Twenty Questions in Ten Weeks

I asked my parishioners to write down their theological questions and I would answer them for the 10 weeks of summer. Here are the subjects they want me to touch on: God’s Will, Worship, Angels and Demons, Calendar, Gay Marriage, Sin and Forgiveness, Messiah, Heavenly Reward and Equality, Affliction and Death, and The Law.

They want to know how to discern God’s will, without being presumptuous.

They want to know precisely what Lutheran believe about the Sacrament of Holy Communion and our use of the Cross in worship.

They want to know about Angels and the Gerasene Demoniac.

A Teenage Boy (because who else asks questions like this) from the Seventh Day Adventist Church who worship in our building on Saturday has very particular questions about our use of calendar.

With the legality of Gay Marriage, and our church being the only one in town who could perform such a thing, they want to know what our Denomination’s relationship to marriage and Gay-folk.

They have questions about degrees of sin and where the root of sin is, as well as “the office of the keys.”

They want to know about our Jewish Brother’s and Sisters and how they see Jesus (I may bring in a Rabbi to help out on this one).

Jesus has this annoying tendency of talking about Heavenly Rewards and there is language of being the greater and lesser in the Kingdom of God, which rubs against both American egalitarianism as well as some of Paul’s egalitarian language… so they want me to square that circle.

They also were curious about the Pauline language about Death Dying and about “Completing what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions.”

Finally, there was a question about how much of Moses’ Laws we Christians need to keep.