Holy Communion Revel in Lutheran Orthodoxy and the gifts our fathers have handed down to us in the Liturgy and Lutheran confessions Post dank memes that are based and Christ-pilled. Confessional Lutheranism, as described in the Book of Concord, is the correct exposition of the Holy ...

The Wauwatosa theologian gets it right:  "In the German language lie all the roots of genuine, solid, strong Lutheranism and Christianity, in the English, not one. Tear this plant forcibly from the soil of the German language, and it will become a dry tumbleweed driven by the wind against the fence. We must hold fast to the German language in church and school as long as there still are those who can be edified better in German than in English. In our training-schools for pastors and teachers we must cling to the German language until Judgment Day…O that the Lutheran Church, especially as it becomes an English speaking church would guard against this moralistic gospel and common sense Christianity of the Reformed as against the devil himself! O that we might say to them until Judgment Day as Luther said to Zwingli, "You have a different spirit than we!" This gospel of the sectarian churches is nothing else than the authority of the blind but proud human reason over the ...

Martin Luther: On Receiving Both Kinds in the Sacrament (1522) Finally, I see that I must add a good word of admonition to those whom Satan has now begun to persecute. For there are some among them who think that when they are attacked they can escape the danger by saying: I do not hold with Luther or with anyone else, but only with the holy gospel and the holy church, or with the Roman church. For saying so they think they will be left in peace. Yet in their hearts they regard my teaching as the teaching of the gospel and stand by it. In reality this kind of statement does not help them, and it is in effect a denial of Christ. Therefore, I beg such people to be very careful. True,  by any consideration of body or soul you should never say: I am Lutheran,  or Papist. For neither of them died for you, or is your master. Christ alone died for you, he alone is your master, and you should confess yourself a Christian.  But if you are convinced that Luther’s teaching is in acc...

(h/t Sam Novak)

An excellent reminder from Pr Peters on what fellowship in the Church truly is . Share it with your inreach chairman...  The world is not our teacher and its aims cannot be renovated into a cohesive program of fellowship.  It is and must the opposite.  From our life together around His Word and Table will flow the ordinary interactions that people have but, again, this is not our chief aim.  Our most important goal and purpose is known and lived out in our association as the baptized people of God, confessing our faith, and living by the food of God's Word and Table. Instead we have been content to add a thin veneer of religiosity to what are largely secular processes and ends.  A group begins with a spoken prayer before it proceeds to other endeavors and this is what makes it churchly.  Prayer ought to infuse everything we are and do and not simply be a perfunctory ritual.  Worship should not be the occasional activity of such fellowship groups but th...

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The WELS new hymnal placed "As the deer" as a surrogate for Psalm 42. The following was written to address this unfortunate replacement. As the deer fails to teach lament, so also the church. Psalm 42 is classified as an individual psalm of lament [1] , [2] . TLH categorizes it as a psalm “Of Prayer; Against the Enemies of the Church” [3] – that is, imprecatory. The psalm itself shares the psalmists’ despair at the seeming victory of the godless and his separation from God’s presence at the temple. What should be we learn from this psalm? We should desire God’s presence, hear His Word in public worship, and receive the salvation He gives in his Word [4] . Luther uses Psalm 42 in his “Brief Exhortation to Confession” [5] as an image of yearning for God’s Word, absolution, and the Sacrament. “As the deer” says none of those things. It is a pop evangelical song [6] that, other than the paraphrase of verse 1 in stanza 1, fails to capture the depth or intent of its inspired...