The latest in the Evaluating Gnosticism series is now up!
Let's start reading a new document from an old author. Marsanes had previously written the brochure for gnosis called "zostrianos," and then he tried the whole sock-puppet pseudepigrapha bit with "Melchizedek." Now it's time to see his streamlined nonsense book wherein he says you have to believe him because...like, he's so smergt or whatever.

https://soundcloud.com/verylutheran/evaluating-gnosticism-pt-102

h/t Yeet

32 So everyone who acknowledges me before men, I also will acknowledge before my Father who is in heaven, 33 but whoever denies me before men, I also will deny before my Father who is in heaven.
-Matthew 10:32-33

Jesus has acknowledged the compassion and severity of our Lord. God is He who must be loved and feared, while having the full assurance of salvation by the promises He has given. Now He tells the Apostles that the dividing line between the saved and the damned is whether they acknowledge (that is, confess and proclaim) Christ Himself.

Here we may feel more tension. Jesus says "everyone who acknowledges me before men, I also will acknowledge before my Father." He also says "Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father" (Matthew 7:21). Which is it? Is confessing the Christ enough or isn't it?

On the one hand we have those "easy believism" advocates who deny the hard sayings of Christ to say that salvation is as simple as reading a sentence or two from the Creed and saying "I believe this." If they could get away with it, they would embrace universalism. On the other hand, there are rigorists who earnestly desire for everyone to be damned but them, and so they deny the simplicity of salvation. For them, one must be part of the "right" visible church and live a cookie cutter life that looks exactly like the picture they have in their minds.

So which is it? Is salvation as easy as saying a sentence or is is prohibitively difficult? The answer is faith. One must mean it when they confess Jesus Christ, and in so doing they shall benefit from a simplicity of salvation. Of course, the man who truly trusts in Christ also earnestly desires to please our Lord, so he does good works as a result of his faith as he is able. But the man who has no faith in Christ, who does *not* trust Him, can say "Lord Lord" all he wants and still get nowhere, and neither shall his good deeds count for anything.

Sex&Marriage is BACK!
So we started talking about the "slut question" last week, talking about the best way to understand the people that we would call "sluts" and the weakness of human nature.
Now let's chat about "slut shaming." Does God slut shame women? Or is there a different tone taken in the Scriptures for such sins? Let's find out!

Audio: https://m.soundcloud.com/verylutheran/sex-marriage-slot-shaming
Video: https://youtu.be/OTZPqUQBe1Y

Knowing what leftists did to Catholics during the French and Spanish revolutions (heck, everywhere leftists "rise up"), this is like a woman singing praises to her rapist.

I get to preach on a hard doctrine this week. Stay tuned for a fully leaded chat on the Alien Works of God.

34 “Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I have not come to bring peace, but a sword. 35 For I have come to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law. 36 And a person's enemies will be those of his own household.
-Matthew 10:34-36

Christ tells the Apostles that as they spread the Gospel to people division will be a necessary result. Not everyone will accept their message, not everyone will believe in Jesus - but some will, and those who do will find their lives in upheaval for a while.

This happens today as well. I knew a man who became a Christian while living with his girlfriend in sin. He decided that it was time to stop fornicating, for such sin displeases our Lord. His girlfriend did not take that change well. When he said that the only way they could have sex again was if they got married (and he could only marry her if she converted too), she threw a fit and began getting violent with him.
Needless to say, they broke up and it took a while for him to feel stable.

I also spoke in seminary with a missionary from India whose father was a hindu priest. He converted to Anglicanism, and when his father found out about it there was violence in the home. He was beaten severely, and the reason he went to the United States for seminary was the simple reason that otherwise his father might kill him. Later on he returned to India to begin evangelizing, but it was far away from his former household.

Ideally, our families and girlfriends and friends would all convert with us as we convert to Christianity and find life with Jesus. Unfortunately, we cannot control the actions of these people, nor stop them from resisting the Gospel. When such division happens though, the Christian is called to love his family and pray for them even if they persecute him. It is that same love and patience that God showed us when bringing us to the faith after all - now it is time to show it to our unbelieving friends and family.

Everyone please pray for my mother she is having surgery this morning. I treasure her as much as anyone

Yo here's the latest reupload in the Ranters series. Let's talk about the rhetoric they used then (and will use as their return gets worse):
https://youtu.be/p3GqPsA2vbo

The Church Fathers series is BACK!
And after that short hiatus, thankfully Irenaeus treats us to a "back to basics" message about how the gnostics have the wrong number of deities: there's only ONE.

https://soundcloud.com/verylutheran/reading-the-church-fathers

My favorite Luther quote. Sunny dispositions glorify God, and my California heart won't quit loving that 😌

Big if true