The
Trinitarian
Trinity Evangelical
Lutheran Church ,
Morrill , Nebraska
The
Growing Season
We’re in the midst of the growing season. Temperatures have warmed, flowers are
blooming, crops have been planted (or are being planted), and there is the hope
for a harvest. We’re also in the midst
of the growing season in the Church Year—the Sundays after Pentecost (hence the
green paraments)
Scripture also speaks of the growing season. In urging his readers to remain patient until
the coming of the Lord, he draws on an agricultural illustration.
Be patient, therefore, brothers, until
the coming of the Lord. See how the farmer waits for the precious fruit of the
earth, being patient about it, until it receives the early and the late rains.
(James 5:7).
But patience does not mean idleness. Once the farmer has planted his crops, he
doesn’t just sit around waiting for the day of harvest. There is plenty of work to be done to ensure
the harvest for which he waits. He must
cultivate the fields to break up the soil around the plants and provide
adequate aeration. He must apply
fertilizers to provide his crops needed nurtients. He must also utilize herbicides and
insecticide to protect his crop from pests who would ruin the anticipated
harvest.
Likewise, the growing season of the Church Year
isn’t a time of idleness on the part of God’s people. In the weeks between Pentecost and the Last
Sunday of the Church Year (November 24 this year), Christians need to be busy
cultivating, nourishing, and defending the faith they have been given in Holy
Baptism.
The tools we have been given for this on-going
work are the Word and the Sacraments.
St. Paul wrote to Timothy:
All Scripture is breathed out by God
and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in
righteousness, (2 Timothy 3:16).
Luther reminded us, in his Small Catechism
that our baptism isn’t a one-time event:
It indicates that the Old Adam in us
should by daily contrition and repentance be drowned and die with all sins and
evil desires, and that a new man should daily emerge and arise to live before
God in righteousness and purity forever.
Our Lord has given us his own body and blood “for
the forgiveness of our sins,” something we need on an on-going basis, and urges
us,
“This do [the Greek verb means “keep
on doing this”] as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.” (1 Corinthians
11:25).
Your faith needs to be nurtured each and every day
in the growing season (i.e., your life in this world). Your faith is under attack by the world in
which you live; your faith needs to be protected. You have been given the gifts from God by
which your faith can continue to grow and develop until the day the harvest is
complete.
It’s easy for us to take such gifts for granted,
to assume that since we have been baptized and confirmed, there’s nothing
really left for us to do. But the gift
of faith we have been given isn’t something we can simply assume will always be
there. It is true that God will never
take away from us the gift of faith he has given us in Baptism. But we can certainly lose the benefits of
that gift if we fail to nourish and protect that faith with the means of grace
God has given us. We need to spend time
in his Word each day. We need to recall
our baptism each and every day. We need
to nourish this faith with the body and blood of our Savior. These are the
gifts that we find as we gather with the rest of God’s called children in the
Divine Service.
A
farmer’s harvest depends upon the careful and constant care of the crops he has
planted. The harvest of our souls
depends upon the careful and constant care of our faith. God has provided the means by which this
harvest is assured. We can make use of
these means and trust that God will accomplish his purpose, or we can ignore
these means and suffer the consequences.
It is certainly easy to ignore these means, to downplay the importance
of these means, or to let all the other responsibilities and obligations take
precedence over these means. But to do
so is to endanger the harvest that God has planted in Holy Baptism.
It
is my prayer that you will make use of the means God has given that the
spiritual crop God has planted will come to fruition in the day of his harvest.
Pastor Schnare
The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod
LCMS Stewardship Ministry
Newsletter Article – July 2019
Whenever the topic of stewardship and giving comes up, the conversation inevitably turns to the question: “How much should I give?” Answers will vary because the motive behind such questions also vary.
Sometimes the motive behind asking this question is for self-justification. Even though, as Lutherans, we know we are not saved by our works but by grace through faith because of Jesus’ substitutionary atonement, the natural religion of fallen man is to earn God’s favor by what we do.
Take, for example, the response of our Lord to the rich young ruler who asked, “What must I do to inherit eternal life?” Jesus first tells him to keep the commandments. The rich young ruler responds by indicating that all this he has kept from his youth. But Jesus tells him that he lacks one thing: He must sell all he has and give it to the poor and then follow Him.
This rich young ruler went away sad because he was quite wealthy and could not part with his possessions. Here we see that those who seek to justify themselves by their giving will hear a response that intensifies the duty that God places upon them. Indeed, they will hear a response that makes it impossible to win God’s favor by their works.
But to those who genuinely desire to know their duty as Christians in the arena of giving, we look to the Bible for our answer. We believe the Bible is the Word of God. And we know that the Word of God has been “breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work” (2 Tim. 3:16–17).
So, we begin to answer the question, “What should I give?” with the question, “What does the Bible say about how much we should give and to whom?”
The Old Testament is explicit. The expectation is that the people of God would give a tithe – 10 percent – of the first fruits of their labor to support the full-time ministry of the Levites. This is what the Lord gave Moses to teach the people:
“You shall tithe all the yield of your seed that comes from the
field year by year. And before the Lord your God, in the place that he will
choose, to make his name dwell there, you shall eat the tithe of your grain, of
your wine, and of your oil, and the firstborn of your herd and flock, that you
may learn to fear the Lord your God always.
“And if the way is too long for you, so that you are not able to
carry the tithe, when the Lord your God blesses you, because the place is too
far from you, which the Lord your God chooses, to set his name there, then you
shall turn it into money and bind up the money in your hand and go to the place
that the Lord your God chooses and spend the money for whatever you desire – oxen
or sheep or wine or strong drink, whatever your appetite craves.
“And you shall eat there before the Lord your God and rejoice, you
and your household. And you shall not neglect the Levite who is within your
towns, for he has no portion or inheritance with you.
“At the end of every three years you shall bring out all the tithe
of your produce in the same year and lay it up within your towns. And the
Levite, because he has no portion or inheritance with you, and the sojourner,
the fatherless, and the widow, who are within your towns, shall come and eat
and be filled, that the Lord your God may bless you in all the work of your
hands that you do.” (Deut. 14:22–29)
This principle of tithing is carried over into the New Testament, though not explicitly by calling it a tithe. St. Paul teaches the Church at Corinth the following:
We are to give to the church regularly (1 Cor. 16:1–2), proportionally (1 Cor. 16:1–2; 2 Cor. 8:12), and generously (2 Cor. 8:20) of our first fruits (1 Cor. 16:1–2; Gen. 4:4; Prov. 3:9; Lev. 27:30) with a spirit of eagerness (2 Cor. 9:2), earnestness (2 Cor. 8:7), cheerfulness (2 Cor. 9:7), and love (2 Cor. 8:23). And all of this is because the “Lord has ordained that those who preach the Gospel should make their living by the Gospel” (1 Cor. 9:14), just as the Levites did.
This is our New Testament standard. Since Christ became poor for us in order to make us rich in Him – blessing us with the riches of heaven – so we have also been so blessed to follow the example of our Lord and Savior and give of ourselves and the work of our hands to bless others with the same.
If we have been lax in this, let us, like our Lord, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross and scorned its shame, likewise begin to work toward this goal of regular giving of a generous proportion of the first fruits of God’s giving to us.
And let us do so not begrudgingly, but for the joy set before us – with a spirit of eagerness, cheerfulness, and love – to share the blessings of God with those placed into our care.
Wyoming District
Round-Up
JULY 2019
“Here I Stand” on the Word in the
Church
“...REMEMBERING YOU IN MY
PRAYERS...” (Eph. 1:16)
For
Rev. Vernon Boehlke (emeritus, Riverton), who continues to receive treatments
for cancer.
For
Rev. Ralph Jaeger (emeritus, Laramie), who continues to gain strength after a
heart attack in early December.
For
Rev. Kenneth Humphrey (Trinity, Morrill), who is at home receiving medicine for
an enlarged heart.
In
thanksgiving, for the family of Rev.
Nolan Obermueller, who died June 15. He served our congregations at
Immanuel, Sheridan; Trinity, Cheyenne; and St. Luke’s, Worland, and also as 1st
Vice President of the Northern Nebraska and Wyoming Districts (1971–86). The
funeral is July 2 in Seward, NE. Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord!
PASTORS AND CONGREGATIONS
The parish of Zion, Grover and
Grace, Pine Bluffs is being served in a vacancy arrangement by Rev. Lincoln
Winter (Trinity, Wheatland).
St. Paul’s, Sidney is being served
by Rev. Allen Strawn (St. Paul’s, Bridgeport) during the vacancy.
Rev. Travis Sherman (Grace, Gordon,
NE) is serving Grace, Merriman, NE (Nebraska District) while it considers its
future.
Here I Stand
Luther’s confession in 1521 seems
obvious to us: His conscience is bound by the Word of God. The Word of God is
God’s own speech and doctrine. As such, it is obviously the source and
authority for all doctrine, because God spoke it. With Luther, we dare not take
a stand against God in His Word. “Here I stand.” So help me, God.
But Luther’s confession was not so
obvious to his hearers in 1521. Their minds and hearts were dominated and
deluded by the widely assumed and believed false doctrines of his day. His
opponents believed the errors of scholasticism and the papacy, just like the
people of our day believe many widely accepted errors. Let’s apply this
observation to the use of science today.
Science—man’s investigation and
discovery of God’s creation—is a wonderful gift of God, to be received with
thanksgiving. Yet, it is a gift with many limitations. For example, it cannot
discover any spiritual matters. It can make educated guesses about the past,
but it cannot do experiments on the past or prove its theories about the past.
It cannot know the heart of man. It is as limited as man himself is. And
importantly, it’s scope and authority are always and completely subject to the
Holy Scriptures—God’s Word.
But the authority
and limitations of science are being transgressed by those who seek to destroy
the Christian faith and God’s commandments. So, in the name of science, various
hypotheses about Evolution are put forward as a substitute doctrine for the
six-day creation of the world recorded in the history of Genesis 1–3. For those
who believe in Evolution, the consequences are devastating. God is eliminated,
or at least marginalized. Marriage is held as a mere social construct, rather
than a sacred institution of God. The created distinction of male and female,
the conjugal marital union, and all God’s commands for marriage and sexual
intimacy become mere assertions of human desire and will. Each person becomes
his own god, the legislator of his own morality and law, the creator of his own
identity and purpose (or lack thereof).
Likewise, the
doctrine of Evolution devalues human life. Thus, man becomes a mere animal, a
beast. All human life is subject not to divine justice but to the imposition of
human desire and will by those with power over the lives of others. Those in
power sacrifice some (e.g. abortion, infanticide, euthanasia) for their own
benefit or the supposed benefit of an unknown future humanity.
Other dangers
of science can be named. C. S. Lewis observed (in The Abolition of
Man) that the more we conquer Nature
(the creation) with our science and technology, the more it conquers us. Our
technology can actually dehumanize us and enslave us by its conveniences and
entertainment. For an example, we need only look at the power of the digital
screen to isolate and enervate us, and to replace and destroy healthy
relationships and godly participation in household, church, and community.
Against the
abuses of science and technology we confess the God who created the world out
of nothing in six natural days by His Word alone. We confess that God created
man in His own image and likeness, male and female, and simultaneously gave
them the gift of marriage, the lifelong union of one man and one woman, with
the command and blessing to be fruitful and bring up children in the fear and
admonition of God. We confess that all human life is given by God, and that
this gift is to be taken away only by Him. We confess that God gave us our
various stations in the household, church, and community to be the hands and
feet of God in serving our neighbors. We confess that the Holy Scriptures
teaches us all these things with clarity and truth. Furthermore, we confess
that God endows our lives with purpose and meaning, and that He brings all His
works to completion in the incarnation, life, death, and resurrection of His
beloved Son, Jesus Christ. We confess that God will bring the history of this
world to a close at the coming of His Son in glory, when all the dead will be
raised. And we confess that He will judge the living and the dead, condemning
unbelievers to eternal torment in hell and bringing His believers into the
eternal and heavenly joy of His presence forevermore. This is our faith and
confession. Here I stand!
REFORMATION 500: 1519 in Review
The Leipzig
Debate went on for days, from June 27 through July 15, 1519. The purpose of the
debate was to resolve the controversies that had arisen after Luther’s posting
of the 95 Theses. At first it was the Romanist Johannes Eck against Luther’s
pastor, Andreas Karlstadt. Luther took his turn from July 4–13. The debate
ranged over such topics as free will and the doctrine of grace, the primacy of
the pope, purgatory, indulgences, and repentance.
Luther’s hope
that the debate would bring about concord and agreement in doctrine was not
realized. However, the debate helped him sharpen his understanding and
arguments regarding the papacy, councils, and doctrinal authority in the
church. Luther insisted that Christ, not the pope, was the head and foundation
of the church. He insisted that all writings of the church fathers were to be
subordinated to Holy Scripture. He was accused by Eck of defending the doctrine
of John Huss, whom the Council of Constance had burned at the stake as a heretic
in 1415. Although Luther wanted to defend the honor of both the pope and the
councils, the debate drove him to insist that both popes and councils may err,
and that they must in any case be placed under the authority of Scriptures.
In a sermon preached
on Matthew 16:13–20 during the debate (June 29), Luther summarized the two most
important matters of the debate. First, in the matter of the grace of God and
our free will, he referred to Jesus’ words, “Flesh and blood has not revealed
this to you, but My Father who is in heaven” (v. 17). He preached, “It follows
from this that the free will of man, praise and extol it as you will, can do
absolutely nothing of itself and is not free in its own volition to know or do
good, but only the grace of God, which makes it free and without which it lies
bound in sin and error and cannot get loose by itself” (AE 51.57). Second, on
the question of the primacy of the pope, he preached, “It is true that the keys
were given to St. Peter; but not to him personally, but rather to the person of
the Christian church. They were actually given to me and to you for the comfort
of our consciences. St. Peter, or a priest [pastor], is a servant of the keys”
(AE 51.59).
Announcements
Lander Youth Camp, August 4-8
Registration can be found online at: events.wylcms.org/lander2019
THE NEXT ROUNDUP
The
next Roundup will be delivered to congregations around July 20 (August 2019
issue).
Rural and Small Town Mission
STRONG FAITH, FERVENT LOVE Even in Remote Locations "Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God” (Heb. 12:1–2). I recently had the opportunity to present at an Engaging Your Community (EYC) event in Waldport, Ore. In my travels, I haven’t had the opportunity to go to this part of the country before; and let me tell you, it is beautiful. As with most of my trips, I flew into the city and then had a long drive ahead of me. I didn’t know that I would end up taking the “scenic” route — but I’m glad I did. This happy accident took me through farmland, along a windy mountain road, and finally brought me out at sunset upon a coastal road with her rocks and waves. I was in awe of God’s beautiful creation. It was a reminder of how many folks there are around us, even in these distant places, who don’t realize why this beauty is truly beautiful. Statistically speaking, well over half of those we dwell among would view this beautiful creation as mere chance or, at best, a distantly organized happenstance. This reality would be easier to swallow if these folks were outside of our sphere of influence. But this is a picture of our own families, neighbors and communities. Given this picture, we can see that even in the remotest of locations, we have a ripe mission field before us. This is why those words from the author of Hebrews are still important for us today. This world is certainly bent against God and His free gift of grace. We cannot have natural knowledge of the strong faith and fervent love that come to us by that grace for the sake of Christ. This then is our call to action, to share this divine knowledge with those in our midst, as well as to those within whose midst God has placed us. I’ve heard that Luther said it this way, “When a Christian begins to recognize Christ as His Lord and Savior … then his heart is possessed by God so that he knows no greater joy than that someone else recognizes Christ. … He cannot be still or listless, but always contends and strives with all his might, as his one reason for living, that he might bring God’s praise and honor among people.” May God grant this for Christ’s sake. Pastor Todd Kollbaum
Voter’s Meeting Minutes
June 16, 2019 Special
Voters Meeting
The special voter’s meeting was called to order by Chairman Don Bowlin. A motion was made by Elmer Wohl and seconded by Rudy Landreth to accept John and Sandra Kammerzel as communicate members via Transfer. Compensation for Pastor Humphrey, while he is out on short term disability, was discussed. A motion was made by Melvina and seconded by Joyce to pay the recommended (Concordia recommendation) 30% of salary, which is approximately $1,110/month. Motion carried. A motion was made by Dee Allen and seconded Virginia Englebretsen to have Pastor Humphrey and Wes Bowlin (Trinity’s Voters for LCMS Synodical Election) vote for Pastor Harrison as Synodical President. Motion carried. With no further business to conduct the meeting was recessed subject to recall by the Chairman.
John Bowlin, Secretary
The date for the QUARTERLY Voter’s meeting was still being decided at printing. The date will be announced in the bulletin.
Trinity
Lutheran Women’s Society LWML
The LWML will have their Bi-monthly meeting on
Wednesday, July 10, 2019 , at 7:00 PM. There will be a business meeting,
followed by a planning session of school bags for Lutheran World Relief.
Closing Devotions: Nancy Wohl
Hostesses are
Jean and Joanne.
All Women of the congregation are invited to join.
Lisa
Kaufman, Pine Ridge Zone President has submitted the 2019-2021 Mission Grants,
this can be found on the last page of the newsletter.
The congregation is invited to
Food, Fellowship, and
Faith Bible Study which will be July 27th
beginning at 5:30. Please bring your own
beverage and a side dish or dessert to share.
George and Tracie Ross
will be hosting this at their house. For details and directions talk to George
and Tracie.
DATES
TO REMEMBER FOR JULY
July 1 Janet Ewald Baptismal Date
July 1 Lloyd and Sandy Heine Anniversary
July 4 Levi Bowlin Birthday
July 5
Tristina Neumann Birthday
July 14
Bob Boorman Birthday
July 18
Gloria Gibbs Baptismal
Date
July 24
Joyce Warnke Baptismal
Date
July 26
Ken & Roxane Humphrey Anniversary
July 27
Susan Williams Baptismal
Date
July 31
Dave & Michelle Hill Anniversary
