October 2024 Newsletter

October 2024

Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,

This month I want to address the issues of pietism, experientialism, enthusiasm, and emotionalism.

Piety can be described as religious devotion, respect, and reverence, demonstrating faith and fear of God in words and actions. Piety would include serving God in ways that are moral, faithful, disciplined, and dutiful. Examples are prayer, attending Divine Service, hymn singing, Bible study, being given the Lord’s Supper, and serving our neighbor. These are indeed good things.

Pietism, on the other hand, seeks to know God or have a personal communion (experience) with Him directly, through a personal experience, apart from God’s Means of Grace. It emphasizes emotion (feelings) and personal experience as assurance of God’s presence. Feeling is given priority over the Means of Grace and the Objective Word of God. Thus, there is no certainty in such things.

The struggle is that there is too much temptation in our world by other Christians to believe that we Lutherans are not truly saved because we have not had an experience with Jesus or felt Him in any meaningful way. We have not been moved to choose Jesus or to make a decision for Him, as if we could make a decision for Jesus. Remember we are conceived and born in sin; every intention of our lives is evil all the time, and indeed, no one can say Jesus is Lord except by the Holy Spirit.

Another struggle is that when our feelings are elevated about the Objective Word of God and the Means of Grace, we truly cannot have any peace and comfort. Think about it. Today I feel close to Jesus, and I feel saved. What about tomorrow if I am having a bad day and no longer feel saved or close to Jesus? Does that mean I am not saved? Whereas the Objective Word of God kicks in and my mind realizes what God’s Word says and that God’s Word is efficacious, that is, it does and gives what it says. Thus, when I remember that I am baptized, that Jesus gave me faith, that my sins are forgiven, that God’s Word points me to Jesus, I no longer need to be concerned nor have anxiety about how I feel because I can believe and trust God’s Word which says He has chosen me, lived for me, taken my sins and paid the price by suffering and dying for me, and gives me forgiveness, life and salvation.

Thus, although parts of our Divine Service and hymns might give you goose bumps as it were, it is not meant to get you to feel a certain way/ it does not mean you cannot have any type of experience (except to have your sins forgiven) or emotion. It is meant to deliver the gifts of God through the Means of Grace powered by the Objective Word of God. Indeed, while I may never be completely sure of myself, my feelings, my emotions, my experience, I can be completely confident in God and His Word.

God’s richest blessings.
In His Service,

Pastor Bogs
1 Cor. 15:3-5