Becoming Lutheran: My Escape From Evangelicalism

This was part of the previous post, but it's so powerful that I decided it needed to be it's own featured post for anyone else out there who may be going through what I recently went through (and am still going through in some respects) on their journey from Evangelicalism to becoming a Lutheran.

Rev. Bryan Wolfmueller gave a message on how "God's Word is AWESOME!" (uh, yeah!) and how that ties in with someone becoming a Lutheran after converting from American Evangelicalism.

Believe me, you'll want to make time for this one since it's definitely worth your prayerful consideration. I cannot begin to tell you how deeply these Biblical truths resonated with me when I first heard this message.

For instance, here's one excerpt that pierced my heart:

"If you've grown up Lutheran you've grown up with the Law and Gospel...and you don't even know the difference. And this is a sad thing. So you just have to trust me when I say this. If you don't know the distinction between Law and Gospel, the Bible is a closed book. It does not make any sense. It's confusing. It's intimidating. It's frightful. It is only Law.

Pastor Fisk said yesterday that he was the guy that underlined the Law passages. Right! Because if you don't know the distinction between Law and Gospel, the only passages that you can hear, the only passages that penetrate, are the passages that give you instruction. I remember going through...I did this when I was just a baby Pastor...I went back to my old Bible and it was full of underlines, full of notes, and I started looking at it and I saw the same thing! All the thins that were underlined were the passages of the Law, the passages of instruction!

I would open up the Bible every day and I would ask this question of the text, 'What is this telling me to do today?' That's the question I brought to the text, and if you bring that question to the text, the only answer you're going to get is a Law answer! So I would underline the Law passages. There'd be a Law passage and then I'd underline it, and then there'd be a Gospel passage and I'd skip over it, there'd be a question mark in the margin! I'd go back to the Law, 'Ah! Here it is!' It's crazy!"

[17:45-19:10]

Yep, guilty as charged right here.

I can also relate to something else he says about "losing friends" around the 30-minute mark. But I'm getting ahead of myself and don't want to give too much away or it might lose its impact on you.

What did you think of that? I pray the Lord used it to draw you closer to Him (John 6:44).

In a Lutheran Layman's terms, it's tough to ignore the LCMS when her teachings are so consistent with the Word of God (more so than any other denomination).

Like I said earlier, I'm a Confessional Lutheran in the LCMS because it's the most Biblically sound confession of faith on the planet. Not that any of this should be surprising though.

John 10:27 (ESV) My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me.

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