What Lutherans Believe

I saw this "What Lutherans Believe" list posted on another LCMS church's website today and thought it was pretty good and wanted to share it with you...

LUTHERANS BELIEVE 

That God is the Creator of the universe with all of its grandeur and beauty, and that He sustains it with His almighty power. He also created our first parents, Adam and Eve, in His own image that they might live in fellowship with Him and be His instruments to care for the creation.

LUTHERANS BELIEVE 

That Adam and Eve, whom God created, doubted and rebelled against Him. They sinned and their natures became evil. Now every human being is born with a self-centered nature and a tendency for evil that violates God's will and desire. Attempts to change human nature or to please God with our own good are doomed to failure. People need forgiveness and new life, and God provides it through His grace.

LUTHERANS BELIEVE 

That God out of pure love gives people forgiveness of sins and thus reconciles them to Himself. He does this even though He is a just God who punishes sin because His own Son, Jesus Christ, took the punishment for all sin for all people upon Himself when He died on the cross of Calvary. God raised him from the dead on Easter and thus demonstrated to the world that the sacrifice of the Lamb of God has been accepted and man's sin paid for.

LUTHERANS BELIEVE 

That people receive forgiveness through faith. Faith is the hand which accepts God's free gift. Faith is created by the Holy Spirit through the means of the Gospel message which tells of God's love demonstrated in Jesus Christ. Infant baptism is the means by which a child is given a new life and received into God's kingdom.

LUTHERANS BELIEVE 

That the Bible is the source of knowledge about God and His forgiveness and is also the way in which He speaks to us today. The Bible was written by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit and so is true and without error.

LUTHERANS BELIEVE 

That the church is the fellowship of all those who have come to faith in Jesus Christ as their Savior and Lord. The Lutheran Church gets its name from Martin Luther who “reformed” the church with basic principles of faith alone, grace alone, Scripture alone. The purpose of the church is to nurture faith through the Word and the Sacrament of the Altar, and to share the love of God through Word and deed with the whole world in order to make other people disciples of Jesus Christ.

LUTHERANS BELIEVE 

That God has given two Sacraments to build His church, Holy Baptism to create faith and Holy Communion—also called the Lord’s Supper or the Eucharist—to nurture faith. In Holy Communion Jesus Christ gives the communicant His body and blood “in, with, and under” the bread and wine.

LUTHERANS BELIEVE 

That the fellowship which God establishes with His believers on earth will continue after this life as believers live with Him in Heaven for all eternity. 

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What Lutherans Believe is taken from Creating A New Member Welcome Packet, copyright © 1983 by Concordia Publishing House. Used by permission.

In a Lutheran layman's terms, we Lutherans believe only what the Bible already tells us to believe, teach, and confess (so we're sort of like Christian parrots).



NOTE: I'm not a called and ordained minister of God's Word and Sacraments. I'm a layman or a Christian, Candy-Making, Husband, Father, Friend who lives in the "City of Good Neighbors" here on the East Coast. To be more specific, and relevant to the point I want to make with this note, I'm also a newly converted Confessional Lutheran who recently escaped American Evangelicalism a little over a year ago. That being said, please contact me ASAP if you believe that any of my "old beliefs" seem to have crept their way into any of the material you see published here, and especially if any of the content is inconsistent with our Confessions and Lutheran doctrine (in other words, if it's not consistent with God's Word, which our Confessions merely summarize and point us back to) so that I can correct those errors immediately and not lead any of His little ones astray (James 3:1). Finally, please be aware that you might also discover that some of the earlier pieces I wrote on this blog back in 2013 definitely fall into that category since I was a "Lutheran-In-Name-Only" at the time and was completely oblivious to the fact that a Christian "Book of Concord" even existed (Small/Large Catechism? What's that!?!). In addition, there are some entries that are a little "out there" so-to-speak since the subject matter was also heavy influenced by those old beliefs of mine. I know that now and I'm still learning. Anyway, I decided to leave those published posts up on this website and in cyberspace only because we now have this disclaimer, and only to demonstrate the continuing work of Christ and the Holy Spirit in my life (Hebrews 12:2; Philippians 1:6). Most importantly, please know that any time I engage in commenting on and/or interpreting a specific portion of the holy Scriptures, it will always closely follow the verse-by-verse notes from my Lutheran Study Bible and/or include references to the Book of Concord unless otherwise noted. Typically, I defer to what other Lutheran Pastors have already preached and taught about such passages since they are the called and ordained shepherds of our souls here on earth. Finally, I'm going to apologize ahead of time for the length of most entries. I'm well aware that blogs should be short, sweet, and to the point, but I've never been one to follow the rules when it comes to writing. Besides, this website is more like a dude's diary in the sense that everything I write about and share publicly isn't always what's "popular" or "#trending" at the time, but is instead all the things that I'm studying myself at the moment. For better or for worse, these posts tend to be much longer than most blog entries you'll find elsewhere only because I try to pack as much info as possible into a single piece so that I can refer to it again and again over time if I need to (and so that it can be a valuable resource for others -- if possible, a "One-Stop-Shop" of sorts). Thank you for stopping by and thank you in advance for your time, help, and understanding. Grace and peace to you and yours!

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