My righteousness?

What should we do with those Psalms that are so hard to pray: the ones where the Psalmist protests his innocence and his righteousness. How can we possibly pray them as our prayers? Dietrich Bonhoeffer answers: What really concerns us here is not any possible motives behind a prayer, but whether the actual content of…

Funeral Homily for Forbes Morris

We mustn’t speak ill of the dead. Sometimes, that’s hard. Not today. We have come to pay our last respects, and commend to God’s everlasting arms, a person who was truly remarkable. In the past couple of weeks, I have spoken to a good number of people about Forbes—to family members, colleagues, friends, church members—and…

Strike soon, blessed hour

In next week's Sunday Cantata, you will be treated to an extraordinary musical experience: a pair of oboes accompanied by a symphony of bells (as rendered by pizzicato strings). The lower strings, cellos and basses, play slow funeral bells, while the upper strings, violins and violas, play faster, more celestial bells. One set to ring…

First chicken, then egg

You are not rightly distinguishing Law and Gospel in the Word of God if you first preach … sanctification and then justification, … or first good works and then grace. C.F.W. Walther, Law and Gospel, Thesis VII

Death, Thou Shalt Die!

In grateful memory of F.M., our dear sister in Christ, who fell asleep in the Lord in the early hours of this morning. Holy Sonnet X Death be not proud, though some have called thee Mighty and dreadfull, for, thou art not so, For, those, whom thou think’st, thou dost overthrow, Die not, poore death,…