The October 2025 issue of The Lutheran Witness provided definitions and explanations of nine different words we use often as Lutherans — and unpacked how other denominations use those terms differently. We are sharing several of these online throughout the month of October. Definition: Pastoral ministry is the office of preaching the Gospel and administering the Sacraments instituted by Christ for the forgiveness of sins. Lutherans Confess: The core responsibility and purpose of the Office ...| The Lutheran Witness
The October 2025 issue of The Lutheran Witness provided definitions and explanations of nine different words we use often as Lutherans — and unpacked how other denominations use those terms differently. We are sharing several of these online throughout the month of October. Definition: Good works are actions in accordance with God’s will, taken by the Christian not from fear of punishment or for worldly gain, but as an intrinsic part of the Holy Spirit’s work of sanctification. Lutheran...| The Lutheran Witness
The October 2025 issue of The Lutheran Witness provided definitions and explanations of nine different words we use often as Lutherans — and unpacked how other denominations use those terms differently. We are sharing several of these online throughout the month of October. Definition: Inspiration is God’s divine action whereby the Holy Spirit breathed into the biblical authors not only the ideas but the very words of Holy Scripture, making every part of the Bible the infallible, inerrant...| The Lutheran Witness
The October 2025 issue of The Lutheran Witness provided definitions and explanations of nine different words we use often as Lutherans — and unpacked how other denominations use those terms differently. We are sharing several of these online throughout the month of October. Definition: To be saved is to receive God’s act of setting Christians free from bondage to sin, death and the devil; declaring them righteous on account of the work of Christ; and giving them eternal life with Him in h...| The Lutheran Witness
The October 2025 issue of The Lutheran Witness provided definitions and explanations of nine different words we use often as Lutherans — and unpacked how other denominations use those terms differently. We are sharing several of these online throughout the month of October. Definition: Grace is God’s undeserved, free gift of mercy and forgiveness to sinners, by which He declares them righteous solely on account of the works and merit of Christ. Lutherans Confess: Since the fall into sin, ...| The Lutheran Witness
This is the latest installment of “Life in the Church Year,” a series by Dr. Kristen Einertson and Tessa Muench of All the Household. This series will provide guidance for living out the seasons of the Church Year at home with your families. Find month-by-month lists of Lutheran feasts, festivals and commemorations here. Each October, the Church Year gives Lutherans something to look forward to. The Festival of the Reformation is a highlight, both commemorating the day on which Dr. Martin...| The Lutheran Witness
by Matthew C. Harrison Just over a month ago, as we’ve all seen in the news, a badly demented and disordered individual committed and attempted murder at Annunciation Catholic School in Minneapolis. There’s obviously mental illness involved — gender dysphoria and many other issues. And as with a number of public shootings recently, there was a manifesto left behind. Then, just two weeks later, we received the shocking news of the tragic murder of Charlie Kirk, a confessing Christian m...| The Lutheran Witness
Faith is the gift of knowledge, assent and confidence in Christ worked in us by the Holy Spirit, which receives the grace, mercy and salvation of God, by which we are restored to a right relationship with Him.| The Lutheran Witness
By John W. Kleinig I am fascinated by the slogans that people wear on their sweatshirts. They tell us a lot about them and their convictions. There are two that caught my eye at an airport some years ago. The first, which has since become quite common, was: “My body, my choice!” The second, which is far too long to become popular, was even more telling. It ran: “Your body may be a temple, but mine’s an amusement park!” These slogans show how many people regard their bodies in our so...| The Lutheran Witness
by Matthew C. Harrison There is a near universal human conviction that somehow something of human consciousness lives beyond death, whether a continuation of the human person absent a body, or absorption of the individual consciousness into some “stream of consciousness,” or a higher final state of oneness and being with “god.” Genuine Marxists or Communists are an exception. As “materialists,” they limit all reality to what is material in nature. Thus no soul. No heaven. No aft...| The Lutheran Witness
This is the latest installment of “Life in the Church Year,” a series by Dr. Kristen Einertson and Tessa Muench of All the Household. This series will provide guidance for living out the seasons of the Church Year at home with your families. Find month-by-month lists of Lutheran feasts, festivals and commemorations here. In September, the church changes her focus to the End Times and our Lord’s final victory over sin, death and the devil for us on the cross. These themes are reflected i...| The Lutheran Witness
This is the latest installment of “Life in the Church Year,” a series by Dr. Kristen Einertson and Tessa Muench of All the Household. This series will provide guidance for living out the seasons of the Church Year at home with your families. Find month-by-month lists of Lutheran feasts, festivals and commemorations here. As summer wanes and August greets us, the church finds herself deep in the season of Trinitytide. During this season, our church body commemorates the lives of many Chris...| The Lutheran Witness
by Matthew C. Harrison We are “Book of Concord Lutherans.” Every rostered church worker in the LCMS; every congregation, district and LCMS institution; every school and LCMS university has defined itself as a Book of Concord Lutheran endeavor. It’s on display most vividly when a pastor is ordained and installed in a congregation. He swears to believe and teach in complete accord with the divinely inspired Scriptures and the Book of Concord. The Book of Concord was ratified in 1580 on ...| The Lutheran Witness
By Arthur A. Just On the Mount of Transfiguration, heaven and earth came together in the glorified body of Jesus. Peter, James and John, three of Jesus’ disciples, came up the mountain with Him for this encounter with Moses and Elijah, two heavenly beings. In this communion between heavenly and earthly bodies around the dazzling white body of Jesus, we see a picture of what happens in the Divine Service around the bodily presence of Jesus in the liturgy of the Word and the Lord’s Supper. ...| The Lutheran Witness
This is the latest installment of “Life in the Church Year,” a series by Dr. Kristen Einertson and Tessa Muench of All the Household. This series will provide guidance for living out the seasons of the Church Year at home with your families. Find month-by-month lists of Lutheran feasts, festivals and commemorations here. When attempting to live out the Church Year at home, figuring out how to celebrate the long season of Trinity, which includes the summer months of June and July, can be p...| The Lutheran Witness
By Bryan Wolfmueller Christians have need of endurance: that mix of courage and patience that presses on to the end. We are tempted to weariness. Our flesh is discouraged. Thanks be to God, the Scriptures are full of passages that spur us on to faithful endurance. The Bible sets the joy of the Gospel, the hope of eternal life, and the strength of the Holy Spirit before our weak and weary hearts. The Bible encourages us on the way. Through the prophet Isaiah, the Lord says: “Fear not, for I ...| The Lutheran Witness
by Matthew C. Harrison “We rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame” (Rom. 5:3–5). Do you ever feel like quitting? Quitting friends? Quitting family? Quitting a class? Quitting sports? Quitting school? Quitting church? Quitting life? Of course you have. We all have, and the reasons vary. Life is painful and complicated. It’s a good thing to get out of toxic s...| The Lutheran Witness
By Joel Elowsky 1,700 years ago, there was a newly united Roman Empire headed by a young emperor from Serbia named Constantine. The horrific persecution of Christians under Diocletian (A.D. 303–313) had just ended, and decrees pronouncing toleration of Christians had been issued by Galerius in 311 and by Constantine I and Licinius with the Edict of Milan in 313. In 312, Constantine had made his famous defeat of Maxentius at the Milvian Bridge: During the battle, “he saw with his own eyes ...| The Lutheran Witness
This is the latest installment of “Life in the Church Year,” a series by Dr. Kristen Einertson and Tessa Muench of All the Household. This series will provide guidance for living out the seasons of the Church Year at home with your families. Find month-by-month lists of Lutheran feasts, festivals and commemorations here. If you’ve ever read any children’s fairy tales, you’ll know that with every great victory comes a feast and celebration. It should be the same with the Lord’s gre...| The Lutheran Witness
by Matthew C. Harrison We live in strange times of exploding scientific knowledge and deep ignorance of the Bible and Christianity. Our young people are taught the Bible is myth. They are told that the books included in it were selected for political and prejudicial reasons, while the “gospels” excluded from the canon of Scripture (the “Gospel of Thomas,” for example) were rejected for their broader, more open views of women, sexuality and so on. In reality, these other “gospels...| The Lutheran Witness
By Brian T. German Read Isaiah 2 and 13:6–13 and Luke 23:26–56. The Old Testament is saturated with special days. The creation of humanity certainly makes the list (Gen. 1:26–27), as does God’s day of rest (Gen. 2:2–3). The day the Israelites were brought out of Egypt was to be remembered throughout the generations (Ex. 13:3), along with the day that the temple was consecrated (1 Kings 8) — and rebuilt (Ezra 3). And who could forget the day the sun stood still (Joshua 10:14)? But ...| The Lutheran Witness
By Geoffrey R. Boyle Read Exodus 12:1–28 and John 13:1–15. When we talk about figures in the Old Testament, we’re not just talking about things that are like other things. Nor are we imposing later things onto earlier things, as if forcing the Old Testament to say something it doesn’t want to say. Instead, when we turn to the Old Testament — the people, places, institutions and events — we’re looking at real things that actually happened, real people who actually did what is rec...| The Lutheran Witness
By Kevin Golden Read Zechariah 9 and John 12:12–19. In their accounts of Palm Sunday, both Matthew (21:5) and John (12:14) report that Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem is a fulfillment of Zechariah 9:9: “Behold, your king is coming to you.” Mark (11:10) and Luke (19:38) also reflect the Lord’s promise through Zechariah in their narratives, reporting the joyful words of the people: “Blessed is the King who comes in the name of the Lord!” It is rather straightforward, after all. Read Z...| The Lutheran Witness
This is the latest installment of “Life in the Church Year,” a series by Dr. Kristen Einertson and Tessa Muench of All the Household. This series will provide guidance for living out the seasons of the Church Year at home with your families. Find month-by-month lists of Lutheran feasts, festivals and commemorations here. All things in the church year point toward the death and resurrection of Jesus, the origin and fulfillment of the church’s life. And in April this year we reach the hig...| The Lutheran Witness
This letter was published in the April 2025 issue of The Lutheran Witness. by Matthew C. Harrison It’s LCMS district convention season and time is at a great premium. Seven down, and 28 to go! This month, I share with you a striking devotion from the great Lutheran scholar Johann Gerhard (1582–1637). He wrote an enormous series of books on Christian doctrine that brim with the Bible and faithful scholarship. The English translations have recently been published by Concordia Publishing H...| The Lutheran Witness
By Scott Adle Aaron Renn’s Life in the Negative World has spurred many Christians and Christian leaders to think again about a question that is old, yet perennial. Perhaps it could be summarized as: “What is the way forward in this culture for the church, and for us as Christians?” The italicized bit is what has gotten Renn traction. His framework posits that something has changed in our culture over the last few decades, and that the ways we do things should perhaps change too. An Age ...| The Lutheran Witness
By Troy Neujahr Is bivocational ministry on your horizon? Does it seem scary? Can it be good? Imagine a pastor and his church leaders sitting down together to hammer out next year’s budget. As the evening wears on, the income and expense columns show a resolute resistance to meeting one another. The light joking slowly becomes somber; smiling good humor hardens into serious faces. On the one hand, everyone at the table knew this day would come — and had known it for years — but to see t...| The Lutheran Witness
By Cameron MacKenzie Five hundred years ago, in the mid-1520s, a series of riots and revolts now known as the “Peasants’ War” broke out in Germany. These revolts were waged by groups both small and large against the established orders of church and state. They were regional, uncoordinated and inspired by local grievances like high prices, rents and taxes. By the time they were over, half of the German lands had been torn apart and as many as 100,000 people lay dead. To Luther’s grief,...| The Lutheran Witness
