Devotional Thought of the Day:

⁸  In fact, it says, “The message is very close at hand; it is on your lips and in your heart.” And that message is the very message about faith that we preach: ⁹  If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. ¹⁰  For it is by believing in your heart that you are made right with God, and it is by confessing with your mouth that you are saved. ¹¹  As the Scriptures tell us, “Anyone who trusts in him will never be disgraced.” ¹²  Jew and Gentile are the same in this respect. They have the same Lord, who gives generously to all who call on him. ¹³  For “Everyone who calls on the name of the LORD will be saved.” ¹⁴  But how can they call on him to save them unless they believe in him? And how can they believe in him if they have never heard about him? And how can they hear about him unless someone tells them? ¹⁵  And how will anyone go and tell them without being sent? That is why the Scriptures say, “How beautiful are the feet of messengers who bring good news!”
Romans 10:8-15 (NLT)

When then he came, I found him a man of pleasing discourse, and who could speak fluently and in better terms, yet still but the self-same things which they were wont to say. But what availed the utmost neatness of the cup-bearer to my thirst for a more precious draught? Mine ears were already cloyed with the like, nor did they seem to me therefore better, because better said; nor therefore true, because eloquent; nor the soul therefore wise, because the face was comely, and the language graceful. (1)

Today’s average Christian assumes on the basis of this principle that faith is a product of the individual point of view, of intellectual endeavor, and of the work of specialists, and such a point of view seems to him more modern and more self-evident than the Catholic positions. For many today it is hardly comprehensible that a mysterious divine reality lies behind the human reality. But, as we know, that is the Catholic understanding of Church.

In this sense it is said, “The doers of the law will be justified”; that is, God pronounces righteous those who believe him from their heart and then have good fruits, which please him because of faith and therefore are a keeping of the law.
253 These words, spoken so simply, contain no error….  (3) 

No, this isn’t about Tom and Bill, and the game this week.  But it is what happens on Sunday, and should happen through the rest of the week as well.

It is about something far more important, far more important than another Superbowl, and more accolades.  It is about a dynasty, but not an earthly one.

The passage from Augustine, the second quote above, reaches out to when he was expecting a great man to give him insights on life that would change everything.  And the man, though a phenomenal speaker, failed to impress. The rest of that passage goes on about how disappointed, and yet relieved, for from there he would go and realize more clearly the love of God

Benedict XVI, (then Cardinal Ratzinger) wrote how this issue has been recycled in our age.  That philosophers and theologians, the specialists, have so spoken of faith and Christianity that people don’t always realize that what religion is, is an encounter with the Creator of the myseterious divine reality that lies behind what we perceive as reality.  What disappointed Augustine in the arrival of Faustus is now the norm.  What Jefferson tried to do, in eradicating the miraculous from scripture, has been accomplished by those who study it until it is dead.  Simply put, they have studied it until it is either a complex set of moral guidelines or completely accepted to be a nice set of fables.

That is not the “job” of the theologian or the philosopher.  They are, by their labels, those tho are to study the logic, the reason of God (the-logos) and the lover of wisdom (Philo-sophia) Their job then, should be to reveal the God that was revealed to them, to pass on the truth and wisdom and awe of a God who left heaven, humbled himself, served and died on a cross to prove to us that He loves us.

The Lutheran confessions exemplify this when summarizing the incredible truth.  God pronounces sinners righteous because they believe, trust, depend on His revelation of His love for them.  That belief/trust/faith/dependence is what God sees, as the Holy Spirit transforms their lives.  This is what Benedict knows as faith, even as he weeps over its being redefined, not by the world, but by the church. It is the revelation Augustine was hoping to hear.  God loves us, and depending upon that love, revelling in it, adoring the God, who loves us, changes us.

Which brings us back to St Paul, and his words to a young church, easily swayed by fancy orators and powerful leaders.  People need to trust in God, the God, who will never let them be shamed.

And the way they come to know that is simple.  We bring it to them; we send to them those who will reveal that love to them. That is how we do our job so that all can come to know His love.

It’s not rocket science.  It is the work of those who understand the word of God, and those who love wisdom.

So do your job, send, be sent, share Christ, and watch the glory of God enfold as the Spirit transforms lives, heart and minds that find peace in Christ Jesus.

(1)  Augustine, S., Bishop of Hippo. (1996). The Confessions of St. Augustine. (E. B. Pusey, Trans.). Oak Harbor, WA: Logos Research Systems, Inc.

(2)  Ratzinger, J. (1992). Co-Workers of the Truth: Meditations for Every Day of the Year. (I. Grassl, Ed., M. F. McCarthy & L. Krauth, Trans.) (p. 30). San Francisco: Ignatius Press.

Tappert, T. G. (Ed.). (1959). The Book of Concord the confessions of the Evangelical Lutheran Church. (p. 143). Philadelphia: Mühlenberg Press.