All Two Thousand Years of Church Happening At Once
Matt Whitman is a pastor of the Evangelical Free Church and is the host of the 10 Minute Bible Hour. He does podcasts and YouTube videos on the Bible and apologetics and recently has been doing a series of videos where he travels to visit churches of other denominations. These videos titled “Learning about Other Churches” have received hundreds of thousands of views, I encourage you to watch them. Matt is a gifted theologian and excellent interviewer.
When it was time for him to learn about Lutheranism to came to Hamel, Illinois and attended the Divine Service on Sunday and then Matins on Monday morning. Following Matins, he and our Assistant Pastor and Catechist (and Gottesdienst blogger!), the Rev. William Weedon got to talk about our congregation and the Lutheran Church. The video above is Part 1. When Part 2 drops, I’ll post that.
I appreciated the short time I was able to spend with Matt, as I said, he is a gifted theologian and communicator. What I especially appreciated were his comments at the end of this video. He said that attending our congregation was like he was in “an atemporal expression of Christianity”, that it “felt much more all two thousand years of Church happening at once.” That gets right to the first reading of this Reformation Day “Then I saw another angel flying directly overhead, with an eternal gospel to proclaim to those who dwell on earth, to every nation and tribe and language and people” Revelation 14:6. The Gospel we proclaim is eternal, it is from before the foundation of the earth was set, as the only true Triune God had from eternity planned to save His people through faith alone in the atoning work of the eternal Son, the Word made flesh, Jesus Christ. And we, heirs of the Reformation, now in time preach it and live by it. We are the recepients of all that the Church has to give according to the Gospel and we take it all and live in it all. We are confessing, as Pastor Weedon said. We are Lutherans, what a joy it is to say that on this Reformation Day. Be a Lutheran! Be a Confessional Lutheran!
Watch the video and enjoy it, and look forward to Part 2.