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. We are doing a short study on the Treatise on the Power and Primacy of the Pope in the Book of Concord. If you do not have a copy of the Book of Concord we are providing them for free.
The Psalm for this week is Psalm 37. The Small Catechism lesson is the Ninth Commandment.
This week we start reading through the Treatise on the Power and Primacy of the Pope. We will start with a brief introduction about the Treatise and what the Pope claims about himself. We will then go into the Testimony of Scripture against the claims of the papacy, namely refuting its claim to divine right and preeminence over all other bishops. We will then look at the Testimony of History, showing that the ancient church knew or recognized any of these claims until the papacy concocted them. After that we will look at the Refutation of the Roman Arguments in favor of the papacy and the Scripture texts they use to prove his position and power. If we have time we will finish up with a Contrast between Christ and the Pope, where we contrast the claims that Christ makes about Himself and His Church against the powers the Pope claims. We will leave the rest of the Treatise till next week.
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.
