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 47. The Small Catechism lesson is the Fourth Petition of the Lord’s Prayer.
The first half of the class we will be reading through “The Fire and the Staff”. We will continue reading Chapter 4: The Fire and the Staff (pg. 107-135). We will pick up with a discussion of Guilt by Association (pg. 125), talking about catholic practices and practices unique to denominations that confess their unique doctrines. We will also continue to discuss adiaphora in preview of our future Formula of Concord study.
We will then move on to Chapter 5: The Church’s Staff (pg. 137-183). We will talk about how the Lutheran church has put their doctrine into practice in the Divine Service. We will discuss why we use hymns instead of praise songs, the liturgy, and does the style of music matter in the service.
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 Old Testament Reading (LSB 190). We will talk about the Old Testament is still relevant in the New Testament era, its role in Jewish and Christian worship, and how Christ viewed the Old Testament. We will also discuss the differences and strengths of the Historic Lectionary versus the Three Year Lectionary. As well as we will discuss how to read Scripture publicly and how to listen. We will close this section with the hymn “The God of Abraham Praise” (LSB 798)
We will also discuss the Gradual (pg. 190). We will talk about where the name for the Gradual comes from and its role in connecting the Old Testament Reading to the Epistle. We will close our discussion with the hymn “O Worship the King” (LSB 804).
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.
