The Joshua Victor Theory

            In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, Amen. Today is Trinity Sunday. This Sunday is unique on the Christian calendar, because it doesn’t commemorate an event, miracle, or a person, but rather a doctrine. The teaching of the Trinity is central to the Christian faith. Attacked for centuries, but always defended as the orthodox or correct teaching of the Bible. From the earliest centuries the Creeds were confessed to defend against distortions of the Bible, especially about the Trinity. We could get stuck on the semantics of the word “Trinity”. The word itself is not found in the Bible, but that’s not the important question. The important question is whether the teaching is found in the Bible. We simply use “Trinity” to describe how God shows Himself in Scripture; as Three Persons, One God .             I assume most or all of you alrea...

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, Amen. Today, a little different than usual, rather than focusing on a single text, I’ll be focusing on the theme of the Trinity, and related Bible passages. When we reflect on that teaching—do we think of it as a high and lofty “doctrine” that has no practical bearing on our Christian life? Or is it central to all the articles of Christian faith? You can probably already guess my answer. The word “doctrine” has a tendency to cause a knee-jerk reaction, or raise suspicion that we’re talking about something abstract or academic. Strangely, the word “teaching” doesn’t cause the same reaction, even though teaching and doctrine are the same thing. Doctrine is simply the church’s teaching. And the “doctrine” or teaching of the Trinity, while it may be lofty, mysterious, and even difficult to grasp—is not just for academics, nor is it impractical and irrelevant to our lives. Granted, the terms that theologians later used to...

Sermon Outline: Jesus’ High Priestly Prayer—longest prayer of Jesus, earlier part is for His immediate disciples, second part expands to all future disciples. Interceding—seeking God’s blessing. Reflect on the great comfort that Jesus prays for us. We need God’s prayer, because apart from Him we all go our own separate ways, and here Jesus is praying for our unity. We may tend to think of prayer as only directed from us to God, but here Jesus prays on our behalf. This affirms what is elsewhere said, that the Holy Spirit also intercedes or prays for us “in groans too deep for words to express” (Rom. 8:26). This section focuses on all future believers “who will believe in me through their word”. These people for whom Jesus’ prays, are not yet part of the church, but He prays for them to believe—showing God’s concern for the lost, and for those who have not yet come to faith in Him. So, like Christ, we too should have ...

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, Amen. “The time is coming…” the Apostle Paul wrote to Timothy, a young pastor. “The time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths.” Well it shouldn’t take much convincing for us to realize that that time is now here. We already live in the time Paul described, where people will not listen to or tolerate sound teaching, but gather around them teachers that will say what their itching ears want to hear. Today Paul’s words to Timothy call us to make sure we are listening to the God-breathed Word of holy Scripture, which is vital for our spiritual health today. Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen. So are we really living in “those times” when people won’t listen to sound teaching,...

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, Amen. Christ is Risen! He is Risen Indeed! Alleluia! Dear saints in Christ, the joyful celebration of Easter only just begun last week! It continues for the next several Sunday’s of Easter, leading up to the day of Pentecost, 50 days after Jesus’ resurrection. For these seven weeks of Easter until Pentecost, I’m going to preach a sermon series created by myself and Pastor Hazel from Trinity Lutheran Church on Oahu. Our series is titled: “Easter Letters” and each week will focus on one of the seven letters to the churches in Asia, in the book of Revelation. Today’s epistle from Revelation 1 provides the preface to each of those letters. We call them “Easter Letters” for several reasons: because the Risen and Ascended Lord Jesus speaks these letters to His church; because they speak to the eternal hope of Christian joy, because they speak of living faithfully in the present day challenges of this world, and finally becaus...