This Week A righteous man “Righteous” is a word that usually has either a theological connotation or “self-” in front of it. Genesis 6 describes Noah as righteous and blameless. Read the chapter and see his actions. He didn’t say a word, but he acted. But these actions showed his righteousness; they didn’t establish it. Like ours,…

This Week Covenant of Grace The book of Genesis isn’t just about what happened, it’s also about what is happening. This weekend, we begin a fall series on the Covenant of Grace described in Genesis 6 – 9. Our day is more like Noah’s than we realize. We have cars and power tools, but hearts…

This Week Farewell to Romans Finishing a book of the Bible is a big deal. It’s been God’s source of truth and inspiration for us for all of 2024. We’ll miss you, Romans. But not really. We still have and we still need the message of Jesus we find in Romans. It’s not going anywhere,…

This Week Why read the Roman phone book? After Paul plumbed the depths of the knowledge of God for 15 chapters of Romans, he concluded by naming 29 church members and 6 groups of church members in the final chapter. Why? The Spirit wants us to know God’s Word matters, and the Spirit wants us…

This Week Unbounded gospel “Let the gospel predominate” is an old Lutheran preacher’s maxim. As sinners, all of us (not just preachers) have ways of binding up the gospel of Jesus. We hide it. We water it down. We empty it of its comfort. The end of Romans 15 is one part of Scripture that…

This Week Change in the church Teachers, parents, and even returning students are often surprised by changes that have occurred over the summer. Some examples from the past week: “You got new furniture in the atrium!!” And, “You must have grown six inches over the summer!” And, “You got glasses! I love them.” Those kinds…

This Week Your acceptance Read the first 13 verses of Romans 15 and you will see a theme of acceptance. Acceptance is a word and a concept with a positive connotation in most contexts, but what does God’s Word say? How and why have you been accepted? Whom should you accept? How and why? Join…

This Week The Kingdom of God is Not Too Small Imagine a rich uncle tells you that for your birthday he’d like to buy you a car, “Just go pick it out.” You go to the used car lot and choose a 20 year old compact with rust and 200,000 miles. Maybe you chose that…

This Week Drawing the line Do you remember COVID? Unless you’re a newborn or have a failing memory, of course you do. Remember the unknowns, the fear, the divisiveness, and the decisions? Leaders of St. Andrew prayed often as we entered that season that the Lord would guide us to make decisions that would reflect…

This Week Be outstanding The first half of Romans 13 tells us to give to everyone what we owe them, even to the government. The second half of the chapter gives us one more specific thing we owe everyone. Then, we are encouraged to conduct our lives as if we live in the light, not…