On the Authority of Councils of the Church

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Many, perhaps willfully, misunderstand and misrepresent the meaning of Sola Scriptura. It is not an abandonment of patristics or tradition. Rather, it means that all things are subject to God’s own Word. Martin Chemnitz applies this truth to the question of the authority of Church Councils:

The authority of councils is most salutary in the church, as Augustine rightly says, that is, if they judge according to the rule and norm of the sacred Scripture. And when they prove their decisions by means of sure and clear testimonies of Scripture, the church owes them obedience with the greatest reverence as to a heavenly voice. Then also this statement of Christ applies (Luke 10:16): “He who hears you hears Me, and he who rejects you rejects Me.” But when the mere name “council” is heard, it ought not at once turn us into rocks, treetrunks, and stocks, as though it were the head of Gorgo, so that we thoughtlessly embrace any and all decrees without examination, without inquiry and careful judgment. For the Scripture tells us that there are also councils of the wicked, Ps. 22:16; of vain persons, Ps. 26:4; of the ungodly, Ps. 1:1, whose assembly Jer. 15:17, on the basis of the psalm, calls an assembly of mockers, who have their name from their false interpretation. Such were the councils of the ungodly priests against Micah, Jeremiah, against Christ and the apostles. We have, however, the strict command of God, 1 John 4:1: “Do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are of God; for many false prophets have gone out into the world.”

1 Thess. 5:21: “Test everything; hold fast what is good.”

Matt. 7:15: “Beware of false prophets,” etc.

Therefore it is right, and it must of necessity be done according to the commandment of God, that we examine the decrees of the councils according to the norm of sacred Scripture, as the saying of Jerome has it: “That is the doctrine of the Holy Spirit: which is set forth in the canonical books. If the councils pronounce anything against this, I consider it wicked.”

Examination of the Council of Trent, vol. 1, p31

"Apostolic Succession" and Forgetting Christ

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When the successors to the apostles forget their dependence upon “Christ the cornerstone” and cease to represent Him and His truth, they are not the possessors of a supranatural power which enables them to frustrate all possibility of other men’s salvation and illumination; they are simply shutting themselves out of the Church of Christ.

Georgios I. Mantzaridis, The Deification of Man: St Gregory Palamas and the Orthodox Tradition, ed. Christos Yannaras and Costa Carras, trans. Liadain Sherrard, vol. Two, Contemporary Greek Theologians (Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1984), 58.

Who Caused the Schism?

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The catholics who presented the Augsburg Confession to Charles V were very troubled by the possibility of further schism in the church. What did the confessors at Augsburg ask? Allow the Gospel to be purely presented, and relax certain onerous traditions:

It is not our intention to take oversight away from the bishops. We ask only this one thing, that they allow the Gospel to be taught purely, and that they relax a few observances that they claim it is sinful to change. If they will not give anything up, it is for them to decide how they will give an account to God for causing schism by their stubbornness. (AC XXVIII.77-78)

We pray someday the schism can be healed.

Trinity 18, 2025

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“Love is love” was the slogan that carried same-sex marriage across the goal-line. It meant that whatever love is, it’s the same regardless of subject and object. A husband’s love for his wife is the same as two members of a same-sex partnering.

The effect was to diminish love to lust. “Love is love” meant every kind of lust, every kind of desire is equally valid and beyond critique. The same arguments could—and indeed already are being made for pedophilia….

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The Sixteenth Sunday after Trinity 2025

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He’s dead. Her little boy. All she had. She’s a widow. What’s more, she’s a widow who trusted in God. She listened to His prophet Elijah.

Last week, we heard how Elijah came to her in the midst of a famine. She was literally preparing her last supper, her and the little boy. But at the Word of God’s prophet, the jug of oil did not run out, and the jar of flour did not empty. They survived the famine. Only for this to now happen….

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St. Matthew 2025

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St. Matthew’s Gospel ends with well-known words, the so-called Great Commission. Jesus says, “Therefore go and make disciples of all the nations.”

There’s been a tremendous tension in American Christianity for the last half-century or more about the purpose of the church. The tension is sometimes presented as “mission” versus “maintenance.” Some churches and pastors are “missional,” meaning they want to make disciples. “Maintenance” churches and pastors don’t care about that, they just want to exist for themselves. Those are the caricatures.

The mistake in this way of thinking is that being a disciple is a binary thing, either you are or you aren’t. The switch is on or off.

It’s more complicated than that. The words St. Matthew put at the end of his Gospel say a little more: “Therefore go and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all I have commanded you. And lo, I am with you always, even to the close of the age.”

Baptism begins the life of the disciple, and it is accompanied by a continual teaching, an ongoing catechesis to observe everything Jesus commanded….

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Holy Cross 2025

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On September 14 in the year 320, St. Helena supposedly discovered the wood of Christ’s cross. Helena was the mother of the Roman Emperor Constantine, who decriminalized Christianity in Rome.

Did Helena really find the wood of the true cross? I don’t know. There were many such claims. Luther once joked that if you gathered all the pieces of the true cross in Germany, you’d have enough wood to build a barn!

I do know one thing, though: If I found a piece of the true cross, I would keep it. It would be important, because the history is important. Christ is the center of all human history. The Christian faith is grounded in history….

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Commemoration of Charles James Kirk and Vigil for Our Nation

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Why does it hurt? I found myself strangely transfixed by the news of Charlie Kirk’s assassination. I would occasionally watch clips of him talking with college students. I admired his courage and charity, and his ability to confess the Gospel with great clarity. But I didn’t spend a lot of time thinking about him or his work. I wasn’t his target audience.

So why did his assassination seem to matter so much? It’s more than a young man with so much promise being cut down, leaving behind a wife and two very little children. His murder is the outgrowth of a deep spiritual battle that has been raging. It signifies the descent into a new kind of darkness, where a man who simply wanted to have a conversation, and talk about freedom, and the crisis of fatherlessness, and his faith in Jesus – when a man like that can be so hated, and slandered, and vilified, that his murder is celebrated across the nation – then something has deeply changed.

His willingness to speak the truth was met with violence and lies. It makes it feel like the light is dying. So it hurts. Because it’s about more than a man. It feels like the idea of America is dying. And worse, it feels like the Gospel is losing. These are dark days.

But we cannot stay there. For Jesus Christ is the light of the world, the light no darkness can overcome….

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