Lutheran Essentials meets in the undercroft of the church on Wednesday evenings at 7pm. You can reach the undercroft by going around to the back parking lot of the church and descending the staircase to the kitchen. Knock on the door if it is closed and some one will let you in. Our current study is on “The Fire and the Staff” by Klemet Preus and the Historic Liturgy. If you do not have a copy of the “The Fire and the Staff” or the Book of Concord we are providing them for free.
The Psalm for this week is Psalm 45. The Small Catechism lesson is the Second Petition of the Lord’s Prayer.
The first half of the class we will continue reading through “The Fire and the Staff”. We will continue reading Chapter 3: The Fire Spreads (pg. 79-106) discussing the Word and the Sacraments, Baptism and the Lord’s Supper. We will continue our reading with No Spiritless Word (pg. 95) where we will discuss that the Word of God is always efficacious.
We will then start reading Chapter 4: The Fire and the Staff (pg. 107-135). We will talk about how the Divine Service is shaped by the Word and Sacraments. We will also discuss adiaphora in preview of our future Formula of Concord study.
For the second half of the class we will continue our study of the Divine Service Setting III in Lutheran Service Book with a discussion about the second of the ordinaries, the Gloria in Excelsis (LSB 187-189). We will talk the theology of the Gloria and how it relates to the arc of the Divine Service as the Church Year in miniature. We will close this section by singing the hymn “All Glory Be to God on High” (LSB 947).
As always new people are always welcome to this study at any point during the class. Please talk to the Pastor, Elders or Paul Edmon if you have any questions.
