What Does This Mean?

An Introduction to
Adult Confirmation Class

Our course is based on the words of Dr. Martin Luther , who wrote his Small
Catechism as a guide for teaching the basic parts of Christian doctrine. The
Catechism as Luther presented it is not a very long book. But the meanings we find,
based on the Bible, are deeply profound.
You are here because you have expressed a desire to confirm your baptismal
promise. To make it solid. To say YES!

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 We believe…
• We believe in one God,
the Father, the Almighty,
maker of heaven and earth,
of all that is, seen and
unseen.

What we’re really going to talk about in the coming weeks is a set of beliefs, as
professed in a number of documents and traditions that have come down to us in a
manner we refer to as Christian and Lutheran. With all Christians we can recite the
words of the Nicene Creed…

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•
We believe…
We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ,
the only Son of God,
eternally begotten of the Father,
God from God, Light from Light,
true God from true God,
begotten, not made,
of one Being with the Father.
Through him all things were made.
For us and for our salvation
he came down from heaven;
by the power of the Holy Spirit
he became incarnate from the virgin Mary, and was made
man.
For our sake he was crucified under Pontius Pilate;
he suffered death and was buried.
On the third day he rose again
in accordance with the Scriptures;
he ascended into heaven
and is seated at the right hand of the Father.
He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead,
whose kingdom will have no end.

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 We believe…
• We believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the
giver of life,
who proceeds from the Father and the
Son.
With the Father and the Son he is
worshiped and glorified.
He has spoken through the Prophets.
We believe in one holy catholic and
apostolic Church.
We acknowledge one Baptism for the
forgiveness of sins.
We look for the resurrection of the dead,
and the life of the world to come. Amen.

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 Our Lutheran Basis of Belief
• Evangelical
• Confessional

We use two words to describe our Lutheran understanding of Christianity,

evangelical (NOT in commonly used 21st century parlance as the right wing of a
political movement!), and confessional

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 Evangelical
From the Greek
(evangelion), which means
Gospel (from the Old English
Godspell) or Good News

We are proclaimers of Good News! What that Good News is, we will discuss in
depth in the coming weeks.

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 Confessional
We hold to a set of statements, or
confessions, that define and
proclaim our faith and teaching.
These are collected in a volume
known as The Book of Concord,
which includes Dr. Martin Luther’s
Large Catechism and Small
Catechism, which we will use as a
basis of study and discussion.

Look for links to these documents on this site!

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 Scriptural Authority
The final arbiter of truth and faith in
the Lutheran Church is Scripture.
Our confessions are grounded in
Biblical teaching.

Over the coming weeks, we will discuss what the Bible is, and how all teaching
must ultimately find its authority in God’s Word. This is really a key part of a
Lutheran understanding. Honestly, we will find many points of agreement with many
other Christian denominations, and many non-Christian faiths in our examination of
what it means to be the people of God. But in this regard, that scripture alone must
be the final arbiter, we find historic Lutheranism’s distinction. We hold to a
conception of the priesthood of all believers which accepts that the Holy Spirit not
only breathed the Word into the writers of the Old and New Testaments, but that
this same Holy Spirit in whom each believer is baptized also inspires the
understanding and interpretation of that same scripture. (But the Advocate, the Holy
Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you everything, and will
cause you to remember everything I said to you.
(Joh 14:26)

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 About Theology…
As the angel always says,
“Do not be afraid!”

Theology can be a scary word. A lot of people think that Theology is something that
is reserved for folks with Rev, or Dr in front of their name, and a bunch of other
letters after. Trust me, it is not! And that is good news, because that means a study
of God, which is one way of interpreting that word, is not out of reach for anyone! In
fact, a good part of our Lutheran understanding of God is that God is actually quite
chatty…God wants to talk with us, and to be with us.

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 Theology
An understanding of God in
relation to:
• Creation
• Humanity
• Sin
• Grace
• The Church
• Eternity

Please note that these are among other things. Dr. James Evans at Colgate
describes theology as “Faith in search of understanding”…which is a pretty good
definition.

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 Creation
• The first means of God’s
revelation of God’s-self to us is
through the created world. Let’s
read the account of creation in
Genesis…

What does this tell us about God? What does it tell us about the created world? In a
theology of creation where God finds all things good, what does this mean for our
understanding of the world around us?

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 Humanity
• Of course we can understand
humanity through the account
given in Genesis as well. Again,
we see that God creates only
good. Our theology of humanity,
however must also include an
understanding of Christ, who
comes to be God-with-us
(Immanuel).

What does this mean, that God seeks to become one with humanity?

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 Sin
Sin is:
• Rebellion
• Separation
• Self-ish
• A matter of choice

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 Grace
Grace is:
• A gift (literally!)
• Redemptive
• Self-less
• Unmerited

The word translated as grace in our English bibles is the Greek CHARIS (from
whence we get charisma, charity, etc)…it literally means “gift”
When we say that it is REDEMPTIVE, we mean that this grace brings us back to
GOD. You could also say restorative.
It is self-less, because when we truly receive God’s grace, we are no longer placing
our selves in first place, but are giving back to God what is rightfully God’s.
Unmerited means you can’t earn it. When we talk about prayer, we will discuss the
fruitlessness of what I call the “Let’s Make A Deal” style of prayer. In the same way,
you can’t pile up good works. See Roman’s chapter 3…

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 The Church
The Church (large C) is the
fellowship of believers. It is the
mystical body of Christ, which
receives authority from Christ to
proclaim the Gospel and
administer the means of grace

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 Eternity
Where God is. Where we are
going.

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 Putting it all together
• Creation • The Ten
Commandments
• Humanity
• The Creed
• Sin
• The Sacraments
• Grace – Baptism
• The Church – The Lord’s Supper

• Eternity • The Lord’s Prayer

• The Office of the
Keys and
Confession

The Creed is all about understanding God. We will take a look at the three historic
Creeds of Christendom. We will contemplate the Word of God, both in terms of the
Law (The Ten Commandments) and Gospel (the Sacraments of Holy Baptism and
The Lord’s Supper). We will consider the history of the Church from its beginnings
in Palestine and the ancient Roman empire, all the way up to the present. Through
it all we will consider prayer, which binds us together as God’s people not only with
those who pray today, but those who have prayed in all times, and in fact, with
those who offer praise and petition around the very throne of God in the heavenly
realm. Heady stuff, huh?

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 Where we’re going…
• Classes between now and June
4th
• Classes resume on September
17th
• Confirmation will be on Christ the
King Sunday, November 26th

We will NOT meet on Palm Sunday, Easter, and Memorial Day weekend

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 What you need…
• A Bible
• Your class notebook
• An hour during the week to read

…and it’s helpful if you have…

• Access to the internet

Every week, please bring your Bible. If you don’t have one, I can help you get one.
If all you have is the fancy KJV with leather binding and the words of Christ in red
that Gramma gave you, please think about getting another one. You need a Bible
you can mark up. Something you can write notes in. Something that you can read.
Next week, I’ll have a notebook for each of you. It will include a full schedule of all
our classes and the material for our first session, on God’s Word (The Bible) and its
authority…Each week I’ll have a handout for you that will include lesson notes,
along with a section of the Small Catechism with explanatory questions, answers
and Scripture references.
I will be posting class notes, outlines and supplemental material on the church web
site. I’ll e-mail you the coordinates.

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