Congregation at Prayer

Catechesis Notes for the Week — The Table of Duties Concerning Wives and Husbands—The passages of Holy Scripture in the Table of Duties concern the offices we have been given as Christians where our faith in Christ is lived out in this world. There is often great confusion about these two holy offices. Husbands are the head of their wives, but their headship is one of sacrificial love, teaching the Word of God, and forgiving sin. They are to be considerate of their wives who are placed in an office that requires them to submit to their husbands. Husbands are not to lord their authority over their wives. This is always a temptation for any Christian husband. Wives are to understand that their office of submission is patterned after Christ’s bride the Church. They are to expect their husbands to love them, teach them, and forgive them. Their beauty is not in outward adornment, but in the reception of their husband’s love. “This is the way the holy women of the past who put their hope in God used to make themselves beautiful. They were submissive to their own husbands…” It is a beautiful and blessed thing when husbands love their wives as Christ loved the Church and when wives receive that love and trust in it.CP240428

Catechesis Notes for the Week — The Office of Husband — This week’s section of the Table of Duties directs us to what God’s Word says concerning the office of Husband. When the Apostle Peter directs, “Husbands, in the same way be considerate as you live with your wives, and treat them with respect as the weaker partner and as heirs with you of the gracious gift of life, so that nothing will hinder your prayers.” He is reminding husbands that their wives have been given an office by God that places them in a subordinate position to them. It would be very easy for the husband, corrupted by the sinful flesh as he is, to take advantage of his headship and the wife’s position of subordination to him. He is to “be considerate” of the position that God gave her and be husband to her in selfless love. Although they are not in the same office, they are, nevertheless, equal “heirs of the gracious gift of life” in Christ Jesus. If he does not believe that, then his prayers, which include the ministration of his office as a husband will be “hindered.” The essential disposition of the husband to the wife is contained in the passage from Colossians: “Husbands, love your wives and do not be harsh with them.” Here the husband’s office is depicted as the office of Christ to His bride the Church, as it is also in Ephesians 5. Christ loves His bride by laying down His life for her and covering her sins with His blood. He is never harsh with her who is “bone of His bone and flesh of His flesh, but nourishes and cares for her as His own body.” The office of husband finds its identity in Christ, the Church’s Bridegroom.

CP240421

Catechesis Notes for the Week — “‘God’s Purpose’ to which we are called is faith and salvation in Christ. His ‘good and gracious will’ for those whom He has made His own in Holy Baptism is that we be preserved in His Word and faith until we die. There are many things in our lives that war against faith in Christ and tempt us to turn away from Him. God promises to work in every circumstance of our life, especially hardship, suffering, and tragedy, for our ultimate good. It is always the devil’s will to use these things to destroy our faith. It is always God’s will to work in every circumstance of our life to strengthen our reliance upon Christ.” [Lutheran Catechesis: Catechist Edition, p. 184a]CP240414

Catechesis Notes for the Week — The Sufficiency of God’s Grace — “Every Christian “knows the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ” because it is proclaimed to us in the Gospel. It is the pure, undeserved, sacrificial love of Jesus that moved Him to become one with our flesh and weakness, and to suffer and die for our sins. We know and believe in the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ for our salvation. It is this grace of our Lord Jesus Christ that moved Him to do what He did for us—to become man, to humble Himself, to suffer, and to die for the unworthy and undeserving. Though He was ‘rich’—the holy, eternal, omnipotent Son of God who shared in the Father’s glory from eternity and through whom the Father made all things—yet for our sakes He became ‘poor.’ This is love. He set aside His power and glory as the eternal Son of God and became man, humbling Himself to the point of bearing the sin of the whole world in His own body upon the cross and dying for us that we through His poverty—the poverty of His humble conception, birth, and accursed suffering and death—might become rich, partakers of His divine life. To become rich in Christ is to share eternally in the grace of God and to become partakers with Jesus of the immortal and incorruptible life that He won for us in His humiliation, suffering, and death. This is the promise of eternal salvation for all who believe in Jesus. This grace of God is also the source of our faith and life as we await the resurrection of the body and the life everlasting.” [Excerpt from Lutheran Catechesis: Catechist edition, p. 94c]CP240407