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. You can also join us remotely via our livestream. Our current study is on the Smalcald Articles. We are providing hard copies of the Book of Concord for free, as well as copies of the Lutheran Service Book.
We will open class with Psalm 112 and our catechism lesson will be on the Sixth Petition of the Lord’s Prayer. We will continue reading Part III Article III: Repentance at paragraph 21. We will pick up with discussing the satisfactions required by the Roman Catholics and how they grew into the abomination of indulgences. Rather than the false repentance of the papists we should have true repentance which is truly contrite for sins and has faith in the forgiveness of God. We will close this section by singing the hymn “From Depths of Woe I Cry to Thee” (LSB 607).
We will then read Part III Article IV: The Gospel. We will discuss how through Christ’s death on the cross we now have the promise of the forgiveness of sins. We are the children of God and will rise again from the dead to eternal life. The Gospel is delivered to us in many ways: via preaching, Baptism, Holy Communion, Power of the Keys, and the mutual consolation and conversation of the saints. We will then sing the hymn “The Gospel Shows the Father’s Grace” (LSB 580).
If we have time we will read Part III Article V: Baptism. We will talk about how Baptism is God’s Word joined to water. Baptism is so powerful that it can even make believers out of infants. We will close with singing “To Jordan Came the Christ, Our Lord” (LSB 406).
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.
