PUBBLICA EBOOK

Luke, Yes, I see. It is good in as far as it goes. But you see there are other issues, also. The pirthepoc tradition. Oh, by the way, I speak not at all for Sam. I have found in the past (and I am getting older), that men, especially young men, who have gone into the ministry have a bit of a prophet complex. Sorry, as to who is offended by that. In the Lutheran church, I would say some have a Luther complex. Everything needs to be changed and they are the agents of change, forgetting that the people there have a collective wisdom and experience which supersedes their own, that it is the church which has called them to serve them regularly with the word. They have been sent to serve, as Christ explains so clearly. And the last prophets in the Biblical tradition were John the Baptist and Christ. We now live in the time of the Gospel, the glorious millenium of Christ's rule in the church through the gospel. (You can see I think it is important to be amillenial and step back from the disaster of all these end-times predictions and dating nonsense.)The minister is not a prophet in the Old Testament sense of knocking sense into recalcitrant people. We've had the Old Testament and we can see that the law did not work. (Though there is plenty of gospel in the OT, and provision for forgiveness, etc.) We, however, are no longer at Mt. Sinia. The minister is a prophet in the New Testament sense of proclaiming the Gospel. The kingdom of God IS here. Right here in this church. Feed the sheep. Sometimes they need a real good kick in the butt. But it is not your job to make them completely over. You WILL fail. They have had a different Lord for a long time. You are just a blip. You can only reach them through this Lord and His word.