This Sunday, we begin the worship series that will lead us to our celebration of the 500th Anniversary of the Reformation!
We will be focusing on the “Solas,” as they are called; the central tenets of faith and practice for Lutherans and the Reformed traditions. We begin with “Sola Scriptura,” Scripture Alone!
As followers of Christ, we are “people of the book.” The Bible contains the word of God writ large in scripture, the written source of our beliefs and practices. It is God-inspired with explicit and implicit teachings on our identity and calling as the people of God. In the tradition of the Reformers, we proclaim Sola Scriptura – scripture alone – is authoritative in our lives, over against other forms of presumed authority. In reality, it is so much more. Scripture is our story; the story of people reaching toward God even as God reaches toward us, to know and be known.
The Prayer of the Day and Readings are below.
This is an exciting season for us all, and for our Lutheran and Reformed church sisters and brothers the world over. Let’s also make it a time of uniting, with all believers, in what is at the center of all our belief: the love of God in Christ Jesus!
- Pr. Brad Highum
bhighum@abidinglove.org
PRAYER OF THE DAY ----------------------------------------
Creating God, your revelation in scripture is a gift of grace to us and we give you thanks. Help us to grow deeper in its teachings and wisdom. Help us to embrace its stories as our stories and to let it be our guide in daily living. Amen.
READINGS -----------------------------------------------------
First Reading: 2 Chronicles 34:29-33
29 Then the king sent word and gathered together all the elders of Judah and Jerusalem. 30 The king went up to the house of the Lord, with all the people of Judah, the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the priests and the Levites, all the people both great and small; he read in their hearing all the words of the book of the covenant that had been found in the house of the Lord. 31 The king stood in his place and made a covenant before the Lord, to follow the Lord, keeping his commandments, his decrees, and his statutes, with all his heart and all his soul, to perform the words of the covenant that were written in this book. 32 Then he made all who were present in Jerusalem and in Benjamin pledge themselves to it. And the inhabitants of Jerusalem acted according to the covenant of God, the God of their ancestors. 33 Josiah took away all the abominations from all the territory that belonged to the people of Israel, and made all who were in Israel worship the Lord their God. All his days they did not turn away from following the Lord the God of their ancestors.
Psalm 40:1-8
1 I waited patiently for the Lord; he inclined to me and heard my cry.
2 He drew me up from the desolate pit, out of the miry bog, and set my feet upon a rock, making my steps secure.
3 He put a new song in my mouth, a song of praise to our God. Many will see and fear, and put their trust in the Lord.
4 Happy are those who make the Lord their trust, who do not turn to the proud, to those who go astray after false gods.
5 You have multiplied, O Lord my God, your wondrous deeds and your thoughts toward us; none can compare with you. Were I to proclaim and tell of them, they would be more than can be counted.
6 Sacrifice and offering you do not desire, but you have given me an open ear. Burnt offering and sin offering you have not required.
7 Then I said, "Here I am; in the scroll of the book it is written of me.
8 I delight to do your will, O my God; your law is within my heart."
Second Reading: 2 Timothy 3:10-17
10 Now you have observed my teaching, my conduct, my aim in life, my faith, my patience, my love, my steadfastness, 11 my persecutions, and my suffering the things that happened to me in Antioch, Iconium, and Lystra. What persecutions I endured! Yet the Lord rescued me from all of them. 12 Indeed, all who want to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted. 13 But wicked people and impostors will go from bad to worse, deceiving others and being deceived. 14 But as for you, continue in what you have learned and firmly believed, knowing from whom you learned it, 15 and how from childhood you have known the sacred writings that are able to instruct you for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. 16 All scripture is inspired by God and is useful for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, 17 so that everyone who belongs to God may be proficient, equipped for every good work.
Gospel: Luke 24:44-48
44 Then he said to them, "These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you — that everything written about me in the law of Moses, the prophets, and the psalms must be fulfilled." 45 Then he opened their minds to understand the scriptures, 46 and he said to them, "Thus it is written, that the Messiah is to suffer and to rise from the dead on the third day, 47 and that repentance and forgiveness of sins is to be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem. 48 You are witnesses of these things.
